In watching the recent movie documentary “Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed” by Ben Stein I was moved to laughter at the interview that Ben did with Richard Dawkins the rabid atheist and pit bull of Neo-Darwinism. I don’t think Dawkins was even aware he had been waylaid by his own comments and assumptions during this small talk. It was eye opening to say the least.
In the beginning of the interview Stein asked Dawkins about his view of the existence of anything like God in any form and Dawkins, at his evangelistic atheist best, said that any concept of God was “highly” improbable. When asked about the “probability” he failed to provide any figure instead retreating into a mumbling parody. Of course to assign a probability would open him to supporting that probability which he simply could not do and so his whole “improbable” argument swirls down the drain.
Then came another exchange that was even better. Stein asked about the origin of life and
Dawkins came alive with his iron clad assertion that evolution was most
certainly true and had been proven time and again. In fact it is the most proven thing in the
world today. But he stumbled when Stein
asked him about origins of life. After
all
I laughed until I hurt over this little bit. Oh how the materialist must dance when true probabilities raise their heads. If it took alien seeding to start life here, primarily due to its blinding complexity, then how could it have started there with the same blinding complexity?
And thus we are lead to the dead end of materialism. This fatal assumption that all materialists and atheists eventually fall into.
Dawkins in the “God Delusion” is fond of quoting fellow atheist Bertrand Russell’s story of the celestial teapot. Here is Dawkins telling the story, “If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving around the sun in a elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by out most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on and say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it. I should rightly be thought of talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
Richard Dawkins, The God
Delusion (
Here we have the atheists favorite tactic in the arguments and that tactic is shifting the “burden of proof”. You see the atheists are attempting to stack the deck in their favor by assuming that the materialist world view they have is the ONLY world view possible. And by assuming this is true the burden of proof on the theist is to prove the existence of God by the materialist world view of the atheist. But the atheist will not want to even claim that their view is a world view either, they will want to claim that it is just a common sense denial of a an extraordinary belief in any God.
The atheists claim that their world view is the superior one because it is based on science. This is the raging debate in the evolution / intelligent design. The atheist evolutionist wants to have “science” on his side and will not allow any other view to impinge on that view.
You see when you use the materialist world view to define all things and even the concept of God then you define God right out of the world. God being spiritual is thus not even true by their definition of truth and is of an obviously inferior world view because it is not materialist. All it material and God, being immaterial doesn’t exist by definition. It is circularity at its’ best.
Dawkins had almost fallen into the trap where he was asked about the probability of God after saying it was improbably and saw He had not properly shifted the burden of proof and was entering the metaphysical realm and had to beat a hasty retreat. He also saw that for him to enter the materialist circular reasoning he could not even give the answer which would cast him in a very stupid light. At least he was smart enough to just mumble here.
You see the story above though seeming to make a strong point is actually just a weak point, it is Russell’s attempt to shift the burden of proof. To redefine reality in the purely materialistic world view and define God out. It was a classic straw man argument to build up a totally silly and stupid argument that says this is what believing in a God is like and then knocking it down and saying what a strong man I am.
But to place the God of the Bible in with ‘Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster” is a category error as well as a definition error. They are not even close in type or kind and to assume so is a common delusion of atheists. But I do have to interject here the Flying Spaghetti Monster is my favorite. I hope he has some really good marinara sauce with Italian sausage in it. Yum, he wouldn’t last long around here. Oh but I digress.
Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 53
When we talk with atheists we need to challenge them on their materialist world views. For even though they try to say that their “scientific” stance is superior to the Christian’s “theistic” stance they cannot answer the basic and fundamental question they live by every day. Where do the laws come from? Is there an ultimate justice and why would we care? Why are some things wrong, such as murder, rape, incest, torture etc.? If all is material as they believe what is thought, reason, love, free will? This will expose the atheist’s materialism underpinning and show him the paucity of thought that occupies that world view.
If the atheist wants to put the idea of God as a scientific hypothesis, you can challenge him on the shifting of the burden of proof and his underlying materialist view that has already defined God out of existence just in this assumption.
The God of the Bible transcends time and space and is thus not even a possible subject of the scientific method. Just as all the ultimate questions we can ask. Materialism is very limited in its’ ability to explore this world and cannot answer the transcendent question. Probabilities of God are by their nature transcendent and cannot be answered by the materialistic world view. This is what Dawkins ran into in the interview.
The atheists like Dawkins and Russell hate God and want to banish Him from the world. They attempt to do this by redefining their world as one without God. But He keeps peeking through to them with an ardent love for even them. That is the astounding story of the Bible that God loves even the atheist who hates Him and tries to banish Him.