Why Didn't God Leave Huge Quantities of Secular Evidence For Jesus?

[Muffled]

Because Jesus is God, Duh everyone knows that

I don't believe that is logical. Jesus is God but it does not explain His actions.

 

[Audie]

I believe impressions like fame are fleeting. An ongoing witness is more viable.

I believe God does not need magic. He simply speaks things into being and doesn't need any magic words to do so.

Ha, you just described using magic words.

 

[Audie]

Evolution doesn't explain the symbiotic relationship between people and plants in photosynthesis. Evolution, If It Occurred, Is Evidence For God’s Existence | Reasons for Jesus

Actually, evolution does an excellent job of detailing how symbiosis develops.

Creationist sites exist to promote an agenda,
being that of the subset of Christians uneducated
in science and taking the Bible too literally.

Educated Christians have no issue with evolution.

Your site no more the place to go for science than
a communist source is for an appraisal of capitalism.

One at least of the most famous creationist
sources requires an oath of dishonesty though
they semi disguise it in the wording.

 

[Skywalker]

Actually, evolution does an excellent job of detailing how symbiosis develops.

Creationist sites exist to promote an agenda,
being that of the subset of Christians uneducated
in science and taking the Bible too literally.

Educated Christians have no issue with evolution.

Your site no more the place to go for science than
a communist source is for an appraisal of capitalism.

One at least of the most famous creationist
sources requires an oath of dishonesty though
they semi disguise it in the wording.

Many scientists believe in God. Being an atheist doesn't make one a scientist and vice versa. Why Science Doesn’t Equal Atheism | Reasons for Jesus

Why Science Doesn’t Equal Atheism
By
James Bishop
-
June 25, 2018
7186

By James Bishop| Some people suppose that if one does science, or if one is a practicing scientist, he or she will likely end up an atheist. Generally when people think of the term “scientist” or “science” they usually contemplate the likes of a biologist or a physicist working in a lab somewhere. This is not an incorrect view although it is certainly a limited one. My hope with this essay is show to why the claim that “Science makes one an atheist” is based on a misunderstanding of science, is misleading, and is often not the case.

As a theist, I would find it hard to dispute that this is sometimes the case. After all, all one need do is look at the likes of Richard Dawkins (who admittedly is a brilliant scientist) and the late William Provine to support the claim. Obviously other examples exist of atheists who are scientists, and who tend to claim that their science is the reason behind their adoption of atheism. By atheism I mean the view that God and the supernatural does not exist.

However, any observer should note that such a deduction is not strictly a scientific one as opposed to feeding in scientific data and theories into a philosophy already held by the atheist (mostly materialism or naturalism, and seldom, but sometimes, nihilism) or person in question. Dawkins, for instance, puts particular emphasis on evolution as being the knockout blow for belief in God as well as the uniqueness and significance of human beings. This would be a view shared by arguably most atheists.

However, views such as these have not gone unchallenged by other scientists and academicians in other fields of expertise. An increasing number of theists, many of whom are scientists themselves, have argued that atheists drawing such conclusions hold to irrational philosophies like naturalism and determinism, and that evolution need not be a disproof of God, or lessen the probability of God’s existence and/or involvement in the development of biological life on the planet.

A good example of scientists promoting this view can be found at BioLogos, the theistic evangelical think tank of Francis Collins, a former atheist himself.

A devout geneticist and evolutionary biologist such as Collins would look at the exact same data that Dawkins does but draw significantly different conclusions. They really do. According to Collins,

“If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do… Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates” (1).

Now consider Richard Dawkins’ conclusion,

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” (2).

Irrespective of whose deduction is correct, we can note that none of these are scientific statements and that they are in fact entirely philosophical. Collins and Dawkins, both brilliant scientists, are examining the exact same data and coming to different philosophical conclusions.

Theistic philosophers have too engaged this question in some depth. William Lane Craig has argued that evolution, given the immense improbabilities involved, should be considered evidence for God’s superintendence, whereas Alvin Plantinga has formulated the evolutionary argument against naturalism which presupposes the truth of Darwinian evolution and that it actually undercuts atheism. Should Plantinga’s argument follow, it would be the ultimate blow to atheists given how significant evolution is to them, almost like the Holy Koran is to the Muslim.

Nonetheless, without becoming sidetracked, the point I am trying to make is that an individual’s philosophy on which she interprets other sources/domains of information (including the sciences, metaphysics, epistemology etc.) is the real determining factor of whether or not she will believe in God or not. Science can play an influential role in this process, but it is not the science that determines it.

This is why atheists, usually of the internet variety, who respond to the questions as to why they do not believe in God by saying “Because science” just seem so naive and uninformed about the topic. This is just the truth, not an attempt for me to sound pejorative or condescending towards atheists.

I also think that the explanatory scope of the hard sciences should instill humility in atheists and scientists who are atheists for far too often they tend to dogmatically assume the irrational and self-defeating position of scientism. This is the philosophical view that we should believe only what can be proven scientifically. In other words, science is the sole source of knowledge and the sole arbiter of truth.

Chemist Peter Atkins is a good example of overestimating science’s explanatory scope to include phenomena beyond science’s ability to explain. Why? Because science, operating on methodological naturalism, methodologically deals with the natural world, natural explanations, and phenomena. Anything beyond this, which includes huge domains of knowledge in the philosophies (think epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy) and spiritual domains (theological truths, the existence of gods, God, and supernatural entities and realms), among others, are beyond science’s scope.

That’s not me making this up, this is just the way science is. But if we were to go on the claims of some atheist scientists we would have to do away with entire domains of knowledge many of which not only seem obvious (i.e. metaphysical beliefs such as that the external world exists, that other minds exist, that animals and other human beings have conscious experiences etc.) but also of which science itself requires to operate (which is one of several reasons why scientism is self-defeating). The result of this would be an incomprehensible and reductionist existence of which we would likely be unable to live consistently with on both an experiential and logical level.

Note that none of what I have just stated here would be controversial to most scientists. This is because what I have stated is not an assault on science or on the scientific enterprise, rather it is a critique of self-defeating philosophical deductions from science that most scientists, in my experience, do not hold to, and that are clearly mistaken.

But let’s move beyond the framework we’ve just outlined above and to the work and research of Dr. Elaine Ecklund, a Professor of Sociology at Rice University, who has produced findings that challenge the idea that it is necessarily the science itself that makes scientists atheists. She examined the religious views of elite scientists from top U.S. research universities, and suggested that “for the majority of scientists I interviewed, it is not the engagement with science itself that leads them away from religion. Rather their reasons for unbelief mirror the circumstances in which other Americans find themselves: they were not raised in a religious home; they have had bad experience with religion; they disapprove of God or see God as too changeable” (3).

In yet a further study by Ecklund, alongside colleague Christopher Scheitle, she questioned 2198 faculty members from a variety of academic disciples, including those within the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, political science, and psychology, from 21 elite American research universities (4).

Overall, 75% of professors contacted by the pair of researchers completed the survey, and it was found that among the different disciplines, disbelief in the existence of God was not correlated with any particular area of expertise.

 

[Audie]

Many scientists believe in God. Being an atheist doesn't make one a scientist and vice versa. Why Science Doesn’t Equal Atheism | Reasons for Jesus

As if any sane person doesn't know
that.
But you just ignored what I said to
make a pointless point.

EDUCATED Christians know better than
to visit woo woo sites for " info" on science.

Your site is lying to you about evolution.

Faith that needs lies is worthless.

 

[Skywalker]

As if any sane person doesn't know
that.
But you just ignored what I said to
make a pointless point.

EDUCATED Christians know better than
to visit woo woo sites for " info" on science.

Your site is lying to you about evolution.

Faith that needs lies is worthless.

Disbelieving in God is not correlated to science. Many scientists like Michio Kaku believe in God.

 

[Audie]

Disbelieving in God is not correlated to science. Many scientists like Michio Kaku believe in God.

Again, news of the obvious.

Why bother answering if you make no reference to what I say?

Nobody with knowledge or respect for science
believes in Noah's ark.

Simple.

Your religious site lies about science.

Simple.

Faith that needs lies is worthless.

Simple.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe impressions like fame are fleeting. An ongoing witness is more viable.

I believe God does not need magic. He simply speaks things into being and doesn't need any magic words to do so.

When one "speaks things into being" one performs a verbal magical act.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Disbelieving in God is not correlated to science. Many scientists like Michio Kaku believe in God.

Believing in God does not mean believing in the God of the Bible. Especially the God of the Old Testament. Michio Kaku does not believe in your God:

Michio Kaku believes in God, if not that God

Ramen.

 

[Skywalker]

Believing in God does not mean believing in the God of the Bible. Especially the God of the Old Testament. Michio Kaku does not believe in your God:

Michio Kaku believes in God, if not that God

Ramen.

Regarding the Old Testament violence, in wars sometimes the innocent suffer because of the actions of the wicked. Did God Commit Genocide In The Old Testament? | Reasons for Jesus

By Clarke Bates| In the books of Deuteronomy, chapter 20 and Joshua, chapters 11 and onward, we read that the people of Israel are commanded to go into the land possessed by the Canaanites and “devote them to destruction.” With varying degrees of success, the Israelites do this very thing. When engaging with skeptics, this act of extermination is often used to point out the clear immorality of the God of the Old Testament. God is a genocidal, immoral, murderer, to paraphrase the eloquence of Richard Dawkins.

As Christians, our pride would have us dismiss such a claim immediately, but we must be honest and consider how passages such as these, sound. After all, it is also claimed, if God can just arbitrarily command his people to kill another group of people, what’s to say he won’t tell you to do the same thing? It really sounds no different than the beliefs that caused men to fly airplanes into buildings in 2001 and commit constant acts of mass murder in all the years since.

In response, a few preliminary points should be made. First, as human beings, we are often guilty of remembering a story differently than it is actually written. This is especially true when it comes to stories in the Bible. Second, the large portion of objections against the morality in the Old Testament stem from a reaction to how a particular action is remembered, verses how it is depicted.

This is how Joshua’s campaign against the Canaanites becomes likened to Hitler’s campaign across Europe. With that in mind, let’s look at the Dawkinsian charge that God is a genocidal murderer, using the destruction of the Canaanites as an example.

What is Genocide?
According to the United Nations, the word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing.

Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide recognized and codified as an international crime.[1]

Based on Lemkin’s work, the recognized definition of Genocide by the United Nations is as follows:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Now, for many, if we’re honest, the action against the Canaanites seems to fit some of these definitions. However, there are some elements that we perceive to fit based on our memory of the incident rather than its actual depiction.

Who were the Canaanites?
Multiple passages from the Old Testament point out that the “Canaanites” as we often refer to them, were actually a conglomeration of various ethnic groups known as the Hittites, Girga****es, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.[2] The name “Canaanites is often used as a type of catch-all for each group, but only for literary purposes. The campaign of Israel against Canaan was not against a singular ethnic group, but several.

Next, and this is one area that many believers fail to accentuate when responding to the argument at hand, is the reason why the Canaanites were killed. Popular secular depiction would have you believe that the people groups living in Canaan were peaceful settlers, minding their own business, when the theocratic, warmongering Israelites came through ravaging every city in sight.

But again, if we’re critiquing the morality of this story in the Bible, we can’t critique it on the basis of how we perceive it or even how we might think of it. It must be critiqued on the basis of how it is depicted and the worldview within which it occurs.

According to the biblical depiction of the events, many centuries prior to the time of Joshua, God told Abraham that the land would belong to his descendants. However, it would not be immediately. In fact, the people of Canaan were to be given four hundred years to repent of their wickedness and turn back to God.[3]

The wickedness of these nations has been discussed at length in many places, but it can be summarized by pointing out that a careful examination of the Israelite moral code in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy reveal exactly what these groups were like. Chief among most is the practice of burning live children on a fiery altar to pagan gods, but to this could be added, the sexual abuse of children, relatives, and animal, as well as the permission to murder those who wrong you in the slightest way and the consistent murder and abuse of servants. In short, the Canaanites are killed for their sinfulness, not their ethnicity.

The only way the campaign of Joshua could mirror that of Hitler, would be if the Nazis spent centuries, warning the nations they were coming and offering peaceful solutions to the invasion.

Even today, on its very face, we might be less inclined to negatively judge a military campaign against a group if that group were known to be committing unspeakable atrocities against its own people and those around them (consider Syria, Aleppo, the actions of ISIS, etc.).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Regarding the Old Testament violence, in wars sometimes the innocent suffer because of the actions of the wicked. Did God Commit Genocide In The Old Testament? | Reasons for Jesus

Yes, your version of God is immoral. Thanks for bringing that up again and confirmed by your source.

 

[Skywalker]

Yes, your version of God is immoral. Thanks for bringing that up again and confirmed by your source.

Families get separated when people commit crimes and go to jail. Its not a punishment it's a consequence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Families get separated when people commit crimes and go to jail. Its not a punishment it's a consequence.

Well that is quite the non sequitur. I guess that you forgot that your immoral God often ordered the deaths of innocents as well as people only claimed to be evil.

 

[night912]

Evolution doesn't explain the symbiotic relationship between people and plants in photosynthesis. Evolution, If It Occurred, Is Evidence For God’s Existence | Reasons for Jesus

I don't care about that. That didn't answer my question, I'll ask again.

I'll clarify myself. Explain how evolution being false is evidence for the existence of God? How can a thing being proven false be evidence for a claim that is irrelevant to it?

 

[Skywalker]

I don't care about that. That didn't answer my question, I'll ask again.

I'll clarify myself. Explain how evolution being false is evidence for the existence of God? How can a thing being proven false be evidence for a claim that is irrelevant to it?

Because if evolution is no wrong, there is no other explanation for where everything that has such a design and a purpose, like the plants need us and we need them to survive, comes from.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Because if evolution is no wrong, there is no other explanation for where everything that has such a design and a purpose, like the plants need us and we need them to survive, comes from.

And that is just an argument from ignorance. It amounts to "We don't know, therefore God". That is not evidence.

 

[night912]

Because if evolution is no wrong, there is no other explanation for where everything that has such a design and a purpose, like the plants need us and we need them to survive, comes from.

That's not evidence for the existence of a god. Having no explanation is not evidence for the existence of a god.


Here's an analogy. If I don't know whether or not parents are my biological parents, does that automatically make you my biological parent? Explain how my inability to prove that my parents are my biological parents evidence that you are my biological parent?

 

[Skywalker]

And that is just an argument from ignorance. It amounts to "We don't know, therefore God". That is not evidence.

Since we don't know, it's also possible that God exists. Anything is possible goes both ways.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Since we don't know, it's also possible that God exists. Anything is possible goes both ways.

This is another "So what?" argument. Did you forget the title of this thread? You are supposed to be answering the question of why did God NOT leave evidence. Your argument was not a logical argument for God. All you can say is maybe one exists, maybe one does not.

 

[Skywalker]

This is another "So what?" argument. Did you forget the title of this thread? You are supposed to be answering the question of why did God NOT leave evidence. Your argument was not a logical argument for God. All you can say is maybe one exists, maybe one does not.

It's not just anything is possible, the law of cause and effect also supports God's existence. The fine tuning of the universe does too. God is against sin because God is not the author of confusion. We all know that behaviors that cause confusion are wrong. 3 Big Reasons To Believe God Exists | Reasons for Jesus

1. The universe began to exist, and therefore requires a transcendent cause.


All of our best scientific evidence, from the expansion of the universe to the second law of thermodynamics, tells us that the universe had an absolutely beginning a finite time ago. According to modern science, roughly 13.4 billion years ago all of space-time reality popped into existence in a single instant.

According to Stephen Hawking, “almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang” (1). Physics professor and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University Alexander Vilenkin explains that scientists

“CAN NO LONGER HIDE BEHIND A PAST-ETERNAL UNIVERSE. THERE IS NO ESCAPE, THEY HAVE TO FACE THE PROBLEM OF A COSMIC BEGINNING” (2).

This is uncontroversial and can be found in any textbook on cosmology and astronomy.

The “Big Bang”, while typically thought to be an objection to Theism, is actually the best argument we have for the existence of God. If the universe (space itself, time itself, matter, and energy) had an absolute beginning, what caused the universe itself to come into being? What made the Big Bang go “BANG” in the first place?

Whatever caused space to come into being couldn’t have already been operating from within space, and whatever caused matter to come into being must be immaterial. This is quite obvious, seeing as there would be no space-time reality to operate within if the universe did not exist. And there would be no matter from which the cause could have been made, since matter did not exist. This means the cause must be “transcendent“, outside of the universe.

All multiverse theories fail to escape an absolute beginning, for the multiverses themselves must also have a beginning as it an established scientific fact that any universe that is expanding must have had a moment of initial singularity, a beginning. The multiverses themselves would also need a transcendent explanation as their cause as they cannot be extrapolated into infinity past.

So what caused everything to happen in the first place?

The argument goes as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. If the universe began to exist, the universe has a transcendent cause.

3. The universe began to exist.

Conclusion: Therefore the universe has a transcendent cause.

If these three premises are true, the conclusion is unavoidable. These premises are, at the very least, more probably true than not, giving us an extremely good reason to believe in a transcendent cause of the universe.

This cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial powerful, eternal and uncaused (since it is outside of time). This cause also must be a personal agent, which we will look at in future articles. These are properties normally attributed to God. Here is a video explaining this more thoroughly: