Is God a liar?

[BobRyan]

One source, I think, for the multiple-universe hypothesis is that there may be other special dimensions we cannot sense.

String theory has ten dimensions in our universe -- much like Maxwell's initial set of 8 or 10 quaternion equations (later downsized by Heaviside into simplified vector equations after the death of Maxwell). I don't think you should confuse dimensions in this universe - with 10^500 other imaginary universes postulated by atheists in a panic attempt to resolve the problem of a 10^-120 fine tuning problem. ( A problem that comes in the form of the cosmological constant - which is a problem for the atheist when viewing the "observations in nature" that pertain to this one universe.)

In the video they themselves admit to their atheist "belief" system not allowing them to accept the science implications of that 10^-120 problem - as "observed in nature" for this one universe.

 

[Hoghead1]

Bob, sorry, but you are still going to get the big Huh? from me. What persons are saying what and then admitting they aren't scientific. Also, I'm having a tough time following your use of grammar here.

 

[BobRyan]

Bob, sorry, but you are still going to get the big Huh? from me. What persons are saying what and then admitting they aren't scientific. Also, I'm having a tough time following your use of grammar here.

Let me know which words are an issue - and I will clarify.

the point is that your reference to "dimensions" in this universe is an entirely different topic than "other universes" each of which would have dimensions most probably starting with the 3 basic dimensions of our own universe - and time (assuming you don't consider time a 4th dimension).

Recall that with the addition of each dimension you add one axis of freedom in which you can move. So a circle can confine a line or a point person - in two dimensional world - but when you add the 3rd dimension the line or point person has the z-axis that they can now use to escape the circle. Time works the same way - provided you can slide along the time axis to a point before the enclosing box exists or after it no longer exists. In other words they all have those dimensions no matter how loused up their "physics" needs to be to make this present observable universe "more probable" for the atheists.

And of course - those other universes are by definition "not observable" and only exist in the sense that the "atheist needs them" such as the case with Reese.

 

[BobRyan]

I'm not much into multiple-universe thinking. I am concerned with some versions that argue they exist because every potential I have at the moment must be actualized. If I chose not to kill someone right now, there is another me who does do that. This creates a major dilemma in responsibility. How does God view me? Does he hold me responsible for this killing on the fact I did so in another universe, even though I claim I didn't, etc.?

I don't know of any science that argues for every possibility in this universe being actualized in some other one that has all of our same laws of physics but simply devoted to working through alternative choices by sentient beings. Who would have that experiment in hand to bring it beyond the level of pure fiction??

 

[Hoghead1]

Look, Bob, all you have to do is outline who these people are, what their view is, and why they admit they are against. science. It should take you no more than a paragraph. I mean, how hard can this be?

 

[BobRyan]

I have identified atheist scientist and world renown cosmologist Martin Reese and also world renown physicist Leonard Susskind considered the "father of string theory". I have given their own video and a 90 second clip where THEY themselves admit to the problem - though they remain diehard atheists. And they themselves state that they were forced to "imagine" 10^500 other universes to "escape" the problem of the observations in nature that force the conclusion for an intelligent designer. They demonstrate in living color how it is that science can be trashed in favor of the religion of the atheist in that 90 second segment I pointed out.

It probably takes you more than 90 seconds to come up with a response - why not watch the clip for that 90 seconds?

I also gave you a very well known paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural history making the same confession regarding the religion of the atheist evolutionist.

both of them here --
Friday at 10:36 PM #293
(click on it)

Now you seem to be asking that I quote him again? Happy to do it - but I don't see the purpose when you could simply respond to the point raised instead.

 

[Aman777]

I don't know of any science that argues for every possibility in this universe being actualized in some other one that has all of our same laws of physics but simply devoted to working through alternative choices by sentient beings. Who would have that experiment in hand to bring it beyond the level of pure fiction??

Here's the latest scientific discovery:

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...s-could-be-first-glimpse-of-another-universe/

God made 3. The first heaven was made the 2nd Day. Gen 1:8
The other heavenS were made on the 3rd Day. Gen 2:4

Scripture and Science AGREE. Amen?

 

[Hoghead1]

Thanks, Bob. I kind of see where you are at and I sort of don't. Let me clarify. I hear you continually equating atheism with science. However, not all scientists are atheists. I also hear you arguing that all who support ev0olution are necessarily atheists. This also is not true. There are, for example, what are called evolutionary theists. I, for one, believe that evolution would have been totally impossible without God. I also believe that creation is God's own self-evolution from unconsciousness into self-consciousness and self-actualization. If you want, I can go into more detail here; but, for the present, I'll just note this in passing. I also think it is important to bear in mind that while all agree evolution is a fundamental dimension of reality, there is considerable controversy over how the process actually works. Some are content to take an atheist approach; however, others, such as myself, are not. But let's get back to your mention of scientists. I heard you saying their claim is that the only way they could account for evolution is by positing an infinite number of universes. Offhand, this argument needs further support for me to assume it makes any real degree of sense. This moves in to a discussion of God. I hear you saying that they had to do this to avoid bringing God in. I don't follow that at all. Nobody has based a proof for the existence of God, based on their being a certain number of universes. That is not how the arguments work. So I am still in th3e dark about your point here.

 

[BobRyan]

Thanks, Bob. I kind of see where you are at and I sort of don't. Let me clarify. I hear you continually equating atheism with science.

Actually - I never do that. What I sometimes claim is that those who attack Christian science views that do not contradict the Bible - often think that atheist scientists are beyond question. I therefore us examples from atheist scientists since this is the group that the critics - who bash Christian scientists - are least likely to dismiss.

I also hear you arguing that all who support ev0olution are necessarily atheists.

Actually - I never do that. What I do is argue that blind faith evolutionism is at its core atheist, and atheist religious doctrine on origins -- regardless of how many Christians and Buddhists may or may not be mislead into "believing in it".

But let's get back to your mention of scientists. I heard you saying their claim is that the only way they could account for evolution is by positing an infinite number of universes.

Actually - I never did that. What I said was that we have examples of how "religious belief" of atheism stunts science -- even turning science on its head. Such that they would turn a blind eye to the logical conclusion forced by observations in nature - when those conclusions conflict with atheist "beliefs". And I have a great example of that - in real life.

Offhand, this argument needs further support for me to assume it makes any real degree of sense.

So far you seem to have missed key details in the arguments made at this point.

You could start to engage in substance - by watching 90 seconds of that video.

 

[Hoghead1]

Thanks for your clarification, Bob. However, I confess I am still not clear on what you mean when you talk about atheism stunting science. It would be helpful if you would share the example you say you have.

 

[BobRyan]

I have summarized that 90 second example twice - and I have pointed to the link where you too may see the 90 second example by skipping to the 18:25 min:sec point in the video. Perhaps you could take the 90 seconds to see what they themselves say - or you could respond to my own summary of their point -- as a start.

 

[BobRyan]

Colin Patterson (Senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and author of the Museum’s general text on evolution) in a talk given at the American Museum of Natural History 1981


--------------------- Patterson said -

“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural history and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said “I know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school”

Though Patterson was a world class atheist scientist fully believing in evolutionism and a leader in his field - yet "even he" could smell a rat. "Something" was amiss.

Patterson again.

"...I'm speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it's true to say that I know nothing whatever about either...One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let's call it non-evolutionary , was last year I had a sudden realization.

"For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff fortwenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. "That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long...

Yet how many Christians gladly allow themselves to be "misled" as Patterson puts it..!

Patterson again -

It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school, and perhaps that's all we know about it...

about eighteen months ago...I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way."

Yet how many Christians by contrast fail to rise to that level of awareness and will like the earlier days of Patterson - proclaim blind faith evolutionism as if it were "truth" - unquestioned truth.

 

[BobRyan]

On April 10, 1979, Patterson replied to the author (Sunderland) in a most candid letter as follows:

April 10, 1979 Letter from Colin Patterson to Sunderland

“ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.

You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?

I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it.

Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.
You say thatI should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

[Ref: Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma, Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]

 

[BobRyan]

No wonder then - it is so easily classified as false "religion" - given such frank "confessions" by some of their high priests.

 

[Hoghead1]

Hello, Bob. You need to take mercy on me. Either didn't get enough sleep or have been long online. Either way, I am still in an information black hole here. And, as I said before, I rather hear from you not the video, as I am responding to you and your views, not the guys on the video. I heard you say, and correct me if I am wrong, that some atheists scientists, by virtue of being atheists, had to posit some enormous number of alternate or universes or multiverses, simply because they do not accept the God hypothesis. I just don't get the connection you are seeing here. What does the large number of universes have to do with rejecting God? Then you added something abut them not going on the observations of nature. What observations? Again, I can't get the connection you are making here. Incidentally, since I see you are a Seventh Day Adventist and like to to outside reading, you might enjoy reading an article on the doctrine of God that I wrote which was published in "Adventist Today," July/August 2006, volume 14, issue 4, pp.10-11.

 

[BobRyan]

Hello, Bob. You need to take mercy on me. Either didn't get enough sleep or have been long online. Either way, I am still in an information black hole here. And, as I said before, I rather hear from you not the video, as I am responding to you and your views, not the guys on the video.

Fine -- I have summarized their statement twice showing that they demonstrate the need to ignore observations in nature when those observations conflict with atheist notions of origins, intelligent design... etc. This is not me arguing against science. I am all for science.

I heard you say, and correct me if I am wrong, that some atheists scientists, by virtue of being atheists, had to posit some enormous number of alternate or universes or multiverses, simply because they do not accept the God hypothesis.

They had to do it because the Cosmological Constant turned out to be a fine tuning factor for this universe that came out to 10^-120 in "precision tuning" which is many orders of magnitude beyond the explanatory powers of "dumb luck" or "just so story telling".

I just don't get the connection you are seeing here.

They themselves make the connection in that 90 second segment. I think it is an obvious connection.

What does the large number of universes have to do with rejecting God?

They "need" some massive number in the total population to "feel better" about having at least one such scenario as this that 'just so happens by chance' and is not at all the result of design.

Then you added something abut them not going on the observations of nature. What observations?

The observation is that of the Cosmological Constant that balances the expansion of the universe due to Dark Energy and the contraction that would be expected from mass - such as Dark Matter - the mass-energy density of the universe

In simplest terms -
"The cosmological constant is the simplest possible form of dark energy since it is constant in both space and time, and this leads to the current standard model of cosmology known as the Lambda-CDM model, which provides a good fit to many cosmological observations as of 2014."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant


Those observations in nature indicates a fine tuning to a level that both Reese and Susskind admit is a problem for atheists if they are not going to imagine something like 10^500 other imaginary universes.

Again, I can't get the connection you are making here. Incidentally, since I see you are a Seventh Day Adventist and like to to outside reading, you might enjoy reading an article on the doctrine of God that I wrote which was published in "Adventist Today," July/August 2006, volume 14, issue 4, pp.10-11.

Do you have a link to the AToday article? Perhaps a title for it?

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Hoghead1]

OK, gottcha now. It's a take on the argument from design, that all complex design requires a designing mind. The counterargument being that while there is almost a negligible possibility of this occurring by chance in any one universe, given a huge number, that would increase the odds. Right. I have used a similar line of argument to support my thesis that evolution is possible only via a transcendent creator. I don't doubt the fact that chance, luck, and randomness are basic parts of life. However, life is so common in our universe and probably in all others, that it is doubtful all this complexity occurred purely by chance. Where there is a watch, there is a watchmaker. I view the universe as being a living organism, rather than a dead machine, consisting of passive, inter, dead matter. Since all complex organisms require a brain, that must also be a brain for the entire universe. This brain would be so far from ours that any communication we might have with it would floor us, put us on our knees. Hence, encountering this brain would also be a religious or mystical experience as well. I also believe that evolution requires God, because evolution is continually the actualization of brand-new possibilities. Hence, there must be some transcendental source , some imagination outside the box, to house these creative possibilities, i.e., God. Bottom line, I do not see God and evolution as at all mutually exclusive categories. In fact, as I may have mentioned, I vie creation as God's own self-evolution from mere potentiality and unconsciousness into self-consciousness and self-actualization.

 

[BobRyan]

OK, gottcha now. It's a take on the argument from design, that all complex design requires a designing mind.

Indeed - it is a problem so glaringly obvious - even they admit to it (as even that 90 second segment demonstrates)

The counterargument being that while there is almost a negligible possibility of this occurring by chance in any one universe, given a huge number, that would increase the odds. Right.

Yes that is their reasoning. Having 10^500 rolls of the dice - then possibly a 10^-120 chance might occur.

I have used a similar line of argument to support my thesis that evolution is possible only via a transcendent creator.

Creationism as the Bible states it is possible with an infinitely wise and powerful Creator.
Therefore much less miraculous variations such as evolution are by definition "possible" with that same Creator.

I don't doubt the fact that chance, luck, and randomness are basic parts of life. However, life is so common in our universe and probably in all others, that it is doubtful all this complexity occurred purely by chance. Where there is a watch, there is a watchmaker. I view the universe as being a living organism, rather than a dead machine, consisting of passive, inter, dead matter. Since all complex organisms require a brain, that must also be a brain for the entire universe. This brain would be so far from ours that any communication we might have with it would floor us, put us on our knees. Hence, encountering this brain would also be a religious or mystical experience as well. I also believe that evolution requires God, because evolution is continually the actualization of brand-new possibilities.

Evolution is a story that would indeed require God to get passed all the show-stopper gaps in the story.

Hence, there must be some transcendental source , some imagination outside the box, to house these creative possibilities, i.e., God. Bottom line, I do not see God and evolution as at all mutually exclusive categories.

They are not mutually exclusive in a reality where there is no Bible or where the Bible said 'and so in 6 billion years God managed to evolve life on earth".

But in the reality that we actually have - where the Bible is what it is --- well then they are clearly in conflict with each other. Hence the death of Christianity to a large extent in Europe.

In fact, as I may have mentioned, I vie creation as God's own self-evolution from mere potentiality and unconsciousness into self-consciousness and self-actualization.

That is another alternate reality.

But as I said - given the Bible that we actually have - neither of those two options is compatible with the actual text of God's Word.

It is not logical to merely assume that God would seek to bail-out a competing explanation for origins - contradictory to His own Word - every time that competing story runs aground on the shore of known facts to the contrary.

 

[Hoghead1]

Well, of course, Bob if you make the assumption that Scripture is inerrant, then you would assume evolution and God are incompatible. However, I do not have that problem, largely because I do not view Scripture as inerrant. I come at Scripture out of modern biblical studies, and, based on the evidence I find there, I believe the inerrancy of Scripture is but a human-made theory that, when tested out, just does not work. I might point out that when laity look at Scripture, they do generally assume that if Scripture says so, it is so, that everything happened just like the Bible says. However, in rigorous scholarship, we hold that is a major fallacy. The Bible says so, it is so. Looks OK there, but look at it this way: The book says so, it is so. Now, no one is going to fall for that. You wouldn't apply that kind of logic to make any real sense out of some book far less important than the Bible, so I say it makes no sense at all to use such a nonsensical notion to help probe and understand the complexities of Scripture. There are, for example, about 42 gnostic Gospels that tell of the life of Christ. They are night and day from what we have. In gnostic Christianity, Christ never went to the Cross, etc. Now the gnostic Bible says so, but yet many would question it. Same holds for any holy book. I have to have more certainty that the books' own say-so, especially when it comes to deciding such important matters as the Bible addresses. From what I have seen in the NT, all we really get is the Christ of kergyma and myth, never the human, historical Jesus. All accounts of Christ have truth in them, but the textural evidence itself suggest there is considerable spin-doctoring of the life and sayings of Jesus going on. So, I am at a completely opposite end of the spectrum from where you stand on the authority of Scripture.

 

[BobRyan]

Do you have a link to the AToday article? Perhaps a title for it?

Would you be interested in sharing that link or article name?