Friends. This will be short. We had a friend come over and stay late with us discussing apologetics. This has been an exciting evening for me in many ways and a stunning one. However, I am fighting right now to keep my eyes open. Thus, I will only tackle one part of this chapter where Loftus tells us why he’s an atheist. Let’s see if the reasons establish atheism even if true. Please note this is also why he’s not an agnostic.
The first is the relationship between faith and reason.
Loftus starts by saying how there are two views that seem to present us with absurdities. Either something always existed or something popped into existence out of nothing.
I only see one of those as absurd. Guess which one it is….
The latter is treating nothing as if it is something. Nothing is nothing and something is something. Nothing is not something. It’s simple law of identity. They see it as absurd rightly because all things that begin to exist need a cause. (Hmmm. What about causality? Is it eternal?) Everyone believes in something eternal. I just happen to believe that it’s intelligence and personality.
I happen to enjoy how Sam Harris is quoted as saying “Any intellectually honest person will admit that he does not know why the universe exists.”
I find this interesting. The why question is raised rather than the how. This is something we’ll get to when discussing other issues. Why does the universe exist. However, I think an intellectually honest person can admit that he is sure how it came about. That is by the creation of God. Of course, Harris would say I am either not honest or intellectual or that I am ignorant.
That has yet to be established.
Don’t you just love this atheist game? We don’t know implies that supernatural explanations are already ruled out a priori. I have no problem with naturalistic explanations, but for the sake of argument, let’s suppose the universe did begin fiat by God at the Big Bang? If that’s the case, you won’t find a naturalistic explanation.
But you do enjoy the assumption that there must be a natural explanation.
It’s so nice to be a theist and not have to have a natural explanation for everything a priori and being open to both natural and supernatural causes and getting to choose which best fits the evidence. Good thing our worldview doesn’t pre-commit us before we study something.
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