Fire Back

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we discuss the differences between religions and cults.

NVH, an atheist, asks:

What’s the difference between religions and cults? Aren’t they the same thing?

When I think of cults, I tend to think of Scientology or Heaven’s Gate or the Rajneeshees in Oregon back in the 1980s. These groups seem outwardly rather kooky to most of us, but the question of what really distinguishes them from traditional religion is a legitimate one, especially considering that at least some traditional religions were initially considered very strange by the larger culture (think Christians and Romans). There are similarities between religions and cults — and cults can form within religions — so it can get confusing, but there are three key ways to distinguish between the two. We’ll compare Christianity specifically with cults in general to demonstrate, since that was the context of NVH’s question.

Let’s first look at the similarities:

Christianity explains:

  • the origin of the universe
  • the origin of human life
  • the meaning of life
  • why things are the way they are / how the world works
  • what’s going to happen in the future.

Cults attempt to explain the same things as Christianity or any other religion.

The first key difference is in their truths; in other words, how the explanations are presented. Let’s look at the differences between truths in Christianity and cults.

Christianity’s claimed truths are:

  • often evident in nature, the world, and ourselves; one can arrive at a basic understanding of most of these truths through observation, experience, and reasoning
  • consistent with what we observe in the world
  • preached openly by prophets, who were messengers of God; most were unwilling and/or faced opposition or martyrdom for preaching these truths
  • freely available to everyone.

Cults claimed truths are:

  • often not at all evident in nature, the world, and ourselves; one can only arrive at these truths through special revelation (see third and fourth items below)
  • at best speciously consistent with what we observe in the world, and at worst not consistent at all
  • revealed under special circumstances by spiritual leaders who have exclusive access to a special knowledge of reality; most actively seek to gain adulation, power, and fortune
  • available only to a select group through special revelation by the spiritual leader.

The second key difference is earthly goals and rewards promised by religions and cults.

Goals and rewards of Christian faith:

  • salvation
  • redemption / reconciliation with God
  • eternal life in the new world.

Goals and rewards of cult devotion:

  • material improvement and advancement in this life and/ or
  • greater power or improved status in the next life.

The third key difference is in how these goals and awards are achieved.

How to achieve the goals and merit the rewards of Christian faith:

  • you can’t achieve the goals on your own
  • you will never merit the rewards
  • simply accept that God will grant you these things through Jesus Christ.

How to achieve the goals and merit the rewards of cult devotion:

  • rituals
  • good works
  • payment or other sacrifice to the spiritual leader.

This is what makes Christianity not only distinct from modern cults, but unique amongst traditional religions. I came to Christian faith, despite virtually no contact with traditional religion growing up, through the evidence in nature and the world. That’s straight out of Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20. Ever since, I’ve devoted this ministry to explaining how the truth of Christianity is:

  • often evident in nature, the world, and ourselves; one can arrive at most of these truths through observation, experience, and reasoning
  • consistent with what we observe in the world.

If you’re wondering how, a good place to start is my presentation on the Six Days of Genesis and my comparison of Genesis 1 and Modern science.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we discuss Everettian multiverses and faith.

DW writes

It was a pleasure encountering your blog, and reading through some of your writings. Your story of your encounter with and transformation by faith in Christ was genuinely inspiring.

I would gently push back on a single thread of thought, one I encountered in your witness on James Bishop’s blog. You talk at some length about the Everettian multiverse, a concept that has been seized upon by anti-theists as “proof” that God neither exists nor is necessary for existence.

Whether a quantum branching multiverse is “theory” at all in the scientific sense is open for debate, but I’d like to suggest…as a practicing practical theologian…that multiversal cosmologies are not inherently antithetical to Christian faith. They are also, for atheism, something of an own goal.

An Everettian multiverse refers to the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics developed by the late physicist, Hugh Everett. Everett essentially said that the seemingly probabilistic nature of the quantum world is explained by every possibility actually playing out in different universes.

DW is right that the multiverse cosmologies are not inherently antithetical to Christian faith. RTB’s resident astrophysicist, Jeff Zweerink, discusses this a little in his booklet, Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse? DW offered to send me something he’s written on the topic, so I’m curious to see what he means by the multiverse being an ‘own goal’ for atheism.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the main scientific problem with the multiverse hypothesis is that it is not science, it is science-flavored. It suffers from one insurmountable scientific problem, which is that there is no way to test it, since every universe in the multiverse is causally disconnected from every other universe. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting topic for scientific discussion, since the existence of a multiverse is intriguingly hinted at by some physical theories.

The theological/philosophical dimension is also worth exploring, as it emphasizes the difference between a God-created multiverse and a godless one. As much as some atheists cling to the latter as a comforting alternative to the former, what it actually represents is the end of all hope.

Hugh Everett was a brilliant scientist, but he was also at least partially motivated by his desire for immortality when developing his Many Worlds model. This goes to show, despite claims to the contrary, that atheists can be as emotionally driven in their philosophies as anyone else. That’s not to say it was an unreasonable motivation; I mean, who could blame the man? He knew his godless worldview strongly implied he’d eventually be annihilated by an indifferent universe. It’s a terrifying thing to contemplate. However, a godless multiverse is no better — and in my opinion, considerably worse — than being snuffed out for all eternity by an indifferent universe. If there is an eternal multiverse that wasn’t created by God, then we are all doomed to either pointlessly repeat the same life over and over for eternity or to live out every possibility, which includes an infinite number of both pointlessly enjoyable and pointlessly miserable existences. It is only with a personal Creator that existence has any purpose and any meaning.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which a reader asks about death before sin.

PH writes:

You say in your FAQ that both Genesis and the NT are clear that homo sapiens existed before the creation of Adam. Yet Genesis and Romans are both very clear that death came about as the result of sin. How do you reconcile these two statements?

I believe Gerald Schroeder is correct that it was spiritual death, not physical death, that resulted from sin. After being told, “on the day that you eat [the forbidden fruit] you shall surely die,” (emphasis added) and then eating the fruit, Adam lives for another 930 years. Instead of being physically killed as a punishment, he and Eve are thrown out of Eden, and God never addresses them again. In God According to God, Schroeder explains why this is a far worse punishment:

The Bible does not imply that eating of the forbidden fruit brought physical death for the first time into the world. The death that this first of human couples experienced was the death of their unbounded spirituality. Loss of spirituality for one who had conversed with the Creator, a separation from that infinite light, would be far more devastating than actual physical death. For this unfortunate couple of the Bible, only the physical remained.

Cain suffered similarly. At Cain’s exile, following his murdering Abel, he pleaded: “My punishment is greater than I can bear… From Your Presence I shall be hidden” (Gen. 4:13-14).

Hugh Ross points out that we have a tendency to forget the first fall was Satan’s, not man’s. I suppose God knew Satan would corrupt the world, so he mercifully built physical decay and death into this fallen world so that neither would it last forever nor would we even have enough time to grow more corrupt than we already are.

Scripturally, there is no problem whatsoever with physical death preceding Adam. In fact, as strange as it sounds, we should be grateful to God for it.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we discuss general versus special revelation with an ostensibly confused godless person.

‘Good and Godless’ asks:

Yes, it was lucky I was born more than 1500 years after Christianity began to spread all over the world and more than five hundred years after the invention of movable type allowed the Bible to be mass-produced and available pretty much everywhere except North Korea. That was a close call!

Now, something tells me that our godless commenter here is not entirely sincere in asking this question. However, despite his attempt to score a rhetorical point, it is a legitimate question that seekers—and sometimes Christians— struggle to answer.

Disclaimer: I am a scientist who is Christian. I have not had any special training in theology, and I do not represent any kind of religious or theological authority. The following represents only my own personal understanding. There are many very good resources out there if you wish to pursue the topic further.

General Revelation

The first and most important thing to keep in mind is that God is merciful and just. For this reason, he has made himself manifest in nature, so that we can all discover God just by experiencing the natural world. This is why I post weekly reminders of Psalm 19. We are also reminded in the New Testament that God has revealed himself generally in nature with Romans 1:20, so that there is no excuse for rejecting God.

This is part of what’s referred to as General Revelation. As I explain in my testimony, that’s exactly how I came to my belief in God despite the fact that I had almost zero contact with religion for the first quarter-century of my life. I figured out that God existed without so much as ever picking up a Bible.

jesus-knocking-the-door

Special Revelation

What our commenter is alluding to, however, is Special Revelation. This refers to the knowledge that Jesus Christ died to atone for our sins, and that we are saved—that is, reconciled to God even though we’re sinful—solely through Jesus Christ.

It is not unreasonable for a sincere person to be concerned that this leaves a lot of people throughout history and even today out of receiving God’s promise of redemption and eternal life through Jesus Christ. First of all, it’s worth noting that by now that there are probably vanishingly few people anywhere in the world who have not heard of God or the Bible or Jesus. I have seen Inuit people in the remotest parts of Alaska praying in the name of Jesus. Christianity is spreading like wildfire through China despite the brutal efforts of the Communist Party to crush it. This is due in large part to the efforts of missionaries who have been fearless and tireless in spreading the gospel throughout the world. But it also shows, where there is a will to know, there is a way.

There is a good case to be made that God gives Special Revelation to those who are open to receiving it, even in the most unlikely circumstances. There are reports of Jesus appearing in visions and dreams to hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Middle East amidst the most horrible chaos and suffering. Those who have converted to Christianity will proselytize others who are open to hearing the gospel.

So, what about those who still have not heard of Jesus or the Bible? Are they doomed? I responded to a similar question asked by a student when I was on a Q&A panel, in which I quoted C. S. Lewis:

I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god, or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow. In the parable of the Sheep and Goats [Matthew 25:34-40] those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ.

God is loving, merciful, and just. Everyone who desires to know God and to be close to him will be given the opportunity.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we discuss inflation, the multiverse, and fine-tuning.

I had the following exchange with a reader in the comments of a previous post:

jlafan2001: What is your take on the discovery of cosmic inflation? Isn’t inflation evidence of a multiverse and doesn’t that refute the fine-tuning argument?

SS: Inflation is a compelling idea that answers some big cosmological questions, and, personally I think it’s correct. One flavor of multiverse — the bubble universe idea — is an outgrowth of the inflationary big bang model. The problem for a multiverse based on inflation is that inflation is also consistent with non-multiverse models. There is currently no way to distinguish between them based on the evidence. There is, to my knowledge, nothing that can be confidently stated about the multiverse based on evidence, therefore it would be beyond foolishness to say that the multiverse constitutes a genuine refutation of the fine-tuning argument.

jlafan2001: Thank you for your input, Dr. Salviander. Why would scientists then use the inflation model as evidence for the multiverse if it can go either way?

A not unreasonable question. The answer is, inflation is one of the very few (ambiguous) lines of evidence atheist scientists have for the multiverse, and there is considerable philosophical motivation to support the multiverse no matter how weak the evidence.

There are two main problems in physics for the atheist scientist:

  1. The big bang. A universe with a beginning logically implies a supernatural creative force for the universe.
  2. The fine-tuning of the universe, for which there are only three explanations: a) necessity; b) chance; c) design.

Contrary to what Young Earth Creationists believe, atheist scientists have never been happy with the big bang. To understand why, all you have to do is go back to February of 1961 when striking evidence in favor of the big bang was presented at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London. That evidence would later turn out to be flawed, but at the time it inspired some notable headlines in London newspapers. The Evening Standard published an article with the headline “‘How it all began’ fits in with Bible story” (Peter Fairley, 10 February 1961), and the Evening News and Star featured an article headlined, “The Bible was right” (Evening News Science Reporter, 10 February 1961).

These headlines reflected the big bang’s astounding confirmation of the first three words of the Bible. To understand the significance, consider that for millennia prior to this, the scientific consensus was that the universe was eternal. Obviously, this was a big problem for the Bible-believers, but not for atheists, who rested assured that the universe required no explanation. That all started to change in the 1920s with solutions to Einstein’s general relativity equations showing the universe could be dynamic, as well as Hubble’s evidence that the universe is expanding. Things finally changed in a big way in the 1960s with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, which pretty much sealed the deal for the big bang.

To their credit, the vast majority of physicists accepted the big bang theory once there was sufficient evidence, even if a lot of them didn’t like it. However, there were a few notable holdouts, like renowned astrophysicist and atheist, Geoffrey Burbidge. It’s not a stretch to suggest that his steadfast support for an eternal universe in spite of the evidence was philosophically motivated, especially considering he famously accused many of his colleagues of “rushing off to join the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang.”

The evidence for the big bang is by now so overwhelming that few physicists doubt it. That leaves atheist physicists with a big problem, which is how to offer an alternative to God as the supernatural creative force behind the universe. Thus, we have the multiverse.

Now, it’s important to point out that, contra what some skeptical Christians believe, physicists did not metaphorically pull the multiverse out of a magician’s hat. There are different types of multiverse (or “levels” as physicist Max Tegmark calls them), each with a basis in physics and mathematics that makes the idea conceptually somewhat compelling. One level of multiverse is the bubble universe model. This model says that inflation — a period of extremely rapid expansion of the universe shortly after the big bang — leads to regions of localized inflation, which form like bubbles in a cosmic sea of foam. Each of these bubbles expands at such a rate that they are all causally cut off from each other, and each effectively forms its own universe. This is one type of inflationary universe; there are others that do not lead to multiverses. However, as I pointed out to jlafan2001, there is no way I’m aware of that you can observationally distinguish between an inflationary bubble universe and an inflationary non-bubble universe.

So, how does this tie into fine-tuning?

The fine-tuning argument says this: the many observable parameters of the universe that permit human life to exist are so finely-tuned as to strongly imply the universe was designed by a personal being. Physicists have ruled out necessity as an explanation for fine-tuning; this means there is nothing in any physical theory or any extension of physical theory that requires the various physical parameters describing our universe to be the way they are. That leaves chance and design. For an atheist physicist, design is obviously out, which leaves chance as the only explanation. It turns out physicists aren’t very happy about this — they would have preferred necessity as the explanation — but, they’re philosophically stuck with chance. Since there is already a theoretical basis in physics for the multiverse, and chance is built into its framework, atheist physicists latch onto it as a means to explain away the appearance of fine-tuning. It also has the virtue of addressing point #1 above by providing an alternative to God as the creative force behind the universe.

The so-far insurmountable problem with the multiverse is that there is no way to test it. One of the features of the multiverse is that each of the universes within it is causally separated from all of the other universes, which means there is no way we an observe any of them, directly or indirectly. There’s just no way we can peek outside of our universe to see if there are any others. So, we’re left with ambiguous evidence like inflation and “shadow particles” (ugh). Until physicists find a way to get around this problem, which is unlikely, the multiverse remains nothing more than a science-flavored idea.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we examine a curious claim about quantum mechanics and the creation of the universe.

JH writes:

[How can Christians respond to the] claim that almost every atheist is clinging to right now, namely that quantum mechanics proves something can come from nothing?

JH is referring to the common atheist tactic of explaining how the universe could be created ex nihilo without a cause (aka a Creator) by invoking a phenomenon in quantum mechanics known as virtual particle production.

Virtual particle production refers to particles suddenly popping into existence from the vacuum of space. For those of us used to the decidedly Newtonian appearance of the world, this seems very strange, but it’s a real phenomenon in the quantum mechanical world. Atheists like to invoke it when arguing about who or what caused the universe: the claim is, these particles are uncaused and come from nothing, therefore it’s possible for things like universes to pop into existence uncaused and from nothing, therefore God is superfluous. The problem with this claim is that virtual particles are neither uncaused nor do they come from nothing. Let’s examine the latter claim first.

If you were able to look at the universe at the quantum mechanical level, you’d notice it was a very jittery place, with virtual particles fluctuating into and out of existence. In order for these virtual particles to fluctuate into existence, they must “borrow” energy from the vacuum energy, which is the background energy of space. This is because, according to Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2, matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. If you want to make matter, you use energy (the reverse is also true, which is how nuclear fusion works). Even though we’re accustomed to thinking of a vacuum as nothing, in this case it is definitely something. The vacuum energy of space is something, so right away this tells us that virtual particles don’t come from nothing.

But there’s another problem — these particles don’t exist for very long. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle — which tells us that we can’t simultaneously know the precise amount of energy and the precise duration of time for an event — allows virtual particles to borrow energy from the vacuum energy provided they return that energy in a very short amount of time. Here’s the key: the more energy they borrow, the more quickly they must return it.

Let’s look at a practical example using a particle called a meson with a mass about 1/10th that of a proton. (Protons reside in the nucleus of an atom, and have a mass of about 2 x10-27 kg.) For a meson to pop into existence, it could only borrow the required energy for about 10-23 second. Written out in decimal form, that’s 0.00000000000000000000001 second. Remember, the more energy a particle borrows, the more quickly it has to return it. A conservative estimate for the number of protons in the observable universe is 1080 (which I am not going to write out in decimal form), which means that for a “virtual universe” to fluctuate into existence, it would exist for an extraordinarily short amount of time — just 10-103 second, which is far shorter than the 14 billion years we’ve measured for the age of the universe.

Now let’s examine the claim that virtual particles pop into existence uncaused. That’s just false. As theoretical physicist Matt Strassler explains on his wonderful blog, virtual particles are disturbances in space caused by the presence of other particles in that space. They’re not even really particles, which is why they’re called “virtual particles.” The upshot is, if certain conditions must exist in order for something to happen, then that something is not uncaused.

Short-short version:

  • When atheists invoke quantum mechanics to try to explain how the universe could be created from nothing naturalistically, they are abusing the notion of nothing.
  • Virtual particles borrow energy from the background energy of space, therefore they do not come from nothing.
  • For something to fluctuate into existence, the more massive it is, the briefer its lifetime. According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the observable universe could only exist for 10-103 second, far shorter than the 14 billion years we measure.
  • Virtual particles are caused by the presence of other particles, therefore they are not uncaused.
  • There is no physical evidence of anything in the universe ever coming into existence uncaused and from nothing.

Fire Back: Where the Readers Respond

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In which we discuss dinosaurs and the age of the world and pursuing science as a Christian student.

Shawn made the following criticism in the comments to the “Six Days” post:

Below the slideshow you asked for corrections. I can’t speak to the astrophysics parts, but I can concerning two standpoints — that of theology, and that of fossil evidence, particular in reference to humans, but also in reference to even dinosaurs, which have been found containing soft tissue, something that seems strange, but plausible for a world of only 6-10K years, but absolutely forbidden for a world millions, even billions, or trillions of years old.

This strikes me as an odd observation. Taking the soft tissue evidence at face value, why couldn’t we simply have young dinosaurs in a very old world? It might be a bit awkward, but there is nothing in either science or scripture I’m aware of that “absolutely forbids” this.

In any case, it turns out that the soft tissue evidence is not necessarily a problem for old dinosaurs. It’s quite possible what we’re discovering is that scientists don’t understand decay like they thought they did. Evidence is mounting that, under certain conditions, soft tissue can be preserved during fossilization for millions of years. Nor is it a problem for Christianity, given that I believe scripture [together with a basic understanding of cosmology -Ed.] strongly implies an old universe/old Earth, anyway. Also, for you conspiracists out there, consider that the scientist who made the discovery, Mary Schweitzer, identifies as a committed Christian.

—–

HB writes:

I’ve wanted to change my major to astronomy, but I feel it will be a hard major to be in as a Christian. As an astronomer, do you feel that people are trying to convert you? Or do they respect your beliefs and work with you just the same? And is becoming an astronomer as cool as it seems?

I became a Christian halfway through my graduate studies in astrophysics, and did not find it difficult at all. Nobody in my department gave me any trouble for my beliefs. A few of the faculty and grad students were also Christian, which helped. However, I can foresee a problem being a young-earth creationist Christian and trying to major in astronomy, since so much of the subject matter reveals a very old age for the universe. But if you are not a young-earther, that’s not a concern.

Now, that said, if you are passionate about astronomy, you should not let the fact that you are Christian deter you. Science needs Christians. And we know from scripture and history that we will face many challenges and obstacles just for being followers of Jesus Christ. Since that’s inevitable, just do what you feel you are called to do, and ignore those who would give you any trouble.

And, yes, becoming an astronomer is wonderful. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Do keep in mind, though, that being a scientist is sometimes tedious, but that probably describes just about any job.

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In which a Twitter exchange exposes the blind faith of an anti-theist.

Here’s a person I think we can reasonably assume is an anti-theist. Last month, he pinged me on Twitter with the following:

By “FT” he means fine-tuning. What followed was an exchange that was more coherent than the one I had with “OpenMind” (see here and here), but no less demonstrative of the main problem many non-scientist anti-theists have, which is blind faith in their beliefs and unquestioned assumptions.

Before we continue, note that the reasoning I described in my testimony doesn’t really fall under what’s called the fine-tuning argument. This argument says that the improbability of our universe having precisely the right values for the many parameters and constants that permit human life to exist — the strengths of the fundamental forces, the masses of subatomic particles, the number of physical dimensions, etc. — is so high as to strongly imply the universe was designed by a personal being. However, in my testimony, I explained that I logically inferred the existence of a rational, transcendental being (God) who created the universe based on the fact that the universe is comprehensible. Not the same thing as fine-tuning. But no matter, I was game to see how exactly the fine-tuning argument for God constituted faith over reason, so I asked.

I don’t know if Joe’s World (JW) thinks the many, many atheist scientists who’ve embraced the multiverse idea on this basis are fools or what, but I suspected he didn’t understand the implications of fine tuning, so I asked him why he made his assertion.

His response surprised me a little, because it differs from the common anti-theist argument that God is merely superfluous to the workings of the universe. JW, on the other hand, believes that order arises spontaneously only in a godless universe and that a God-created universe would be nonsensical. I pointed out to him that this is the opposite of what Christians and even most atheists believe.

There are a number of problems with his assertion, the first of which is the origin of a “clockwork” universe in which complexity just arises. He’s begging the question. The problem is underscored by his metaphorical comparison of the universe to a clock — most of us are reasonably certain that precision instruments like clocks don’t just spring into being on their own, but are rather carefully designed and deliberately constructed by conscious beings.

Another problem is that he presupposes that the God of the Bible is a capricious being who would not create a rational universe with unchangeable laws. Sure, a supernatural being could in principle create anything he wants, but that’s not what’s important here. Since JW is talking to a Christian (me), that means we’re talking specifically about the God of the Bible. It doesn’t matter what anyone personally thinks about the God of the Bible, what matters is what scripture says about God and whether that’s contradicted or corroborated by reason and evidence. When we read the Bible, we see that God is not at all a capricious being, but rather a rational being. We are told throughout the Bible that God didn’t just slap together a whimsical universe, but by wisdom created a lawful universe:

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made (Psalm 33:6)

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens;
(Proverbs 3:19)

Do you know the laws of the heavens? (Job 38:33)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Note that the Greek word translated in John 1:1 as “word” is logos, which also means logic, intellect, and wisdom. Putting all this together, Gerald Schroeder makes the argument that Genesis 1:1, properly translated, reads as follows: “With a first cause of wisdom, God created the universe.” (See Chapter Two of Schroeder’s book, God According to God.)

The heavens declare his righteousness (Psalm 50:6)

In other words, nature reveals the character of God. We see that nature operates according to knowable laws; God is not capricious.

As for corroboration, there’s a reason the Bible begins with Genesis. It first of all establishes the sovereignty of God as the creator of all things, but it also gives us a testable account of God’s creation. (See here for a discussion of Genesis 1 and modern science.)

What I found even more interesting than the backwards reasoning of JW was the tenacious way in which he clung to one particular belief in spite of the evidence, or rather the lack of it. I reminded him that there are only three options to explain why the universe is the way it is: necessity, luck, or God. I told him there’s no support for necessity, but he really, really wanted to believe it anyway.

It’s not difficult to define chance. The parameters, constants, all the things that make the universe fit for human life, can span a range of values. If there’s no physical theory requiring the universe to have three physical dimensions, the particular strengths of the various fundamental forces, the particular masses of subatomic particles, and so on, and no God to purposefully choose these values, then how did we end up with all of the “right” values? The answer is, a very, very lucky roll of the dice. In the multiverse, there is a mind-bogglingly huge number of universes, all with different parameters, and we just happen to inhabit one that hit the cosmic jackpot. (Incidentally, most physicists don’t seem to delight in this option. I get the impression most atheist physicists would prefer the necessity option, but as there’s no evidence for that, they grudgingly accept the multiverse.)

JW seemed to reject this notion, and he obviously wasn’t big on the God idea, so I challenged him, repeatedly, to show me which physical theories predict / require / necessitate the universe to be the way it is.

After a lot of back and forth, I finally got an answer out of him.

He admits he doesn’t know. The truth is, no one knows, and it’s deeply troubling to a lot of people, because it leaves as the only alternatives luck and God. Yet JW persists in his belief.

JW’s initial statement to me was that the fine-tuning argument was a triumph of faith over reason. But who’s exhibiting faith here? If you accept an explanation for why the universe is the way it is, then you must have evidence in favor of it or at least evidence ruling out the alternatives. Joe’s World has no scientific evidence, no physical theories predicting that the universe must be the way it is. Everything we know about the physical nature of the universe says that its various properties did not arise due to necessity. JW rejects God; I don’t know for certain if he rejects the multiverse, but I suspect he does. If so, then persisting in his belief in necessity is beyond faith — it’s blind faith.

Remember, having faith means holding onto a belief you once accepted through reason in spite of your transitory emotions. Blind faith means holding onto a belief without evidence or in spite of contradictory evidence. If you engage anti-theists long enough, you’ll find that a lot of them are the blind faithful. Christians, on the other hand, have good reasons to believe. If you’re a Christian, just make sure you can articulate what those reasons are.

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In which an anti-theist mischaracterizes a claim in my testimony and also misses the point.

In response to my recently-posted testimony, OpenMind offered the following

I don’t know exactly what OM meant, so I’ve asked him for clarification. However, he seems busy responding to the flurry of Tweets his comment generated, so I’ll just address it as is.

Generally speaking, when a person is said to be rationalizing his behavior, it means he’s offering a seemingly plausible, but untrue, reason for it. That’s probably the sense in which OM offered his interpretation of how I’ve dealt with the death of my daughter. The problem with this interpretation is that no one can demonstrate that the reason for my behavior — God’s existence — is untrue. Therefore, by definition, it cannot be a rationalization. Furthermore, I offered very good reason to believe that it is true, which I explained in my testimony. OM’s is just a nonsensical claim.

OM also missed the point of my relating how I dealt with the loss of my baby. My testimony was the story of how I went from atheism to theism, partly on the basis of scientific evidence, and from theism to Christianity, largely on the basis of scientific evidence. It seemed a little too coldly logical to me, and so I worried that maybe my faith wasn’t real, that it lacked substance. Jesus talked about this in the parable of the sower. Sometimes people receive the Word, but as soon as they experience any tribulation, they fall away from the faith. I don’t wish to overstate my case, but I think it’s fair to say that I experienced tribulation that year. Yet my faith did not fall away. When the dust had settled, I felt closer to God — I knew what it meant to receive his provision and protection. I knew my faith was real.

There are two takeaway points here for my Christian readers. The first is to always evaluate what an anti-theist (or any other) critic is claiming, identify the error, and then focus your response there. OM claimed I was rationalizing my loss. A rationalization involves an untrue belief, in this case, a belief in God’s existence. Contrary to what strident atheists imply or outright claim, no one has shown that God does not exist. Not only is there is no good reason to assert that God doesn’t exist, but there is good reason to believe that he does. The claim of rationalization is therefore invalid.

The second point is that strident atheists will frequently avoid, evade, redefine, mischaracterize, and misdirect in order to discredit your argument or avoid acknowledging a logical conclusion they don’t like. OM mischaracterized the story of how my faith was tested to claim I was rationalizing my belief. This story had nothing to do with the truth of the reason for my belief, but rather concerned whether my belief even existed. It’s a common tactic; don’t let them get away with it.