Critique of Religious Scientists' Arguments Continued

Returning to the project from a few posts ago, let's exam more scientists' reasons for believing in a creator. Bullet points indicate primary claims from each author's essay and my response or counterargument follows in bold.

"Let's look at the facts without Bent or Bias", Edward Kessel

• Old proofs are enough to convince a reasonable mind of God's existence. I disagree. Some old proofs are just plain silly. Like, because you can imagine a "perfect" something, god must exist....or something like that.
  
• Science, from the second law of thermodynamics, proves that the universe had a beginning, thus a prime mover, thus a God. Someday in the future, when logical thinking more fully displaces illogical statements driven by ego, we won't have arguments like this. "The universe had a beginning=there was a prime mover=god exists." I can understand how you might assume there was a "prime mover" but it is an enormous leap of faith to conclude that a "prime mover" is anything like us, or even anything like a god.
  
• Science shows that the universe began in an instant. What are the implications of this fact, if it is established as it seems to be? That there is a god who answers our prayers and reveals himself to us in the Bible? I don't think so.
  
• God used his initial laws and matter-his original creation-to keep creating by evolution. I can understand the idea--that God, in the big bang, had it all planned out, all perfectly arranged, so that everything he intended to happen would happen through the natural progression of the physical laws he put in place, so that even evolutionary change is his will; BUT, what evidence supports such a grand hypothesis?
  
• Because mutations aren't always random-mutations tend to reduce organs and characteristics as opposed to heighten-there is an intelligence evident to genetics and evolution. Because there are bad and good mutations, God must exist? I don't get it.
  
• "...to study science with an open mind brings one to the necessity of belief in a God." No, to study science with a religious mindset which is ready to see a god in everything brings naturally causes one to convince himself that god is really in charge, when in fact he's not.
  

"Applying the Scientific Method", Walter Lundberg

• Orderliness and predictability in natural phenomena constitutes a revelation of God in nature. If we were looking for signs of intelligence in outer space, we wouldn't be looking for simple order and predictability. Cycles are everywhere--they are completely expected and 100% unintelligent. Intelligence would make itself apparent by standing out, by doing something different, unusual. Orderliness and predictability=automation.
  

"Physical Evidence of God", Paul Clarence Aebersold

• "...the fact is that man has almost universally recognized a greater all-encompassing intelligence and order in the universe than could possibly be conceived from chance involving inanimate unguided matter. And furthermore, who are we to place a qualitative value on the "intelligence and order in the universe"? One thing we've been slow to accept is that despite all of our unique cognitive abilities, we're still animals with nearly infinitely limited perception and perspective. Primitive people couldn't comprehend how the sun gave life to crops, or how it made them feel better, so they bestowed divinity upon it. Not understanding something or being amazed by the complexity of something does not speak to that something's divinity, it speaks to our continuing simplicity.
  
• No proof can be found-knowledge comes from a molding together of knowledge of the material and the spiritual. Proof in a concrete since is less important than what is readily apparent to our senses or what we've experienced to be true or what has been tested to be found highly probably and supported by evidence. Knowledge may never be 100%, but the important point is that all knowledge is not equally tenuous. Some is extremely reliable.
  
• Since science cannot explain ultimately where everything came from and why, God is the only reasonable answer. This is the worst point yet. At least science admits that it doesn't know when it doesn't know, despite its stringent methodology for determining what it claims. Believers don't have any methodology, just a bold, arrogant claim that provides no real explanation for anything.
  
• "The one thing we all certainly realize is that man and the universe did not spring forth spontaneously from absolutely nothing. They had a beginning, and there was a Beginner." There seems to be some agreement to there being a beginning, but that there was a beginner....well, it just doesn't follow.
  

Identifying Einsteins 'Creative Force" Marlin Kreider

• God exists, but is unprovable, non-physical (author admits) How did the author come to this conclusion?
  
• There are manifold evidences of Gods existence in men and nature at large No, some cherry pick natural characteristics and call them divine because it feels good to do so.
  
• Laws of Nature, Order of Cosmos=God I can understand the temptation to make these anti-logic arguments, but because it sounds good doesn't mean it makes any sense.
  
• Order, according to common human experience, is the result of an orderly mind If you removed all traces of humans from the earth, order would not be so obvious. Rivers meander. Mountain ranges are scattered. Ecosystems are constantly changing over time. Weather is constantly varying from day to day. Extreme order is something we are accustomed to because we live among the buildings and streets of our homes and communities. But order is just another tool we've devised to allow our feeble primate minds and bodies to gain power over our world.
  
• Design and structure of human and animal bodies These bodies have blatant, sometimes devastating imperfections and anomalies. Human fetuses, at some stage in their development, have a tail, lung gill sacs, and fur. Men have nipples. We have skin that burns in the sun. Knees, hips, and backs go out. Our minds fail us in the end. Its sad if you choose to think it is. What can be said for certain is that whatever wonder you find in whatever "design" you see in our bodies, you feel because of yourself, not because of any god hidden in the design.
  
• Can't explain the brain Hundreds if not thousands of scientists would disagree.
  
• We haven't produced life in a laboratory We have produced self replicating molecules, apparently. Give us another billion or two years, I'm sure we can figure it out. Anyway, we've altered life dramatically in the short time since we started using our brains for other things besides foraging, killing, and mating. For a few thousand years, we've unnaturally selected food and animals to make them the way we want them. And now we're genetically engineering food and animals every single day, on a massive scale.
  
• No evidence that genetics iterations could account for life Yeah, and Saddam can't prove that he doesn't have nuclear weapons. Sorry, don't know where that came from.
  Actually, I don't know if I get the point. I think there's plenty of evidence.
  

"Scientific Revelations Point to a God", George Carl Davis

• There is no proof for God (author admits) So, believers just choose to believe.
  
• "No material thing can create itself" Fusion.
  
• "The higher the evolutionary development to which a creation leads, the stronger the evidence of a supreme intelligence behind the creation" Who is ranking the "height" of each product of evolution? Who's to say we're god-like compared with other creatures? Genetically speaking, we share 99.8% (or something like that) of our genes with Chimpanzees. Even with less similar creatures, like squirrels, we share something like 90% of our genome.
  
• The "greatest miracle of all": living, intricate, lovely things were formed from the stars It is pretty amazing, isn't it?
  

"Plain Water Will Tell You the Story", Tomas David Parks

• Order and design in water See previous comments on order and design.
  

"Natures Complexity and God", John William Klotz

• Complexity=God, not blind fate
• Yucca Moth and flower, commercial fig and small wasps testify to existence of God Actually, they testify to evolution. Creatures that fit their environment best survive.
  

"The Most Vital Question Confronting Us", Oscar Leo Braver

• "Science can establish that a creative art at some time must have taken place, implying the existence of a divine intelligence. Science can also establish that none but a divine intelligence could have been the author of the laws of the universe."
• Atheism=strife and war. Atheism is illogical and false. How many wars have been waged because some people didn't believe in Zeus? How many people have starved to death because some people demand evidence and reason before giving themselves over to religious authority?
  

"Rank Materialism Will Not Do", Irving William Knoblach

• Science cannot explain life. Science cannot explain the atom. There are massive scientific projects called particle accelerators that are trying to.
  
• "Science demands faith in the senses, faith in the instrumentation, faith in authority and faith in probability or chance." And religion demands faith in being able to determine hard facts by assigning meaning to our emotions, and by stroking our egos.
  

"A Personal God, Viewed Scientifically", John Lee Abernethy

• Jesus gave evidence that he was the Son of God. I'll have to look that up.
  

"Footsteps of God in the Plant World", Gerald T. Don Hartog

• God reveals himself in the following ways:

1. Orderliness-Growth of Plants
2. Complexity-Nothing man has made compared to a plant
3. Beauty-exceeds that of the greatest genius among men
4. Inheritance-wheat produces wheat

"Facts from a Forester's Fieldbook", Laurence Cotton Walker

• Order-examples from biology, forestry-is evidence of God

"Things a Fruit Rancher's Boy Learned", Walter Lammerts

• The Divine Spirit usually works through spreading belief from parent to child This is of course highly offensive to an atheist--the thought that innocent children are being told what is "true" by their religious parents with no consideration for all arguments for all religions and non-religions. Children should never be "Christian children" or "Muslim children".
  
• There is no evidence for 2 of Darwin's most basic assumptions:

1. The young organisms of each generation continuously tend to vary slightly from their parents in all possible directions
2. Favorable changes we inherited by the next generation and accentuated until extensive changes are built up

• Species do not vary indefinitely
• Most mutations are lethal
• It is doubtful that mutations can accumulate rapidly enough Individuals or families of animals in a species may have lasting variations that do not bestow a benefit until specific outside changes take place, like increased competition, natural disaster, or invasion from other species. Only a tiny fraction of mutations need be nonlethal to allow big change over billions of years. It is interesting that mutations cannot happen too fast or go too slow...an interesting topic to think about and an interesting question that science, not religion, is equipped to explain.
  

"Trillions of Living Cells Speak Their Message" Russell Artist

• A single simple cell is more intricate and amazing in its form and operation than a watch. What's amazing is that primates were able to make a watch; not that nature, after billions of years of evolution, could produce a cell.
  
• "We are confronted with the formidable, even insuperable, difficulties in trying to account for its beginning, and, for that matter, its continued functioning. Unless we maintain with reasoned logic that an intelligence, a mind, brought it into existence." Trial and error; the survival of what works, the death of what doesn't; procreation for the healthiest and most attractive, a lonely life for the flawed designs; bursting populations in constant stress producing an environment that is highly favorable to any tiny improvement....these are natural insights into an automatic, mind-free reality.
  
• All attempts to make a living thing from non-living material have failed
• It is easier to believe that an intelligence brought about life instead of "accidental concourse." No, it is a simple leap of faith that only puts a larger burden of explanation on our shoulders if we answer "God" in response to the question how life came about. Who made God? How can God operate above natural law? Wouldn't God have to be more complex and require more explaining than a more simple natural view of the universe?
  
• Inferring from complexity of cells that an intelligence, God exists, present a "justifiable inference." No it doesn't
  

"The Reasonableness of Theism" George Herbert Blount

• "Order cannot originate from nothing, spontaneously" Order originates from previous order and underlying laws of nature.
  
• "Order=a Planner" is an axiom of a thinking man No, thinking men do not hold many axioms, especially not that one.
  
• (The author sums up an atheists argument quite well:)
• "...the cosmological argument is countered with the possibility that matter and energy are in unending exchange, and that therefore reality, as we know it, has had no beginning. The orderliness of nature is considered as high quality mental fiction. Little evidence is seen for a standard of justice, and all aspects of nature are considered amoral."
• "The atheists view requires considerably more faith than the theists view." An atheist may not make any assumptions at all, a believer must.
  
• If you haven't seen the evidence of God, maybe you haven't looked. It all depends upon interpretation. An amateur video of Big Foot walking by may seem like good evidence to many people that Big Foot does in fact exist. Believers don't have anything as concrete to support their claim that God exists.
  
• (The author believes in God because he claims to have encountered God. In other words, you believe in God when you've met him.) No one should claim to have received personal revelation that God exists unless they in fact did. Simply feeling a "presence" in church or elsewhere doesn't cut it. Having an epiphany doesn't either. Even hearing a voice doesn't count as proof that God exists and is talking to you.
  

"Geological Directives" Donald Robert Carr

• It is a case of "the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit" (Romans 8:16) There are so many ways we can feel inspired, uplifted, joyful, relieved, contented, etc...how does one tell the difference between natural emotional response to wonderful ideas and the influences of the holy spirit?
  
• (The author was motivated by a powerful sense of need in his belief in God) This is common among believers, this need to believe. Its a psychological issue to be explained by that particular branch of science.
  
• Signs of god-a beginning, uniformitarianism (geologically)
  
• "In a universe which had no beginning, but had always existed, no radioactive elements would remain." I don't know enough about physics and radiation in general to respond to this.
  
• "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork."

"Genesis I in the light of Modern Astronomy", Peter W. Stoner

• "...There is not one single item in this Genesis chapter that disagrees with science as we know it today." Which is no argument for its validity. The implication, however, that God did things by simply saying them, and those things were done instantaneously, and the whole thing was accomplished in days-science disagrees with this entirely.
  

"The Great Designer" Claud M. Hathaway

• Believe based on experiences-knowing him inwardly The human psyche alone is not to be trusted to legitimize enormous claims about the nature of reality.
  
• "I have found that God, the personal Christian God, is the only concept which perfectly fits the peculiar contours of the human soul." The more I experience about myself and other human beings, the more our behavior fits with the explanation for our existence and our behavior provided by Darwin and subsequent evolutionists. Anger has a purpose. Love has a purpose. Sadness has a purpose. The emotions that define us were once tantamount for our survival. They still are, but ways of life have changed since primitive times and we are left with the same emotional programming as our ancestors. We are better equipped to deal with those emotions now that we have the true explanation for them.
  
• "Design Requires a Designer" Where does design end and design begin? A beaver designed a dam-must we glorify the beaver? Intelligence is a recent phenomenon. It is the result of evolution. Design is a product of intelligence; therefore, its an even more recent occurance. Who knows exactly how the framework for self-replicating molecules first came into being. How did the coding begin or where did it originate from? These are legitimate questions that science has already made a great deal of progress with.
  
• "The more complex the order, the more remote the possibility of chance"
• Nature is unable to order itself Read books on evolution.
  
• God must be supernatural-a supernatural first cause

"Scholarly Witnesses and a Few Observations" Marlin Grant Smith

• God=Sovereign
• "We as human beings and the world around us are an aggreagate of effects, and under and behind that aggregate of effects lies the invisible, primordial Cause, which I call God."
• Laws=God Sun=God; Mt Olympus=God; Jesus=God. You can't make such simple baseless claims. Besides, if the laws of physics=God, doesn't this mean he is a very impersonal, powerless God, in the sense that he is limited by his own laws? As Steven Hawkings pointed out, that if God was present at the big bang, he essentially robbed himself of all power by unleashing these natural laws that rule to this day.
  
• Testimony of millions of men, simple and learned, through the ages=god. There are a lot of reasons why good, educated people believed in god. Primarily the fault is embedded in false logic of the kind we see used here by the scientists, as well as the culture, institutions, and limited science available to great men of the past.
  

"A Look Behind the 'Natural Laws'" Edwin Fast

• Complexity and laws=God

"Chemical Laws and God", John Adolph Buehler

• (interesting, supports atheists' arguments:) "The reason chemistry seems to obey the laws we have discovered is because we are really dealing with a statistical science. At the base of our physio-chemical laws is apparant dissorder and chaos, but because of the vast numbers with which we work the statistical laws are applicable and exact laws result. Thus, out of chaos comes harmony."
• "Only by postulating a directional force with a purposeful end can we account for the harmony and order which have come from chaos." Interesting idea, but again, what is harmony, order, and chaos, and in what degree/proportion do these exist? And what exactly is this chaos underlying everything? It seems to me the author is painting a picture of reality to suit his view points on God.
  
• Design, order, harmony=Supreme Intelligence.
• Water cycle, carbond dioxide cycle, ammonia cycle, oxygen cycle=evidence of God
  

"Science Undergirded My Faith" Albert McCombs Winchester

"Naturalism Must Bow to Theism" Olin Carroll Karkalits

• Theism provides better more complete answers and fewer unanswered questions. Wow, that is a completely ridiculous claim.
  
• "...There are 'internal' objects of reality within man himself." Inner perception, cognition, experience, feeling, awareness, abstract thought, trancend time and space limitations with imagination, reason, memory, volition and desire, a sense of right and wrong, feelings of obligation, courage, devotion, bravery, loyalty, faithfulness, friendship, love
• These are all descriptions fo Man's Nature-his "inner reality". Men used to romanticize certain characteristics and ways of behaving by envisioning them (and themselves) as divine. But you could take any one of these, like faithfulness, and argue that it is by no means obvious that it's influence on human behavior is cut and dry or definitive in any particular sense. Faithfulness, for example, seems to be the norm for some, especially for the first couple of years of a relationship or through the raising of children, but many many others do not continue being faithful with one person several years down the line. Natural science explains these nuances, not religion. Religion only states that it is wrong to be unfaithful, thus imbiding those who no longer feel any affection towards their mates with guilt, and sentencing them to spend the rest of their lives in unloving , unsatisfying relationships.
  

"God-Alpha and Omega" Edmund Carl Kornfeld

• "Edwin Conklin said, 'the probability of life originiating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop'." Life as we tend to think of it (like a turtle or something) did not spring to life suddenly, out of the blue. That is actually how creationists think it happened. Life evolved from simpler life forms through trial and error--through the death of countless unsuccessful mutated individuals, a mutation here and a mutation there offered some sort of advantage over the norm, which allowed it to survive dramatic changes in its environment, or which allowed it to procreate more successfully, while the old way became extinct, faded away, or persisted unchanged. Life as we know it has been selected like this, bit by bit, over billions of years. No explosion went off to create life.
  
• Complexity and order disprove chance
• Christian Faith is not irrational, its superrational. Very funny.
  
• Faith must proceed reason.

"The Universe Under Central Control" Earl Chester Rex

• Design, Law, indicate a unity of purpose and god.

"The Validity of Religion" Malcolm Duncan Winter, Jr.

• "facts fo the Bible have been confirmed by history-archeological findings to an amazing degree." Are there archeological facts that proof Jesus or his disciples were not deluded? Of course not. What is needed is not archeology, its psychology.
  
• The question of whether God exists can only be answered through a step of spiritual faith, taken after inductive reasoning leads one to conclude that a personal God should exist. God gives us a personal assurance of the validity of his existence is unshakeable.
• Faith is a basis for belief

"Wonders of the Soil" Dale Swartzendruber

• Network of design in soil leads one to think of a great designer.
• to deny a designer is as illogical as to deny a farmer when observing a beautiful field of grain. Were there not beautiful fields of grain before farmers came along? Does a bird trainer need to be present or nearbye whenever one observes a flock of geese? Its a pompous idea to think that things can't be the way they are without something like us--with a mind like ours (a simple mind actually that fixates on "design" because a lack of it is too hard to deal with).
  

"Soils, Plants, and a 4000 Year-Old Explanation" Zimmerman

• There is a force in a seed, containing all codes to generate a full-grown plant/fruit. How? "Who" set in motion the laws of genetics and growth?" Genetic scientists are looking into that.
  
• God is an answer to a mysterious universe. "God" is no answer but an ancient, outdated, and cowardly one.
  

"Man himself as evidence" Robert Horton Cameron

• Thought itself proves the existence of God.
  
• Thought is more than a system automatic-it is reasoning, judgement, appreciation of beauty, enjoyment of symphony, a sense of humor.
• Emotion=evidence of creators wisdom
• moral judgement, human will=evidence
• God gives new outlook, new motives, new joys and sorrows to those who find him All of this is a lame attempt to inscribe divinity into human nature. There's no excuse for this. An squirrel, if it could talk, might argue that its puffy tail is evidence that squirrels are children of a god.
  

"Laboratory Lessons" Elmer W. Maurer

• Nothing in natural science, in chemistry, conflicts with the Bible Its difficult for something that is nonsense, or devoid of meaning, to conflict with anything.
  

"Concord Between Science and Faith" WAyne U. Ault

• Faith is how one believes, but is supported by "first cause" and possibly "continouse motivating cause."
  
• Most have faith in the speed of light, though rarely tested. No one has seen a proton or electron, but see their effects. Much knowledge of universe must be accepted by faith. The catch here is the term "rarely tested". Even if claims about our universe were in fact rarely tested, at least they are tested in some way. The same cannot be said about the existence of God. And even if such claims were not tested at all, there is an enormous difference between saying that light is made of a photons that travel at a certain speed than saying that there is an omnipotent, omniscient God. The larger the claim, the greater the burden of proof. And no claim can be greater, more outlandish, than the claim that there is a God.
  
• Bible reveals God, and man's relation to God. Man must worship, love, and obey a God that shows absolutely no sign of existing, let alone affecting positive change in individuals' lives. The Bible itself is rife with contradictions, literalism and symbolism, to-the-point commandments, poems, vague meaning, and so on. If God chose to reveal himself to man in this way, we'd have to conclude that he's a little off his rocker.
  
• Thousands of "rational, reputable, and well-adjusted men have attested to a conscious personal relationship to God and the power of prayer." Rational, reputable, and well-adjusted men have sworn allegiance to the Third Reich. Doesn't mean we should do the same.
  

"God in Medical Practice" Paul Ernest Adolph

• Hope has definite medical results. 80 percent of all illness encountered in general practice have a predominately physchic causation. 40 percent demonstrate no organic causation at all. Causes of nervous diseases are guilt, resentment, fear, anxiety, frustration, indecision, doubt, jealously, selfishness, and boredom.
  
• "The human body finds harmonious function when it is in tune with its maker." The human body finds harmonious function when it feels secure, and fully embracing a religion that promises eternal life and glory for good works has got to feel pretty nice.
  

"Of Flowers and the Baltimore Oriole" Cecil Boyce Hamann
God is a more logical explanation to design, law, and order than instinct, genetics, or evolution. Cecil Hamann ought to read The Selfish Gene.