This is part of an email exchange between my father and I on the subject of Intelligent Design.
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My Father's Note
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My Father's Note
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I must admit I was a little disappointed with your answer to my "What takes more faith" question. The reason for my disappointment is that when we met at Dunkin Donuts you were very clear that you believed in God and were struggling with the Christian proposition that Jesus was God and that he was the only way to heaven. Now it appears that you are no longer on a quest to find out "Who is Jesus" but "If there is a God at all" It is easy to conclude this from your statement "I agree with facts 2,3, & 4. I think that claiming that there is a God assumes a whole lot of things that I am not ready to concede at this point."
You made this statement in your first reply "So the first goes to his assumption that just because something looks designed, it must be designed." Let me ask you another question. Suppose you look at a large tree in front of a house. Do you look at that picture and say wow look one seed grew into a tree and the other grew into a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom house. The answer is of course not. It is clear that the house was created by an intelligent mind the tree did not grow that way. Or suppose you look on your desk at your computer do you say "Wow look what i dug up at the computer garden. Again the answer is a clear NO. The reason is simple it is clear that the computer was made by an intelligent mind and did not just "grow" that way. I realize that good science would have to say (if they did not know how the house or computer were made) We have no "proof" that these things were created by an intelligent being (because they can only say that with things they can prove or recreate). However, to everyone else who is not a scientist we can say it is clear to us that the house and computer did not just grow that way without having to determine exactly how they were made.
To deny that there is a God would be to literally deny the testimony, of I would dare say, billions of people throughout recorded history. The Bile says you want to know if there is a God "look around" He has revealed Himself through all of nature. He then came and walked among us and did things 2000 years ago that modern science and modern medicine are not even attempting to do today, i.e.; raising people dead for days and commanding the weather what to do.
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My response
You made this statement in your first reply "So the first goes to his assumption that just because something looks designed, it must be designed." Let me ask you another question. Suppose you look at a large tree in front of a house. Do you look at that picture and say wow look one seed grew into a tree and the other grew into a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom house. The answer is of course not. It is clear that the house was created by an intelligent mind the tree did not grow that way. Or suppose you look on your desk at your computer do you say "Wow look what i dug up at the computer garden. Again the answer is a clear NO. The reason is simple it is clear that the computer was made by an intelligent mind and did not just "grow" that way. I realize that good science would have to say (if they did not know how the house or computer were made) We have no "proof" that these things were created by an intelligent being (because they can only say that with things they can prove or recreate). However, to everyone else who is not a scientist we can say it is clear to us that the house and computer did not just grow that way without having to determine exactly how they were made.
To deny that there is a God would be to literally deny the testimony, of I would dare say, billions of people throughout recorded history. The Bile says you want to know if there is a God "look around" He has revealed Himself through all of nature. He then came and walked among us and did things 2000 years ago that modern science and modern medicine are not even attempting to do today, i.e.; raising people dead for days and commanding the weather what to do.
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My response
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The conversation we had at Dunkin Donuts was in the begininning stages of this process for me, so I was still unsure of what exactly I was feeling and less sure of how to articulate it. As I have been reading, thinking, and discussing this more, I have begun to understand what my true feelings are. When we spoke, I was throwing out examples about different religions (how can you be sure? how can you claim to be a member of the 'right' religion? etc) because these were the lines of reasoning that were driving my thought processes at that point. As I matured in this process, I began to realize that my instinctual resistance to religion is rooted in a fundamental doubt in the supernatural. I will be honest and say that the more I contemplate, the more confident I am in my instincts. This is not to say that I am convinced that I am right, but it does give context to my current state of mind (much like your religious beliefs bring context to yours).
The conversation we had at Dunkin Donuts was in the begininning stages of this process for me, so I was still unsure of what exactly I was feeling and less sure of how to articulate it. As I have been reading, thinking, and discussing this more, I have begun to understand what my true feelings are. When we spoke, I was throwing out examples about different religions (how can you be sure? how can you claim to be a member of the 'right' religion? etc) because these were the lines of reasoning that were driving my thought processes at that point. As I matured in this process, I began to realize that my instinctual resistance to religion is rooted in a fundamental doubt in the supernatural. I will be honest and say that the more I contemplate, the more confident I am in my instincts. This is not to say that I am convinced that I am right, but it does give context to my current state of mind (much like your religious beliefs bring context to yours).
With respect to design, I stand by my assertion. I am not so obtuse as to say that a scientist would need 'proof' that an ordinary desk was intelligently designed. The scientist would, just like any of us, make a judgment based off of their experience. The problem is that you cannot take this kind of personal observation and extend it to the complexities of the natural world. The law of parsimony, also known as Occam's razor, states that "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best" (paraphrased). Let's apply this law to your examples to see what happens when you move from the ordinary (a desk) to the rare (complex organic life):
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Example 1: The Desk
How did the desk come into being? (I can think of two possibliities)
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Random Self Assembly (inanimate objects cannot evolve) - This would require the random quantum assembly of an enourmous numbers of particles arranging and bonding themselves to create a fully funcitoning desk. I will just assume that the chances of this happening all at once are statiscually low enough to say that it has never and will never happen.
Law of parsimony test - requires an expansive and increasingly complex explaination
Created by an Intelligence (presumably human) - I know humans beings can make desks, I have seen many desks and they are a very common object. Human beings have proven themselves capable of gathering the materials, forging them into parts, and then assembling them together.
Law of parsimony test - requires a reductive and logical explaination
How did the desk come into being? The law of parsiomy says that the desk was built by a human being because that explanation is the simplest.
Example 2: Human Beings
How did human beings come into being? (again, I can think of two possibliities)
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Random Mutation aided by Natural Selection (Darwinian Evolution) - Organic life started as small microbes in ancient earth. Through a process of small and incremental changes, these microbes gradually evolved into more and more complex organisms. This slow and methodical process is governed by natural selection, the concept that mutations with some increased survival benefit are the ones that tend to survive long enough to reproduce. This process eventually led to all manner of diverse life that we see today. This option relies largely on known and accepted biological functions, and has the ability to explain all manner of complex life in terms of a single simple process spanning an enormous amount of time. The grand canyon was carved by a single stream over a large timeframe. A simple system can produce increasingly dramatic results when given a long enough time to operate.
Law of parsimony test - elegant, simple, and reductive explanation that relies on observed and documented natural forces
Created by an Intelligence (presumably god) - God created all life with his supernatural abilities. This god exists outside of the physical world and is endowed with absolute power and absolute knowledge. God was not created and has always existed. This option answers the question at hand, but it does so while raising another, much more difficult question in it's place. The god being referred to here is immensely complex, needing to have the knowledge and power to blink the universe into existence. A being of this complexity makes the random assembling of molecules in the desk example look probable by comparison. This also pushes the problem further by now raising the impossible-to-answer question of god's origins.
Law of parsimony test - invoking god opens up much larger and more difficult questions to answer, god is enormously complex by definition
How did Human Beings come into being? The law of parsimony says that Humans came from a natural evolutionary process because it is the simplest explanation
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This is the fallacy of presumed design. When you jump to the conclusion that an ordinary object like a house or desk was designed by an intelligence, you are subscribing to a conclusion that provides the simplest and most likely answer. It is all to easy to try and draw analogies of ordinary observation to the biological world (or cosmic, depending on the question you are asking), but you end up creating many more problems than you solve. This is why it is very dangerous to assume that just because something in the natural world has the illusion of design, that the most reasonable explanation is design. Evolution provides an elegant way to demonstrate how complex life can grow out of simplicity, and it does so without invoking the nuclear bomb of a supernatural creator.
In a more general sense, this kind of leap reasoning is a trap that many intelligent arguments fall prey to. God is defined to be so general purpose (all powerful, all knowing, etc.), that the temptation to slot him into every gap is almost irresistible. I feel that it damages the creditability of the argument in general because I liken it to crying wolf. Say there really is a god and he really is behind the scenes. Informed people are going to be less likely to believe in that fact if well meaning religious types are continually sticking god in where it serves no purpose. As science continues to slowly uncover truth in the universe around us, those gaps continue to close in. As the gaps close, the credibility of the 'god did it' argument weakens. What happens if science really does answer questions about the origins of the universe and all gaps are closed? If the church is banking it's future on it's ability to undermine or out-explain science, they are fighting a losing battle.
10 comments:
Hey Brian, I really like the topic here and I thought I would just share some thoughts. You explored so many interesting topics with your father that I couldn't possible address them all so I will just focus on this:
"Random Mutation aided by Natural Selection (Darwinian Evolution) - Organic life started as small microbes in ancient earth. Through a process of small and incremental changes, these microbes gradually evolved into more and more complex organisms."
Let me make my thoughts clear by pulling this apart just a little.
1. Organic life started as small microbes in ancient earth.
This begs the question 'how did these microbes get there?' If you trace backward you'll soon ask how did the earth come to exist. Then, going back further you may rightly ask how did the matter that would become 'The Big Bang' come to exist.
Then, going back further you could ask how did the energy that 'Big Banged' come to exist. Finally, and you really can't go back any further than this, you could simply ask how did the first morsel of existence come to exist?
At this point you could use math as your guideline. Zero plus zero equals zero. If you believe that 0+0=0 then you must first come to grips with the fact that matter and energy exist and cannot be born from absolute nothingness.
On the contrary if you believe in Big Bang then not only must you accept that zero plus zero does not equal zero but that in fact it equals everything.
It's hard to prove, maybe impossible to prove that from absolutely nothing, something, everything can be brought forth.
Interesting isn't it?
2. "Through a process of small and incremental changes, these microbes gradually evolved into more and more complex organisms."
This point may be moot if you realize that zero plus zero equals zero but suppose the big bang actually happened and is fact.
Even at this point science itself proves evolution impossible. Remember, evolution is a theory not a law. A law is a known known. A proven fact that can be replicated.
The second law of thermodynamics states that an isolated system left unto itself will eventually burn out. I'm sure you are familiar with this.
Now let's apply this law to the universe. The universe at the moment immediately after the big bang was and is an isolated system.
Therefore, since the big bang the universe as an isolated system has been in a constant state of entropy. That means that the universe as a whole has always been in a state of decay.
How then does this give impetus to evolution? If the universe is in a state of entropy then where does the energy come from that would make inanimate objects come to life?
My conclusion about intelligent design is based more on a process of elimination approach.
First I can't get past the zero plus zero equals zero thing. Math is just too strict.
Secondly, I can't get by the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
All Darwinian theory presumes that matter can and did invent itself in the first place and that takes far too much faith for me to believe.
I just want to add one more thing. It has to do with the "Desk" example that you and your father talked about.
You say that you are not so obtuse as to think that a scientist would need 'proof' that the desk was constructed by man.
Yet human beings, equipped with a consciousness are many times more complex than a desk. None the less, evolutionists claim that we randomly mutated. This is far more egregious than to suggest that a desk could form 'by accident' as it were.
Evolution to me is like a tornado that passes over a junk yard and spits out a 747 with passengers and all.
The supposed gradual nature of evolution does not make this an incomparable analogy in my book because time is relative.
I wont try to convince you that God is real and created the heavens and the earth. I will say again however that it takes more faith to believe from nothing came everything including life, consciousness, energy and matter.
Edgar,
First off, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I love the variety that public discussion can bring, and it certainly seems like you have a viewpoint worth exploring. Your response is actually quite timely, as I am in the process of writing out my next blog post to dive into many of these areas of knowledge. In advance of this more formal treatment, I did want to respond to some of your specific points.
”[in response to evolutionary origins] This begs the question 'how did these microbes get there?'…Then, going back further you could ask how did the energy that 'Big Banged' come to exist. Finally, and you really can't go back any further than this, you could simply ask how did the first morsel of existence come to exist?”
This is a very natural series of questions to ask, and it is important to understand how far our current scientific understanding can take us. Science has never and probably will never have an answer for every question that can be asked. The best we can hope for is a gradually improving model that explains the how the universe really functions. What is important to recognize though, is that science can still provide us with factual information, even in the presence of these knowledge gaps. I can tell you many facts about a computer, for instance, even though I am completely at a loss to explain with any detail how each individual part of it was fabricated. My lack of knowledge of these small components does not invalidate my understanding of how to use a computer, and further study of these details will not suddenly alter my more general knowledge. Science uses the information we have today to create the best models possible. The more the model is tested and refined, the more confidence we can have in its veracity. Those models that can both predict future discovery and stand up to rigorous scrutiny are accepted as scientific fact.
”Remember, evolution is a theory not a law. A law is a known known. A proven fact that can be replicated.”
This is a common misconception, and is the unfortunate result of the difference between the scientific and casual use of the word “theory”. In causal use, a theory is generally thought of as an educated guess. If this were the scientific use of the word, I would absolutely understand you being suspicious of the validity of evolution. In reality though, the scientific use of the word “theory” is much more specific and requires a much higher standard of truth. It is also important to point out that there is really no formal way for theories to become laws, and there is often very little distinction between the two. When Evolution is referred to as a theory by scientists, what they are actually saying is that Evolution is an accepted fact of the universe in the same way that the Germ Theory is. There is little to no disagreement within the legitimate scientific community regarding evolution because there is such overwhelming evidence to support it. Evolution predicted the role of DNA long before we had the instruments to decode it, and studies into the genomes of life on earth shows exactly what would be expected if all creatures evolved from a common ancestor. This is just one data point in favor of evolution and I will get into much more detail in my formal post. I just wanted to make the point that Evolution is a scientific fact, even if we cannot prove how the first biological replicators came into being. Whether god manifested them or they came to being through natural means, it does not change the fact that Evolution was the vehicle that was used to perpetuate that life.
”The second law of thermodynamics states that an isolated system left unto itself will eventually burn out. I'm sure you are familiar with this…Therefore, since the big bang the universe as an isolated system has been in a constant state of entropy. That means that the universe as a whole has always been in a state of decay. How then does this give impetus to evolution?”
This is again confusing the question of life’s origins with how complex life developed. Both are great questions to talk about, but they should never be mixed together. The question of entropy is really only relevant to the question of origins, because evolution assumes that life already exists. I am going to hold off on addressing the second law of thermodynamics in detail because it requires a proper explanation and I want to handle it more formally in my upcoming post. At a high level though, the second law states that the energy in a system will always distribute itself out evenly until there is equilibrium (maximum entropy). The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, so the entropy level required to reach equilibrium has always been geometrically increasing as well. This means that the universe is not in a state of equilibrium, as the existence of stars and planets clearly demonstrate. A system that is not in equilibrium will have areas of both high and low entropy. We happen to be fortunate enough to exist in one of those low entropy areas, even if the energy required to sustain it will eventually dissipate.
”If the universe is in a state of entropy then where does the energy come from that would make inanimate objects come to life?”
The only difference between inanimate and living objects is the ability to grow and replicate. This does not take any special ‘energy’ to happen, as we can point to single celled organisms that are not much more complex than the inanimate glucose molecules. You can still make the argument that existence in general requires some sort of violation of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy, your ‘zero sum’ argument), but that question only relevant for the origins of the universe because the origin of life assumes prior existence of the universe.
”All Darwinian theory presumes that matter can and did invent itself in the first place and that takes far too much faith for me to believe.”
Evolution only stipulates that replicating life forms exist, it does not matter how that life was created. Acceptance of Evolution as a scientific fact says nothing about your views on the origins of life or of the universe. These are three distinct questions that need to be handled independently of each other.
” Yet human beings, equipped with a consciousness are many times more complex than a desk. None the less, evolutionists claim that we randomly mutated. This is far more egregious than to suggest that a desk could form 'by accident' as it were”
This is where it is necessary to think in evolutionary time scales. Life has had billions of years with which to evolve from simple forms to more complex ones. In addition to this vast amount of time, life has the power of natural selection to guide its development. Do not confuse the term random mutation with chance. Yes, each individual mutation is chance-based, but the effect of natural selection means that only those mutations that are beneficial will survive. When comparing a desk to a human being, it is very natural to recognize the difference in complexity between the two. The probability of either coming into existence by sheer random chance is most likely so small that it will never happen in the entire lifespan of the universe. Luckily for us though, human beings were not created by chance. Evolution takes the problem of complexity and spreads it out over a series of much simpler changes. Human beings are the result of an uncountable number of very small and only slightly improbable changes made over an enormous amount of time. An inanimate object like a desk has no means to randomly mutate nor is it shaped by natural selection, so it either has to come into existence all at once or not at all.
” Evolution to me is like a tornado that passes over a junk yard and spits out a 747 with passengers and all. The supposed gradual nature of evolution does not make this an incomparable analogy in my book because time is relative.”
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the ‘time is relative’ comment, unless you were suggesting that we let the tornado run for billions of years to give it as much time as Evolution has had. The tornado is a completely unguided process that would have to essentially assemble the 747 through random chance. This is completely different than evolution for the reasons I mentioned above. Natural selection gives life the checks and balances it needs to make sure that each individual step is moving in a direction that is beneficial to the species. If we slightly altered your scenario to only allow the assembly 747-compatible combinations of junkyard - meaning that the tornado can randomly stick anything it wants together, but only those combinations that actually useful stay put – then it is not entirely unreasonable to see how your tornado, aided by this external governor and an enormous amount of time, could produce a fully functional 747. I am not suggesting that life evolved with humans in mind (evolution is purposeless by definition), but rather that beneficial changes tended to persist from one generation to the next. Natural selection is the special sauce that gives Evolution such amazing explanatory power, not random mutation.
I went into more detail than I had originally intended, so I’ll end up repeating myself a bit in the formal post. Hope that helps clarify my position though, and I’m sorry if I didn’t satisfactorily substantiate my thoughts here. I was trying to keep the content high level and relatively short.
I'm a bit disappointed in Edgar's response. He shows a distinct lack of understanding of the subject matter, and when Brian informs his viewpoint a bit, he doesn't bother responding.
And for the record "begs the question" does not mean "requires the question to be asked"! It is a formal way of addressing a specific logical fallacy in which the logician posits a conclusion that affirms a premise without full rational rigor or syllogistic completeness.
For example:
Drugs are bad because everyone knows that they are really bad.
A snippet of our conversation...
(Edgar)”[in response to evolutionary origins] This begs the question 'how did these microbes get there?'…Then, going back further you could ask how did the energy that 'Big Banged' come to exist. Finally, and you really can't go back any further than this, you could simply ask how did the first morsel of existence come to exist?”
(Brian) "This is a very natural series of questions to ask, and it is important to understand how far our current scientific understanding can take us. Science has never and probably will never have an answer for every question that can be asked."
I applaud your honesty in this regard and your attempt to dive into this series of logical questions is enthusiastic.
I think it is important to note that you prefaced your answer with this disclaimer of sorts, because to answer such questions any other way would be intellectually dishonest in my opinion.
Really I think we disagree on one main point. I feel that the theory of evolution starts at a convenient point for those that choose to believe in evolution. The process of evolution of course cannot be observed or replicated. This fact really turns the theory into well, a theory.
Whether or not evolution is taking place is debatable but it does not help us in our solve the ever burning question of origin.
Debating evolution really doesn't prove that God did or did not create the universe and everything in it.
But I digress. The entire point of the Evolution debate is really moot if we can't agree on the origin of matter, energy, thought and existence.
The question is, where did the impetus of life and existence come from? This is important because a lot of atheists hold dear to their hearts, and core beliefs, the theory of evolution. For many atheists the theory of Evolution is effectively Science burying God in the scrap heap of myth and superstition.
Brian, you seem far too open minded and honest in your pursuit of truth to fall into that category of atheists that I alluded to above.
However, many atheists find comfort in their convictions by clinging faithfully in the theory of evolution and attach great significance and importance to it. In other words the theory of evolution is their "proof" that God does not exist and that science has finally elevated mankind to such heights that any well educated person can and probably should agree that God is likely a myth.
The real point though is the origin of existence and to that particular point you rightly point out that science indeed has its limits, much as Kant proclaimed the limitations of Pure Reason in his famous book the Critique of Pure Reason.
My assertion is that the theory of evolution does not support the premise that God does not exist (not that you were saying that in the first place)
I feel that unless we can agree on origin then debating evolution is pointless. We are trying to trace backward and for some evolution is a way to go "back to the beginning" and reason out some kind of profound truth about the origin of our existence, namely, were we created by God or can we actually trace back our existence, logically and rationally, to some sort of beginning as defined by science and deem it fact?
Of course we can't do that because as you said, science (and mankind) has its limitation.
So what does all this mean? It means to me that in the end Faith is required to believe that God created the universe or that God did not create the universe.
Either way our convictions lie in our faith. This is usually an uncomfortable point for atheists who generally but not always like to believe that they base their convictions on fact as prescribed by modern science, rather than on faith as say Christians do. Many atheists mock faith but they themselves can not do with out it.
We can do without a lot of words and get right to the point by addressing the question:
1. "Can something come from nothing?"
A better way to ask this is: "Can everything come from nothing?"
Words can be interpreted differently sometimes but luckily we can assign numerals to this question and ask it like this:
2. "does zero plus zero not equal zero?"
If there is nothingness then by definition nothing can come from it. For something to come from not nothing but anything, there needs to be an impetus, and if there is an impetus then there is NOT nothingness.
@Drew
"And for the record "begs the question" does not mean "requires the question to be asked"! It is a formal way of addressing a specific logical fallacy in which the logician posits a conclusion that affirms a premise without full rational rigor or syllogistic completeness."
Relax Vsloathe ok? You can close your handbook on informal logic that you purchased at Barnes and Noble and argue with me at Perks. Don't go spilling your Zima over my use of the phrase Begs the Question...
I applaud your honesty in this regard and your attempt to dive into this series of logical questions is enthusiastic.
Thank you for saying that. It is not always easy for me to be stem my natural urge to debate rather than discuss, so it is encouraging to hear that my efforts are meeting with some success. It is interesting though, that the quality you applaud is the very one that I felt was most responsible for me leaving the church and pushing me away from faith in the first place. When I finally took the time to think (truly think) about the concepts I had been exposed to all my life, the magic just disappeared. It seemed like the whole idea of god rested on my ability to suspend disbelief and accept “truths” that I would otherwise dismiss as laughable. I thought I might have found a panacea in Atheism, but that same intellectual honesty kept producing questions that I cannot currently answer within that worldview. I am currently stuck between two mutually exclusive ideologies and the lack of objective information from either side is a bit frustrating. It also makes honest discussions a bit tougher, simply due to the fact that both sides are pretty dug in at this point, and both are used to being mocked or scorned by the other. That is hardly the ideal place to start civil discourse, but it is an escapable fact that we all need to acknowledge.
I think it is important to note that you prefaced your answer with this disclaimer of sorts, because to answer such questions any other way would be intellectually dishonest in my opinion.
That is a two way street though, and I think that believers are some of the worst offenders here. Non-believers are generally much more comfortable with uncertainty, because their belief structure is not rooted in something infinite and unchanging. Of course, this makes it difficult for them to embrace anything - a sort of paralysis by analysis, if you will. The reason why non-believers tend to gravitate toward science is because it is, by far, the single most successful attempt by humanity to try and explain the world around us. While science is not perfect by any means, it has earned the right to be seriously considered. Intellectually honest believers must reconcile science with their beliefs because their beliefs and scriptures make claims about the natural world. The Bible is rife with examples of this, but all religions have some sort of connection to the natural world, even if that connection is just a tenuous mental perception. The point of conflict comes when faith and science cannot be made to – or is too difficult to - easily work together. It is in these situations that believers blindly abandon of science in favor of the blind acceptance of dogma. That does not make them necessarily wrong, but they have jettisoned any anchors to reality and are essentially guessing. That might be fine for some, but it is not how my brain works, and it is not how I am approaching my personal decisions.
From an objective perspective, scientific knowledge is an exceptionally reliable source. There are certainly areas of study that are more established than others, but science tends to progress at a very steady rate toward truth. The shortcoming of science is not in its accuracy (Evolution is a perfect example of this), but in the potential reach and timeliness of findings. When I say that science will probably not be able to answer questions, I am more acknowledging the limitations of the human perspective. Regardless of whether the natural world is all there is or not, we will always be on the inside looking out. Our inability to transcend this perspective will always temper the certainty of our claims. In the end, I feel the typical tone of this conversation in our culture would be greatly improved if everyone just admitted that we can only speak about these things in terms of probability. If we dropped the false pretense of certainty, it would become easier to consider different perspectives.
Really I think we disagree on one main point. I feel that the theory of evolution starts at a convenient point for those that choose to believe in evolution.
I am not entirely sure what context you are using convenient in. Scientific pursuits typically try to explain things in terms of the simplest answer, regardless of whether or not it is convenient or not. A scientist can choose to reject certain answers – and this is entirely appropriate if it is a new hypothesis – but they can only do so while the evidence is weak. As evidence mounts and the model stands up to more and more scrutiny though, it becomes much harder to deny. Evolution is one of these examples, and although you are completely free to deny reality, it does cast a shadow on your other points. I only have your words to go on, but if you deny evolution – a concept that is an absolutely demonstrable fact – then how can I not be suspicious of your thoughts on subjects with far less certainty? This is why intellectual honesty is so crucial. Objectivity keeps us focused on the truth, not focused on confirming what it is we already believe.
The process of evolution of course cannot be observed or replicated.
When I read that statement, it occurred to me that we might be dealing with just a lack of awareness on your part with regards to the details of evolution. Evolution can be observed, manipulated, and used to predict the future of species (especially based on the effects of environmental change). Although he is not an unbiased source by any stretch of the imagination, Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene does a really great job of explaining evolution in terms that we all can understand. If you are interested in reading about how a Christian with a powerful mind for science can reconcile this, I would recommend reading Francis Collins’ (head of human genome project) book The Language of God. If you consider everything with an open mind, I am confident that you’ll see that evolution is both real and periphal to this discussion. Evolution tells us is that the complexity of life is explainable via natural means, but it is a far cry from disproving or ‘burying’ god.
This fact really turns the theory into well, a theory.
I have already explained the difference between the common usage of the word theory and the scientific one, so I’ll assume you were just being playful here. Forgive me for pointing it out again, but I don’t want either one of us to be able to hide behind semantics.
But I digress. The entire point of the Evolution debate is really moot if we can't agree on the origin of matter, energy, thought and existence.
I agree that it doesn’t answer our larger question, but it is a necessary gate to pass through on our way. The more recent an event, the more likely we are to find evidence to help explain it. If we are looking for signs of god in creation, uncovering an explanation for the diversity of life – something we can easily study, at least compared to the creation of the universe – is a reasonable place to start. I do agree that since we already know that life was perpetuated through the purely natural process of evolution, the next logical place to look is toward the origin of life itself. This approach can only take us so far though, due to the fact that the god hypothesis is not falsifiable. If we don’t find god, the best we can ever say is that we looked everywhere we could think of and never found him. This is not conclusive by any means, but it is most likely the best we will ever have. My personal journey is to understand enough of these examples to see if anything ‘points’ toward one conclusion or another. Evolution ‘points’ toward naturalism because it is a self-sustaining system that can be fully explained in natural terms (i.e. we do not need to look to god for an answer). The origin of the universe ‘points’ toward theism because our understanding is so poor at the moment that we only have a set of implausible hypotheses, one of which is the god hypothesis. Keep in mind though that those god pointers only exist in the presence of ignorance – the god of the gaps fallacy. Every time we have actually managed to discover how something works in our universe, it has always had a natural explanation. Keep that in mind if you are ever tempted to dismiss a well established scientific fact without fully researching it first. Please don’t take this as a personal judgment of you, as I have no idea who you are. I can only judge you based off of what you write, and if that has given me a false impression of you or your knowledge, I would appreciate you taking the time to correct me.
However, many atheists find comfort in their convictions by clinging faithfully in the theory of evolution and attach great significance and importance to it. In other words the theory of evolution is their "proof" that God does not exist and that science has finally elevated mankind to such heights that any well educated person can and probably should agree that God is likely a myth.
I think you are both over-simplifying and not fully understanding what the typical atheist believes.
First off, there are very few atheists out there with the honest belief that they can ‘disprove’ god. Even, Richard Dawkins, arguably the most outspoken and polemic atheists around, only goes so far as to say that “god almost certainly does not exist”. It would be the easiest thing in the world for him to simply say “god does not exist”, but he cannot do this and remain true to his worldview. Do not fall into the same trap that atheists are prone to by underestimating the intelligence or thoroughness of those who disagree with you. Well intentioned and honest people deserve to have their ideas considered on the merits of their arguments, not prejudged based off of stereotypes.
Secondly, while Evolution is a tremendous achievement for both science and humanity, I think you overestimate the degree to which the typical atheist relies on it to drive their beliefs. The fact that we can now say with certainty that all life arose via natural causes is certainly a feather in the atheist cap, but it is hardly foundational. Atheists are just people who are not comfortable embracing something that is impossible to prove. They hold the view that we should all default to a state of non-belief until given a compelling reason to change. If the search for god were likened to being lost in the woods at night, the atheist would stay in the same place because they know that it would be almost impossible to find their way in the dark. Believers choose a direction that they feel is right, and then proceed in a straight line until they either walk off a cliff or get lucky and find their way out. If you know anything about hiking (I do not, and I still know this) you know that you should always wait until morning so that you can objectively consider your surroundings and take the best possible action. Now we can abuse this metaphor further by pointing out that god can direct people in the dark etc. etc., but I am not trying to evaluate either philosophy here, just point out the differences. There really isn’t much more magic to atheism than that, and the stereotypical Christian depiction of a secret cabal of hooded intellectuals getting together to mindlessly chant the name of Darwin seems a little demeaning to everyone involved.
The real point though is the origin of existence and to that particular point you rightly point out that science indeed has its limits, much as Kant proclaimed the limitations of Pure Reason in his famous book the Critique of Pure Reason.
I have not read the Critique of Pure Reason, but I think the limitations of reason are obvious. The human brain is a patchwork mess of systems that came together to solve much more pedestrian problems than the one we are discussing now. Anyone claiming that the evolution of the human brain has reached the point of infallibility should be dismissed out of hand. This does work both ways though, as Theists are just as capable of self-delusion as Atheists. In the end, we all need to vigilantly guard our own thought processes as well as those we interact with. It is only through this continual self-checking that we stand any chance of overcoming the inherent handicaps of both our physiology and station in the universe.
My assertion is that the theory of evolution does not support the premise that God does not exist (not that you were saying that in the first place)
Support or prove? To say that evolution does not disprove god is obvious, but to say it does not add support Atheism in any way smells a little like willful ignorance. The Atheist case depends on there being natural explanations for everything around us. Even though you cannot disprove god, you can continue to decrease the areas in which god can play a role. Imagine if we had proven natural answers for the origins of the universe, the origins of life, consciousness, and all other ‘big questions’. If we can explain all of this via natural means, wouldn’t that weaken the Theist case considerably? Atheists rightly consider the discovery of Evolution as a victory for their cause, because it closed one of the ‘big questions’ and consequently shrunk the domain of god just a bit.
I feel that unless we can agree on origin then debating evolution is pointless.
Yes, but the only reason it is pointless is because Evolution is just a fact, like gravity or magnetism. I imagine a debate about whether you have faith in gravity would be quite boring (in addition to being short). Since we know that god did not manifest human beings from dust and a rib-bone, we can move on and look for the next logical question.
We are trying to trace backward and for some evolution is a way to go "back to the beginning" and reason out some kind of profound truth about the origin of our existence…
Yes
Of course we can't do that because as you said, science (and mankind) has its limitation.
I said it has limitations, I never speculated as to what those limitations are. I have no idea if this is beyond science or not. It certainly is beyond us currently, but I’m sure landing on the moon seemed implausible two thousand years ago, so who knows what we’ll eventually be capable of?
So what does all this mean? It means to me that in the end Faith is required to believe that God created the universe or that God did not create the universe.
Oh Edgar, and you were doing so well! ;-) You are painting Atheists with an awfully large brush there, and I am not sure you would appreciate me doing that to believers. What if I pointed to an abortion clinic bomber and used their actions as the template to judge all Christians? There are militant Atheists out there who embarrass their comrades in similar ways, and you should not judge them all as a single massive whole. Most intellectually honest atheists are of the weak variety, meaning they are basically Agnostics who reached a tipping point in their beliefs. They would never say that ‘god does not exist’ because it takes faith to assert that which you cannot prove. Instead, they would say that they have looked into the matter enough to be convinced that if god exists, he does not want them to find him. If god does not want to be found, then why should we try and guess at how he wants us to live our lives? The Atheist would say that we shouldn’t while the Theist says that god revealed himself to them personally. Either may be correct, but the inaction of the atheist can hardly be called faith. Atheism is a non-belief. If it were not for the ubiquity of religion throughout history, it would probably not exist as a label at all. Saying that ‘god probably does not exist’ does not take faith, because faith does not permit such uncertainty.
Many atheists mock faith but they themselves can not do with out it.
Well, pop-psychology notwithstanding, you are correct that Atheists look down on faith-based decisions much like the highly rational person might look down on someone who is driven by emotions. They do not see them as inferior per se, but they cannot comprehend how they can make it through each day without breaking down and going crazy. I have the tendency to cast these kinds of ignorant judgments, and I had to learn the hard way that rational thought can only take you so far. For better or worse, the human brain uses both, and if we marginalize one in favor of another, we will always be missing some critical component.
1. "Can something come from nothing?"
If there is nothingness then by definition nothing can come from it. For something to come from not nothing but anything, there needs to be an impetus, and if there is an impetus then there is NOT nothingness.
That is a great question, indeed. Since this post already feels like a novel, I’ll hold off jumping into this new topic until my next post.
@Drew
Relax Vsloathe ok? You can close your handbook on informal logic that you purchased at Barnes and Noble and argue with me at Perks. Don't go spilling your Zima over my use of the phrase Begs the Question...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant! Drew is a good friend of mine and I probably would have responded in a similar way. Don’t go spilling your Zima…just brilliant…
Brian, I'm kind of pressed for time but I just wanted to respond to a few statements you made. There's so much here that for the moment I must limit myself to just a couple of random thoughts. I wish I had more time today to dig into this discussion but...
"I am currently stuck between two mutually exclusive ideologies and the lack of objective information from either side is a bit frustrating."
I totally understand. That same feeling is probably what lead Kant to write "The Critique of Pure Reason." I believe that it is true that we can only reason so far and no more. I do believe that the threshold of reason is actually set higher than most people imagine, but still there are limits. I think we are exploring those outer limits in this discussion.
"When I finally took the time to think (truly think) about the concepts I had been exposed to all my life, the magic just disappeared."
Well said. This is a lot like learning to play your favorite song on the guitar or piano. You get closer to it but somehow the magic disappears. The mystery disappears and with it the magic. None the less, we know the song better.
"Non-believers are generally much more comfortable with uncertainty, because their belief structure is not rooted in something infinite and unchanging."
Well I think its in the nature of belief itself. One can only believe when one has overcome uncertainty. And one can not believe if one is uncertain. However, regarding God, I believe that either way it comes down to faith as there are limits to our ability to reason.
"The point of conflict comes when faith and science cannot be made to – or is too difficult to - easily work together. It is in these situations that believers blindly abandon of science in favor of the blind acceptance of dogma"
That is only true for certain kinds of believers. For example, it does not hold entirely true for someone that has come to be a believe later in life, after having been a smart skeptic or devout non believer for some time. There are many types of believers.
"If we dropped the false pretense of certainty, it would become easier to consider different perspectives."
Agreed!
"If you are interested in reading about how a Christian with a powerful mind for science can reconcile this, I would recommend reading Francis Collins’ (head of human genome project) book The Language of God"
Sounds fantastically interesting! WOuld love to give it a read. However, at this time I do not believe as strongly in evolution as you do.
"Evolution tells us is that the complexity of life is explainable via natural means, but it is a far cry from disproving or ‘burying’ god"
Is your belief in evolution a large part of your inability or unwillingness to accept the existence of God? If not then why?
"Every time we have actually managed to discover how something works in our universe, it has always had a natural explanation."
The way matter interacts with other matter, or the way energy interacts with matter can be observed and explored through science. But when one seeks the truth about intelligent design then one seeks the truth about creation and by extension the Creator. The way things work are explained 'naturally' but that doesn't really shed light on who or what is responsible for the design.
"Atheists rightly consider the discovery of Evolution as a victory for their cause, because it closed one of the ‘big questions’ and consequently shrunk the domain of god just a bit."
If as you mentioned earlier that evolution "is a far cry from disproving or ‘burying’ god" then it is also a far cry from being a feather in the Atheists cap. Therefore when I say that evolution does not support the non existence of God I actually do mean support, much less prove.
Brian, I really wanted to respond to the rest of your comment but unfortunately I have run out of time! I must go now but I look forward to responding to the rest of this particular comment perhaps later this evening.
Hi Brian, I'm will now finish sharing my thoughts on your comment.
(edgar)"So what does all this mean? It means to me that in the end Faith is required to believe that God created the universe or that God did not create the universe.
(brian)Oh Edgar, and you were doing so well! ;-) You are painting Atheists with an awfully large brush there, and I am not sure you would appreciate me doing that to believers.
I said nothing about Atheists!? I said nothing about believers. I painted nobody at all and implied nothing specifically toward anyone at all. What exactly did I say (above quote) anything about atheists? You read too much into it.
Brian, I could have said the same (brushes and painting) when you remarked;
1. "The point of conflict comes when faith and science cannot be made to – or is too difficult to - easily work together. It is in these situations that believers blindly abandon of science in favor of the blind acceptance of dogma."
2. "That is a two way street though, and I think that believers are some of the worst offenders here"
3. "Atheists are just people who are not comfortable embracing something that is impossible to prove."
And I could find a number of other instances where you could be accused of 'painting with brushes' so to speak.
"What if I pointed to an abortion clinic bomber and used their actions as the template to judge all Christians? There are militant Atheists out there who embarrass their comrades in similar ways, and you should not judge them all as a single massive whole."
I pointed to no militant atheists. I in fact implied or said nothing about anyone. I merely remarked on faith. Perhaps a second look at what I said will make that clear.
I'm not going to go there as this is about the only intelligent conversation I can have:) The tone is right for both of us. I will add to that that you were right when you warned not to underestimate those who you disagree with.
Now back to the real discussion...
"Saying that ‘god probably does not exist’ does not take faith, because faith does not permit such uncertainty"
Faith absolutely permits uncertainty. For if uncertainty didn't exist then faith would not be necessary.
Simple and stupid example:
Every day get up and work, save our money and plan for tomorrow. But alas, tomorrow may not exist for us. No one is certain that they will walk and talk and be alive tomorrow, yet by faith we continue to move on with our lives. We have faith that we will live to a ripe old age (hopefully!) though it is certainly not certain.
Faith permits uncertainty. Faith can not exist without uncertainty.
(edgar)1. "Can something come from nothing?"
If there is nothingness then by definition nothing can come from it. For something to come from not nothing but anything, there needs to be an impetus, and if there is an impetus then there is NOT nothingness.
(Brian) "That is a great question, indeed. Since this post already feels like a novel, I’ll hold off jumping into this new topic until my next post."
That really is the only question that needs to be reckoned with.
At the end of the day one must either believe that something came from nothing, or that God is eternal and one believes in God. It really is that simple. Not easy, but simple.
@laughs...
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant! Drew is a good friend of mine and I probably would have responded in a similar way. Don’t go spilling your Zima…just brilliant…"
Well, Drew and I have had our say at perkisets blog but the tone is very, how shall I say, unattractive! lol.
Brian, instead of leaving you with the time consuming task of responding to all of my points can I just make clear which points I would value your input on the most?
1. If you are stuck between Theism and Atheism, really stuck despite all of your honest (I do believe you are honest in your pursuit of truth) efforts, can you tell me the main reason that you don't 'not believe in god' unequivocally?
2. Why do you believe evolution is a fact?
3. What is the main piece of information that you lack that would solidify your non believer stance?
Thanks Brian
Brian,
one more question:
Until a short while ago you believed in God but were not sure "who Jesus was" (from you and your fathers conversation).
Why did you believe in God? Not as a child mind you, but as late as last year?
I look forward to continuing this discussion.
I said nothing about Atheists!? I said nothing about believers. I painted nobody at all and implied nothing specifically toward anyone at all. What exactly did I say (above quote) anything about atheists? You read too much into it.
Fair enough, I am not interested in trying to tie off every point, and I have absolutely no desire to engage in one-upmanship with regards to who harbors the worst stereotypes about various philosophical viewpoints. It is both irrelevant and counter-productive. I tend to respond to the overall feel of a comment rather than each isolated point. It is not my intention to lay traps or try to ‘win’ a semantic argument; it just isn’t worth the effort. If I imply more than you wrote, it is just me trying to elevate the conversation and avoid the dragging effect of overanalyzing every detail. I did re-read your comment as requested and I still feel that I wasn’t stepping too far out of line, but I’ll take you at your word. Since we do not know each other personally, it isn’t too hard to believe that we’ll both misread the other from time to time. Either way, I apologize for any negative implications and hope you know that it was not my goal to insult.
Brian, I could have said the same (brushes and painting) when you remarked…
If you are looking for the typical internet discussion – with the trolls and monkeys throwing feces at each other – you probably want to look somewhere else. You have not given me this impression, and I just don’t have it in me to take that kind of dialog seriously. With that said, I would also like to point out that my potential shortcomings in this area (as you cataloged nicely) have no necessary bearing on your own. It may be an effective tactic to respond to a slight by shining a massive spotlight on your opponent’s weaknesses, but this is only a diversion and it does nothing to help you grow as a critical thinker. Without harping on the subject any more, I would encourage you to not totally dismiss my comments. I may be totally off-base, but it never hurts to do a little self-checking every once in a while. You certainly gave me food for thought on my own biases, and like most things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Faith absolutely permits uncertainty. For if uncertainty didn't exist then faith would not be necessary. ..
Every day get up and work, save our money and plan for tomorrow. But alas, tomorrow may not exist for us. No one is certain…yet by faith we continue to move on with our lives. We have faith that we will live to a ripe old…
I suspect this is just a difference in semantics. Specifically, this is an example of you using the word faith when the word belief is probably more appropriate. Since I probably can’t say it better than I already have, I’ll quote my own blog (which is posted as The Dangers of Flawed Arguments ):
…Let me start off by saying that the words belief and faith are NOT interchangeable. Belief is the rather benign act of formulating conclusions based on the available information. These conclusions range from the grand (the theory of relativity) to the mundane (which route to take home from work?). The human brain is continually creating and modifying beliefs to suit the stream of information flowing into it. Since we can never know everything at all times, we are forced to make temporary conclusions based off of what seems most likely. Faith, on the other hand, is explicitly defined as a "belief that is not based on proof" (dictionary.com). Faith is the conscious decision to formulate a conclusion despite the absence of evidence. Unlike traditional beliefs, faith-based beliefs are not subject to continual adjustments and modifications from new information. Since evidence was not required to establish the faith, evidence cannot dethrone it either. A skeptic, on the other hand, holds beliefs only as far as they are necessary to test and refine a viewpoint. These beliefs grow stronger and weaker as new evidence presents itself…
Faith-based beliefs are, by definition, not falsifiable. When talking about god, we can certainly think of ways to conclusively prove his existence - he could show up and start making it rain chocolate kittens or something – but there is absolutely no way to disprove it. For every piece of evidence that can be brought up against god, there are an infinite number of areas that the faithful can retreat to. Of all of these, the ultimate rebuttal is the ‘god can do whatever he wants’ argument, which is the Christian equivalent of the Alamo; a last refuge to run to when all other rational tactics fail. It is precisely because faith does not allow uncertainty that believers find all sorts of ways to explain away objections. If you personally have faith in the existence of god, you will have to work twice as hard as the skeptic to keep your arguments intellectually honest. A skeptic only has to fight their own weaknesses, while you have to fight both yourself and the massive inertia that accompanies your faith.
Is there anything you can think of that would convince you that god does not exist? If the answer is ‘no’, I would challenge you to objectively consider how that impacts your ability to really seek the truth (or recognize it if you think you’ve found it). If your answer is ‘yes’, I would accuse you of being inconsistent in your belief structure. If god is all powerful after all, then you always have to leave the possibility open that he is pulling the wool over your eyes – using his omnipotence to deceive you. In the end, your faith strips away even the pretense of objectivity, leaving you no choice but to defend one side of an argument while never being able to consider the other.
Brian, instead of leaving you with the time consuming task of responding to all of my points can I just make clear which points I would value your input on the most?
I like this approach. No need to dive into rat-holes that do not really advance the conversation.
1. If you are stuck between Theism and Atheism, really stuck despite all of your honest (I do believe you are honest in your pursuit of truth) efforts, can you tell me the main reason that you don't 'not believe in god' unequivocally?
I think I have an aversion to faith of all kinds, including the kind of faith it takes to deny the existence of something I cannot understand. In all honesty, I do not see a whole lot of difference between the belief structure of strong atheists and strong theists. Both groups make claims that appear to be well beyond our ability to truly understand, so both end up resorting to grade-school name calling when pitted against each other. As I said earlier, if everyone dropped the pretense of certainty, we could sift through the trash and compare the nuggets of wisdom that lie at the bottom of both philosophies. At this point in time though, I would be embarrassed to attach either label to myself. I do not want to be associated with the rhetoric, lies, and drama that both groups are guilty of at the moment. I guess I am more comfortable carving out my own little niche for the moment.
2. Why do you believe evolution is a fact?
Probably for the same reasons that (I assume) you believe that gravity or magnetism is a fact. I am not a scientist and I have no formal training in these matters, so I can only do my best to take the sources available to me and draw a conclusion that makes sense. In the case of evolution, the evidence is overwhelming. Not only was the evidence overwhelming 50 years ago, but the amazing strides in genetics show exactly what you would expect if all life on earth evolved gradually from a common ancestor. The DNA evidence alone would be enough to lock up any debate, but we have so much more evidence than that. Given that evolution is a fact, I can only conclude that those who deny it are either misinformed (willfully or otherwise) or have an agenda. I don’t think that you have an agenda, but I question how thoroughly you’ve researched this.
Not to flip the question around, but since only a tiny fraction of scientists deny evolution, how can you justify your rejection? Keep in mind that these are subject matter experts giving their expert analysis on a subject they know a lot about, so simply saying that you don’t agree is not really good enough in my opinion. They have mountains of evidence that they use to draw their own conclusions, and although I have only skimmed along the surface to glean the big concepts, the case is compelling. Unlike the existence of god, which is something we can debate about philosophically, evolution is a hard science that has very strict standards for truth. If you are going to stand in the face of these facts and still deny the truth, I would argue that you need to have some really compelling reasons to do so.
3. What is the main piece of information that you lack that would solidify your non believer stance?
By non-believer, do you mean atheist or simply non-Christian? I call myself an agnostic at the moment, which would certainly be non-Christian, but I think what you really want to know is what it would take to convince me one way or the other. (correct me if I am wrong here)
That is an excellent question, and I have to be honest here and say that I haven’t thought a lot about it. Up until this point, I have approached this whole question from the perspective of someone who is walking away from the teachings of their childhood. I’ve engaged believers and crafted a counter-argument to balance the conversations. This counter-argument isn’t necessarily what I believe – I can find holes in my own arguments – but every believer I have met has either blind faith, or is forced to dance awkwardly between reason and superstition. Most atheists I have been exposed to seem too quick to reject anything supernatural, and use similarly blind arguments to reason it away. The more reasonable a thinker you are, the more your arguments sound like that of an agnostic. You can see the merits of both sides, you can see how both fail to conclusively reveal the truth, and you are sick of the pompous blowhards on both sides.
To answer your question more directly, I would wholeheartedly embrace Atheism if I could find a reasonable explanation for the grip that supernaturalism has on our species. I am reasonably comfortable stating that no single religion has the answers – pushing the argument past the existence of god to one of the many potential revelations creates a whole new set of problems – but for me to say that they are not all drawing from some genuine truth is a bit presumptuous of me. As presumptuous, as say, claiming that god revealed himself to just me and those who share my beliefs. I would love to look at the billions of believers out there and write off their irrationality, but part of me cannot ignore the ubiquity and power of their beliefs. The god concept is either true or a perfectly engineered virus of the mind. You can argue either, but you cannot ignore the effectiveness of the belief / religion one-two punch.
Until a short while ago you believed in God but were not sure "who Jesus was" (from you and your fathers conversation).
Why did you believe in God? Not as a child mind you, but as late as last year?
That was a misunderstanding on his part. I might have had faith as a young child, but that died out before I hit my teen years. I played the part and certainly tried to maintain the appearances of belief, but it was never something I embraced. This note was one of the first times I was able to articulate this to my father.
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