You Don't Need Faith to Believe The Principle of Evolution

Rev. 1. Added link to Evolution 101 podcast.
This is a recent comment in one of the previous articles. It is a frequently offered claim that I want to take a moment to address as an article instead of a comment.
"....when one considers the amount of atheist faith required to believe the scientific theories regarding evolution in light of the absence of any eyewitness, the sort of Christian faith regarding inspired writings shouldn't be all that bizarre....."

People don't need faith to believe the principle of evolution. Scientists are doing experiments using it in labs and observing it in real time in nature. Heres a link to TalkOrigins.org to explore it a little further. Our friend Benny highly recommends this site.

When you have a principle about how something works, you don't need faith, just logic and reasoning to make the inference that allows you to make reliable predictions about the outcome.

For example, I am sure you don't need faith to know that if you leave the bag in your cereal box open the cereal will get stale do you? No, because you know, in principle, that leaving the bag open will facilitate its going stale. In the case where you have a friend make a bowl of cereal for you and you find that it is stale, you can reasonably presume, based on principle, that the bag was left open. Furthermore, you don't need to believe god made them go stale because you know there is a natural mechanism that causes it. And you don't need to be able to describe in detail how the mechanism works to understand it, you just need to know the principle. In this way you can happily go about knowing this principle and using it to make decisions about other things like applying it to your triscuits or a birthday cake. It also helps you to understand with little extra information why you may find a little package of dessicant in something that is vulnerable to damage from moisture and you may even go so far as to properly infer that it is vulnerable to damage from moisture without anyone telling you. In this way you acquire knowledge and build on it to make decisions and acquire more knowledge. As you make inferences you need to watch to see if your inferences are correct, if they are then you can repeat the process of using them to make decisions and acquire more knowledge.

In my view this is just common sense, and basically, the scientific method is just common sense formalized.

If you use common sense on the Bible and try to make predictions or gain knowledge using the principles about God in the bible, or about the state of the world back in the day, there is a lot of room for doubt. If you don't believe it, just ask any theologian.

Recommended Resources
* Evolution 101 podcast, or you can find it in iTunes.

Atheists Don't Believe in God Because They Think They Are So Smart They Don't Need Him?

This is to a addresses a Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim that Atheists don't believe in God because they think they are so smart they don't need him.

It may be true that some self-professed atheists equate intelligence with not believing in God, but I think a good argument can be made that this is a type of self delusion. The kind of un-belief that I experience is not something that I chose. It just happened. It happened as I started to question my beliefs instead of just taking them for granted. And as I gained more knowledge, especially about the Bible, my faith just went away. There was no choice about it. The thought of needing or not needing god never entered the equation. It was irrelevant.

In 1998 The Journal Nature reported that a larger portion of the National Academy of Sciences are unbelievers than believers. This correlates to what I experienced, and it infers that the more you know about the world, the less you believe in a God. But learning about the world is not the only thing that eroded my belief. Studying informal fallacies had a big part in it. It lead me into critical thinking, which led me into informal logic, which led me into the study of reasoning in general.

Learning how to determine the truth in a pragmatic way and applying that to my religious beliefs are what really eroded my belief. A love of truth. A desire to know the truth. A desire to know how to find the truth. A desire to make sense out of the world. A desire to be able to figure out when I am being lied to. A desire to protect myself from the wolves that Jesus said I had been thrown into the middle of. In order for a sheep to protect himself from a pack of wolves when everything happens in Gods time, he needs to be a little bit smarter than the wolves. And when I realized that I could increase my chances of a successful outcome by pre-planning and forethought, all that was left was just dumb luck and prayer. And we all know what they say about prayer, allow me to paraphrase "don't hold your breath".

While I can't speak for all atheists, the cause of my unbelief is not that I am so smart I don't need him, it is the fact that I did an honest search for the truth, and found it. To do that, I needed to find new information. Finding new information means getting smarter. I guess that sometimes when people get smarter, faith in a God just fades away.
My, my, hey, hey.

you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.

Should The Atheist Have to Prove There Is No God?

This is to addresses a Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim that since the Atheist claims there is no God, they should prove it.

Should the Christian be required to prove there are no Hindu Gods? Should anyone have to prove that something does not exist? Proving a negative is problematic. To prove something is not there or proving a negative requires iterating through all possibilities and ensuring that if it were possible to prove it, it could be proved. For a closed system or a system where the parameters are well defined it would theoretically be possible, but not practical. For an open system or a system with parameters not defined, it should be impossible. In Informal Logic this is called an Argument from Ignorance.

Typically when someone is expected to prove something they are expected to prove a positive. Plaintiffs are expected to make a case and prove it in court. Citizens are usually considered innocent until proven guilty. Cases where citizens have been considered guilty and required to prove their innocence haven't turned out very well. The Salem Witch trials, McCarthyism and political mud-slinging are all examples of the problems with having to prove a negative.

So now how does one go about proving that God doesn't exist or that anything doesn't exist? One way to do it is to turn it around, inventory what you know and come up with some expectations and test for them. Find something that makes some positive claims and test them. In the case of God, the Bible makes many testable positive claims. Some of them have been verified and some of them have not. Some of them suggest something completely different and weaken those testable claims. Christians make a lot of claims about their experience. As these claims are iterated through, we can get a better idea of what is valid or not. As we go through this process, we gain knowledge and come to a point where we can come to a reasonably sound conclusion.

To assert that someone should prove a negative is to place an extraordinarily high burden on them and history has shown that the process does not have a high rate of success. This is one reason why it is not generally considered a reasonable demand to be placed on anyone. Since, if a thing exists, there should be evidence of its existence, it should be easier to find the evidence of its existence than the evidence of somethings lack of existence.

Since the Christian God is one of many throughout the ages, the default position should be neither for or against and the party making the positive claim should handle the burden of proof. In fact, Jesus reportedly did not tell his disciples to be convinced, he told them go convince (Matt. 28:16-20).

Does The Atheist Want God To Do Tricks?

This is Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim. It seems to stem from the Atheist requirement for less subjective evidence of God.

Atheists have a more empirical criterion than Christians do. Generally an Atheist will not settle for any testimonial or subjective evidence while a Christian will. Since Atheists are not likely to accept anecdotal or subjective evidence for God, they prefer the kind of evidence that results from something like but not limited to a scientific style inquiry.

When faced with a conclusion that does not seem to follow from the evidence, isn't it normal to want more evidence which better supports the conclusion? Law, Law Enforcement, Medicine and Science are only a few fields that depend on having a conclusion as qualified as possible, as certain as possible. Arresting a person, sentencing a person to prison, performing surgery and showing results from scientific grants are actions that depend on a conclusion based on sound evidence. It just won't do to settle for "maybe". Since the prospect of a God has the potential to influence every part of our existence it follows that we should as sure as possible that God exists.

So if the Atheist is not convinced by the evidence presented, it should be expected that the Atheist would want more evidence. This evidence could be as dramatic as imaginable or it could be as subtle as something personal. If God is everything he is supposed to be he knows what it would take to convince us. If God wants a relationship with us, then he should be as present as necessary to create it and sustain it. Christians claim that he does and that Atheists refuse it. But I think a strong argument can be made that an all powerful being could, with a minimal amount of effort, be undeniable if it wanted to be.

What are our expectations for relationships with our friends, family, spouses, business acquaintances or strangers? What does it take to sustain those relationships? Most of the time, its not tricks, just a little understandable feedback.

Christians Are Not Stupid or Irrational.

This is to address a Frequently Asked Question/Frequenty Offered Claim that Atheists think that Christians are stupid and/or irrational. This is easily shown to be false, at least for the members of DC. There are plenty of demonstrably intelligent Christians, some of them frequent this blog. But how does this perception persist?

It seems to stem from a misunderstanding. Several factors come into play but the most significant factor is the evidence for God. Atheists have a more empirical criterion than Christians do. Generally an Atheist will not settle for any testimonial or subjective evidence while a Christian will. When every Christian argument depends on the existence of God and the premise is disputed for lack of credible evidence by the Atheist, this creates a significant impediment to the resolution of the disagreement. Rationality depends on a conclusion based on reason. A rational argument depends on taking evidence into account. If the evidence is in question, though both sides are arguing rationally, this situation can understandably be frustrating for both sides in the debate and can, in a worst case, degrade into personal attacks (aka an "Ad Hominem").

Another type of exchange occurs when the Atheist analyzes Christian arguments using principles of "critical thinking" and may be perceived to have or may actually have a condescending tone. The act of argument analysis and criticism can in itself be perceived as condescending. On the other hand, I have seen situations where a Christian will initiate the charge against an atheist. The Christian will assert "The fool says in his heart yada, yada, yada...", and then allege that “Atheists think that Christians are stupid, when in reality the Atheist is the fool” and justify the charge of foolishness using scripture.