A Openly Dishonest Creationist

This post will be geared towards an openly dishonest creationist.

And no, it's not that 'God-is-for-sale' pseudoscience charlatan Ray Comfort. Instead, its one of the many Internet creationists named Doug. Doug decided to embarrass himself on a galactic scale by constructing a poorly written laughable blog post addressed to a fellow Ray Comfort critic, Jaclyn Glenn.

Some people may wonder why I bothered to make a blog post about this. I will make it clear now, I am not rushing to Jaclyn's defense, because in all honesty she doesn't need any. Every point she made in her video response was accurate and well spoken. She is a smart, charming woman capable of handling herself – and her creationist criticism is just as feeble as trying to dent steel armor with a feather.

The sole reason why I am bothering to right this blog is because Doug willingly and honestly exposed the creationist mindset: proud outspoken dishonesty and closed mindedness.

I will provide the whole quotes for context, but highlight in bold italics the parts I want my readers to focus on.

“Hey Jackie, just because you feel you can write your own definitions for 'atheist' and 'agnostic' doesn't mean they are write. It's people like yourself that have ruined the language. Stick with what you know. And when you figure out what that subject truly is – don't tell me, because I won't believe you anyway.”

We creationists (oh, did I forget to mention? Yeah, believer in God here) understand what you Evolutionist are saying. We just don't believe it. And about your snarky comebacks about how we should maybe read a book or something before we form an opinion? Yeah, done that many times. In fact I read books every day. I am honest enough that I don't form an opinion about something unless I find out more about it. I've studied biology a lot, perhaps more than you and a lot of people. It's not my primary field of study and it's not a field I work in today. And in fact, a lot of biology holds fast without having to believe in evolution. But the fact is – I don't believe in evolution even when presented by the 'facts' presented.

We can't show you God, yet you still deny him. You're willing to have faith in your silly little evolution but not in something – someone, actually – for which there is more proof.

This is creationism in a nutshell: show them as much evidence as you like, they might even understand what you are proving, it just doesn't matter. Because they have already predetermined to ignore all the facts and evidence presented to them. This is not reasonable or sane, it is intellectual suicide and willful ignorance.

In the words Thomas Paine, “To argue with a person who has renounced his reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

With that being made clear – Doug won't accept any evidence presented to him – it may be pointless to attempt to provide facts to someone who has decided ahead of time to reject truth and reason. However, just as my blogs about Ray Comfort are not meant to change Ray's mind (just his audience) I dedicate this blog to expose the lies and help anyone out there that has been misguided by creationist lies and their anti-science propaganda.

“Point 1.

Hey Jackie, just because you feel you can write your own definitions for 'atheist' and 'agnostic' doesn't mean they are write. It's people like yourself that have ruined the language. Stick with what you know. And when you figure out what that subject truly is – don't tell me, because I won't believe you anyway.”

“don't tell me, because I won't believe you anyway” I already addressed the dishonesty of this piece. Even if I told Doug the correct definitions of both “write” and “right”, his denial will not alter reality.

Frankly the ones that feel like they can make up what words mean are the creationists. The examples are countless. Ray Comfort thinks that he gets to dictate what evolution means and predicts, to the point he has made and spreads the lie that evolution does not include “adaptation” and “speciation.”

Ray Comfort even tried to redefine “animal” so snails, slugs and invertebrates no longer count as animals. Im not kidding.

Kent Hovind tried to redefine evolution entirely by lying that the theory of evolution includes “chemical evolution” and “cosmic evolution.” Creationists keep their words vague, like “kind” and “information” – creationists are so dishonest they keep their definitions as fluid as an alcoholics breakfast, because words only mean whatever they need to mean at any given time to advance their dishonest argumentation.

I'm going to ignore Doug's “Point 2” because it is worthless, and kinda creepy.

“Point 3.

I like your standard comments about 'just because we can't observe evolution'.. and the attempt to state that collective memory fades over time... but if Evolution were actual, wouldn't there still be transitional species in existence? I mean, you seem to think that evolution only happened millions of years in the past for a set period of time and then it stopped.

We creationists (oh, did I forget to mention? Yeah, believer in God here) understand what you Evolutionist are saying. We just don't believe it. And about your snarky comebacks about how we should maybe read a book or something before we form an opinion? Yeah, done that many times. In fact I read books every day. I am honest enough that I don't form an opinion about something unless I find out more about it. I've studied biology a lot, perhaps more than you and a lot of people. It's not my primary field of study and it's not a field I work in today. And in fact, a lot of biology holds fast without having to believe in evolution. But the fact is – I don't believe in evolution even when presented by the 'facts' presented.”

Pretty much every single sentence in this piece should end with: (BIG FAT LIE).

The most obvious lie is Doug pretending to have “read a book.” At least he is honest to tell biology was never his primary study or field of interest, his dishonesty and arrogance is embarrassing. For Doug to think that he knows more about biology than Richard Dawkins, Dr. Ken Miller, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, (who has PhDs from both Harvard and Yale), Theodosius Dobzhansky, Keith Miller, David Livingstone, and 99.85% of American earth and life scientists from universities and academia throughout the U.S. and the vast majority of scientists in many different scientific fields all around the world. (to grasp how vast the number of scientists that accept evolution, 123,900 biologists signed a paper that evolution is a fact supported by evidence...and the amazing fact is, these were only the biologists named “Steve” or “Stephanie.”) http://ncse.com/news/2013/02/ten-years-project-steve-0014715

How else can we know that Doug is spewing lies that he knows about biology? The fact he thinks evolution just stopped. Any competent person with the lowest of basic evolutionary biology 101 education knows that evolution has not stopped.

Final note, “but if Evolution were actual, wouldn't there still be transitional species in existence” another sign Doug doesn't have the first clue what he is talking about. EVERYTHING is a transitional species. The same billions of species worldwide that exist right now.

“Now, how many books of the Bible have you read? You know, they're all collected together in what most people know as 'the Bible', available at practically every library and book store. I'll even send you one. In fact I'll send you a good, easy to read Bible with a concordance if you like.”

“Now, how many books of the Bible have you read?”

All of them.

“I'll even send you one.”

And it will end up straight in the recycling bin.

I mean seriously, don't bother. Anyone can easily read it with this thing called Google.

“Point 4.

The 'I can't see it so it isn't there' point that you make at 4:25 in your video...

BINGO!

The point is that – you as an evolutionist use this for your argument against the existence of God. Yet when applied to your reasoning for evolution – it's all of the sudden valid???

It's called FAITH, Jaclyn. You don't want to admit it but your belief is as much faith as that which we have in God.

Same with your 'theory A, theory B' critique.

By the way – the “theory a, theory b” is actually applied to scientific theory and mathematical theorem very often. Perhaps read some of those 'science-y' books yourself sometime!”

It's not called “faith.” Faith is believing without seeing despite all reason and defended against all reason. This word does not fit any bit of the theory of evolution. The evidence for evolution is observable and testable: ERVs, atavisms, transitional forms, physiological, anatomical, and molecular vestiges, ontogeny and developmental biology, protein functional redundancy, convergent phenotypes, mobile genes, observed speciation, the myriad methods of dating geologic stratigraphy, any twin-nested hierarchy of phylogenetic clades. All of these are peer-reviewed and verified accurate evidence positively promoting evolution as well as directly disproving creationism. But you know what we’ve never seen? We’ve never seen anything “created”. No one has ever seen a complex life-form (or anything else) magically pop out of thin air. But that’s what creationists are arguing for! Talismans, incantations, elemental component spells, enchantments, clairvoyance and prophesies all consistently fail every test. To claim that belief in creationism is on some same level as evolution is absolute nonsense, there is not one lick of evidence anywhere of creationism. Period.

Forensic scientists were not “there” when the crime was committed, but by examining the evidence, they can calculate and determine the time and cause of death.

In the same respects, modern scientists were not “there” millions of years ago, but we can demonstrate that the evidence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Earth is billions of years old. We can prove common ancestry, even going back millions of years.

“Point 5.

Your 'observable change of kind' shows how members of similar species cannot interbreed, citing the 'ring of species'. This isn't the argument; the argument is that you can't have cross-species interbreeding. Don't deflect from the real issue. So you will never have a bird with an ancestor that is a lizard.”

First of all: that is the bloody point. Specie rings show different evolutionary stages exist all at once in a geographic rather than chronological distribution. Subspecies (A) may breed with subspecies (B), and (B) may breed with (C), and (C) with (D), but (A) and (D) cannot interbreed because by the time their territories overlap again, they’ve grown too distant genetically, and can’t come back. This is when we see the formation of new features, organs, or skeletal structures, each examples of new genetic “information”. What all these show is that even though a new species of perching bird (for example) is “still” a finch, it is now a different “kind” of finch, a distinct descendant species proving there is no “boundary” against macroevolution.

Second of all, all birds have reptilian ancestors.

This graph shows where cladistic analysis places them in the phylogeny. The phylogeny allows the ancestral states (the stages, marked in red on the phylogeny) to be reconstructed. Here, a compsognathid fossil (Sinosauropteryx) with hairlike protofeathers down its back. This is exactly what creationists demanded, a fossil "developing the properties of feathers."

Oviraptor from Figure 1a and Figure 2, page 775 of: Norell, Mark A.; Clark, James M.; Chiappe, Luis M.; Dashzeveg, Demberelyin (1995). "A nesting dinosaur." Nature, 378(6559), 774-776. (DOI) Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd., copyright 1995

(read more and see more slides at http://www.sciohost.org/ncse/kvd/Padian/kpslides.html)

“Point 6, and I'll make this the final point because, to be brutally honest, it's very painful listening to you and even more painful watching you flail your arms around in an-attempt to appear intelligent:

At 6:54 you tell Ray Comfort that 'Just because I can't show you millions of millions of years, doesn't mean it didn't happen' (which by itself, sounds like a very awkward sentence but we get your gist). That is our (creationists') point. We can't show you God, yet you still deny him. You're willing to have faith in your silly little evolution but not in something – someone, actually – for which there is more proof.”

“We can't show you God.”

This is perhaps the most honest thing Doug has said, but this spark of honesty and integrity is quickly crushed by Dougs inability to grasp the illogical leap he commits. He claims he cannot show “God” but then quickly claims there is more proof for God than an observable fact like evolution?

Doug's glimpse of honesty vanished into nothingness. If Doug understood that proof and knowledge is demonstrative and measurable, he would show it. If you know something, you can show it, and if you can't then you should say you can. The problem is Doug “can't show God” therefore cannot show proof of God. Concluding absolutely that Doug lied, there is no proof for God.

That ought to wrap it up. I can only plea that Doug (and all his creationists mates) realize the mental trap he has placed himself in and realize that one can only be a) creationist or b) consistent and honest. There is no third category.

Last thing I can say is only to Jaclyn Glenn. Keep up the good work love, your material is amazing. Your fans, myself included, are looking forward for much more.

Response to GotQuestions.org "Is God imaginary?"

This is my response to the article posted on a Christian site GotQuestions.org "Is God Imaginary?"

Answer: Godisimaginary.com is not the first to claim that God is imaginary. In an article entitled “Theology and Falsification” written many years ago, Anthony Flew, one of the twentieth century's most outspoken atheists wrote,

Two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen...Yet still the believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, who comes secretly to look after the garden he loves.” At last the Skeptic despairs. “But what remains of the original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”

This is a rather poor analogy. We are given little detail of this hypothetical scenario of a clearing in the midst of a jungle. All we are given is that the clearing is occupied by flowers and weeds. For all we know, this clearing was actually cleared of trees by a storm, humans cutting the trees and left, or even a small fire (we don't know how big and spacious the clearing is).


But for the moment, we have two people in a clearing. One guesses that there is a gardener who crafted this spot, the other doubts their proposal. And yet, despite no sign of a gardener ever appearing, the believer continues to believe he is right without any evidence. All the believer relies on is the fact the clearing is there.


But it gets even worse.


The believer starts making stuff up about his belief in a gardener. He says the gardener is “invisible” “intangible”... basically immaterial, and absolutely nothing. Since he cannot present any evidence that there is a gardener, he excuses himself from being able to present evidence by making the “gardener” untestable and unprovable.


The honest thing to do is to postpone asserted beliefs until evidence is provided. The believer in the gardener can make up whatever he/she wants about their idea of the gardener, even go so far as to say the gardener is a tiny undetectable jungle gnome.

Following Flew's thoughts from decades ago, the web site godisimaginary.com provides what it believes are 50 “proofs” that God does not exist – that He is nothing more than an imaginary gardener, a superstition, a myth. The site claims, “Let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists. If you think about it as a rational person, this lack of evidence is startling. There is not one bit of empirical evidence indicating that today's 'God,' nor any other contemporary god, nor any god of the past exists.”

 
By the end of the day and at the end of the debate, the claims made on the web site godisimaginary.com are correct: There is not one bit of empirical evidence indicating that today's 'God,' nor any other contemporary god, nor any god of the past exists.


This Christian article attempts, and fails, to provide any coherent and empirical evidence for a creator, let alone their belief in what/who the creator is or if it there is only one.

Addressing each of the 50 points is unnecessary as it doesn't matter if the site had 50,000 “proof” points against God; all one needs to do is use a logical, rational, and reasonable argument to show that God does indeed exist and every point becomes irrelevant. It is telling and interesting that godisimaginary.com focuses so much of its time on red herrings of issues with prayer and why God won't do tricks upon request, and ignores the primary question of philosophy and religion: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” In other words, like Flew, the site concentrates on issues with a gardener they believe to be imaginary and ignores the question of why a garden exists in the first place.

First of all, godisimaginary.com addresses the idea of a personal god as imaginary and ridiculous. This Christian article is defending the very God that claims it will do what godisimaginary.com challenges it to do.

“Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?”

How do we define nothing? What are it's properties? If it has properties, doesn't that make it something?

Claiming God is the answer only brings up another question, why is there God rather than nothing?

As physics and cosmology have demonstrated, the transition to nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any agent. As Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, “The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be 'nothing' is unstable.”

Furthermore, godisimaginary.com is not avoiding anything. Everyone acknowledges that the universe exists. The only issue is that one group of people are saying that a magic genie created it. The reasonable group logically shows that is both wrong and absurd. While the reasonable group can show that the universe is fully capable of forming naturally, the “magic creator” group refuses to accept it because their belief and faith demand that they ignore all evidence.

The only place on the site where a possible answer to this question is offered is “proof” point 47. Complexity, says the site, could only arise from either Nature itself or a Creator. “Proof” point 47 then states, “the advantage of the first option is that it is self-contained. The complexity arose spontaneously. No other explanation is required.”

This assertion and conclusion is flawed as they have proposed two explanations and then bundle a third option into the solution they like – spontaneous generation with an eternal universe. An eternal universe is, initially, a logical option but not spontaneous generation, which is a scientific term for something coming from nothing or self-creation, which is an analytically false statement – that is, a statement that shows itself to be false by definition. A fundamental law of science is ex nihilo nihil fit – out of nothing, nothing comes. And as Aristotle said, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” The web site derides Christians for believing in magic, yet it embraces greater magic than anything found in the Bible – life just appearing out of nothing from non-life with no cause.

 
The website does not say that complexity arise spontaneously out of nothing. The word “nothing” is never used anywhere in Point 47. It says complexity formed spontaneously. That is, the materials needed to form complexity were already present.


First of all, this Christian article does say that “an eternal universe is, initially, a logical option.” So, the issue can already be stopped and settled here.


Second of all, this Christian article fails to address the second half of the argument in Point 47.
“The problem with the second option is that it immediately creates an impossibility. If complexity cannot arise without intelligence, then we immediately must ask, “Who created the intelligent creator?” The creator could not spring into existence if complexity requires intelligence. Therefore, God is impossible.


In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary.”


And right there, we don't need to go further to demonstrate that not only is God imaginary but that this Christian article does not have any legs to stand on and it's entire base is inaccurate.

Next, their argument argues the basic laws of causality – an effect must resemble its cause. How can an impersonal, meaningless, purposeless, amoral universe accidentally create beings who are full of personality and obsessed with meaning, purpose, and morality? It can't. Further, intelligence doesn't arise from non-intelligence which is why Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth – they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth, which of course, begs the question of who engineered that superior alien race. Godisimaginary.com claims, “No intelligence is required to encode DNA,” but refuting this statement is the very co-discoverer of DNA himself – Francis Crick – who admits there is no way for DNA to have arisen apart from intelligence.

The “laws of causality” is not a universal law. While common in our experience, this is not applied everywhere. There are lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay. Therefore, the claim that a universe cannot cause beings like humans is unfounded.


On another note, if one believes in a uncaused Creator, they already admit to themselves that the “laws of causality” do not apply to everything. In the same regards, can a universe like ours be uncaused? There is a lot of scientific data to suggest that indeed it is. It is very possible for a eternally oscillating universe, allowing a universe without a first cause.


Richard Dawkins never stated that he believes that aliens created DNA. This is a dishonest creationist lie. Dawkins was asked to give a “hypothetical” scenario where he thought Intelligent Design could be correct. He still maintained that the universe was not created, and that life had to form on some planet by evolutionary means. After that, once life forms had reached such a great technological age to engineer life forms to blossom on other planets – that was the hypothetical answer given by Dawkins. Dawkins never once said this is what he thought really did happen on Earth. He was only giving a hypothetical scenario where he though Intelligent Design could be true, but anyone familiar with his work and views should know full well that Dawkins firmly believes that not a single bit of Intelligent Design is true or accurate at all.

But what of evolution? Doesn't evolution explain life and intelligence? Not at all. Evolution is a biological process that attempts to describe change in already existing life forms – its has no way to answer the question of existence. This one piece of evidence alone began to turn Anthony Flew from atheism.

While it is true that evolution does not explain the origin of life, evolution can, and has done, explained the origin of intelligence.

 

These facts being evident, it then becomes quite easy to offer a simple, reasonable, logical proof for God in the following way:

1. Something exists
2. You don't get something from nothing
3. Therefore, something necessary and eternal exists
4. The only two options are an eternal universe or an eternal Creator
5. Science has disproven the concept of an eternal universe
6. Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.

The only premise that can be attacked is premise five, but the fact is every drop of evidence in the possession of science points to the fact that the universe is not eternal and had a beginning. And everything that has a beginning has a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal. Any fanciful assertions of collapsing universes, imaginary time, and the like are just that – fanciful – and require more faith to than to believe in God. The two choices are simple – matter before mind or mind before matter – and it is interesting that this web site claims it is their intelligence that causes them to choose the former over the latter.

HOLD ON!!!


Someone tell me how we conclusively proved that “something cannot come from nothing.” I would love to see this person tell that to Lawrence Krauss's face.


Second of all, how did we prove that the universe is NOT eternal????
NOWHERE in this article answers that question. There is no argument in this article that defends the claim that science has proven that the universe is not eternal. It is merely taken for granted. They just assume that “everything that has a beginning has a cause” so they include the universe just for the hell of it.


Also, how can there be only TWO options? Later on, this article accuses the website godisimaginary.com of committing a false dichotomy, and yet they do exactly that here. How about this for another option: multiple eternal creators. Eh? Hows this other option: There could be a team of creators out there, each just as majestic as the next, and this universe is just their little lab experiment.


“it is interesting that this web site claims it is their intelligence that causes them to choose the former over the latter”...yes, it was their intelligence AS WELL AS their free thought. This website, Got Questions, starts all their thought and arguments based on a presupposeition based on FAITH – i.e. pretending to know something they don't.

“But who created God?” the site asks. Why not ask, “Where is the bachelor's wife?” or “What does the color blue taste life?” It's a category mistake – you don't make the unmade. Further, why sit back comfortably and believe in an unmade universe and yet angrily bristle at the notion of an unmade Creator? Could it be because mindless matter cannot call human beings into moral account whereas a personal God can? Finally, is it more reasonable to embrace a cause that contains none of the characteristics of its effect (personality, love, meaning, purpose, etc.) or a cause that embodies them all (a personal God)? The site claims, “In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary,” but in reality, logic, reason, and evidence disprove their position and point in the absolute other direction.

You don't make the unmade, and yet this article asserts that the universe is “made” and their made-up god is “unmade.”


While everyone agrees the universe exists, one group of people believe a personal god created it. Which makes more sense? Here is where Occam's Razor comes in. If the universe is unmade, why make an unnecessary step to add a next step of a “unmade” entity that would thus sprout even more unanswerable questions?


Occam would easily side with those who do not believe in a personal Creator and the notion that the universe is unmade that arose out of quantum physics.

why sit back comfortably and believe in an unmade universe and yet angrily bristle at the notion of an unmade Creator?

Perhaps because it is absolute make-believe nonsense? Nonsense that has poisoned everything. Nonsense that has bastardized human intelligence and progress.

Could it be because mindless matter cannot call human beings into moral account whereas a personal God can?

Religious people often praise ignorance, and accuse nonbelievers and atheists for not believing in God because these people don't want to be held accountable for their “sins” and behavior – BUT THE THEISTS say that whatever sin they commit and continue to do commit, they will automatically be forgiven simply because they believe. It is obvious that the ones who “love their sins” are the Christians and theists, not the atheists and nonbelievers. The Christians deny accountability, while the atheists and nonbelievers hold themselves responsible for their own actions.

Finally, is it more reasonable to embrace a cause...

You mean a cause that does not evidently exist? A cause that is conjured out of pure imagination and fantasy? There is NOTHING reasonable about believing in a imaginary cause.

The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists. Moreover, this Being who created everything mirrors the God described in the Bible quite well as evidenced by what one can infer just from the fact of creation alone:

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space)
• He must be powerful (incredibly)
• He must be eternal (self-existent, because there is no infinite regress of causes)
• He mist be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited to it)
• He mist be timeless and changeless (He created time)
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
• He must be personal (the impersonal can't create a personality)
• He must be necessary as everything else depends on Him
• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinities
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature
• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.
• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything
• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver)
• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given)

The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists.

*Buzzer* Wrong! The logic and arguments presented thus far in this article have been exposed as flawed or having no evidence supporting it, but rather having all the evidence oppose it.

Supernatural: So basically non-existent. This Christian article just blew itself up in the face.

Powerful: How powerful? Where is the measurements? Where is the data, the proof?

Eternal:

Omnipresent: If God exists, then he is transcendent (i.e. outside space and time). If God exists, he is omnipresent. To be transcendent, a being cannot exist anywhere in space. To be omnipresent, a being must exist everywhere in space. Hence, it is impossible for a transcendent being to be omnipresent. Therefore, it is impossible for God to exist.

Timeless/changeless: Changeless? So God has no free will? Also, how can God have create time??? It is logically impossible.

P1) God is defined as the arbiter of all things, including time;

P2) A decision requires transition from indifferences to will (requires time)

P3) Since time cannot exist prior to its existence, God cannot choose to create time;

P4) If God cannot choose to create time, he is not arbiter of all things;

P5) Therefore, a personal entity cannot be the ultimate arbiter of all things;

P6) Therefore, God as defined is internally inconsistent

C) Therefore, there is no God.

It is common to hear a theist explain ‘God is outside of space and time.’ If he existed outside of time, he could not do anything before he did anything else, he could not do anything after he did anything. That means if God exists outside of time, he does not exist. He cannot do anything before and/or after what he is doing, then he cannot do anything. So we disprove God just based on his own definition, but where did that definition come from, where did the concept of God come from…mankind.

Immaterial/Transcendent: If God exists, then he is transcendent (i.e. outside space and time). If God exists, he is omnipresent. To be transcendent, a being cannot exist anywhere in space. To be omnipresent, a being must exist everywhere in space. Hence, it is impossible for a transcendent being to be omnipresent. Therefore, it is impossible for God to exist.

“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say, they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise.” – Thomas Jefferson, a letter to John Adams, August 1820)

Personal: The website godisimaginary.com already blows this idea of a “personal god” out of reality. Of course, this Christian article self admitted that it does not care to address its points, it's only goal was to try to prove “God exists” – not a personal God exists. Even if this Christian article did it's job and provided even one piece of evidence that God exists, the points made by godisimaginary.com still stand and still provide solid proofs that a personal god is nonexistent.

Necessary: This one is complete bollocks, its practically comical. Science has already shown time and time again that God is in fact NOT necessary for everything or anything to exist.

Infinite:

Diverse and Unity: While this could easily fit the profiles of deities like Brahman and Krishna, the God of Abraham has a much bigger problem then being “diverse and unity” – the God of the Bible is self-contradictory and illogical. Ergo, this being cannot exist.

Intelligent: And yet created a very unintelligent universe. The universe is mostly composed of particles in random motion, with complex structures such as galaxies forming less than 4 percent of the mass and less than one particle out of a billion. This is exactly the kind of universe we should expect to find that arose naturally without any aid from a divine agent.

Purpose: Not only is there no evidence that God exists, let alone “created everything”, to label an entity that does not evidently exist as having purpose is just as sensible as saying cloud fairies have a purpose.

Moral: Anyone who reads the Bible even badly can tell that the god of Abraham is far from being a moral being. Furthermore, if any being is god, he must be a fitting object of worship. No being could possibly be a fitting object of worship since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent. Therefore, there cannot be any being who is God.

Caring: Caring? Because this character provided “moral laws.” How about ego-centric and tyrannical? But that does not even matter, because there is no morality needed please the god of Abraham. All that is required is belief. Not moral acts or obedience, but belief.

As this piece alone has shown, this Christian article has shown that the qualities and characteristics of the god of Abraham are inherently logically contradictory – thus it cannot exist. The qualities are so diverse and inconsistent, some parts of the world would call this “making shit up as you go.”

The Judeo-Christian God perfectly fits this profile. At this point, all 50 “proofs” on the web site become irrelevant – God exists; therefore, all points offered on the site are incorrect in the final conclusion that they collectively try to reach. Wondering why God won't cure all the cancer in the world because a group of Christians prayed for it, pointing out the divorce rate among Christians, scoffing because God doesn't create money for churches out of thin air, wondering why Jesus never moved a physical mountain, asserting a false dichotomy that says a person must be a person of facts or of faith (many brilliant scientists believe in God), making unprovable claims that Jesus never did a concrete miracle, and erroneously stating that the Bible “advocates” senseless murder, slavery, and oppression of women – all end up being impotent in light of the conclusion that a creator God exists.

The Judeo-Christian God perfectly fits this profile

So would Brahman and Krishna.

Seriously! Brahman could fit this profile, especially the “diverse and unity” piece.

Brahman is said to be the ultimate God, and all concepts of god derive from him.

Not only is this article's conclusion that the “creator God exists” is totally inaccurate.

Answering such objections – if they are genuine and not extend in a way that refuses to believe even if reason responses are given – requires only the disciplined study of Scripture alongside the Spirit of God who inspired it. Arguments with those who possess a hardened skeptical spirit are to be avoided as 1 Timothy 6:20 says, “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called 'knowledge.'” But even still, God is fully capable of using His powerful general revelation (the creation) to witness to those who appear completely lost due to a skeptical and hardened heart.

Arguments with those who possess a hardened skeptical spirit are to be avoided

In other words, beware the skeptics. Do not have them question your faith. Do not question faith.

(Side note: There is a class of books called by scholars pseudepigraphy (literally “false writing”) characterized by pseudonymity (“false name”) in which the author deliberately tries to present his writing as originating from someone else. Are there pseudepigraphical works even in the canonical Bible? The answer is something critical scholars have known for years—an unequivocal “Yes.” In the OT, the book of Daniel, some portions of Psalms, and the later part of Isaiah are all known to be pseudonymous. In the NT, the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) are considered by a vast majority of critical scholars not to have been written by Paul.

So, this article's use of 1 Timothy is self defeating.)

God is fully capable of using His powerful general revelation (the creation) to witness to those who appear completely lost due to a skeptical and hardened heart.

Who is to say that this is the Abraham God's creation?????

Not only has the case for God's existent been met, where is the evidence that he is indeed the creator, or the only creator?

Read my blogs:

God, Tron and the Wizard of Oz (learn that for the sake of argument if there is a Creator, how can we know it is who it says it is?)

Tackling Pascal's Wager (if there is a god, which one is the one?)

The fact the universe exists is self evident, but to label it as a “creation” is not only a logical fallacy is is plain wrong.

In stark contrast to the article he's written many years earlier, in 2007, Anthony Flew wrote a much different kind of book entitled There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. In it, he recounts his atheism and relays how he now, because of evidence and reason, believes that a creator God exists. The one who initially posited an “imaginary gardener” now says, “I think the origins of the laws of nature and of life and the Universe point clearly to an intelligent Source. The burden of proof is on those who argue to the contrary.” This being the case, one thing is certain – the 50 frail attempts on godisimaginary.com to prove that God is imaginary fall far short of even causing a nick on the armor of evidence that opposes them.

According to Flew, he did not become a theist, nor did he believe in a personal God or an afterlife. Rather, from Flew himself in a letter to historian Richard Carrier, the only reason he accepted the “Aristotelian God” was: a deity or a 'super-intelligence' is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature.


Flew admitted to Carrier that he [Flew] did not read any of the refutations and critiques provided by Carrier. When Flew was asked by Duncan Crary of Humanist Network News if he had kept up with the most recent science and theology, Flew responded with “certainly not.”


Basically, in the case of Anthony Flew, he fell into the trap of the “God of the gaps” fallacy.


As for the book There Is a God, it has been called into question under the suspicion that the co-author, Roy Abraham Varghese, as the sole author. This is due to the language used in the book, as well as Anthony Flew's ignorance of the named philosophers and arguments used in the book. Anthony Gottlieb noted that this book “far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, [the book] rather weakens the case for the existence of Anthony Flew. However, this examination of the book is not important. What IS important is that the case presented in the book has not been met.


Whether known to Flew or not, there have been major breakthroughs in uncovering how life could arise naturally. Anthony Flew fell victim to both Intelligent Design (a fringe pseudoscience) and the “god of the gaps” fallacy (which could be of his own fault due to lack of research in recent science).

Why Cant You Just Let Me Believe, It Gives Me Hope!

Once in a while, out of a handful of debates with theists, someone will come along and get emotional and throw this line at you like you're the bad guy.

Frankly, it is just sad... that people are so suckered by faith.

Why am I the bad guy for asking the questions the theist is either afraid or too lazy to ask themselves?

Why am I the bad guy for pointing out the flaws and holes in their ideology and beliefs?

Why am I the bad guy for pointing out they have been victimized?

It doesn't make any sense.

Lets say that your best friend or close family member saw an ad for a sweet deal that could make them a millionaire. All they had to do was give a man all their money and he would promise them 10 times more money back. Who would not like that?

However, once you learn that your friend/family member is about to go through with this deal, you do a bit of research and discover that this deal is a ponzi scheme. Upon this discovery, you warn your friend/family member and point out the problems with the “deal” and show the history of fraud (and it turns out it is quite easy to research and figure out).

And yet, despite all your info and warning, instead of listening to you, they say “how dare you! Why can't you just let me go through of this! This deal gives me hope! It will give me a future. It gave something to live for!”

You can already see how sad that is.

They are soooo invested in this nonsensical scam that they have blinded themselves from seeing the facts and have twisted their own minds to think that their lives are meaningless without the promise of a reward.

And it is the same with religion. The believer may say that their faith gives them something to live for, that it gives them hope.... but it is a false hope. Hope built on falsehoods is a lie. It is only reasonable that the person who unveils the lie and false hopes are the good guys. Why is this not so in the minds of the religious and gullible?

To the best of my understanding, the reason why religious people react like this towards critics and skeptics is because in their mind, they think the nonbelievers are trying to take something away from them, rather than giving them something. Religion offers a unimaginable reward in the afterlife, or a reunion with loved ones, as long as you believe it. That is an attractive deal... but the problem is is that it is not evidently true.

Why believe something that is not evidently true? Why engage in unsupported wishful thinking? That is not reasonable whatsoever. Not only is it just being dishonest with yourself, it is also dangerous. False hope and faith can make a person do horrible things.

You “hope” your faith and preconceived notions (that obviously can't be true) is actually true, and that faith turns around and poisons your ability to think logically or for yourself, it poisons your moral compass (sometimes often removes it completely), and makes a person delusional.

William James Bryan said,

“If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it.” he also said, “If we have to give up religion or education, we should give up education.” - William James Bryan

A hundred years ago, Bryan was a presidential candidate. Several candidates in the 2012 race openly stated that they too want to undermine education and practically everything else we value in our government.

This is who the faithful imagine faith to be reasonable? THIS is insanity!

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." – Martin Luther

“And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believe, because it is absurd. And he was buried and rose again; the fact is certain because it is impossible.” [The Prescriptions Against The Heretics]

Voltair once said, “"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

Once you accept a faith and preconceived notions as true, and you hope that your faith is right despite the obvious fact it is absurd, your faith demands that you hold onto your faith despite what the evidence says and must be guarded against all reason (this is what the faithful call the “armor of God”). Basically, close your mind and believe what you are told.

The list of horrible atrocities that false hope and faith can make a person do is long.

• A woman wants  to believe she's going to Heaven, and to score points for the afterlife, she obeys God and kills her children.

• Witch hunts that continue to this day in Africa – despite the fact that witchcraft has already been proven false beyond reasonable doubt, and is nothing but mere superstition.
• A mother kills her child because she thinks that her child is possessed (no worries, cuz she hopes her faith is true, and her faith tells her that her child is in Heaven, so no need to feel guilty.)
• Kill the infidels – because your faith demands it and promises a reward in a realm that has never been proven to even exist.
  
  The list goes on and on

Ray Comfort and the “trickster”

As readers may remember, or at least those who know how I commonly debate theists, I use an argument I call the “Wizard of Oz” argument. For those unfamiliar with it, I encourage you to read my blog where I first brought this argument to light. While I am sure other rational thinkers out there have come up with similar arguments like this long before me, this is my version and my personal favorite argument.

Anyway, the core point of my argument is against all theists, particularly those who claim they “know” God exists. My argument points out that it is impossible for them to know such things, and their baseless declarations basically means they are liars.

The “Wizard of Oz” argument basically asks the question “how do you know that?” to theistic claims. Christians like Ray Comfort love to state things about their God as matters of fact, to which I respond with a simple question “how do you know that, how do you know you are not being lied to?”

I've asked this question to theists all the time, and it seems that this sort of question has reached the facts-free Ray Comfort Facebook page – including a response answer to the question, as you can see in this picture.

So the question, in other words, is basically “how do you know this being is not deceiving you into believing he is good?”

Ray's answer: trust

I have two angles I can respond to this.

First Response

My response to Ray: how dim-witted can you get?

No matter how much you trust a trickster, the trickster is still a trickster. No matter how much you trust an imposter, it is still an imposter.

How about if I put it in Christian terms: if Satan told you he (not God) is good and only he could save your soul from eternal torment, would every trust in existence mustered together change the fact Satan (the Father of Lies) could be lying to your face?

If your answer is “no” then you've demonstrated no matter how much trust you put in some thing, it does not change a damn thing.

By the same extant, Ray Comfort is saying you must put your “trust” in some invisible hidden entity you cannot see or even prove that exists in the first place. This is not a rational response. It is no more rational than putting your trust in the purple men on Pluto protecting our galaxy from extraterrestrial invaders.

In my other blog, Tackling Pascal's Wager, I used basic mathematics and logic to make the case that believing in one particular god (Yahweh) out of the possibly infinite other entities that could exist (“cuz, ya know, ya can't prove they do not exist”), then the odds that your single particular favorite god is the correct one out of the infinite other options is mathematically absolute zero!

So, Ray Comfort is saying, just “trust” that God is God and he is not lying to you. Well, based on mathematics, Ray Comfort is stating just put in your trust in a thing that basic mathematics proves the chances of it being real is practically absolute zero.

On top of asking to put your trust in something that does not exist, he is declaring that you trust that this thing is not a trickster – even though there is no way of knowing that this entity is really what it says it is.

Put your trust in that? And Ray Comfort thinks that is the smart thing to do? That is not smart, or for that matter rational. It is sheer madness and foolishness. There is no way to comprehend how stupid it is.

Second Response

My second and final response to Ray Comfort's answer “It is impossible for God to lie.” Remember the Wizard of Oz repeated argument, “how do you know that?” Once again, it must be applied here, how do you know that it is impossible for God to lie?

Who decided that it is impossible for God to lie? Who told us that? There is one source, and ONLY one source that insists that it is impossible for God to lie? The Bible. And who supposedly wrote the Bible? It was written by men.

Of course, Ray Comfort will say that it was God who wrote the Bible. So, we have the author writing his own resume down, and mankind is incapable of verifying or validating it. Think about it. If God (or whatever it is) is a liar and/or a trickster, then would it seem expected that it would include in its one published message book to humanity that it cannot lie? It is the perfect cover up. It is essentially like a jewel thief claiming he is completely incapable of stealing anything. A trickster with no doubters is the best trickster of all.

So once again, we are back to square one: how do you know that God, assuming that it exists, cannot lie?

When a politician promises that they are honest, sincere, represent the people AND cannot be bought by big corporations, we are capable of catching them lying in action. It happens all the time in the United States, congressmen bending to the wills of their fundraisers over the American people. We can follow the money and record what they voted for. However, has anyone ever stepped outside of the universe to do a independent background check on God? Can anyone name anyone who monitored and checked God to see if he ever lied, even once? Who declared that it is impossible for God to lie? Who can verify and validate such a claim?

Even if you point to his one and only published book to humanity was flawless and without error, how would that prove anything? Even if every event recorded and predicted in the Bible turned out to be true, and one day when you die your soul crosses over.... and you find yourself in gloomy Hades. The trickster may have provided you with a very persuasive book that does not have any errors, but the whole text was just a ruse from that start. It did not matter how much you believed you would end up in Heaven, the moment you repented to God you were actually repenting to the trickster's alias and thus dooming your soul forever to the dark depths of Hades simply because you were foolish enough to trust it.

Ultimately, Ray Comfort's entire response “how do you know He's not lying to you and making you think you know the truth?” remains unanswered.

Granted the God hypothesis has not been proven or met the burden of proof, assuming for the moment there is a God, Ray Comfort has not provided any justifiable or supported answer to the question if God could be lying/tricking all believers.

Ray Comfort is only pretending to know certain things about God, and lying to all his viewers that he knows something he obviously does not know.

All Ray Comfort is doing, is declaring certain things about the God he created in his own head. Ray can say his God never lies, his God is all knowing, his God rides on a space ship, whatever he wants to imagine. Unfortunately for Ray, the fantasies and imaginations in his head has no bearing on the rest of humanity.

Are You a Good Person? – A Refutation of Ray Comfort Snake Oil

Anyone who is familiar with Christian creationist and propagandist Ray Comfort has more than likely heard Ray Comfort's infamous “Are You a Good Person?” test.

For my readers who are not have heard of it, I will explain it in full, but in all honesty all you need to know about it is that Ray Comfort always uses this tactic at every chance he gets. Every chance. I have been reviewing Ray Comfort's material for years, and as far as I can recall, he uses this tactic in every book he has published, in every Way of the Master episode, in his fake money gospel tracts, and he constantly uses it in his street preaching and interviews.

Ray Comfort thinks this tactic is his ace-in-the-hole, trapping people in a word game mix emotional guilt trip to trick people into thinking they have done something bad and need help. Ray Comfort even developed a website with this test, which is designed from square one to force every single person into a corner with no hope of escape and be found guilty. To Ray Comfort, he thinks this “Are You a Good Person?” is unbeatable. It is his ultimate snake oil, selling you an imaginary disease (sin) and offering in return a imaginary cure (jesus).

However, all readers and all those fooled by this disingenuous tactic can be rest assured. Even if they have gone to Ray Comfort's website to try to beat it this test, this “Are You a Good Person?” is a dead argument – and it has always been so.

A long time ago, I spotted a fatal flaw in this argument some time ago, and even I wrote a piece on it on IronChariots. Now, I shall explain what the snake oil is and where this argument fails.

The “Are You a Good Person?” goes like this:

1. Are you a good person? (Yes or No is irrelevant, he will always find you bad at the end)
2. Have you ever lied?
3. Have you ever stolen?
4. Have you ever used the Lord's name in vain?
5. Have you ever looked at a person with lust (which jesus (supposedly) said is adultery)

Okay, no matter how you answer these questions, Ray Comfort will find you guilty (he has to), and therefore he will deem you a “bad” person who needs to be saved or you will be burned forever. And Voila! Ray Comfort provides the means of salvation: his savior christ.

So, how is this “Are You a Good Person?” a dead argument???

Remember, this is called the “Are You a Good Person?” test. So, we are trying to determine whether a person is good or not. But wait! The last four questions are taken straight from the Ten Commandments: Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness; Thou Shall Not Steal; Thou Shall Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain; Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery.

Now granted, these questions are a big misrepresentation of what the Ten Commandments actually dictate, but that is not necessary to discuss. The point is, Ray Comfort is using the Ten Commandments – THAT is the problem. The Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses to give to the Jewish people, the Chosen people. The God character did not give those Commandments to the Egyptians, nor the Chinese, nor the Gauls, nor anyone else. They were specifically for the Jews.

Therefore, if you have taken the Lord's name in vain, looked at a woman or man with lust, and such, that does not make you a “bad person.” It means you are a bad Jew.

Think of it like this and see if it makes any sense: what if I asked you “Are You a Good Person?” and then asked you questions based on the Five Pillar's of Islam (are you a good person, do you pray five times a day, have you ever gone to Mecca, do you fast on Ramada, and so on)? Right away, you ought to notice the huge flaw in this line of questions. Not praying five times a day or not fasting on Ramada does not make you a bad person, it makes you a bad Muslim. In the very same senses, if you have broken even one of the Ten Commandments, it does not mean you are a bad person, it means you are a bad Jew.

Any person should realize that religious criteria does not determine whether a person is good or bad. Sure, there may be a few good moral laws in certain religions, I am not arguing that. Religions provide moral teachings, like the Sacred Edict of 1670, but one can also find moral teachings in Dr. Seuss. Just because you find moral lessons in stories or book(s) of fables does not mean the mysticism or fairy tales in them ever historically happened, nor does it mean the fairy tales must also be accepted as true if the moral lessons are accepted.

My only point is that morality is not determined by religions on whether or not if a person is bad or good. Morality is completely independent of religion, religion only adopts morality.

To be a good person is to just be good, its that simple. Working on the Sabbath does not instantly make you a bad person. If you lie to a Nazi in order to save the life of a Jew or a gypsy who is hiding, that one lie does not make you a bad person. Skipping five prayers does not make you a bad person.

The point of this whole article is this: do not fall for Ray Comfort's snake oil. It is designed to make the person being asked these questions to feel bad about themselves, to trick them into thinking they have done bad and need help from the very religion that told them they are bad.