Ask the Atheist

Geneticist Francis Collins, though he's presented other reasons since, was initially convinced of the reality of the Trinity after seeing a waterfall frozen in three streams. Being essentially convinced of something of any sort can take place in an instant. One three-hour documentary is plenty, and the change of mind can be genuine, IF one then pursues further knowledge of the subject to support one's initial reaction. That's exactly what Jessica here is doing.

There's no such thing as "solar evolution", except as a misnomer for the lifecycle of a star. You appear to be of the sadly widespread school of thought that scientific explanations of events prior to the beginning of evolution are part of the theory of evolution. What you're really against here is mainstream cosmology.

Andrew, I refer you to my piece on the cosmological argument, but a lot of folks don't seem to follow my links so I'll start again here.

What we've known for 40 years, since the discovery of cosmic background radiation, is merely that the Big Bang happened. Whether that was the true beginning or it was simply an event in an ongoing sequence is still undecided. If it was the beginning, there are many theories (and interpretations of experiments in quantum mechanics) wherein it was caused by an external universe, another of an infinite chain or network.

If you say that the universe's precursor was uncaused, why not simply say that the universe itself was uncaused and cut out the extraneous entity? The constraint you place on the universe to necessitate a god must immediately be broken to allow a god, in the ultimate case of special pleading.

You've thrown in a bunch of well-known creationist talking points to attack evolution. Goody.

- Your "common knowledge" is such a sweeping generalisation. Non-living molecules have been used to produce the precursors of life, from amino acids in the fifties to rudimentary self-replicators just this year.

We know the emergence of full-blown life is a rare event because it apparently hasn't happened since the event that resulted in our earliest microbial ancestors. (Since all known life is genetically related, it all stems from that one event.) That doesn't make it impossible, or even unlikely to have happened at some point, given the vast space and time in which it had its opportunity on this planet.

- Macroevolution takes longer than microevolution because macroevolution is simply microevolution over and over and over again. Biologists dumped both terms over a century ago because they just describe the same process over different timescales. It's okay that the amount of evolution required to make easily visible changes takes a long time, because it's been about 3.5 billion years since the beginning of life.

- See Quote #2.4 here for Darwin's writings on the Cambrian explosion, in full context. The "explosion" was only instantaneous on the geological timescale; the Cambrian period was fifteen million years long, and the event took up a decent chunk of that.

As that last link explains, fossils of several branches of life previously thought to have emerged in the Cambrian but dating further back have been unearthed, so it didn't throw up as many new forms of life as we thought. There are several other explanations for the phenomenon, listed there too, some or all of which could be true. It's regarded as an interesting moment in the evolutionary timeline, but hardly a dealbreaker. Regardless, who said evolution happened at the same rate throughout history?

Andrew, I get the feeling you've never had anyone sit down and explain to you why these talking points give no pause whatsoever to evolutionary biologists or other enthusiasts. That's a pity, but let me explain something else to you. Now that you have your replies to them, if without answering the objections (at least for yourself) you move on and give the same arguments to others who have not already considered them, you are employing sophistry. This is a form of dishonesty, and whichever god you think you're defending would not look kindly on that.

This website seems a bit vindictive, I don't say that to be harsh but simply as a literary observation...coming from a Christian background I understand where you are coming from but to deny the existence of God because of religion is really a misunderstanding of God.

Atheism is useful in certain situations but can also lead you from a more complete understanding.

For example if you posit that God=existence/truth by definition,an idea I first got from Gandhi, you cannot deny atheism without denying yourself. Now I can embrace this dualistic belief, being and non-being, but pure nonbeing makes no sense. If you understand God in the Bahai or Spinoza sense you cannot deny God without denying yourself/existence and the denial itself becomes as misguided as other's beliefs, a stubborn refusal to understand more fully.

That is where I see this website going. Your active promotion of atheism submits to many of the same evils that religion does, namely the separation of one group into another, the narcissism of differences, atheists and nonatheists although we simply have different terminology for a remarkably similar condition that we all have the burden of living.

Lastly the insistence on Rationality is all good and well but about 100 years outdated - this is no more than the enlightenment thinkers embraced as well. After WWII and other catastrophes caused by secular man - many deep thinkers questioned rationality and began to see its limits. See Nietzche and Wittgenstein for the philosophic reaction to these limits. Next comes postmodernism etc., which is a sort of attempt to reconcile the Dionysian chaos of the human soul with a spatial and aesthetic approach to life.

Now I'm not saying rationality isn't extremely important, but it cannot dictate the workings of the soul, nor does it have any insight into the power of faith or an understanding of God (West) or Oneness (East), which was an extremely crucial development for the human mind.

We need rationality and emotions, in harmony, no dualistic separation between the two, which is difficult, and ironically some of the best advice for reconciling these two concepts can be found in religion.

You guys seem sincere and dedicated but honestly as someone immersed in scholarly research at a very high level it is quite outdated and really nothing that people haven't thought of already - unfortunately its cutting-edge usefulness is really not much nowadays for those that have dedicated their lives to exploring it.

But best of luck!