Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less Chapter 17 IS ATHEISM SCIENTIFIC? No one knows for certain who designed Stonehenge or the pyramids of Egypt or, exactly how they were constructed.  Yet, no archaeologist or historian has ever proposed they appeared on their own, without input from designers or builders. Such universal assumption is the most likely conclusion given the known evidence and, much of what science “believes” is based on similar assumptions. Even though people can create things that can repair and even create other things by themselves, all known evidence indicates no finite living being or object can exist without a creator. Descartes first principle of philosophy, science and reason states:  “Accept nothing as true that is not self-evident”. ¹  The history of science tracing prior to ancient Greece on into the present, is a history of the most likely conclusion based on the current known evidence. Just as all evidence indicates for every action there is a re-action, likewise all evidence indicates nothing can be in motion by it's own volition. ²  All known evidence indicates a universe filled with “zillions” of complex parts within ever greater complexity of parts and, containing intelligent finite beings of conscience and conscious awareness, requires Creative Intelligence. ³  Thus, the correct postulate of true science is “Eternal Creator(s)” until proven otherwise. Pretending that “science” is somehow different than belief in God is an obvious lie.  Just as scientists “believe” in black holes and invisible light based on mirrored evidence, much more so, mirrored evidence of a Creator(s) is overwhelmingly self-evident.  And, just as if someone claims the earth is cube-shaped or, A2 + B2 doesn't equal C2, the burden of proof remains on atheists, because all known evidence indicates the opposite conclusion. According to Jesus, as well as many historical scientists and sages of note, basic to wisdom, education and survival itself, is to attempt to sort out what's actually true, from whatever fiction the cultures and religions we are born into claim is true.  As Jesus implied, if we don't know what's true, we have no hope of being free. Believing the earth is square doesn't change the reality of the shape of the earth.  What is true about the earth remains the same, regardless of what we believe or, fail to believe.  Whether we label it "science", "religion" or something else, what is actually true remains the same.  Someone can't just assume a steel ball and feather will fall at the same rate of speed and call it a “scientific theory” without significant supporting evidence.  There is nothing more unscientific and irrational than pretending there is no God, because all known evidence indicates the opposite conclusion. If someone says they don't know if there's a God, perhaps they just need to get out and smell the roses once in a while.  However, if someone says there is no Creator, they are by all scientific and other rational default, plainly a liar, because there is no evidence to support such an absurd position. Is atheism scientific?  You decide. 4-5 NOTES: 1. Descartes: "Rules for the Direction of the Mind", from biography of Descartes, Encyclopedia Britannica. 2. The existence of a Creator is far more "self-evident" than the existence of all other evidence combined.  As Thomas Jefferson stated, it is historically "self-evident" that the Creator has endowed us with a shared human conscience of inalienable rights, because similar laws against murder, theft, incest, adultery and false witness appear in diverse cultures, often having no contact with each other, spread throughout the historical record.  According to human disease expert Francis Collins, the world's leading authority on DNA, modern DNA evidence alone overwhelmingly indicates deliberate design and, also according to Collins, the historical fact of similar laws appearing in diverse cultures often having no contact with each other, indicates a deliberately designed shared human conscience that cannot be rationally explained by modern Darwinian theory. 3. Some atheists claim Quantum research has proven that random particles and motion can spontaneously arise.  Such an obvious juvenile conclusion is similar to, if it were possible, an observer crawling down inside of an automobile engine as it is being driven down the highway, observing apparent "random" sparks and dust particles zooming in and out of existence and thus concluding, there is no one driving the car and, nobody designed either the observer, the engine or the automobile. 4. POSITIONS OF NOTED WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTISTS:     A. "Man can be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. . .[I have] "never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God". --Charles Darwin; from a 1979 letter written shortly before his death; Darwin gradually became agnostic over the course of his life, but was never entirely agnostic, according to Charles Darwin himself.  Darwin also credits the Creator with being the Designer behind evolution in a revised "On the Origin of Species" published 5-6 years before his death. Agnosticism in the past often referred to loss of faith in religion, rather than loss of faith in the overwhelming fact of creation, which seems to have been the conclusion of Thomas Paine, Jefferson and perhaps Voltaire and some of the other thinkers of the so-called "enlightenment".  Deism, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the past included many people who believed in a personal God but did not believe in any particular organized religion; a much different view of "deism" than is commonly understood today.  It is not fair to state for certain what Darwin actually believed concerning God and creation, but it is entirely fair to take him at his word that he was not an atheist, that is, he would never claim that one can pretend there is no God and remain a legitimate intellectual or scientist, as is quite the matter of rational fact, the sky is too big and the earth is too small for anyone to know there is no God.  Thus, anyone who says there is no God is most obviously a liar and very plainly, not being scientific.     B. "Darwin welcomed debate because he believed that eventually, the better ideas would win." --Alison Pearn; leader of Darwin Correspondence Project; Cambridge University.     C. ". . . Darwin believed he was showing something even more grand, that God's hand was present in all living things." --James Moore; philosopher of science at the University of Cambridge, visiting scholar at Harvard University; co-author of Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist and author of several other biographies on Darwin.     D. "I have a deep feeling of faith, a deep religiosity that comes from my appreciation of the way the Lord made the universe." --Albert Einstein     E. "I want to know how God created this world.  I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.  I want to know His thoughts.  The rest are details." --Albert Einstein; 1955, shortly before his death, definitely not the words of an atheist, as Einstein is often very wrongly stated to have been.     F. According to a PBS documentary, European physicist and former leading atheist Antony Flew announced recently that post-Hubble evidence has convinced him the known modern evidence indicates intelligent design.  Some atheists have tried to discredit Flew, claiming that because of his advanced age, he is no longer mentally stable, but Flew himself has stated that he has a "growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe" and "my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself [i.e., modern DNA evidence, see Francis Collins above], which is far more complex than the physical Universe, can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source."     G. If Isaac Newton had not believed in God, he most likely would never have been a scientist -- conclusion of recent PBS video biography on Newton.     H. Other historical scientific giants who believed in God include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Michael Faraday and millions of other renowned historical giants such as Isaiah, Buddha, Confuscius, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Rousseau, Voltaire, Bacon, Locke, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Richard Dawkins would have us believe that he is the wise one and, all of these individuals, including Charles Darwin himself, were somehow all delusional.  One might fairly compare their accomplishments with those of Dawkins and rightly conclude just who the delusional one rationally, quite likely and most probably is. 4. It has been postulated by some modern scientists that physical reality of existence has always been, that is, that it has no beginning or ending.  Given that some scientists believe that there may be as many universes as there are stars in our own, it might be fair to conclude that creation goes on forever and ever.  This leads to the only rational scientific conclusion, that a) there is a God and b), God is eternal.  Any other explanation of the known observable and/or speculative reality falls, as the author of "Letter to the Romans" might say, rather "short". 5. RESPONSES TO COMMON OBVIOUS LIES PROMOTED BY VARIOUS MODERN ATHEISTS:     A. The burden of proof remains on those who believe in God.  Debunked in article above; both the history of science and historical scientists from Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle on through Ptolemy, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and the modern Francis Collins, have long demonstrated that the burden of proof remains on those with less than the best explanation, based on the current known evidence. Note the term evidence; pretending the universe is not a result of deliberate conception, design and construction requires significant supporting "evidence", in order to be considered anything more than the very least plausible of all known mythologies and outright baseless superstitions.     B. There is no tooth fairy or Santa Claus and thus, it is foolish to believe in God.  Atheists often attempt to marginalize belief in God by equating it with belief in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, while ignoring the most obvious of basic logic fallacies that any small child can easily refute; if one doesn't believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, they aren't left with having to rationally explain how the universe somehow spontaneously appeared on its own.     C. Quantum research has proven that random particles and motion can spontaneously arise.  see footnote #2 above.     D. Atheism is just a position of "non-belief" and as such, atheists aren't required to prove there is no God.  This is far more ignorant than someone saying they don't believe the earth is spherical in shape and, they don't have to prove what they claim, because they are merely holding a position of "non-belief" regarding the "roundness" of the earth.  Holding a position of non-belief without supporting evidence, is the same thing as refusing to believe what the known evidence clearly dictates.  And, is no wiser than a small child running out in the middle of traffic on the interstate, refusing to believe their Father in heaven that they will be run over by the history garbage truck of "blind-belief", baseless superstition collective cultural ignorance.     E. Atheists don't really claim to know for certain there is no God but rather, like Richard Dawkins is found of pretending, they are just 6.999% out of 7% sure; exactly why the numbers are 6 in relation to 7, rather than 9 of 10 or 99 of 100, remains one of the great mysteries of the modern superstitious age.  This has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a complete lie by atheists themselves, who when asked for evidence supporting their claims, habitually fail to provide a single shred of actual real evidence supporting their absurd position.  Thus, if Richard Dawkins was even half-way honestly playing by the rules of science and evidence, he would have long ago concluded that it is 99.999-thru infinity% certain that there IS a God, rather than pretending that his entirely non evidence-based position of gross superstition, is somehow worthy of someone with a degree in science.  If nothing else, Dawkins manages to narrow down by one, the university of choice search for any rational student and/or tuition-paying parent.     F. People who believe in God are "religious" and thus, believers in superstition.  This is a position used in a video by Sam Harris, who drew an artificial line between those who believe in God as ALL being on the same side as Pat Robertson, while ALL those who don't believe in God as being on the side of "science and reason".  Such a position of course, pretends that EVERY major historical scientist, EVERY signer of the Declaration of Independence, almost every key figure of the so-called Age of Enlightenment and, EVERY human rights champion from Isaiah, Confucius, Buddha, Zarasthustra and Jesus, on down through Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, MLK, Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez, were all victims of baseless superstition.  It doesn't take much of a fly on a historical gnat's ass to conclude who is the real victim of blind-faith baseless superstition.     G. Moses and Jesus didn't exist or probably didn't exist; this is a lie often promoted by atheist and historical neophyte Christopher Hitchens, who stated in a video that "ALL modern Jewish historians now admit that Moses probably didn't exist".  Having studied many different histories from a great many Jewish and other historian viewpoints and, having seen many Jewish and other historians quoted in a great many different historical videos, I have yet to read or hear a single legitimate historian, Jewish or otherwise, conclude that either Moses or Jesus probably didn't exist. RESPONSE TO ATHEIST PRETENSE REGARDING THE EXISTENCE OF MOSES: According to the Britannica, most historians believe that either Moses or a leader like Moses did indeed exist.  There is significant evidence that Hebrews lived in the "land of Goshen" (part of the Egyptian empire) at the time of the Biblical exodus and, that they escaped their captors or otherwise left Egypt during this same historical timeframe (dates for the exodus differ among historians).  It is historical preposterous to pretend that such escaping fugitives didn't have a strong leader and as such, there is no legitimate reason to doubt the existence of Moses at all.  Any experienced desert archaeologist will confirm that entire civilizations can easily be swallowed up in shifting desert sands over time and as such, it would be surprising if a group of displaced nomads had left evidence of their desert wanderings, rather than the other way around as Hitchens pretends. The vast majority of towns, cities and cultures noted throughout the Old Testament narrative have been authenticated by outside sources.  The relatively minor biblical character names of Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, have been found etched in stone with these three non-Hebrew Babylonian names that were given to them by their captors, just as the biblical narrative claims.  And recently, a pottery psalm fragment dedicated to King David was discovered carbon-dating to the same century as the real King David.  Again, it is historically preposterous to pretend that a major character like Moses is a complete invention, given the known evidence for David, Daniel and much additional fairly recent evidence for both Abraham and the city of Sodom, as well as documented evidence of a great regional flood, several possible towers of Babel and, satellite imagery of four rivers now under salt water, showing they converge precisely as described in the story of Eden and, which historians agree could well have been the lushest and most Eden-like area found in the greater region at that time. When a long historical narrative as ancient as the Old Testament, containing writings from many different historical time frame, describes many events, cities, towns, cultures and some actual characters known to be authentic, it represents extremely poor scholarship and is just plain ignorant, to rip a major character like Moses out of the contextual whole and, pretend that Moses probably didn't exist.  This among other reasons, some of which are noted below, is why these footnotes refer to Christopher Hitchens as a "historical neophyte". RESPONSE TO ATHEIST PRETENSE REGARDING THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS: American historian Will Durant, probably the most educated person in all of history, clearly demonstrated in his work "Cesar and Christ", why it is overwhelmingly likely that Jesus existed to such a historical certainty, that only a complete idiot would conclude otherwise.  Many pages could be used going into great detail as to why, but suffice it to say here, that the letters of Paul alone, some of which are considered authentic by EVERY historian, by themselves conclusively prove as much as anything in history is conclusively proven prior to the invention of printing and, as much of the majority of history is proven even after printing became widespread, that Jesus most definitely did exist.  For among a great many other reasons, Paul in his letter to Corinthians refers to several people he is writing to as having known Jesus in the flesh, which based on such a reference according to Durant, it is absurd to pretend that someone writing a letter to a group of individuals would say within the letter itself, that some of the people he was writing to actually had known Jesus (or anyone else) unless the letter writer believed they had, as writing such a thing would not be rational for even a grade school child to do, let alone someone like Paul, one of the most educated people of his times and one of the greatest authors in all of history.  To clarify, if I was deliberately inventing a hoax claiming that Elvis Presley had risen from the dead, it would be understandable if I wrote in a letter to someone claiming that I had known Elvis personally, but it would be entirely irrational for me to claim in the letter that the recipients of the letter had known Elvis personally, unless I believed that they had.  Thus, it is irrational to conclude that Paul was creating a deliberate hoax and, it is likewise absurd to pretend that an educated man like Paul could have been deceived for 40 years by hundreds of common uneducated farmers and fishermen, all somehow spreading the same deliberate hoax that is so well conceived, that nobody else in history has ever been able to even barely scratch the surface of matching the teachings and vision attributed to Jesus. Durant goes on to point out that known significant inventions of history typically are orchestrated by a few individuals with obvious financial and other incentives to gain, require several generations to take root and, are usually based on actual events to avoid suspicion of the hoax. Whereas in the case of Jesus, several hundred if not thousand people who knew Jesus personally were encountered by Paul throughout his travels, including Peter, James and John and thus, if Jesus didn't exist, then one is left having to explain not only how so many people could deceive an educated man like Paul throughout his decades of suffering intense personal persecution but also, how several hundred common fisherman and farmers, without the aid of modern communications, pencils or paper, could have kept intact such a supposed "invention" of unparalleled historical wisdom, after having been scattered to literally hundreds of cities in the greater Grecian-Roman world.  And, more difficult still to explain, the reason WHY hundreds of poor common fisherman and farmers would for what they knew to be a myth, deliberately choose to face greater poverty, persecution, torture and painful death, with nothing to gain and everything financially and otherwise, to lose, not only for themselves, but also for their own spouse and children.  Historical neophytes like Hitchens apparently have not actually studied either the Bible or the surrounding cultures very carefully if at all and as such, they clearly demonstrate as having no clue regarding the known historical evidence. And finally, as Durant pointed out, the teachings of Jesus found in the four "gospels" represent a singular highly advanced mind and as such, it is absurd to pretend that a group of illiterate common fisherman invented them.  There are also references to Jesus in three outside sources, including from the Pharisee Josephus, who many historians have pointed out, being a friend of the Pharisees and later the Romans, would have had absolutely no reason for inventing Jesus and every logical reason for not doing so, as the Pharisees perceived Jesus as their enemy and as indicated in the gospel narrative itself, did what they could to suppress his teachings and existence.  And, since various versions of the New Testament which are all copies of earlier works date from 117-136 AD and more importantly, a fragment copy of John dates around 55 AD (probably unknown to Durant), then this supposed "invention" must pre-date the death of Paul (60 AD) and many of the original followers of Jesus and as such, it just becomes more and more historically entirely irrational to pretend that Jesus didn't exist.  Claims by some poorly educated atheists that Jesus was a later invention of 3rd Century "monks" are clearly debunked by the known evidence as note here, including the dates of existing NT copies much earlier than that, as noted here above.     H. Similar to "G" above, atheists often say that if Jesus existed, there would be more external evidence outside of the Bible.  What they conveniently overlook (actually rarely even know) is what is known to every historian worth the title, that the Romans left record-keeping to the Jews for their own cultural events of significance, rarely recorded deeds of the "common people" class and much more importantly, the records kept by Jews at that time were kept by professional scribes, who perceived Jesus as their enemy and as such, had no logical reason at all to record his words and deeds and, every logical reason to deliberately suppress them.  Additionally, deeds of common people like Jesus were almost never recorded by the religious class of "scribes and Pharisees", even if as unlike in the case of Jesus, they were not perceived as an enemy.  And, the common people who viewed Jesus as a hero were virtually all uneducated; there were no reporters, pencils, paper and other modern realities taken for granted today.  Thus, it is not at all surprising that there are few documented references to Jesus outside of the Bible. Record keeping on documents in those times was an expensive and tedious process, which is why the vast majority of 'documented' history prior to the invention of printing when it exists at all, is found on copies of copies when not written in clay or stone; copying documents was the only way of mass producing literature and other records, which is why there were professional scribes and, why what survives of the Bible and much of written history (other than on clay and stone) is only copies of other copies.  As a comparative example, the vast majority of the Greek writings of Plato, Aristotle and others are 50 and more copies deep from the originals at best.  As such, the reliability of the Bible is as great as the reliability of virtually all known historical literature prior to the invention of printing.  In most cases, it is far more reliable, as both the Old and New Testaments contain flawed characters and many instances of major battle loses and "hero" defects, unlike records of ancient Babylon, Egypt and other Fertile Crescent cultures, which are known to deliberately play up battle victories and play down and often omit entirely, known military defeats recorded in other sources. While in the case of the Bible, more and more evidence discovered within the past century continues to authenticate rather than contradict, what both the Old and New Testament narratives claim. 6. Random Chance A-Z Primer of Science and the Bible. Click to Go Back to Contents Other Books by Richard Aberdeen Click Here to eMail the Author Copyright © by Richard Aberdeen Copyright © by Freedom Tracks Music No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author: Inquires click here.  Appendix Revolution and Revolution/Side B are open copyright and may be reproduced or utilized as desired.