The Unmoved Mover and Quantum Physics

There aren't many philosophically sound arguments for the existence of God. If there were, there'd be a lot more theists by now and a lot less of everything else.

However, Doug Benscoter, at Fides et Ratio, believes that the cosmological argument of the Unmoved Mover is not only sound, but is even consistent with modern physics.

His formulation of the argument is:

1. Evident to the senses is motion. (Premise)

2. Everything in motion has its motion sustained by another. (Premise)

3. Either an Unmoved Mover exists, or else there is an infinite regress of sustaining movers. (Implied by 1 and 2)

4. There cannot be an infinite regress of sustaining movers. (Premise)

5. Therefore, an Unmoved Mover exists. (From 3 and 4)

He then goes on to briefly address a few issues that may arise with the second premise and explains how objections can be resolved by rewording the premise. A full explanation can be found HERE.

The only other objection I could see being raised is to premise 4, only because it comes close to begging the question. If there cannot be an infinite regress, then there must be a First Cause. Why would we even bother with the other premises?

Evidence Against Young-Earth Creationism

I am a theist, and a Christian, but I am not a fan of believing in claims that appear to be more than demonstrably false. To believe in a claim that is proven false absolutely requires that the adherent willfully closes their mind to truth. If there is a God, then that is certainly not what he intended for us.

One of these claims which, in my uneducated opinion, is more than demonstrably false is Young-Earth Creationism (YEC). I don't mean to offend anyone who may believe in Young-Earth Creationism, but to my mind, I can't imagine why He would do that.

To create the Earth in one week, 6,000 years ago, would require pretty significant, and frequent, violations of known laws of physics. If He could accelerate the Creation process in such a way, then why did it take a week? If He is capable of performing such huge violations of the laws of physics, then why not just snap your fingers and have it all be there? I don't know that there is a coherent answer.

In addition, if He did create it in one week, 6,000 years ago, then why would He also create huge amounts of physical evidence that it took much longer? Literally everything in the universe, from coral and tree rings, to the time it takes starlight to reach us, testifies that the universe has been here for much more than 6,000 years.

The more insightful among you may say that He did that in order to mask his presence, such as in an old refutation to the Argument from Non-Belief. He needs only those who are prepared to know of His existence in order to protect the unprepared. But that doesn't quite fit. No matter how God created the Earth, He could have masked His existence. Old-Earth Creationism doesn't bring us any further to proving his existence. In fact, wouldn't Old-Earth Creationism be the more reasonable model, if He were trying to hide His influence, since it looks much more like the natural process?

A bigger problem is that if God did leave such evidence as fossils and such in order to throw us off, it would be closer to deception than masking his existence. In other words, it would not simply be the absence of positive evidence, it would be the presentation of negative evidence. God would be telling a lie, rather than simply not saying anything at all, and according to Christian canon, God cannot lie.

In other words, no matter how you choose to interpret the first few chapters of Genesis, it difficult to see Young-Earth Creationism as not conflicting with the rest of the Bible and how we conceive of God, in addition to simply leaving many, many questions unanswered, and contradicting the many signs to the contrary.

D Rizdek on Fine Tuning

A user over at Debunking Christianity, named D Rizdek, made a comment on the Fine-Tuning which was noteworthy enough to be made into it's own post. He said,

"Fine tuning only makes sense if there is no god. If there is no god, then it is quite remarkable that all the universal constants seem to be "just so" such that matter/energy comes together in atoms, then molecules, that gravity is "just right" so that planets and suns form that give off light that nurtures life, blah blah. But that's only remarkable if there's no god. But of course that indicates there's no god.  

If there IS a god, then it's all mundane. It's all arbitrary. Matter and energy can behave anyway this god wants it to. There need be no universal constants at all, or they can be ANYTHING this god desires, because,well, it's god. God can design things any it want's to. Life need not have a planet it live on IF god designed it otherwise. Matter/energy need not come together to form atoms, planets and stars. What would be the point if life doesn't need them. Besides, if god wanted atoms, planets or start, they'd just appear without any constants. Because that's what gods do. It's only after applying human limitations on god that one can use the argument from fine tuning. The reasoning is that because WE are limited in how we must interact with the immutable physical universe, somehow the theist becomes ingrained in thinking their god must also be thus limited. They believe he must come up with "just so" constants otherwise nothing would work."

Rizdek says that Fine-Tuning only works if there is no God because if there is no God, then it is remarkable that all these constants line up in a way that allows life to form. If there is a God, then it is not remarkable, it's to be expected.

I may be mistaken, but his argument seems to be:

• If God exists, then the universe would allow life to exist.
• The universe allows life to exist.
• This isn't particularly impressive.

Therefore:

• God does not exist.

In addition, the post that came from this comment stated that:

"The burden of proof would be on the theist to show why God would want to produce a world which was naturalistically sustained and so on rather than one supported supernaturalistically."

Here is a response to that:

Argument from Non-Belief