Eftersom detta inlägg innehåller ett svar på engelska, så kör jag alltihop på engelska. Det blir lättast så.
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There’s this YouTube video, called “10 questions every atheist must answer“. Of course, since I am an atheist, I had no choice but to answer. This is the reply I sent as a personal message to the guy who posted the video:
1. If there is no God, why is there anything at all?
First of all, your question already assumes God is the only possible creator of anything and everything. Science has no answer to the question of the creation of the universe, and it has never claimed to have one. The absence of an answer does NOT validate the presumption that God exists, it only tells you that we simply don’t know.
Let me ask you this: If there IS a God, why is there anything at all? Assuming God is all knowing, he already knows the entire existence of our universe, including the end, if it has one, and so what is the point of creating it for us to live in? Is he merely amusing himself? What’s the point of our consciousness if the universe is not truly ours, but Gods?
Simply put, your question is severely misleading and really only makes any sense whatsoever to those who already believe in God. Since I don’t, there’s really no way for me to answer it.
2. Where is the evidence that life could have begun without intelligent interference?
Where is the evidence that it couldn’t?
There is no evidence. There is no need for evidence. Science doesn’t claim one thing, and then expect the entire scientific community to go on proving it. We have no assumptions as to how life begun, merely observation. That which we HAVE observed does not in any way point to any intelligent interference. I really don’t think you expect me to answer any questions about that which we have NOT observed, right?
3. How can evolution explain features of irreducible complexity apart from intelligent intervention?
Ok, first you’ll have to show me an example of this “irreducible” complexity you speak of. If you’re talking about things like the human eye, and how it’s so incredibly complicated it couldn’t in any way have been formed without the help of an intelligent designer, I won’t even try to answer…
…I’ll just let a youtube video explain it instead: How the Eye Evolved
Even if there IS a good example if irreducible complexity, then there’s still the matter of pure chance. You can’t deny that any example you give is, in fact, merely a result of chance. If you DO deny it, where’s your evidence that it is, in fact, NOT a result of chance?
4. How can the evolutionary model be true since the fossil record clearly shows most major groups emerging at the same time?
How does it “clearly show” this? I have never even heard of a claim like that (outside of the creationist “scientific community”). I cannot give you an answer to a question that is based on falsehood, now can I? If you want an answer, produce a source of real scientific reputability, and I’ll do my best.
Also, see taxonomy.
5. If there is no objective standard of right or wrong, how can anything be wrong?
Again with the assumptions! If you want to debate science, do it on scientific terms. Don’t just assume that what you believe is correct, and ask questions based on that belief. It’s dishonest.
Morality isn’t objective, it’s highly subjective. However, most of what we consider “right” and “wrong” are things most of us can agree on. For example, there’s the “golden rule, a measure of morality that has existed way before biblical times and that has been referenced in most civilized societies regardless of religion. It’s something people of all faiths can agree upon, and that doesn’t in any way demand faith in anything.
There’s nothing wrong with being good simply out of goodness. You don’t have to live in fear of hell or a vengeful god to be good.
Answer me this: If God could be disproved, would you rid yourself of all morality? Would you go out and rape, murder, plunder and steal just because you could? Probably not.
6. So which is the logically defensible position?—that matter eternally existed (or came into existence by itself for no reason), and then by itself arranged itself into extraordinarily complex living systems including not only mechanisms but huge amounts of information needed for life to function against everything observed in real science? Or that an eternal self existing being with infinite intelligence, created life and the information systems necessary for life to exist, agreeing with real science?
Seriously, stop misrepresenting science. You’re only making yourself look bad.
Science knows absolutely nothing of the creation of the universe, and it doesn’t pretend to either. YOU’RE the one pretending like you have the answer, not us. As to which of YOUR alternatives are most logical, I’d say none. One impossible (by scientific standards) thing is no more logical than another impossible thing. And if, by your logic, an infinite intelligence having existed always, creating everything, is logical, then the universe spawning from an infinite nothingness is just as logical! Infinity is what it is, it’s no more or less logical when associated with a deity than it is by itself.
7.How can natural selection produce something that is a prerequisite for natural selection to operate?
Again, show me an example, or I can’t possibly hope to explain what I can only gather is a figment of your own imagination.
Natural selection has no prerequisites, because it is only a description of an observed phenomenon in nature. It is not a thing which needs other things, it has no will. Natural selection is a method applied to the workings of nature after the fact, not before. It is a way for US to describe IT, not for IT to explain itself to US.
8. If scientists almost totally accept that a signal from outer space containing information that could be interpreted as a string of prime numbers would be proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, why would they not accept that the information coding in the nucleus of the simplest cells dna which is equivalent to the information in a full set of encyclopedia Britannica was the result of intelligence?
…What?
One thing has nothing to do with the other! If DNA actually contained the entire set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, THEN I would be impressed. Also, only THEN would your example actually make sense.
To say that the mere amounts of trees in a forest is proof of an intelligent designer is ridiculous. A forest is no more or less complicated depending on the amount of trees, just as DNA is no more or less complicated because of the amount of information it contains. It’s what that information actually tells you that is impressive, and that still in no way suggests, nor demands, an intelligent creator. It is the product of the logical chain of evolution, not magic.
9. What if God is real as described in the bible and you have to stand before him and give an account for your life? Do you have a list of reasons for why you never accepted Him? Under close scrutiny, will those reasons betray the fact that you dont want to believe and will stick with anything that sounds good rather than look into it too seriously.
Way to stay neutral and objective!
If God did, in fact, exist, and I had to face him at the end of my life, I would proudly explain how he personally failed to produce a single piece of evidence of his own existence. Who cares what he thinks about that? He’s omnipotent, there’s not a single thing I can do if he decides to smite me anyway. In fact, he’s already judged me before I even made any decision in life, even before I was even born!
Religious people ask what the meaning of life is for an atheist. I am perplexed at how religious people cannot grasp the futility of religious reality, where nothing they do matter since God is, by their own claim, all knowing and almighty. Only in an atheist reality are we free to really make our own choices, and decide for ourselves how important we want to make our lives. A lack of faith does in no way hinder my ability to strive towards a righteous life.
10. If I answered all your objections to your satisfaction, would you submit your life to Jesus or recognize God as your creator?
First of all, I don’t have any objections. Atheists don’t care if you have a personal belief, it’s the forcing of that belief on everybody else that we reject and actively fight. YOU are the one who has objections about science, and how it simply fails to prove your own assumptions of the existence of God.
But sure, in the interest of debate, if you did answer all my “objections”, then no. I would not submit my life to Jesus, because my life is my own. I would be very happy to know the answer to “how was the universe created”, but I wouldn’t obey him anymore than I obey the workers at the Volkswagen factory that built my car.