Tonight on Night line (abc) they had a debate between 2 Christians and 2 atheists. It was interesting to say the least. Of course most of you know I'm a Christian however I thought this debate was pretty ridiculous.
In theory what the 2 men on the Christian side of things (one including Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains.) is good. However in practice, it sucks. They had some good arguments and remained calm composure throughout the debate but their arguments were mostly evolution based and when the atheists chose to question the actually relevance of God they were lost for an answer and changed the subject back to disproving evolution or answered with a sugar coated bible theology.
Well out of sheer boredom and lacking the ability to sleep I'm answering the questions the atheists asked.
1. The Christian side emphasized that proof of God is all around us because of creation. The creation is proof in itself for all things have a creator. So the atheists pose the question: Who created God? This is first and foremost the reason I was not horridly fond of this debate. The debate was in essence trying to prove that the existence of God is obvious in retrospect using Science, or just plain logic. When in fact the bible states clearly that it is vital for our perspective of God to be decided upon faith.
Here's why: If you've ever seen teen witch or any movie where someone tries to change themselves to make someone else fall in love with them it always turns out bad. Granted real life is not like movies. But use this as some insight. God created us because He wanted people to choose to love Him. He could have made us all puppets or made us all love Him simply by force. It is possible. However it would not be true love. It would not be chosen love. He wants us to choose Him. Having faith is an important aspect of this.
God is divine. He is super natural. Our simple puny little minds can not contemplate the vastness of Him. He is complex. Uncreated. He is the I Am. He was and He always is and always will be. No one created Him. He was always. He is forever. We can't grasp this. We can't even try. It's uncomprehending to our minds. So the answer to the question is "no one created God" and I just added in the whole "I don't like this debate because they're trying to prove God's existence by Human Scientific terms which is good in theory but consistently debated/speculated and always will be so there for a waste of resources and time" thing for funsies.
2. We see evidence of imperfections in design. If we were created by intelligent design why would our retinas be backwards in the human eye causing pictures to go to our mind upside down, men have nipples, our ecosystem depends on killing life to survive. Are these not instances that disprove intelligent design?
*I do not see the eye thing as really an imperfection. Maybe that's just me. But I more of see it as an anomaly of perfection. For in fact our eyes do see images upside down but our brain is so intricate and complex that it turns each images and picture around. This is not imperfect to me. This is just sweet. I mean we don't see upside down right? So to me, things are working great.
*All embryos whether male or female develop in the same way for the first 10 – 12 weeks in the womb. It is only after this period that the sex hormones start to circulate and the fetus develops into a boy or a girl. But by that time the tissue that forms the nipples is already there so boys get them too, although they will never be used to deliver milk. Personally on this I am opinionated biblically by the scripture that discusses that we are made in the image of God. Both men and women. Also I think Men would look really weird if they didn't have nipples. ;)
*It is true. Our ecosystem works in the way that killing is essential to survive for certain organisims. However survival of the fittest has never been something essential for humans. The possibility for humans to survive, thrive, live in peace with one another has always been and always will be possible. Our ecosystem is intricate in the way of different food chains, dependencies from animal to animal. Micro bacteria. Organisms thrive off other organisms. But humans are not required to eat each other to survive. Or kill each other to survive. There is plants and animals given to us. This is not an imperfection. Animals are different. I could write on and on about the differences between human/animal but I won't bore you with what is blatantly obvious.
3. Oops. I missed one. Here it is. :-p All sin should be forgiven of men except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Well... What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? The atheists and creators of blasphemychallenge.com are under the impression it is simply saying "I deny the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God does not exist, yadda yadda yadda". In essence they're pretty much right. Blasphemy is rejecting God. Rejecting Salvation. You don't have to say it. It's about living it. Peta files, Murders, Hitler etc. The list goes on and on. They lived a life style of evil. They lived with a evil attitude. However the reality is that if they come to a realization of the evil and repent and accept the good, they are forgiven. Because quite frankly it doesn't matter your past. It doesn't matter what you've done.
4. Non-Christians can do good things. Religion does not make someone good. The fact is no one is good. It's all comparison, we compare ourselves to the murders and say "well, I'm not out murdering people so I'm a good person". But the fact of the matter is, we all lie, a ton of us have stolen, most people are pretty one track minded on themselves, we all want things that we can't have, obsess over money or relationship. All fall short. None of us are good people. We are all pretty scummy. Think about a time when someone has hurt you. Maybe they said a lie to you. Or maybe just hurt your feelings. Think about how awful you felt. That is how God feels every single time we sin. Every time we lie, every time we steal, cheat, say something we shouldn't, put other things like relationships, money, friends above him. This is not some game of good vs. evil. It's real. We all suck at life. No one is good. I don't care who you are. You've done something stupid and regretful. Think of a time someone has made you really angry. Like so angry you wanted to hurt them just as bad as they've hurt you. The fact is we hurt God so much that if he were to inflict that amount of hurt on us we would die instantly. Just for one little thing whether it be a lie or a bad word. We all deserve death. Not just death, but painful, toilsome death. None of us do not deserve forgiveness. We choose sin it does not choose us. Hell was never made for us. We were never made to sin. We were made to worship and even more so rule with the uncreated God in a paradise of beauty, love and excellence. We were created for love, fascination, impact and there is no way we can have satisfaction in these things because we go and screw everything up. So we try to get satisfaction from relationships, sex, friends, drugs, alcohol, tv, movies, sports, competition, grades, school, family. But those are all temporary things. We are eternal and we have a choice of accepting that we're evil scum of the earth and asking, better yet begging for forgiveness. Or not caring, never truly realizing that eternally you will be punished and tormented without any sense of true existence.
5. Science is constantly changing. God never changes. He doesn't have to. There's never been Scientific evidence disproving God. Don't give me evolution. Darwin himself denied his own theories. He said "this is something to consider"
6. God does not stop Science because of Faith (see above argument). And Science more and more offers proof of God's existence rather than existence of evolution. Also Science is not negated because of God's perfect design. We do not live in a world where just saying poof gets us an ice cream Sunday. However this is no logical argument that God is non-existent. It just means we don't live in some hokey fairy tale dream world.
7. God does not need to abide by the laws of Science. He made Science. He made everything. He can do whatever he wants.
http://abcnews.go.comAlso if you're an atheist you no longer need to hide it. In fact if you record yourself saying "I deny the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, some other atheist will send you a free dvd.
http://blasphemychallenge.comThen Kelly had a couple other points that I didn't hit on but I am tired and should go to bed.
