As part of my echo here:
I decided to reply at YT, to the YT atheists:
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Pardon a few notes, I refer to Lennox's God's Undertaker and Gunning for God given the vid is a highly allusive, 15 minute outline that presumes a highly aware audience knowledgeable on worldviews issues and difficulties. (No, it is hardly an empty "word salad" as has been snidely, dismissively suggested below. No more so than the compressed summaries of the core case for warranted Christian trust in God in the face of Christ we may read in Acts 17 and 26 are.)
We may safely assume "atheism" here is in the main part of a naturalistic/physicalist, evolutionary materialistic scientism worldview. So the "without faith in God" tendentious argumentative redefinition of atheism -- active denial of the credible reality of God -- hardly stands on its own, and its fallacious selective hyperskepticism and incoherence will readily be apparent.
(After all, it is now ninety years since JBS Haldane, co-founder of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis went on public record:
<<It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.] >>)
So:
a: Evolutionary materialistic scientism [EMS] reduces, mind>brain>computational substrate, but hardly has an an adequate observationally backed warrant for the complex information, organisation and functionality. (Some are moved to say, such functionally specific complexity and associated organisation/information [FSCO/I] already are warrant for a design inference.)
b: Already, as computation is a mechanical-stochastic cause-effect chain, it is inherently not independently rational and so EMS advocates are in a self referential loop undermining their own rationality. Tendencies to project genetic and psychosocial programming to others also suffers from self-referential self-defeat. Karl, what of your own class conditioning, etc.
c: Similarly, the denial of objective moral truth is meant to be an objective truth, but would then be a truth of morality; again, self-defeat. Undeniably, there are objective so knowable moral truths. One who denies the wickedness of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering a young child walking home from school simply exposes himself as monstrous.
d: Extending, EMS has no reality root level IS capable of bridging the IS-OUGHT gap. Thus it is forced to view the moral government of our conflicting thoughts by duties to truth, right reason, prudence (including warrant) etc as in the end a socially convenient delusion. Thus, again ending in self referential incoherence. (By contrast, ethical theism poses the only serious candidate: the inherently good, utterly wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. [In case of unfamiliarity with necessary being, try to imagine a distinct possible world without two-ness, i.e. NBs are world-fabric entities inherent to any such world including ours.] If you doubt this, try to pose an adequate alternative that is coherent __, a blank that is hard to fill. And yes the best definition of philosophy is, the department of hard questions. Which immediately discredits the notion that "Science" utterly dominates serious knowledge or inquiry, indeed, Mathematics is an extension of such phil, the study of the logic of structure and quantity. )
e: Likewise, some indeed suggested a world from nothing, failing to recognise nothing means, properly, non-being, which cannot have causal powers. We need a reality root [RR].
f: Such a RR, for a causal-temporal, thermodynamics constrained world, must be finitely remote and NB. Finitely remote, as a putative transfinite past cannot be traversed year by year to now, by the logic of structure of a countable transfinite set, such as say Z. Yes, even through quantum foams bubbling up sub cosmi, there is an inherent finitely remote beginning. Which requires an adequate RR. Where, recall, that includes accounting for moral government and bridging the IS-OUGHT gap in that root.
g: Then, our observed deeply fine tuned cosmos, first cell based life, major body plans and our own brain-body system all exhibit abundant FSCO/I and cry out for adequate causal explanation. Following Newton's rules designed to lock out smuggling in controlling speculative hypotheses by the back door (as EMS is!), there is just one warranted source of FSCO/I, intelligently directed configuration, aka Design.
h: As for where Lennox started, personal, life transforming encounter with God, across time millions of cases, many of which have been pivotal for civilisation, e.g. Wilberforce and Wesley. To invite that all such are delusional, is to open the door to self-discrediting, galloping grand delusion.
i: As for his outline on the warrant for the risen Man of Sorrows [500 eyewitnesses] who reclaims ruined sinners, I suggest we ponder Paul, before his knowledgeable judges, 59 AD:
<<Acts 26: 2 “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews . . . . 6 And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, 7 to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? . . . . 24 And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” 25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 26 For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.” 28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”2 29 And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.” >>
From c 30 AD to 59 AD to 2024+, these challenges remain on the table and need to be soberly addressed. GEM/TKI, MNI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY8uDhaLJnk&lc=UgyjcvT9EAdBmD4m29R4AaABAg
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I think it went through, earlier attempt to Link Lennox at Amazon I think failed END
PS: This YT vid brings out the point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znm9zBNixHQ suggesting Christian faith is hallucination and/or early stage senility, Lennox vs Atkins
PPS: I followed up (and BTW these two comments have now disappeared at YT, it seems part of a wider comments sweep):
Followed up at YT. I saw:
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@circusserpent9466
4 hours ago
So, God made himself from nothing, then made something, and everything originated from nothing. If you believe God as the most powerful and intelligent being came from nothing, then you believe in evolution. >>
I responded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY8uDhaLJnk&lc=Ugy70wPTxLGRMCHu-JZ4AaABAg.A71nhg9FHVlA72h4-mhjWI
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@gemofthekairosinitiative1894
0 seconds ago
@circusserpent9466 No, pardon but you here show today's widespread gap in our understanding of logic of being, ontology; a key sub branch of metaphysics, core philosophy. Where, Mathematics grows from this, as I noted eight hours ago: the study of the logic of structure and quantity (no, at core, Math is not an empirical science like physics).
Here, candidate beings may be possible or impossible of being [think, Euclidean plane square circles]. Possible beings would or do exist in at least one possible world. Contingent beings are causally dependent for origin and continued existence, such as fires, humans and stars; they exist in at least one PW, and do not exist in at least one PW.
Necessary beings are different, they are fabric, framework for any world to exist: try to imagine a distinct possible world without two-ness, impossible (and by that, NZQRCR* etc and the universal power of core Math). Necessary beings do not begin, are not causally dependent, cannot cease from being. They are reality root level entities. Further, a serious candidate NB will either be impossible of being like a square circle in Euclid's plane, or else will be actual.
God is a serious candidate NB, and after Plantinga's free will defence [not, theodicy], there is no serious argument that God is impossible of being. So, no, God does not cause his existence from some prior utter non being. Were there ever once utter non being, such would forever obtain.
As a world is, there is a necessary being world root, and one adequate to ground moral government. Your alternative to God as that root is _, and it is viable because __ . >>
