Jesus, Dawkins, Santa & the Tooth Fairy

Believe it or not this is my Christmas post, and all these names have something in common. Richard Dawkins is a world-renown scientist who is also known as Darwin’s Rottweiler because of his radical position on Darwinism. He is also vehemently opposed to any hint of deity being involved in the here-and-now or the hereafter.

Dawkins and his supporters also frequently parrot something like, “Sure, people have the freedom to believe in God, and we do not want to take this away. They also have the freedom to believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.”

Well Mr. Dawkins, let’s solve the simple controversies first. The Tooth Fairy is an early European myth, and some think that it came from the tooth mouse that had more or less the same mission. No one really believes in this person into adulthood. There are no theological or philosophical books written about him or her, and there are no temples devoted to worship. This character never existed.

Santa on the other hand did sort of exist. He does not live at the North Pole despite Hollywood’s never-ending attempt to make us believe. Nicholas of Myra – no relation to my wife who is also Myra – lived in what is now Turkey which is a little further south. He usually tried to forego using reindeer to crash-land on roofs, but he was known to have done much for humanity in the name of God simply by walking on foot. Many aspects of his life are worthy of emulating even from a secular perspective.

Dawkins is a contemporary figure who is quite brilliant even though I believe his presuppositions are extremely prejudiced. You really need to have your ducks in a row – or primates in ascending order – to hang with this guy in a debate. I would however ask him why he stands so firmly against the God that Nicholas followed in a desire to do good, and I would ask him what moral questions he has against a man, namely Jesus, whose life brought about the greatest positive change in human history and whose birth and death have come to define our cultural landscape.

When it comes to the aforementioned names it is better to focus on just Jesus and Richard Dawkins for the sake of comparison and contrast, but Saint Nicholas without the reindeer is still worthy of mention having made a significant impact on natural history because of what he believed and did.

The final question is this. Does what we do or don’t believe about Christmas cause us to make a significant positive contribution to the moral evolution of our species, or do we just adhere to survival if the fittest in a hurting and needy world?

Atheism: Camping at God’s Grave

Concerning belief in God there is a broad spectrum of positions ranging from devotion, to acknowledgement, to ignorance and finally direct opposition. I have met many people in my life all holding different positions. Many religious people are indifferent, and most who call themselves atheists or agnostics are only stating a shallow opinion on the subject.

However, standing at opposite ends of the spectrum are two camps that look at each other in total disbelief and fascination. The committed atheist wonders at the life committed to the unseen deity, but the believer must also wonder about the commitment of the atheist. I checked Google today and there were 15 million hits for the phrase “There is no God”.

Motive & motivation are always a factor in belief or unbelief, and I marvel at the determination of the atheist to prove that something does not exist. He even becomes angry at that thing that does not exist to the point that he seems to be camping out at the grave of God, always digging a hole to prove that it is empty. He can’t seem to tear himself away from digging much like a dachshund my wife once had growing up. He was obsessed with turning over large rocks in the back yard to see what was under them. After he turned over the rock he would proceed to do it again and again until we stopped him.

The committed atheist often becomes one at a young age before having devoted a lot of study to the subject. There is usually some event that has shattered his view of God. It could be the failing of a leader, a misrepresentation of some biblical truth by a charlatan or an unexplained loss. Personal failings are often projected onto God with illogical results. “I am mad at God about myself, so I will keep him in exile. I will maintain his nonexistence.” Simple revenge. All evidence after this is seen through these glasses as objectivity is lost and the radical is born.

You would think that once the idea of God has been eliminated that the person’s anger and moral crisis would disappear; however, for the committed atheist it often intensifies. I see a similar thing in people who have unresolved issues with a loved one who has passed away. In their hearts they are still arguing with that person to the point that they feel anger when they visit their grave. Some atheists are in a worse situation because they are angry with what they believe is an empty grave.

One aspect of radical Atheism’s continued fight with the nonexistent god is what it considers to be “the problem of evil”. While claiming that evil exists – an assumption that requires an absolute morality - they claim that a benevolent god whose existence defines good & evil does not exist because evil exists. Once again, their hearts reveal that they are waging a personal debate - based on God - with a personal God…who can’t exist. A non-existing god is kept in place as the whipping boy for humanity's failures, and the radical atheist can scarce live without him.

There are a great many arguments on each side of this great debate, and I have encountered many of them. I am one who has committed his life to knowing a personal God, but I do not understand a life committed to proving God does not exist. If God does not exist then our existence is short. Why waste time debating unless the questions of the soul concerning God are not really answered? Why not “eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” as Solomon said?

Life is indeed short. All sides agree. Eternity is long. Atheists do not agree on this, but in private they wish for a good eternity when they reach their later days. The irony of it all is that God did have a grave. He became like us, lived like us, died like us and inhabited a grave for a few days. The grave could not hold Him though. It will not hold us either from entering one of two eternities. Pascal wagered that closing the door on God is not wise, and even though it is an old wager it is still a good one.

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Heb 11:6

… the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen! Luke 24:5,6

Consider This: God in the Circle?

That was the argument. A young freshman who just finished his first philosophy class made his presentation. You know the class. It is the one where the professor asks the question, “Can God make a rock so big He can't move it?” For the young aspiring atheist this seemed to be the lynchpin he needed to disprove God.

On this day young Huxley - this is what I like to call him - had another proposition, much more advanced. He began by drawing two circles on the board. One circle was empty, and the other had another circle in it. “Consider this”, he said. “Consider two possible universes, one with god and one without…” The argument goes on an on using basic set theory to somehow show there is no God.

However, young Huxley had way overstepped his intelligence, and so had his teacher. In response, my proposition to him was: Let’s not consider two possible universes, but let’s just attempt to consider one, the one that we are in.

Wow, a circle! I am sure the guys in genetics, atomic physics, astrophysics, cosmology, math, biology, etc would really appreciate this answer. I wish that I had used it on all my physics and math exams. However, if I had done so my professors would have also written a circle on my paper, better known as a ZERO.

While my classmate drew his circle and said, “Consider a universe” he had only considered a “circle”. While this circle was being drawn the best minds in every other faculty on campus were stretching the limits of human understanding just trying to “consider” their own portion of the universe. It is a daunting task.

Just consider the world around us, its beauty, its complexity, its wonder. Consider yourself, your emotions, imagination and even consider the fact that you can in-fact “consider” anything at all. I do not attempt here to prove that there is a God. I only ask seekers of knowledge to consider ALL that is before them, if they can.

There are many professional “considerers” in the world of academia who stand in awe of what they have studied. Some believe there is something or someone behind it all. Some have come to know a personal God, but some have not. Yet, they have all obeyed the biblical commandment to truly consider. May they all come to ultimate truth.

There are others who draw circles around God, draw circles around truth, hide behind constitutional amendments and ultimately refuse to consider anything that would cause awe or shake their world views. My question to the young atheist is this: Can you prove to me that you have the ability to even consider the present universe in its entirety? Have you really done the work? Have you even seen all the data? If not, can you make the conclusions that you do? Wiser men than us have wearied themselves trying to wrap finite minds around infinite things. Some circles are just not big enough.

“It is an accursed evil to a man to become so absorbed in any subject as I am in mine”
“I am weary of my work. It is a very odd thing that I have no sensation that I overwork my brain; but facts compel me to conclude that my brain was never formed for thinking.” Charles Darwin

…and I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. Solomon, Eccl 1:13

The Typist: Monkey, Maker or Lucky Mud

I was discussing the new movie Expelled with my daughters the other day, and I was able to recount to them my own experience with the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate. For those of you who do not know, the movie is a documentary about free speech restrictions and harassment towards people – in the US of all places – who adhere to the Intelligent Design position.

As a Physics student who was also a new Christian at the time I often found myself in the middle of debates, but one occurrence always comes to memory. It took place in my Thermal Physics class where we were discussing the mathematical representation of entropy. Hey, don’t tune out here. I will keep it simple.

Here was my professor’s presentation: How long would it take a monkey typing randomly to eventually type out Hamlet with no mistakes. The monkey of course cannot read, and we assume that in this thought experiment that even if we gave him 4 billion years of trial and error he would not just evolve into William Shakespeare and figure it all out. He is just a random key puncher.

Next, we increased the odds by allowing 30,000 monkeys to work together for 4 billion years. A lot of bananas needed for motivation. Will one of them come close to typing out Hamlet? The statistical answer is “NO”. Then my professor likened the odds to this happening to the odds of humans and chimpanzees not being genetically related. Yes, he used this to support evolution. Since there was very little difference in our two DNA's he postulated that we must have come from the same line.

The argument made a weak point, but there were other problems. The DNA line was similar, but it did not point to a common ancestral origin. It pointed to a common originator, designer or Creator as some us refer to Him. In much the same way that engineers use the wheel for a myriad of inventions the Creator used four limbs, a trunk and a head for most of His design.

I said nothing in class that day because I had a plan up my sleeve. The monkey argument had a more gaping flaw, so the next day before class I snuck in 30 minutes earlier and wrote on the board, “What is the statistical chance of nature at the typewriter being able to type out the classic work known as DNA in 4 billion years?” Hamlet contains over 130,000 letters and the odds of it being typed with a universe full of monkeys is 1 in 10^183,800. This is basically ZERO.

Now for DNA. The human genome contains about 3,100,000,000 letters which is equivalent to 100 Manhattan phone books. This is 23,000 times the letters in Hamlet. We still come out with ZERO CHANCE, a bigger zero if you know what I mean.

Yet here we stand pondering the typist. Shakespeare, whose DNA is similar to a chimp, can type out Hamlet and a few other works, but a chimp cannot type out the word “banana”. There is another Typist I think – you may not agree – and in light of the sheer impossibility of wind, water & fire being in the publishing business it is not unreasonable to inquire if there is a ghost writer behind it all.

My professor – one of my favorites – walked into the class, read the board, grunted and then erased my question. He did not do the math.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalms 19:1