Science, properly understood, answers empirical questions, not philosophical or metaphysical ones. This poses a huge problem for many modern atheists, because, in a justifiable admiration for real science, they want to employ science in answering problems of metaphysics, and science is simply not capable of answering such questions.
Although everybody who works with science comes to it with an underlying set of predetermined metaphysical assumptions, that does not justify trying to morph those metaphysical assertions into claims of scientific fact. An example of this is found in a fascinating documentary about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the search for the elusive “God particle,” called Particle Fever. (If you have Netflix, it’s a streamer and easily accessible.) I’m not scientifically trained, so much of the material in the film is way over my head, but from what I understand, standard physics has no way of explaining how the universe exists without positing some kind of particle that has yet to be discovered, and some believe the experiments we learn about in the movie have found that particle.
What most interests me most about this movie is how desperate one young physicist, an Iranian whose family had to escape from that country (maybe one reason a belief in a benevolent God does not appeal to him), and who has spent 15 years of his life obsessed with the LHC and the search for the Higgs Boson (the particle he hopes will explain the creation of the universe without bringing God into it).
For committed naturalists of this sort, the universe gives frightening indications of having been designed with such exquisite precision that its existence is implausible except as the result of an infinitely intelligent designer. What is known as the cosmological constant is one number that has to have an extremely precise value, and if that value were different by even a small amount, the universe could not exist, or would at least be so different from our present one as to be unimaginable. The young physicist expresses these annoyingly contradictory notions in a few sentences:
On the face of it, someone cared very much to put this parameter at just the right value so we could exist. . . . The rate of the universe’s expansion is very much slower than modern physics would predict, in fact billions and billions of times slower. . . . There is a scientific alternative to someone out there who loves us, twiddling the dials very finely for things to work out.
Why the existence of a Creator “twiddling the dials” should be seen as a problem seems to me rather a problem in itself, and not a scientific one but a psychological one.
Instead of seriously confronting that problem, the physicist simply takes a giant leap of faith of his own, positing a multiverse, the notion that there are so many universes that it only makes sense that one of them would turn out exactly like ours has, completely by chance. Yet that only makes the problem still more difficult: if one universe is hard to explain, a multitude of them is even harder to imagine, let alone describe and explain. In fact, the notion of multiverses is absolutely unscientific, by virtue of not being falsifiable. Hence the intensive effort to disprove the existence of God through scientific tools, which are by their nature not up to the task, leads straight to incoherence and flat-out fantasy.
One irony lost on any atheists who are putting their faith in the LHC, desperately longing for answers to the mystery of life that will obviate the need for God, is the LHC itself. This machine is massive, and it took 20 years to put it all together. No doubt that even before the first spade of dirt was turned, a huge amount of planning and thought went into what this machine would look like and what it would do. Engineers and scientists must have spent thousands and thousands of hours planning and designing it. Looking at it, even on a 52-inch TV one can tell it was designed by intelligent agents.
Yet for many of the people we see in the movie, probably most, something that is infinitely more complex, more fine-tuned and awe-inspiring, the universe and everything in it, simply cannot have had an intelligent being create it; such a possibility must be ruled out a priori. Ironic indeed.
Hey I like your article! I have been debating problems like this on philosophy forums since about 2009 but have again quit in frustration. I’m neither ‘theistic’ nor an atheist, but I definitely accept there is a higher intelligence, call it what you will, and am amazed by the knots that atheists are willing to tie themselves in to avoid acknowledging it. I have had to learn to ‘shut up and meditate’ as there is too much smoke and not enough light. But anyway, here’s to you, right on the mark.
Ah, I see now, another walking modern atheist cliche. Oh well, I tried to have a reasonable conversation with you. Cheers!
So you’re just giving up instead of answering my latest criticisms?
Brian, I would love a debate, but it is my experience that those who disparage religion as just another superstition have not thought deeply or clearly enough about the evidence for religious belief. I speak specifically about Christianity, which is an historical religion that makes propositional claims to truth based on evidence (see 1 Corinthians 15 in the Bible). Christianity can be defended (not proved) not only historically, but philosophically, sociologically, psychologically (human nature), epistemologically, and from nature (see http://www.apologetics315.com/ if you care to see that the Christian faith can indeed rationally, logically and dispassionately be defended, and that very intelligent people have very good reasons for accepting it and rejecting atheism, agnosticism, and other religions).
All the evidence may not be persuasive to you and many others, but to disparage such belief as superstition reveals a level of bias and closed mindedness that makes debating such a person a waste of time, for both of us.
But what’s wrong with the “tired old argument from design.”
It refutes itself. If thing X requires a designer, doesn’t the designer also require a designer? And the second designer requires another one? Etc. If you make an exception for the first designer, you’ve violated your own premise, so your argument doesn’t hold.
There’s plenty of evidence of bad design in nature, too, like the giraffe’s laryngeal nerve — in fish, this nerve goes pretty straight, but in mammals this nerve goes under the aortic arch, so in mammals this nerve goes into the chest before going back out to the larynx. In humans, this isn’t much of a detour, but in giraffes, it’s 15 feet long instead of just a few inches:
http://blog.eternalvigilance.me/2013/04/evidence-for-evolutionism-1-the-recurrent-laryngeal-nerve
That’s a terrible design.
And there is the theological reason for atheism I alluded to in my piece. Some people don’t want their to be a God because then they will be accountable for their sin.
I have never known any atheist to think this; as far as I can tell, it’s just another religious superstition.
You make some good points, Brian. Consider me enlightened! But what’s wrong with the “tired old argument from design.” Tired to whom? Your atheist buddies, like Dawkins, say sure, the universe appears to be designed, but we’re too smart for that; it’s only an illusion. Chance and natural processes with no eternal, intelligent guiding hand is responsible for everything! Sorry, I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist and believe such nonsense. I could never believe that chaos produces order, or lifeless matter produces life, or chance produces intelligence, or that accidents produce purpose. The argument from design is not only NOT tired, it is powerfully compelling for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
As Paul says in Romans 1:20:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Amen! And there is the theological reason for atheism I alluded to in my piece. Some people don’t want their to be a God because then they will be accountable for their sin.
Why thank you, Brian. Why don’t you enlighten me since I obviously understand nothing and my argument, such as it is, is fallacious.
OK.
What most interests me most about this movie is how desperate one young physicist, an Iranian whose family had to escape from that country (maybe one reason a belief in a benevolent God does not appeal to him), and who has spent 15 years of his life obsessed with the LHC and the search for the Higgs Boson (the particle he hopes will explain the creation of the universe without bringing God into it).
The higgs boson won’t “explain the creation of the universe”, it was predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics decades ago. Discovering it helps support confidence in the Standard Model, but there are other models that predict multiple types of higgs bosons.
For committed naturalists of this sort, the universe gives frightening indications of having been designed with such exquisite precision that its existence is implausible except as the result of an infinitely intelligent designer.
This is pure claptrap. It’s just the tired, old argument from design.
What is known as the cosmological constant is one number that has to have an extremely precise value, and if that value were different by even a small amount, the universe could not exist, or would at least be so different from our present one as to be unimaginable.
While cosmological constant is part of the current standard model of cosmology, it’s not the only solution. If it exists, a different value would indicate a different universe. But that’s true of lots of physical constants, like the rest mass of a proton.
Hence the intensive effort to disprove the existence of God through scientific tools, which are by their nature not up to the task, leads straight to incoherence and flat-out fantasy
Nobody is trying to disprove the existence of God through scientific tools. You’ve cited instances of people trying to explain parts of the universe, without throwing up their hands and saying “god did it” (which answers nothing).
The very existence of the LHC shows that. It cost billions of dollars and decades to build, because people want to learn more about how the universe actually works. They didn’t do that to “disprove the existence of God”.
One irony lost on any atheists who are putting their faith in the LHC, desperately longing for answers to the mystery of life that will obviate the need for God, is the LHC itself.
No, we’re not “desperately longing for answers to the mystery of life”, we’re trying to learn more about the universe. And you end with another argument from design.
Wow, what a terrible article with no understanding of science, and fallacies all over the place.