Irrefutable? Mmm, Maybe Not.

I said in reply to some comment that I have irrefutable proof of God's existence. I probably overstated my case. What I mean is, it's irrefutable to me. It can't be irrefutable to atheists because they have limited themselves to examinig only a portion of the evidence. More on that later. I do believe that I have proof that goes significantly beyond a reasonable doubt. Is it compelling proof? Well to someone with an open mind, I believe that yes, it is compelling. To someone who begins h/her quest with a mind already excluding a whole field of evidence? Of course not. To atheists there isn't proof or evidence of Creator God because they begin their search by ruling out the supernatural. Not very scientific but effective for protecting their belief system.

I suppose I could say that except for epistemic, experiential, logical, coherent and reasonable evidence for the existence of God, I could be an atheist.

Instead, my belief in God begins with the following observations:

Because of clear scientific (observable, repeatable, verifiable) evidence, we know that:
. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
That we consistently observe this to be true is critically important because scientific naturalists demand that nothing can be believed without consistent observation and verification. Every single attempt to promote alternatives to this premise have only reinforced its truth. Therefore, atheists have the highest motivation to accept this premise.

Because of clear scientific (observable, repeatable, verifiable) evidence, we know that:
. The universe began to exist.

Because those premises are true and coherent we can know that the following conclusion is also true: The universe has a cause.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. Matter and energy cannot precede themselves or preexist themselves either physically or chronologically.
The reason that matter and energy cannot precede themselves is because “Coming Into Being” is an essential and objective feature of time. Time did not exist prior to the Big Bang.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. Matter and energy do not have the ability to create themselves or bring themselves into existence from nothing or ex nihilo.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. Matter and energy cannot exist from infinity past.
Therefore, whatever brought matter, energy, space, time and the laws of physics into existence had to have existed outside of these entities.
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Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. Anything that exists has an explanation of it’s existence, either in the necessity of its own nature (It can’t NOT exist), or in an external cause.

. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is external to as well as transcendent to the universe. That is because:
Existing outside of time, the Cause is infinite or Eternal,
Existing outside of matter (which is finite), the Cause is immaterial or Spiritual,
Existing as the Cause of time and energy, space, matter and the laws of physics, the Cause is immeasurably more powerful than the mathematically precise universe and its exquisitely Finely Tuned constants and quantities.
The Cause cannot be “scientific” because neither matter nor the laws of physics (i.e., the laws that science has observed and identified), existed prior to the Singularity.
Therefore the Cause of the beginning of the universe is not scientific but Personal.
The transcendent Cause of the universe is therefore on the order of a Mind.
That Cause is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That Cause, is what is normally described as God.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. The universe exists.
. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence.

Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: The explanation of the existence of the universe is God
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. According to atheism the universe doesn’t have an explanation of its existence. They say that “It just happened.” Over a dozen theories and over a dozen more variations on those theories have come and gone in a vain attempt to rule out God as the Cause of a beginning universe. Despite the current scientific knowledge described above, atheists persist in stating that either matter has always existed (impossible) or that matter created itself (also impossible).

Why do they do this? Because >

. If there is an explanation of the universe’s existence, then atheism is not true.
And that is because the only explanation that fits the evidence of how and why the universe came into being is Creator God. That is why Richard Dawkins himself has lately admitted that a good case could be made for the existence of a Deistic God. Actually, I believe that some day there won’t be any atheists. There will be people for God and people against God but there won’t be anyone who believes that God doesn’t exist. And, irony of ironies it will be science that will prove the existence of God. As one atheist single mother of two said recently, “A big fuck-you to anyone who believes in original sin. The christian god, should it exist, should be fought and resisted by every MORAL person who has ever lived.”
Mmm, I’m wandering off topic . . .

. Because of overwhelming scientific evidence, most atheists do grudgingly admit that the universe does indeed have a beginning. Unfortunately for atheists, it can be said with absolute confidence that no cosmogonic model has been:
As repeatedly verified in its predictions,
As corroborated by attempts at its falsification,
As concordant with empirical discoveries, and
As philosophically coherent as the Standard Big Bang Creation Event Model.

. Hence, most atheists are implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists. This is why I call atheists irrational agnostics.
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Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. The universe cannot be infinite. That is because: The Borde-Guth-Vilinkin Theorem proves that any expanding universe must have a definitive space / time boundary, a point of beginning, a singularity, a point of Creation. As well, the Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the possibility of the universe existing from infinity past. As well, Background radiation, Known levels of entropy and the Expanding universe confirm the truth of the 2nd Law > The universe had a beginning.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. It is physically impossible to have an Actual Infinite Series of Things or Events or even moments of Time preceding our today. Nor can we have an Actual Infinite Collection by adding Things or Events or moments of Time one to another to another in order to reach today. This is why we can say with confidence that matter / universe cannot be infinite and that they haven’t always existed.

Imagine units of time as individual books filling a book shelf that stretches infinitely into the past. You could imagine an infinitely long street or an infinitely long rope or whatever, but for this example I’ll use a shelf of books. While mathematics is able to deal with abstract or theoretical or conceptual or potential infinities, and while our imagination can create an imaginary shelf of books stretching infinitely into the past, sort of, reality holds no such possibility for us.

Time is not imaginary.
Time is not abstract or theoretical or conceptual.
Time is real.
Time is measured in real units.

In a scenario like this, with the shelf of books (units of time) stretching infinitely into the past you could never actually arrive at the first book. It is impossible to travel through infinite time to reach a starting point from which you could begin your journey to the last book on the shelf or to what we call today. If in order to reach the last book (what we call today), you had to have the second to last book or yesterday. And if, in order to have the second to last book you had to have the third to last book, and in order to have the third to last book you had to have the fourth to last book and so on and so on, you could never reach today because you could never reach the “first” day (book) that made possible the second day which made possible the third day . . .. Since the past is made up of units of real time, in the case of a beginningless past we would have had to pass through or travel through infinite time in order to reach today and that is physically impossible. To reach today, we have to have had a starting point, a push point, a point of beginning, a point of first cause. If the past were actually infinite, we could never reach today because the past would simply extend infinitely into the past. Neither can we, as some desperate atheists have tried to do, arbitrarily pick a set or group or point in real time and begin counting from there. Of course you can do that, but it proves nothing regarding the beginning of the universe.
The fact is, we have reached today so we can know not only that the universe had a beginning, but that time itself had a beginning. Just as a bookshelf stretching infinitely into the past with no beginning would prohibit our reaching today, neither can there be an infinite regress of causes of the universe. That would also prohibit reaching today’s universe.

. A beginningless Series or Collection of Things or Events in time entails, not a potential but an actual infinite number of Things or Events or moments in Time.

. As we’ve just seen, a beginningless Series of Things or Events or moments in Time that leads to the today cannot exist.

. Therefore, in order to reach today, time and the universe had to have a beginning; they had to have a starting point.

. That beginning had to have a Cause. The fact is, the infinite exists only as an idea or as a concept. It does not exist in realty. Of course, if the above argument is too cumbersome for you, you could just refer to the Quantum Physics discovery of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem. These scientists have proven that any expanding universe, be it real, such as ours, or theoretical, such as the dozens proposed by desperate atheists cannot be without a past space-time boundary, a Big Bang, a Creation event.

Because of clear scientific evidence, we know that:
. Only in a universe so finely tuned as ours, could we expect observers such as ourselves to exist. Note: Fine Tuning is a neutral secular term in that it refers to constants and quantities (atomic weight, gravitational constant, strong & weak force, etc.) being just right for the existence of intelligent life. That’s in comparison with the huge range of possible values.

In fact, the natural range of possible values is from 0 > 10 ^53 or from
0 - 10,0000000000, 0000000000, 0000000000, 0000000000, 0000000000000.

If this number was conceptualized as a dartboard, the distance from one side of the dartboard to the other side would extended across our entire Milky Way Galaxy. That being the case, let’s look at the ranges upon which our lives, our very existence depend.

It’s important to remember that the values of these constants and qualities were not something that evolved, or something that “settled in” as the universe aged. These constants were “put in” at the Big Bang. As well, you may be interested to note that the constants, quantities and values that are found in our cosmos appear to be unrelated in any way. They seem to be random, even arbitrary. They are independent of each other. However, they do share one thing in common. In fact the only thing the constants, quantities and values of our universe have in common is that all of them, every single one of them are needed to be exactly as they are in order for intelligent life to exist on this planet. While there are several dozen constants and qualities that are known, the most fundamental constants are the Fine Structure constant, the Gravitational constant, the Weak Force, the Strong Force and the ratio between the mass of protons and electrons.

. What scientists, what ATHEIST scientists call an “astonishing coincidence” is the fact at the Big Bang, the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism had to have been exactly as it was or else at 10 to -17 seconds after the start of the singularity, the necessary binding of helium -4, beryllium-8 and carbon-12 would not have occurred and life as we know it would not have appeared.

. The exact number and types of neutrinos at 1 second after the beginning of the Big Bang had to be in place or the expansion rate would have prohibited the formation of our universe.

. If the mass of a neutron were slightly increased by about one part in seven hundred, then stable hydrogen burning stars would cease to exist.

. If the strong force were a long-range force (like electromagnetism or gravity) instead of a short range force that only acts between protons and neutrons in the nucleus, all matter would either instantaneously undergo nuclear fusion and explode or be sucked together forming a black hole.

Pretty lucky for us, huh, that all this just happened by chance?

. If the Pauli-exclusion principle did not exist, all electrons would occupy the lowest atomic orbit, which would make complex chemical interactions impossible.

. If the quantization principle did not exist, there wouldn’t be any atomic orbits, electrons would be sucked into the nucleus and therefore no complex chemistry would be allowed.

. The gravitational constant must be exactly 10 ^ 40 weaker than the strong nuclear force or again, no us. For those that are interested, that’s ten thousand, billion, billion, billion, billion times weaker than the strong force or

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Pretty lucky for us that it just happened to work out that way - prior to Plack time.

A change of only 1 part in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in the Gravitational constant as well as in the Weak Force would prevent life from existing.

If the density of the universe and the speed of expansion had been off by one part in one hundred thousand million million, again, no life. Remember, these values had to be put in prior to what is known as Planck time; that is, 10^-43 seconds after the singularity.

The cosmological constant is what drives the inflation of the universe. It is tuned to 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Any variation in either direction more than that and - no universe.

Now, I mentioned this galaxy wide dartboard comparison. This equation gives us a target within our galaxy wide dart board that is less than 2.5 centimetres in diameter. Listen up now because here comes what atheists call the really lucky part. The amount of fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, one that we come upon, according to atheists, by accident is like blindfolding yourself, spinning around ten times and then randomly throwing the dart at our GALAXY wide dart board and hitting the target exactly in the centre of its 2.5 centimetre disk.

Sadly and amazingly, if you’re an atheist, this won’t be enough to convince you so let me use a different, more impressive example.

The entropy per baryon that had to be “put in” PRIOR to Planck time is 1 part in 10 followed by 1,230 zeros. If that hadn’t been put in at the Big Bang our life supporting universe would not exist. This requires an extraordinarily precise arrangement of mass and energy. To hit this exactly right by accident, we would put on our blindfold, spin around ten times, and according to atheists, throw a dart randomly at the universe sized dart board and hit the exact CORRECT PROTON.

One more example. It is estimated that the total number atomic particles in the entire universe is 10 ^ 80. Got that? Good. The odds of our universe coming into being by chance or by accident is 10 ^ 1240. Are you SURE you got that?

If, by this point your mind isn’t numb with the credulity and gullibility that atheists force themselves to live with, I just don’t know what it would take to get you to throw up your hands and demand that atheists get out of the education business. I mean, just how blind does a person have to be before s/he willingly stops demanding the right to drive the car?

This is not a joking matter any more. Atheist scientists have discovered this information. They know it, but obviously maintaining their bias against Creator God is worth throwing away their integrity. It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful. It should be a crime for them to teach “The Universe As An Accident” to your children.

Because these constants and qualities are independent of and unrelated to each other, as astronomical the odds of any one of them being just the right is, to find all of them being as they are in the same universe, by accident is beyond comprehension.

To figure out those odds, you would take, say, the Weak Force constant of 1 in 10^100add to that the constant of gravitational constant 1 in 10^120, add to that . . . and so on for all the constants and quantities.

No wonder atheist scientists say that we’re really, really lucky to be here.

Because of clear scientific (observable, repeatable, verifiable) evidence, we know that the fine tuning of the universe is due to one of the following:
. Physical necessity (it had to be this way and no other way),

. Chance (it’s just a really, really, really lucky accident), or

. It’s the design of an intelligence beyond anything we have ever experienced.

It is not due to physical necessity. In a secular or natural reality there is no reason whatsoever that any given universe has to be so finely tuned or even exist at all.

Nor is this fine tuning due to chance. The required fine tuning of our universe is so exquisite that an infinitesimal change in any one of the necessary constants and quantities would mean that neither we nor any life would happen. The odds against this happening by chance are insurmountable.

. True claim: If observers who exist within a universe are able to analyse its constants and quantities, it is highly PROBABLE that they will observe them to be fine-tuned for their existence.

. True claim: Without a designer it is highly and extraordinarily IMPROBABLE that a universe exists which is finely tuned for the existence of observers within it.

Because of snake oil salesmen like Richard Dawkins, some gullible people have been led to think that if the constants and quantities of our universe were different, then other life forms would have evolved. This is simply not true. Floating fanciful theories and hoping that they snag a believer here and there is not by any means good science. “Life” means the ability to take in food and use its energy, to grow and adapt and reproduce. Without the fine tuning that we observe, not even atomic matter would exist, not to mention a planet where life might exist. Among other things the universe would have either recollapsed or expanded beyond any ability to congeal. Again, there is no reason to expect that a universe as finely tuned as is our universe should exist by chance, nor is there any need or physical necessity for such a universe to exist anywhere except for the sole purpose of life.

I’m saying there is no reason whatsoever that a universe such as ours had to exist. That it couldn’t NOT exist.

Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true:
The fine tuning of the universe is due to design.
We do not experience just the appearance of design.
The design we experience is apparent and real.
The design that we experience is from a Designer.
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I also believe in the existence of God because:
. If God does not exist, then objective morals, values and obligations (def. below) do not exist

. But we know from our interactions with other people that objective morals, values and obligations DO exist. We know, and we know absolutely when someone does “wrong” to us.

Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion is also true: God exists.

Just as physical laws are fully realised in the physical world, objective moral laws are fully realised in Jesus and Father God. As I stated above, our daily interactions with others shows we believe without doubt that objective moral order is as real and independent of our recognition as is the natural order of things. Our perceptions of natural and moral laws are givens of our experience.

People who are God’s enemies and who therefore can’t possibly understand the Bible, claim that God acts in a capricious and arbitrary manner. That is simply not true.

. Objective moral Goodness and Obligation are based on God’s character.
Therefore, God’s commands are not arbitrary, for they are the inescapable expression of His Just and Loving nature. And, since our moral obligations are grounded in the Divine commands, moral values and duties do not exist independent of God.

. What God commands or permits is good and what He forbids is wrong, bad, evil, self-destructive. This is what it means for morality to be objective vs. subjective, selective or relative to the situation. Morality is not based on the individual’s character or personality or level of empathy, or that person’s likes or dislikes, sanity or insanity.
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I believe in God because of the following philosophical and metaphysical evidence.
Virtually all philosophers agree that if there is the slightest chance of God existing, then He does in fact exist. Alvin Plantinga has refined Anselm’s argument as follows. He asks, “What is the greatest conceivable being?” Our answer goes past me and you and the Dali Lama and any other "great" human being we can think of and we come to an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being that we commonly call “God” If we could think of something greater than God, then that is what would be called God. We can call it a Mind or something else but it amounts to the same thing ie. The Greatest Conceivable Being That Can Possibly Exist.
Therefore we can know that God exists because:

. It is in fact metaphysically possible that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists.

. Because it’s possible that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists, a Greatest Conceivable Being does exist in some possible reality.

. Because of the very nature of a Greatest Conceivable Being, if a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in some possible reality, it exists in every possible reality.

. If a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in every possible reality, then it exists in actual reality.

. If a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in actual reality, then a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in our reality.

Because the above premises are true and coherent, it stands to reason that the conclusion is also true: A Greatest Conceivable Being or God exists.
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. Because of clear scientific (observable, repeatable, verifiable) evidence, and

. Because the cosmological argument shows that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists who is the cause or grounding of reality as we know it, and

. Because the teleological argument shows more than just the appearance of design, and

. Because the moral argument shows that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists who is the cause or grounding of all objective morals, values, obligations and Truth, and

. I believe that Creator God exists.
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While any or all the above may or may not give you pause for thought, the most important basis for my belief in God lies in a different category. The palpable presence of God in my life, His counsel, His comfort, His correction and guidance, His love and mercy and grace, all of these things are so very real in my innermost being that they compel me to acknowledge the truth of His existence. I am so very grateful that I have been granted the gift of "Wide-Band Awareness." This is a Gift / ability that is shared and immediately recognised by believers from around the world regardless of race, social stature, gender or intellectual ability. Roughly 95% of the people in the world know at some level that there is more to life than what meets the eye.

For some reason atheists lack this perceptive ability and they live out their existence on earth within a very Narrow Band of Awareness. This condemns them to examining only a very narrow band of evidence as they, like all of us, struggle to make sense of life.

I also believe in God because of the historicity of Jesus. Except for those who exist on the lunatic fringe (eg. those who also deny the Holocaust), the reality of Jesus cannot be denied. In fact, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus cannot be adequately explained away. Something totally other took place when Jesus appeared on earth.

Third, I believe in God because the heavens and the earth declare His handiwork. There is simply no sufficient explanation for WHY the universe began to exist exactly as it did other than “Creator God.” This is not an explanation from ignorance because Creator God is the conclusion that fits the scientific evidence.

While it's true that atheists have proposed other theories for the "Creation” of the universe, it is not because of any inadequacy in or lack of evidence for the idea of God as Creator. The presentation of alternative theories is only because God as Creator is philosophically unacceptable to atheists.

The type of belief in God that I'm talking about is sometimes called “faith.” But faith is often misunderstood as being separate from reason or evidence. That could not be more inaccurate. For one thing, we are told to love the Lord our God with, among other things, “all our mind.” Second the Bible describes Faith as being “The substance of, the certainty of, the essence of, the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” While one’s faith does not find its origin in evidence (the origin is purely from God - John 6:44), faith is clearly supported by evidence, reason, logic and experience. In other words, my Faith in Creator God is anything but blind or uninformed. As stated in other posts, in my opinion agnostics are the only ones who ‘go as far as empirical evidence will let them.’

Atheists, as I’ve also stated, take the next step because of a philosophically unacceptable conclusion to where the evidence points - Creator God exists.

Christians take the next step because of the reality of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord of lords and King of kings who lives within their very being. Nevertheless, my epistemic and experiential belief in God is grounded in logic and reason and that is why I'm not an atheist.

While there have been criticisms of the above arguments, what’s important to note is that a criticism or an objection is not necessarily the same as a refutation.
When an intelligent person willfully abandons reason and begins to posit finite infinities, causeless beginnings and beginningless beginnings, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When an intelligent person willfully abandons classical historical scholarship and begins to deny known and knowable facts of history, but only as they apply to the person of Jesus, I know that I’m dealing with someone who is confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When an intelligent person willfully and falsely claims to follow whatever ethical standard is currently in vogue and calls that a reasonable way to live, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate, fearful attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

When someone goes in search of ever more complicated solutions, abandoning one after another, after another, after another, not because of new evidence but because of a need to avoid the conclusion indicated by current evidence, and when that person never returns to a simple solution that coincides with current knowledge and common sense, I know that I’ve encountered an individual who has been confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.

That is sad and that is why I’m not an atheist.