Science & God

Transcript from the podcast (so sorry for the spelling mistakes)

Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire Ministries, an organization that has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling them with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads, that God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Wildfire podcast.

This week, we're gonna be talking about God and science, not God versus science, but God and science.

Yeah, why not?

Science be God.

Science be God, because too many people have already used that for their book titles and that kind of thing.

And we think it's flawed, because they're not opposite to each other.

It is science and God.

God has given us.

All truth is God's truth.

Yeah, okay.

But why are you so very passionate?

Why are you so interested in this topic?

Well, I think it is important that we do understand the meaning of life.

I think it's a question that every human, people have said, some philosophers have said, that if you don't ask the question, what is the meaning to life, then you're never really human.

So what is the meaning?

What is the origin?

And these are all questions that science, per se, is supposed to answer.

So you know what I mean?

If that's true, then I'm going to explore the avenues to see whether that is true.

Also, as a Christian, in our society, it seems like Christianity is not something that's intellectually based or rooted in.

And that science is opposition to it.

And so there's also that apologetics front that we're called to defend our faith, as 1 Peter 3 says.

Apology is the Greek.

So it's about being versed in these, even though I may not want to.

A lot of it's complicated.

It requires a lot of time and research.

You're a scientist, aren't you?

No.

Disclaimer, I didn't actually do science.

This is, you know what, it doesn't even matter.

Let's just move on from that.

Listen, you can trust everything that we're going to say right now.

But that, again, I personally am not a scientist.

I find this all very hard.

So there could be a lot of views out there who are very much the same.

It requires discipline, it requires diligence, just like anything, but it is so useful, because what about if you come up to someone who has a question that you don't have the answer to, which we're going to actually come a little bit later to.

But it's good to sort of have this ammunition.

So that's sort of my sort of thinking, apologetics and understanding and answering these big questions in life.

What about you?

Same questions, honestly.

Everyone has them at some point.

But I think, first of all, we have to talk about the limitations of science.

Okay, go for it.

This is something I was kind of deceived by at first.

I thought science could answer all these questions, but even you said one already that science can't answer.

It's what is the meaning of life?

And then you've got other examples.

So even stuff like, did Ramesses II actually exist?

I've only found that recently, that's not even a scientific question.

It's an historical question.

And so science is only a subset of rational thinking, but you can actually have other rational discussions about the questions like, what's the meaning of life?

Or did Caesar exist?

But the answers aren't even found in science.

They're found in history, philosophy, or even theology, which are certainly, I mean, they're certainly valid areas of thought.

And then even the idea of science answers the what and the how, but can't answer the why or the who.

Okay.

And why would that be such a big issue for us, Luke?

Well, science cannot answer the question, who is Jesus and why does he matter?

This is critical because this is the foundation of all Christian belief.

It is a historical point, possibly a philosophical question as well.

The truth of Christianity cannot be wholly answered in the field of science alone.

So this podcast is going to provide observations about some key areas in mainstream scientific thinking and to show Christians some answers to common questions from atheists or agnostics as well.

But most importantly, the best answers they can give in any situation when discussing with a non-Christian.

Yeah.

So basically, like this podcast, we can't cover all these really dense topics in half an hour.

So our aim is to answer three main questions or objections people have with science and God and how they're not compatible.

And just hopefully to maybe have some questions around the idea of common questions atheists have or common points atheists would put forward.

And then also just, as we've teased out, to give you the best answer you can give in any given question.

But we'll cover that later.

So look, the first main point that comes up even in third year science is the question of the Big Bang.

And so it's like, OK, the Big Bang, we all know it's true from science and Christians.

Yes.

That's not in the Bible.

So how does that conflate with God?

Yes.

So there is people who actually, so you have a wide majority that believe in the Big Bang Theory, and you also have those who do not believe.

But I sort of think that there's a middle ground, and it's to do with semantics or how you word it.

You love semantics.

Or how you word something.

The reality is, whenever you read the Bible, from a biblical point of view, that God spoke everything into existence, do we think that God did that with a silencer?

Or, to me, that would have been rather loud.

It would have been...

There's no sound in space.

Good point.

Good point, good point.

As in, it would have just...

To me, it would have been this widespread explosion.

You know what I mean?

It would have been something that is diminished on the mind.

So perhaps that is good term to ascribe the Big Bang.

Yeah.

But just because you say you agree with the Big Bang doesn't mean you have to exclude the existence of God.

I think it actually helps the Christian belief.

The predominant view before that was taken from Greece.

It was just the steady state universe, that the universe had no beginning, and everything was the same, and it was never created.

Whereas the Bible explicitly says, okay, there was in the beginning, there was a beginning.

So whenever the Big Bang was discovered, that actually helps us a good bit, because the Bible has been saying this all along, and now common scientific thought has caught up.

It's like, okay, we can now see from the redshift and all these other things that the universe is expanding, therefore, it would have to come from a singularity, and it was created.

Yes, I completely get what you're saying.

So what I would say is there's the cosmological argument or cosmology that is the study of the universe and how it all began.

And there's one stream of thinking or line of argument that a Christian can use, which is the Kalam cosmological argument.

And basically, the premises behind that are very simple, it's premise number one, is that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Okay.

The universe exists, is premise number two.

Premise number three is the universe must have a cause then.

So that there is a form of deductive argument, so whereby there's two agreed premises that then get you to a formative conclusion.

Okay.

So do you think this agrees with that, or is that something Christian people?

No.

Well, there's a lot of questions as to they take up, because again, people don't want there to be an uncaused first cause, which is the Calam is trying to enforce.

So people do take up contention with point number one, that everything that begins to exist has a first cause.

Okay.

But again, these are all dismissed, because if you think about anything that comes into our contact, and there's big term inductive generalization.

If you think of anything in our experience has a cause, you have a cause.

This computer that we have has a cause.

This phones have a cause.

Everything that exists has a cause.

Yet whenever it comes to the universe, apparently it doesn't have a cause, which is a law of cause and effect.

So we would say that everything that begins to exist does have a cause.

There's no problem with that.

And the universe exists.

There's no problem with that, because we are in the universe.

And so it must have a cause.

So that's a line of the Cullom argument.

You can listen more by this William Lane Craig.

He sort of coins this and elaborates on it more, and there's loads of debates on it.

Again, we're not going to have time to talk about all these things in great detail, but it's just to give you a few buzzwords you can throw into your YouTube or Google search engines and just come up with a few results.

Yeah, exactly.

So there's loads of other stuff as well, like you've Frank Turek as well.

Yeah, he's pretty good.

He's got a YouTube channel called Cross Examined, where it's just like an open mics, basically.

People come up and just ask him tons of questions.

And he's good.

So pretty much any question you have about the Bible and science, then he should have an answer on Google for you or YouTube.

And you know, I'm pretty sure he's got a scientific background as well.

So he's and he's wrote several books.

So he is an intellectual on this.

And he gives us an acronym called Surge.

Okay.

And which sort of helps us better understand or dismiss this theory of the steady state theory or other theories that have been proposed.

So that's the idea that the universe didn't have a beginning.

So yes, he's going against this.

What always was the scapegoat for an atheist is that the earth is, the universe is eternal and thus does not need a creator.

But the whole point of what we've just discussed about the Kalam argument and also about Surge, which is the evidence that we're about to discuss now, is that there is an uncaused first cause.

There has to be a beginning.

And so if you think, and we break this down, S for Surge is the second law of thermodynamics.

Okay, look, what's that?

People are like, this guy thought noise was in space, so...

Yeah, I'm going to ask you all the questions.

So the basic general ideas I understand it is that all energy dissipates and that everything goes from a state of order to disorder.

Yeah, I've also heard it called the law of entropy.

So things tend to disorder.

So something that's ordered just becomes more disordered given the amount of time.

Exactly.

So it's the whole idea of if you had a human, for example, they go from a state of order, that is birth, to disorder, which is death.

So if you were to take the death, we understand that, that there is an end, but if something has an end, then they must have a beginning.

So it's that sort of, that line of argument is taken there, that if something decays and then comes to an end, well, if you were to retrace its steps, it must have had a beginning, a first cause.

And then, of course, there's loads of scientific detail that sort of can elaborate on this, but we're sort of giving the brief points that are discussional, that you can have with people without having a PhD underneath your belt in science.

So then you've got point number two in search is the U, which is the expansion of the universe, so universe expanding.

And then 1929, so the Hubble telescope, so it's like the ultra red light.

The red shift.

Red shift and light, yes, whereby all the planets were moving away.

So basically, what Hubble was saying is if you actually reverse that and brought them closer to you, they would all come into one point, so one infinitesimal point of singularity.

Exactly, and thus that infinitesimal point of singularity is a beginning.

So that's what Hubble was trying to say.

And basically, if you think in the analogy of a light, if I were to leave a light on right now, a torch light, and leave that overnight, that energy would soon dissipate or fade away slowly, as in you could reverse it to the point where it had a beginning.

Okay.

So something that has an end and is going to die will have a beginning, so the universe expansion.

Okay, and what about R?

Radiation afterglow.

So basically, they proposed that if the world did begin with this explosion, which has been ascribed to the title Big Bang, but it doesn't really matter what title you ascribe, is that the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation?

Yes.

So basically, they said that there has to be loads, a heckload amount of radiation from this explosion.

And so it would be out there.

That's the statica you get in your TV.

That's what that is.

Yes.

Okay.

So that's a perfect example of how it even affects us on a micro level.

And so basically, they're able to then go out and get, collect data from this radiation.

And so that was Penzias and Wilson, I think it is, in the 1960s.

Okay.

So they discuss that, and they discover again that that is further evidence from our cumulative case for the evidence of this idea of first cause and non-cause first cause, or beginning.

So is that R?

No, that, yes, that's R, which is radiation.

Okay.

And then?

Radiation afterglow.

And then G?

G is the great galaxy seeds.

So you have these really dense pockets of remnant heat that come from the radiation.

So we see the explosion, okay, from the explosion, you must have radiation, okay?

We've got that as well.

And from the radiation, you must have these dense pockets of heat that are also collectible, like evidential, like you can collect this data.

And so basically in like 1989, they sent up this satellite for three years to try and collect data from like these pockets of remnant heat.

And they basically concluded whenever it came back that the remnant heat was like one, the temperatures, the temperature variance were like one part in 100,000, which is apparently really like mind-boggling.

People said it was like-

But you didn't do science.

Yes, so I don't know how, but I trust them.

Like Stephen Hawking, for example, me as a scientist, he said that it was one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century.

And other articles said that it was like looking into the mind of God.

Interesting, okay.

And then finish yourself with either of them.

So Einstein's law of relativity.

So basically, as I understand it, is that time, space, and matter are all correlative.

And as I understand it, Einstein originally had what was called the cosmological constant, whereby he introduced a fudge factor, which is you divide by zero, which you're not supposed to do.

You can't divide by zero.

But basically, why would Einstein do that?

He basically did it because he didn't like the conclusion he was getting from his research.

He didn't like the idea that there would be this first cause, because that then, he logically then included if there's a first cause, it must be this intelligent being, a god.

And he didn't want to accept that.

So he introduced the fudge factor and tried to avoid it.

But basically, whenever he went to the universe expansion point, Hubble telescope and seen it, it basically affirmed his research and everything that he was coming up with.

So he basically concluded he was either a pantheist or a deist and said that the cosmological constant was one of the greatest mistakes of his life.

And all he was focused on now was searching for the mind of god.

That was Albert Einstein?

Yes.

Okay.

So you can go with that surge one, which Luke has come up with, which took you a few minutes to explain all that, Luke.

So you go with that and try to memorize that, or I have a simpler one you can use.

And again, it's not that advanced, but it's basically the first law of thermodynamics.

It looks already top of the second law, but the first law is energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.

So we know energy was created because there was a singularity, there was a creation, there was a beginning.

So it has to come from an external source, i.e.

God, or an intelligent creator.

So that's just a simple version of what's looked at, basically.

Is that right?

Yeah, of course.

So basically, in conclusion with the Big Bang, is we've discussed about cosmology and the Kalam cosmological argument.

We've talked about surge in the evidence of that.

We've talked about the second law of thermodynamics.

And there's so many other things that can bolster this.

Causal finitism, which we don't have time to go into, but you can research that.

That only affirms it, and there's loads of material of that.

But an interesting quote is Stephen Hawking.

He said that, if the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100,000 million million, the universe would have collapsed before it ever reached its present size.

Okay, I feel like we covered the Big Bang pretty concisely there.

So the next big question everyone talks about is evolution.

So I think there's an important distinction that has to be made, first of all, and that's macroevolution versus microevolution.

So they're two very different things.

And as Christians, I think we can definitely get behind one of them.

So macroevolution is this idea that every species has evolved from a singular point again.

So like, for example, we're related to chimpanzees, or we're actually related to everything.

Bananas.

Bananas.

We share, I think, 70% of our DNA with bananas, so then we share a common source.

So that's the idea of macroevolution that we've evolved.

Everything's evolved from one source, but each species has evolved from each other.

Or there's this idea of microevolution, which is actually just each organism has developed adaptations to suit its environment.

So really small variations.

Yeah.

So I think you got like certain...

Like even look at dogs, for example, like they're all dogs, but there's evolutions to adapt each dog to its different environment.

But they're all still dogs.

They're all still the one species.

So that's probably the clearest example I can think of off the top of my head.

But as Christians, I think we can definitely get behind microevolution, because it's definitely the seven of us.

Yeah, it's truly amazing that God then spoke everything into existence.

And basically over a period of time, he created the universe with potencies, or creatures that just developed over a period of time.

Yeah, because it says in Genesis, God created them each after their own kind.

So God did create the family heads of each different...

Yes.

The genus, I don't know what the term is.

So the kind is important.

Yeah, so that's something the Bible tells us definitively.

God created them each after their own kind.

So we have to reject microevolution.

And again, there's no evidence for it, and go with microevolution.

So even Charles Darwin, he was the father of evolution, and he's actually quoted in his Origin of Species.

He said, If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down, but I can find no such case.

So he's writing this a good number of years ago before we ever discovered a little thing called DNA.

Yes.

So DNA is, it's kind of like the code of the human body.

It's like your software, your computer.

It's what keeps us running and what helps us form amino acids and proteins.

It's the instructions of how to build the human body.

Okay.

And it's very complex, to say the least.

Again, you can do so much more research into all these things.

But DNA is so mindlessly complex that it's been proven.

The odds of it actually forming by natural selection are impossible, even given billions of years.

If you want to grant that, it's still impossible.

Yes.

Or you can even look at it from a larger scale.

If you want to go into DNA, that's perfectly fine.

You can research that more often, or just research that if you want.

But even look at organs like the human eye.

Is that an organ?

Is an eye an organ?

I don't know.

You're asking the guy.

He's not a scientist.

He's not a scientist.

Okay.

Well, neither am I.

We know that the eye is complex.

The eye is complex.

So, apparently, there would be at least 30 different modifications, or like, what's it called?

The eye would have to evolve 30 different times and 30 different ways to actually be able to function as it does today, at least 30 different ways.

But that would mean at least 29 modifications or adaptations that were completely useless.

So, that's 29 times.

It would just have to evolve.

And it's like, okay, this doesn't actually help me in any way, but I'm going to evolve again.

I'm going to evolve again.

Whereas if it's survival of the fetus, then that being with that kind of eye would have died out because these modifications take millions of years.

So you're talking about a being or an animal that has these modifications taking place for millions of years, that has no benefit to it, and it still survives.

So it's not survival of the fetus, it's survival of the pretty useless animal, to be honest.

So it sort of refutes that Charles Darwin's saying, you know, this idea of complexity and success of slight modifications, then my theory would collapse.

Well, there's several.

And DNA, especially.

I wonder what he would have wrote about DNA.

Exactly.

Or even we can just get on with that one, I guess.

Even the question of the human digestive system.

It's like, did the stomach evolve first?

Did the intestine evolve first?

Like, they would all have to evolve at the same time over millions of years.

And it's just, it's not plausible if it just doesn't hold together.

And again, you can do some more research into this.

Also, we haven't even talked about it, and I don't think we're going to have time to talk about in this podcast is, when did life first begin?

Or how did the first life begin in evolution?

Because you still have, even though the universe is created, you still have to have that first organism that has developed the first cell.

It's developed, even the whole question around how that even happened.

They haven't even been able to recreate that in the lab.

Yeah, of course.

So that's the idea of what you're talking about is RNA.

So ribozyme engineers basically go in, and they're trying to assimilate like the neo-Darwinian mechanism of where life originated from.

And they couldn't even do it.

They could only create something that was 10% of human adaptation, basically, or something that could be replicated or generate new functions of life.

And even that, even if that is true, it would show that mass or matter is derivative of mind first, not the other way around.

So even if RNA was able to do it, which they can't, it can only produce 10%, it would only point to the existence of God.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, okay.

So, okay, so since you do have a lot of time, I think I'm just gonna say one point on this idea of evolution.

So people always, always think that if you can prove evolution exists, then you don't need the existence of God, because unless you have a naturalistic interpretation of the origin of life.

But as we have sort of alluded to, is that there's no actual plausible explanation that is provided, especially in the neo-Darwinian point of view of the evolvement of life.

It doesn't explain the diversity and complexity of where life has came from.

It just hasn't.

And you don't have to take it from us.

Berlin and Tipler, which is, I'm pretty sure, two physicists, they wrote the Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

And basically, within this book, they highlighted 10 stages of development within the human genome.

And before each stage, before they could each happen, the sun would have ceased to be in a mainstream star and would have incinerated the universe.

They also highlight crazy statistics saying that the probability of evolution existing is 4 to negative 180 to the 110,000 power, 4 to the negative 360 to the 110,000 power.

Which is basically this idea of infinite complexity and just this improbability of what the Neo-Darwinian view would have held and how plausible it actually is.

So even if evolution did exist, it's by a miracle that it did, and thus proves the existence of God, which is one of my favorite lines.

So even if you do have to compromise on evolution, which I do think you do, macro-evolution, 100%, there's no tangible evidence for me.

You have nothing to worry about.

It's still compatible.

Okay.

And then the final question, we're only going to talk about this one briefly, is the idea of blind faith.

So some atheists would say, okay, you're a Christian, so you just believe in something you can't prove.

So we already showed there's evidence for, or well, there's not enough evidence to prove there isn't a God.

That's just where we started from today.

But I think it's an important point to point out that early scientists were mostly Christian because they believed in the law givers.

There must have been laws in nature.

So they read their Bibles like, okay, God's a God of order.

Therefore, there must be ordered laws within this creation.

So for example, who can you think of?

Newton Kepler.

What about you?

Copernicus and Galileo.

We can talk about him another time, but Copernicus and Galileo as well.

There's many more also, but these famous scientists, and the reason they were scientists is because they were Christians.

Yeah.

So can you imagine if it was like the opposite way around?

Would we be where we are now within science?

If we didn't have these founding fathers of science, and they were motivated by God.

Yeah.

And I think there's one final point I'd like to talk about in this idea of blind faith.

It's the...

Have you heard of the principle of induction?

Look, have you heard of that?

I've heard of inductive generalization, which we were talking about, and we didn't know whether they were the same thing or not.

Yeah, we can look at these as the same thing.

So I'm going to say no, just in case they aren't the same thing.

Yeah.

So I've heard it explained best.

Like, so science is the idea that you observe something, and then you deduce from those observations what reality is.

But for that to occur, the past needs to be the same as the present, and then the future would need to be the same as the present and the past.

But we have no guarantee that's going to be the case, except through faith.

So even someone who's purely based in science, they have to have faith that the future will be the same as the present.

Yeah, because you can take something now and repeat it and test it and do so through the scientific method.

But then you can't then take those same principles or frameworks and apply them to say, the amount of time that they're talking about years ago, because the whole environment would have been completely different.

And so you are going in with a level of faith.

Yeah.

Or presupposition that this was the way it was, and thus this is right.

Yeah.

Which is why you need to like, which is why we need scientific minds to, because if you have someone who's really knowledgeable and says this thing, then we're all going to be like, oh, is that, I mean, you have to have someone who actually can attest it and verify what they're saying.

Yeah, fair enough.

So those are kind of just three main questions and concerns people have with science and God.

But we're going to kind of finish it off the discussion, look, with a bit of a gray area.

So if I were to ask you, how old is the earth?

Well, how would you respond?

Biblically, first of all, because I'm a Christian, so that's always my axiomatic starting point.

That's where I begin.

And whenever I look in the Bible, the most natural reading of the text is this idea of seven-day creation, or six days, and then the seventh day was rest.

And then, of course, there is scientific evidence that is compatible with that and that supports that.

There is the other counter view, though, that there is this idea of an old earth.

So it existed for like 13.5 billion years.

And then, you have loads of radiometric data and geology of the earth, lunar geology, universe expansion, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these scientific methods.

That's sort of a test to this idea of an old earth.

So why then am I not so quick to jump in on that?

Well, because I have a fear and reverence for the Lord and for scriptures, and that's the infallible word.

So I then would take the naturing of the text, which is six days.

Yeah, and that's not to say people who take the old earth idea are saying otherwise.

Yes, of course, because to me, I just think that there's not sufficient scientific evidence yet that will allow me to tract away from that natural interpretation.

Yeah, okay.

So, but that does not then mean that the Bible gives loads of breathing space, in my opinion, for an old earth.

Yeah, so that's an example why we both say this is a gray area.

So, like, it's not hill we both die on.

So for macroevolution, for example, the Bible clearly says each were created after their own kind.

Therefore, we know macroevolution by its Biblical definition cannot be the case.

And we also know there's a god, so therefore, god had to create the Big Bang, if you want to call it that.

But in terms of how old was the earth, the Bible doesn't explain.

Again, it looks like there's an actual reading of the text, but it allows for leeway, as he said.

So it's not a hill we would die on.

So that's just an idea that you don't have to die on every single hill when you're talking to an atheist.

You can say, I'm willing to accept that, but let's talk about the more important issues of first cause.

Because the amputee can see that it doesn't really matter.

So basically, the reality is, on one interpretation, you've got a young earth, biblical evidence and scientific evidence.

That's where I would reside at the moment.

West, on the other hand, you have another interpretation, which is an old earth, scientific evidence, but also there is biblical support, which we don't have time to go into for an old earth.

The reason why I don't go and align myself with that view is again, it's not the natural reading of the text, and there's just not enough grounds yet for me to deviate away from it.

Yeah, that's just where you've come to personally.

Yeah, exactly.

But other people, other Christians, I believe in an old earth, and I do see their biblical grounds and scientific reason.

I'm just not there yet.

Yeah, so that's just an example of how you deal with a topic that's scientific, but not talked about specifically in the Bible.

Yeah.

Well, maybe in another podcast, talk about those in more detail or some more examples of those.

But I'd say we talked earlier about the answer you can give in any given situation when asked about something scientific.

So this was a big point for me whenever I was in kind of sick form.

I actually took a step back and I had to look at my faith and say, okay, is this actually true?

Is this going to be something that changes my life for better or for worse?

Or what's the case?

So I took a step back in sick form.

I'll use that as an excuse so I didn't get good at that.

I basically took a step back and looked at all the scientific data I could get my hands on, and all these other topics, philosophical and theological and all these other topics.

And I basically took a step back and said, okay, is this true?

And if so, what am I going to do about it?

So I came to the personal conclusion that it was true, and I need to just go all after God.

So that's what I've been striving to do ever since, obviously falling short many times.

But I think it's important to do it as well.

Luke and I have both done research on this topic because we're very passionate about it.

We think it's important to be able to give a defense of your faith.

But we still don't have all the answers to any, like there's countless questions that can be asked by atheists, even by people from other religions about the god you serve.

And even though Peter, is it 1 Peter, Luke, where he says to have a defense of your faith?

1 Peter 3.

1 Peter 3, he says to have a defense of your faith.

That's not always possible.

So my advice would be the best answer you can give, if you don't know the answer, is to say, I don't know.

Because that's just you being truthful, authentic, which again, on face value is valued.

Because that's just you being telling the truth.

So you ask what you meant to do as a Christian, you meant to tell the truth.

But it just gives you the time.

You can say, here, I don't know, but I'll write that on my phone, I'll go research over the next few days, and I'll come back to you with an answer.

And then you just leave them with something to research.

So look, if you had to leave an atheist with a question, what would you say?

So you're gonna look up how old is the Earth, for example, and then you have to leave them with a question.

I would say probably that idea, if you know the God of the gaps argument, and then they'd be like, yeah, that's the one I'm gonna use against you, why are you bringing it up?

I would say you use the chance of the gaps argument.

So if I said to you why does the universe exist?

They would say chance.

Why do we exist?

Chance.

If you look in a lot of the scientific material, you'll find the word chance.

And what is chance?

How do you prove that?

To me, that's, I would ask them, is that not just a scapegoat?

And what's the better one?

Intelligent design or mind, which is God, or chance, whatever that is.

Yeah.

So that's just an example of a question you can ask an atheist while you say, I don't know, I'm gonna go research it.

So I think Luke's just gonna close us out with a quote from a guy called David Berlinski.

Yes.

And that will be us finished.

So this guy is really, really interesting, really interesting character, and you can go research him out.

He's a physicist, isn't he?

I actually have no idea, but he did write The Devil's Delusion, Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions.

And I think this is just a good way to summarize a lot of the climate that we're in at the moment.

Has anyone provided proof of God's inexistence?

Not even close.

Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?

Not even close.

Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life?

Not even close.

Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not a religious thought?

Close enough.

Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral?

Not close enough.

Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good?

Not even close.

To being close.

Is there now an oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences?

Close enough.

Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational?

Not even in the ballpark.

Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?

Dead on.

So you can listen back to a lot of what we said.

Again, start where you're at, not where you should be.

This is very intimidating, but we do need to understand these arguments, and they will aid us and help us.

But just begin.

And I think that that will be really useful.

So I think that's what we'll close there, guys.

A longer podcast than usual, but hopefully it's really helpful, and you can go back and research, and we will see you all next week.