Why Doesn't God

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Why Doesn't God Stay Dead?
R.I.P. GOD
Crieff SDA Church Wednesday 4th. June 2008
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Those who reject the molecules to man
evolutionary scenario are ignorant, stupid,
insane (or wicked, but Id rather not consider
that )
Richard Dawkins

• John C. Walton
• B.Sc. Ph.D. D.Sc.
• Chartered Chemist
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Research Professor of Chemistry
• University of St. Andrews

University of St. Andrews School of Chemistry
Royal Society of Chemistry
I believe that a scientist looking at
nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the
next guy.
Richard Feynman
(Nobel Laureate in Physics)
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The Newtonian World Machine of the 19th Century

• The whole universe viewed as a machine.
• All parts engage perfectly
• All events predictable by laws of physics
• A miracle would be like a spanner
• thrown into a printing press.
• No room for the supernatural
• No room for God.

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Giving voice to a growing world view of a
Universe without God
God is dead, God remains dead. And we have
killed him. From The Gay Science 1882
Friedrich Nietzsche
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• Grand Universal World Views Drawing Strength from
  Atheism

1. In Biology Darwinian evolution expanded
its influence exponentially following the
publication of Darwins book On the Origin of
Species in 1859. 2. In science of the mind
Freudian psychology gave scientific trappings to
the idea of God as wish fulfilment. 3. In
politics - spreading from Europe to the rest of
the world following the publication of Karl
Marxs Das Kapital and the Russian communist
revolution of 1917.
Charles Darwin
Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto 1848 Das
Kapital 1867 etc.
Sigmund Freud Totem and Taboo 1913 The Ego and
the Id 1923 The Future of an Illusion 1927
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Post-Christian Society
Sir Julian Huxley Religion is subject to the
laws of evolution, is fast becoming obsolete and
will soon evolve out of existence.
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Secular Naturalisms Transparent Clothes ?
1960s Critical evaluation of secular
humanistic theories starts to take hold .
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Horrific Repression by Communist Regimes
Yourre Ignorant Stupid Wicked
The Gulags
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Berlin Wall 1961 to 1989
The wall in its heyday
Holes in the wall
Rejoicing at its fall 1989
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Discovery of Cosmological Fine Tuning

• Examples
• Ratio of the nuclear strong force to the
  electromagnetic
• force must be accurate to 1 part in 1016 (or
  no stars!)
• Ratio of the electromagnetic force constant to
  the
• gravitational force constant must be
  accurate to
• 1 part in 1040
• Expansion and contraction forces of the
  universe must be
• balanced to 1 part in 1055.
• Dozens of other examples mentioned by Paul Davies
  and John Lennox.
• This fine tuning seems to show a deliberate
  prearrangement of our set of laws and universal
  constants, fine tuned to support life with
  incredible precision

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Consequences of Cosmological Fine Tuning

• Where did the laws of physics come from in the
  first place ?
• Why they are just this particular set of laws
  and not something else ?
• Why they are so fine-tuned as to sustain life
  and intelligence ?
• Many front-rank scholars and scientists began
  coming to the conclusion that there must be a
  designer.
• It seems as though someone has fine tuned
  natures numbers to
• make the universe The impression of design
  is overwhelming.
• 
  Paul
  Davies

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Parallel Universes ? The Multiverse ?
The laws of physics take different forms in
parallel universes and are fine tuned
in different ways. Thus all possible outcomes
are permitted.

• This vast multiplication universes
• violates sciences principle of
• seeking the simplest solution.
• Parallel universes are undetectable.
• The idea moves far into the realm of
• speculation.

Multiple universes are continually being born,
according to some Cosmologists. Each universe
is shown here as an expanding bubble branching
off from its parent universe. The changes in
colour represent shifts in the laws of physics
from one universe to another.
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Oxymorons
Jumbo shrimp
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Fairies Evolve in a Parallel Universe

• A plausible evolutionary scenario in a parallel
  universe?
• Human-like beings much smaller than us develop.
• They evolve flight.
• There must be fairies at the bottom of the
  multiverse
• garden!

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Structure of RNA and DNA
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Random Coupling of Nucleotides to Form RNA and
DNA
nucleotides
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Random Coupling of the Four Types of Nucleotides
to Form DNA or RNA
No. of Nucleotides in RNA Chain Type No. of possible RNA sequences
3 Trimer 6
4 Tetramer 24
5 Short Oligonucleotide 120
77 Transfer-RNA 1046
3000 Ribosomal-RNA 101806
30000 Sub-Bacterial DNA 1018100
120000 Carsonella Ruddii 1066000
NB Total number of atoms in known universe
1080
Hubert P. Yockey,. A calculation of the
probability of spontaneous biogenesis by
information theory. Journal of Theoretical
Biology, 1977, 67, 377-398. Hubert P. Yockey,
Self-organization origin of life scenarios and
information theory. Journal of Theoretical
Biology,1981, 91, 13-31.
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• Smallest Living Organisms

• Carsonella ruddii was reported to be the smallest
  living cell. However, Carsonella lives inside a
  leaf-munching insect, called a psyllid. There are
  certain genes necessary for life that the
  bacteria's genome lacks, but these are
  compensated for by its insect host. Carsonella
  has "only" about 160,000 base pairs of DNA in its
  genome.
• Mycoplasma genitalium is a small parasitic
  bacterium which lives on the ciliated epithelial
  cells of the primate genital and respiratory
  tracts. M. genitalium is the smallest known
  free-living bacterium, and the second-smallest
  bacterium after Carsonella ruddii. M genitalium
  has a genome consisting of approximately 580,000
  base pairs

Carsonella ruddii
Psyllid on leaf
M. Genitalium
Genome of M. Genitalium
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Magnitude of the Odds Against Random Formation of
A Biologically Useful DNA (or RNA) sequence
No. Moderate Length DNA Sequences
That could pack into a 1 m thick layer covering surface of the earth 1041
That could be in a 1 mMolar soup in all the oceans 1042
That could pack into the total volume of the known universe 10120
That would be produced by 1 cm thick layer of cells covering whole earths surface in 10 billion years 1052

• It necessarily follows that the chance of a
  meaningful DNA sequence being obtained
• spontaneously is almost infinitesimally small.
  
• The only reasonable conclusion is that there
  isnt enough space, there isnt enough matter
• (particularly carbon), and there isnt enough
  time, for spontaneous formation of a
  self-replicating
• system.

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Potential Solutions to the Random Coupling
Problem
1. Given enough time anything can happen?
The improbability involved in generating even
one bacterium is so large that it reduces all
considerations of time and space to nothingness.
Given such odds, the time until the black holes
evaporate, and the space to the ends of the
universe, would make no difference at all. We
would be waiting for a miracle Robert Shapiro.
Conclusion there isnt enough space, there isnt
enough matter (particularly carbon) and there
isnt enough time for spontaneous formation of a
self-replicating system.
2. Perhaps some selection mechanism was at
work? (a) Note that Darwinian evolution
in which natural selection operates on variants
generated by random mutations CANNOT
occur before self-replicating entities
were available. (b) Computational
models of selection. Dawkins Weasel program.
Algorithm reaches desired phrase in
43 generations. But i) The
algorithm must know the target phrase (protein
sequence) impossible
before life originated assumes what it sets out
to discover!! ii) The
algorithm compares random sequences with the
target the selects and
stores closest matches. No chemical systems
available to select and
compartmentalise before life originated.

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Biological Machines
The bacterial Flagellum
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Blood Clotting
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Simplified Intrinsic Blood Clotting Enzyme
Cascade in Humans
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Structures of Two Enzymes in the Blood Clotting
Cascade
Hirudin complex with Thrombin
Kallikrein
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Irreducible Complexity of Biological Machines
The neo-Darwinian mechanism holds that mutation
coupled with natural selection produces small
changes that accumulate over vast periods of time
resulting in large cumulative changes. Irreducibl
y complex structures like the Flagellum and other
biological machines require a set of parts
(mostly proteins) to all be present before they
can function. Natural selection can only select
functional things. Individual components of
biological machines lack function outside their
specific machine so they cannot be selected
prior to the existence of the machine. Irreducibl
y complex structures cannot accumulate in many
small steps over any amount of time via mutation
and selection. They are powerful evidence of
design.
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The Intelligent Design Movement

• Mechanical and electronic machines, analogous to
  biological machines,
• are known to be the products of intelligent
  minds taking advantage of natural laws.
• Consequently, the existence of biological
  machines is powerful evidence of
• intelligent design in biology
• Detecting design is already a well established
  scientific activity in fields such as
• forensic science, archaeology and cryptology.
• A number of scientists and scholars were
  impressed with this evidence and
• founded the Intelligent Design movement with
  the objective of detecting
• design and establishing it as an explanatory
  tool in science.

Phillip Johnson Professor of Law at Berkeley
Michael Behe Professor of Biochemistry
Professor William Dembski Mathematician
philosopher
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The New Atheists Backlash Against Intelligent
Design
Richard Dawkins The God Delusion
Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation
Daniel Dennett Breaking the Spell
Christopher Hitchens God is not Great How
Religion Poisons Everything
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Recent Rebuttals of Fundamentalist Atheism
Alister McGrath The Dawkins Delusion
John Cornwells Darwins Angel An
Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion"
John C. Lennox Gods Undertaker Has Science
Buried God?
Thomas Crean A Catholic Replies To Professor
Dawkins
David Robertson The Dawkins Letters
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The Flavour of New Atheist Thinking
I do not believe there is an atheist in the
world who would bulldoze Mecca, or Chartres, York
Minster or Notre Dame.
Richard Dawkins, The God
Delusion, p. 249. Blandly ignores the officially
sanctioned demolition and burning of thousands of
churches and mosques by atheist regimes in the
former Soviet Union and China. Dawkins there
is not the smallest evidence that atheism
influences people to do bad things. The facts
in their efforts to enforce atheist ideology the
Soviet authorities systematically destroyed
churches, executed priests and sent religious
dissenters to mental institutions for
treatment. New atheist assertion All faith
is blind faith and Christians consider it a
virtue to believe irrational impossibilities. Ign
ores the centuries of careful theological study
sorting the religiously rational and believable
from the dross. Dawkins Jesus was a loyal Jew
and was hostile to all non-Jews. It was Paul who
invented the idea of taking the Jewish God to the
Gentiles. He quotes approvingly John Hartungs
statement Jesus would have turned over in his
grave if he had known that Paul would be taking
his plan to the pigs. Absurd misrepresentation!
Not only did Jesus endorse Love your neighbour
but he extended this to Love your enemy. The
familiar story of the Good Samaritan makes
Christs positive attitude towards Gentiles
crystal clear.
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One of the Worlds Most Influential Atheists
Changes His Mind
Anthony Flew

• Flews guiding principle is following the
  evidence wherever it leads
• He now believes this universes intricate
  laws manifest what scientists have called the
• Mind of God.
• He cites his realisation that natural selection
  does not positively produce anything that it
  fails to explain where the immense amount of
  information contained in genomic DNA came from.
• Flew is persuaded that the laws of nature, life
  with its teleological organisation, and the
  existence of the universe can only be explained
  in the light of an Intelligence that explains
  both its own existence and that of the world.

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The Quantum World
Electrons and Protons
Quarks and Gluons

• Wave-particle duality Quantum objects can
  behave as waves or particles
• Laws of physics are statistical in nature and
  only give probability outcomes
• Heisenberg uncertainty principle It is not
  possible to know both the energy and position
• of a quantum particle.
• There are fundamental limits to what can be
  known.
• Entanglement is the idea that in the quantum
  world, objects are not independent if they
• have interacted with each other or come into
  being through the same process. They
• become linked, or entangled, such that
  changing one invariably affects the other, no
• matter how far apart they are - something
  Einstein called "spooky action at a distance".

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The Quantum World
MOYRA
Quantum mechanic wave function

• There can be no certainties in the Quantum
  world.
• The physical universe can never be described
  completely.
• The universe is much stranger and more
  mysterious than formerly supposed.
• The future is open.
• Miracles and the supernatural are not forbidden.

I think we can safely say no one understands
quantum mechanics Richard Feynman (Nobel
Laureate in Theoretical Physics)
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Rehabilitation of Inspiration
Removal of the secular naturalist presupposition
that miracles are impossible has led to a radical
reassessment of the reliability and authenticity
of the Old and New Testaments For
example Kenneth A. Kitchen On the
Reliability of the Old Testament James H.
Charlesworth Jesus and Archaeology Richard
Bauckham Jesus and the Eyewitnesses Paul R.
Eddy and Gregory Boyd The Jesus Legend A Case
for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic
Jesus Tradition. N. Thomas Wright The
Resurrection of the Son of God
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Conclusions
The amazing cosmological fine tuning suggests
the work of a designer The presence in
biological systems of complex, information-loaded,
molecules like DNA indicates they owe their
origin to an intelligent mind Irreducibly
complex biological machines are powerful evidence
of design in the living world These
conclusions do not prove God exists, but they
show belief in God is rational and
intellectually sound. All who are willing to
follow the evidence from nature and from
inspiration wherever it leads will find that God
is alive and well and full of Grace.
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THE END
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An mp3 file of this talk and a copy of the
PowerPoint will be available tomorrow
from www.crieffadventist.org.uk