Quick Responses to Atheist Objections #1

                                                +AJPM+

THE MILLENNIAL CATHOLIC:

The other day, I was going through atheist publications to come up with ideas for posts and I came across a work called Why There is No God by Armin Navabi. In it, he addresses 20 common theist reasons for why one should believe in God and tries his best to refute them to no real avail.

I'll try my best to put all 20 takes on here in due time but for now, I found a collection of some online and I'll tear each one apart by showing why they don't make that much sense.

Before I do, I want to first share a quote from Sherlock Holmes in the story The Sign of the Four:
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I want you to think long and hard about that quote, because a) you'd be surprised by how many atheist arguments fall apart in light of this quote and b) while we can figure out what is so by what something is, we can also figure it out by what isn't so.

So on with the pathetic atheist argument with my response in red:

1. "Science can't explain the complexity and order of life; God must have designed it to be this way."

First, when considering this position, it's important to recognize the difference between complexity and design. Complexity itself does not require an intelligent creator. It's easy to impose a design upon things that exist by chance or developed through a natural process like evolution.

(First off, notice how Navabi states a difference exists between the two but does not explain what that difference is. Complexity generally means to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways. Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system. Now in light of these, how can one say complexity does not require an intelligent creator? Don't buildings require extensive blueprints? Don't watches require specific parts to function? 

Second of all, notice the slight of hand in the statement: he wants us to think science can answer the how. Here's the major problem: when someone says science can't do something, what they mean is science can't answer the why, as in why it operates this way and not a different way. In other words, they're asking a question science itself is not equipped to answer.)

To an extent, this argument gains traction because of wide misunderstanding of science and especially evolution. Everything in the universe conforms to certain simple scientific rules that have been repeated over billions of years. While this can be awe-inspiring, it by no means suggests a creator.

(How? You just admitted there are scientific rules in place. How did they get there? Was the rule's discoverer the same person who placed it as a rule of existence? If not, was it there before they discovered it? How long was it there? If they didn't put it there, then who or what did? Since he also admits rules are repeated over several years, how long do they have to be repeated before we no longer need further repetition to accept it? On what basis should we accept it? What misunderstanding is he talking about? Doesn't it seem more like he doesn't understand what people mean when they say science can't explain something?)