Worldview Conflicts Part I

Recently, in one of my posts, a dialogue was started with a gentleman named Jim. Here is part of the exchange we’ve had thus far:

Jim stated: When you say that "Evil is present in this world" I just don't get it. I'll be frank: it feels to me like anthropomorphizing, even superstition. Mike stated:I apologize if I distorted your intent. The above quote gave me the impression that you don't believe Evil is real, and then you turned around and stated that people do both good and evil. It seemed like a contradiction to me. I do agree with you in regard to "things" in and of themselves not being evil (i.e. your gun example above). I will comment more later regarding evil and "The Devil." Yes, I am familiar with Occam's Razor. Briefly I will state that Christianity and the Bible seem to be the simplest answers which I will address later also. Give me time!Mike | Homepage | 08.27.05 - 12:50 am | Jim Stated:With all of that being said, I have to comment on your mentioning the "tried and true teachings of scripture". You may have resolute faith that the teachings are true, and there may be hundreds of millions of people who share your faith, but that in and of itself does not make the scriptures True. Mike Stated:I agree with this assessment as well. I will be sure to address it in my posts to come concerning our dialogue. I don't claim or believe the Scriptures are true simply because there are hundreds of millions who believe it, but because evidence points to it being true as much as anything can be proven to be true. But again, I'll give more detail soon....Mike 08.27.05 - 10:33 pm |

It is here that I will attempt to delve further into this discussion. I will use part of other discussions I’ve had recently pertaining to worldviews and the ideas of Theology, Philosophy and even Biology. I begin with a story.

I was walking along in the woods one day and happened upon a log cabin. I was a bit surprised at finding the log cabin as the ranger had told me the forest was uninhabited. I noticed how smooth the logs were and how well built the chimney! I pondered how lightning must have struck several trees in the area and knocked all the bark off. I recall seeing a tree struck by lightning in my younger years and the smoothness of the tree as a result. In any case, I figured that a strong wind must have, over time, blown these trees down. I’m certain they were dead from the lightning strikes, so it would have been easy for a good gust of wind to blow over the trees. The wind was such, over time, that all these trees fell neatly on top of one another, forming the bulk of the cabin I saw before me. On the end was a chimney with rocks shaped just so, that they didn’t need mortar, as they fit together so perfectly. I posited that surely there was at one time a rushing stream nearby that, over time, sorted out the rocks according to their size and left them deposited ever-so-perfectly one on top of the other to form the chimney I saw before me. Isn’t nature wonderful! I was amazed at the power and precision which was evident in all the natural forces that had formed this log cabin before me!

Of course, any sane person would agree that this story is ludicrous at best. And, it is obviously is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. This story illustrates the idea behind the Teleological Argument for the existence of God. It simply states that “every design has a designer.” We see this every day in the buildings that surround us, cars, utensils, pens, billboards, etc. For instance, if you were on a desert island and found a watch, you would automatically assume that someone had been there before you. Why? It is because the design of the watch, with its intricacies and detail, assume and imply an intelligent designer. In the 19th Century David Hume attempted to refute this idea since “machines and nature are completely different,” meaning, in his estimation we were comparing apples and oranges. However, as Science has pressed on, discovering things like DNA in 1953, the idea behind man and nature as machinery has taken on a new light. In fact, man is much more structured and built for far higher processes than anything humans have ever come up with! DNA is full of information, a code for the very building blocks of life. DNA is built and created by no less than 20 different proteins, but all these proteins work under the direction of DNA. As we look at this idea that neither exists without the other, as we follow the logic back to a beginning, it is implied, since each relies on the other for its existence, that these had to come into existence simultaneously. This implies a designer/creator. Using the idea of Occam’s Razor so often used by Atheists, it seems that the simplest explanation for life and design is that there was an Intelligent Designer behind it all. neo-Darwinism would have us believe the incredible that chance after chance after chance to the Nth degree has happened to bring us to where we are today. Which is the simplest explanation for a design? A designer? Or a random string of occurrences (like the Cabin Story) taking place to create the detailed and logically ordered world we see around us every day? In my mind, and in the mind of anyone who is intellectually honest I believe the answer is very clear.