Good and Bad arguments

Tonight is the big show down. I mean we're talking even bigger than PBC Winter school - no! Yes bigger than WS!

TACKLING life's big questions head-on has become a feature of the IQ2 debate series, and they don't come much bigger than the existence of God and the creation of the universe. This is what the SMH has to say about it here

Early shots have already been fired over tonight's proposition that "we'd be better off without religion". A piece by Professor John Lennox in yesterday's Herald, in which he framed the topic in terms of competing world views, drew a sharp response from one of his opponents tonight, Professor Victor Stenger. "I want to correct some of the misstatements made by the Christian apologists," said Professor Stenger, who worked as an astrophysicist before moving into philosophy. "They deliberately misled the public by telling them that there are scientific arguments for the existence of God. "And they are basing this on an incorrect interpretation of the data and the theory." The Christian theorists, Professor Stenger said, wrongly claimed that the universe had to begin at a certain point and with a single cataclysmic event. "They'd like to make the flawed argument that everything with a beginning has to have a cause, and that's where they bring in the existence of God," he said. "Their arguments just aren't supported by physics - there are many phenomena which have neither a beginning nor a cause, and we don't need God to explain them. The purely material process of evolution by natural selection fully explains the development of life."

Obviously I'll miss the debate due to PBC Winter School but I'm interested in how it goes. Actually both of the heavy-weights have a point. Too often well meaning Christian apologists overstate their case. Professor Stenger is right in a lot of what he says. Christians too quickly jump on the bandwagon of the latest Scientific theory claiming it 'proves' God only to look foolish when new evidence comes in. A little humility and uncertainty is called for here I think.

However, that humility cuts both ways. Stenger is being disingenous in his response. What he means is that there is lots of stuff where we simply don't know how it happens (Scientifically). And then when he tries to claim that natural selection fully explains the development of life he is simply wrong. It's our current Scientific working hypothesis, no more, no less. Stenger is engaging in exactly the same overstated rhetoric. All he is saying is that it is possible to live as if God doesn't exist. I think somebody has said that before:

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Psalm 14: 1

The problem is 'we don't really know' doesn't sell newspapers.

The IQ2 series is sponsored by the Herald and the St James Ethics Centre. Tonight's debate will be streamed live on the Herald's website.