The Muslim Perspective
Good answer.
How can chaos create order? That's impossible without intelligent direction. Atheism is emotional, not intellectual.
Christian View
The Christian Perspective
Precisely: atheism is emotional, not intellectual.
Atheism denies any rational source for our intellect, thereby denying the rationality of rationality. It prohibits any possible reason for reasoning. It necessitates an absolute rejection of justified belief and thus, a rejection of intelligence altogether.
Imagine if all of our thinking processes and all of our conclusions, if the whole human intellect, were the result of nothing more than an accident, and not rationally and intentionally formed. Our conclusions would then also be accidental and therefore rationally unjustified, not unlike the conclusions of a magic 8-ball or the roll of a die.
What if you asked me what 2 + 2 was, and to answer your question I pulled out a die and rolled it? While it may be true that one-out-of-six times (on average) I may get the correct answer, my method would be completely devoid of logic and reason. This method of coming to conclusions, while it may under some circumstances produce correct results, can never be called either intellectual or rational, even when it accidentally works! Rather, such a method is patently absurd -- utterly irrational.
That is, it is patently absurd and irrational unless I knew that someone rational were directing the outcome, and doing so intentionally to provide me with a reasonable answer. This is of course equally true for absolutely any method of arriving at conclusions.
Methods of reasoning that claim unintentional accidents and a lack of reason and logic as their foundation and justification are irrational by definition. Atheism, in all of its forms, demands irrationality as the foundation for our conclusions. As the scriptures indicate, atheism is the promotion of utter foolishness (Psalm 14:1).
Were atheism actually true, none of our conclusions could hold any more rational value than the answer from a magic 8-ball.
Christianity, on the other hand, acknowledges that all things that occur are intentionally caused by our rational creator God (Isaiah 44:24; Ecclesiastes 11:15; John 1:3). There is no such thing as pure random chance, no such thing as a complete accident -- no such thing as absolute chaos. Some occurrences may be accidental with respect to each of us in the sense that we ourselves did not intend them, but nothing occurs without intelligent direction in the ultimate sense, since an intelligent God is the creator of all (Colossians 2:3; 1 John 3:20; Psalm 104:24).
The expansion of the universe is planned and directed by our rational Creator. The rotation of the moon around the earth is orchestrated by our intelligent Sovereign. The evaporation of water, the movement of the tides, the explosion of every volcano, each of these things is rationally designed to the smallest detail by the same God who provided our own first principles. If this were not the case, we could have absolutely no rational justification for assuming these events to be noncontradictory, or for assuming our first principles have any rational interpretational value regarding the events around us. It would be literally impossible to have a single rational thought about any of these things if their complete rational orchestration were not first established.
Fortunately, it has been! (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16)
When we humans pretend our actions and thoughts are not orchestrated by our rational Creator, when we try to claim independence from the One who causes our every movement, when we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge our complete dependence on the One who causes our stubborn refusal...
God laughs at us (Psalm 2:4).
However, when we turn from our own self-glorification and acknowledge and apologize for our wicked and rebellious behavior, God has promised to grant us forgiveness through His Son, Jesus (Acts 17:30; Acts 2:38; Romans 10:9). Instead of promoting foolishness and pretending rationality can find it's justification in a lack of rationality, we can actually be at peace with God through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ!
If you are not a Christian, I encourage you to turn to Christ. You can read more about God's offer of forgiveness in the book of Romans.
May God grant you a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26).
Atheist View
The Atheist Perspective
Chaos actually necessarily entails order. The larger the chaos or the longer it seethes, the probability of that chaos randomly producing order or becoming ordered approaches 100%. It would actually require intelligent interference to prevent this from happening. Not the other way around.
This can be shown mathematically. Any random chaos that is left to seethe for any given unit of time has for that unit of time a nonzero probability of becoming ordered to any degree equal to P(order). As time continues, that probability increases (just as the more often you get to roll a pair of dice, the probability of eventually rolling boxcars increases), according to this equation, where u equals the number of units of time we wait (the length of time the chaos continues chaotically seething): P(order|time) = {1-[1-P(p)]^u}.
If you play with the equation, you will discover that as u increases, the probability of the desired order arising by random chance approaches 1 (which is 100%).
Thus, chaos + time = inevitable order. In fact, any degree of order you want. The more order requires the more time. But given nothing to stop it, time is infinite. So all possible order is the inevitable outcome of any chaos. No intelligence required.
Comments
There is no such thing as chaos, only what we perceive to be chaos. Everything in existence is reacting to a number of factors, some we perceive and some we do not. Our ignorance of how something fits into the greater order does not make it chaos.
Something along the lines of everything in existence is in accordance with God's plan and therefor order, even though we humans in our ignorance can only perceive chaos.
Your exhortation that we should "turn to Christ" makes no sense, because if I do not do so, it's not my fault! According to you, God made me that way, and is going to send me to hell because of something over which I have no control. Can you see how ridiculous that is?
I understand your concern and completely disagree. The creator has authority to do his will with his own creation (Romans 9).
By analogy, in the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi, when the emperor was condemned by George Lucas, when the emperor was thrown down into the bottomless pit by his own protege, and the entire audience cheered at his destruction, we didn't ever say that George Lucas was an evil man for condemning the emperor when the emperor was only doing what George Lucas made him do.
Further, the emperor should have repented. The fact that George Lucas did not make him do so does not mean that the emperor shouldn't have repented. He should have. Nor does it mean that the emperor was not at fault. He was.
[continued]
We never call authors evil because they create evil characters and then punish them for their deeds. Instead, we often praise their work and tell our friends how awesome it is! So why would you insist that logic demands that we condemn them instead? It simply doesn't, and I can almost guarantee that your own daily behavior bears out my claim.
What is your favorite book? Did it have a bad-guy in it? Does he lose in the end? How about your favorite TV show or movie? Any villains wind up dead or in prison? And yet, would you recommend the author's work to a friend, or do you condemn the author as evil?
From my perspective, your complaint against your own creator seems inconsistent, a special pleading fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
[continued]
When we elevate ourselves to the level of gods, or when we consider God to be little more than what we are, we lose sight of the fact that the relationship between Him and us is almost identical to the relationship between Lucas and the emperor.
Scripturally, rationally, and experientially, we can comfortably say that a moral good is an act in obedience to a command of God (Malachi 3:18; Romans 4:15, 5:13; 1 John 3:4). A moral evil is an act of disobedience to a command of God. When God causes us to disobey His commands, we are committing moral evil and deserve judgment. But, note that when God causes us to disobey His commands, He Himself is not disobeying His own commands, so He is not committing a moral evil.
It makes no sense to suggest that God is morally evil unless you intend to demonstrate that He has disobeyed a command He gave Himself.
Since the problem is that induction claims that, in Hume's words, "instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of which we have had experience", the theist also relies on things of which she (allegedly) has had experience (god's behaviour in the past) to predict what god will do in the future. If, as you claim, the non-theist has no justification for assuming that the future will resemble the past, then neither, unfortunately for you, does the theist.
Where was I talking about "ordinary induction" on this page? Or claiming that "ordinary induction", whatever you mean by that, fails? I'm very much in favor of induction. It simply needs to be recognized as subject to both formal deduction, which yields a higher degree of certainty, and those divinely revealed first principles, like universal non-contradiction, which must be true for humans to think rationally.
Christianity claims we have rational justification for using induction, because our usage of induction is rationally justified by our rational Creator who rationally programmed us with our first principles. The non-theist claims he himself has no rational justification for his usage of induction, as he claims both he and his own first principles were not rationally programmed.
Thus, all I effectively said in my answer above was that, counter to the claims of atheists, if there is no reason, then there is no reason.
God bless.
Your reply is disengenuous, as you pretend not to know what I'm talking about when you do.
By "ordinary" induction, I mean the sort on which the scientific method and knowledge is based.
And while you may not have mentioned it specifically on this page, your entire world-view, and the basis of many of your arguments on these pages (including this one), is that knowledge is impossible without divine authority.
The fact is that rational thought and knowledge can be justified without appeal to a god. For example, I know absolutely and without a doubt that I exist. I need no divine authority to know this. Therefore your entire basic premise is false.
You also believe that were are unjustified in accepting the uniformity of nature without also accepting a divine hand behind it all. However, belief in a god who can (and does) perform miracles makes a nonsense of that claim.
This is because your god allegedly can and does suspend the natural order, at his discretion, by performing said miracles. In fact, the existence of the Christian god not only would not guarantee the uniformity of nature, it would virtually guarantee the complete opposite.
1) ORDINARY INDUCTION: The scientific method and human knowledge are both wholly based on divine revelation. It is not possible for either to have any other basis and still be rationally justified (and "knowledge" must be rationally justified by definition). I have no beef with "ordinary induction" if this is what you are referring to (never have that I recollect) and it seems disingenuous of you to claim otherwise.
2) YOUR EXAMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE: You cannot have rational justification for any claim unless it first has been established rationally that the universe is invariantly non-contradictory. God has established this, so knowledge is possible. Under atheism, knowledge is not possible because universal non-contradiction is rationally unestablished. If atheism is true, your claim that you know you exist is nothing more than an unjustified dogmatic assertion.
[continued]
3) THEISTIC RATIONAL JUSTIFICATION: Whether or not a conclusion is rationally justified is a completely different proposition than whether or not you or I know that it is rationally justified, whether or not we know how it is rationally justified, or whether we know what the path of rational justification is. I'm speaking of the former (the fact of rational justification), not the latter (our knowledge of that justification).
A calculator does not know that its conclusions are rationally justified, but they are. A magic 8-ball does not know that its conclusions are not rationally justified, and they are not.
The objective fact of rational justification is necessarily 100% absent in atheism. Under atheistic claims, our conclusions are no better than those of a magic 8-ball. If there is no reason for anything, there is no reason for anything. This should not be controversial.
[continued]
4) NATURAL ORDER: You'll have to define "natural order" and "miracle" as you are using them for me before I can have a coherent discussion with you about what you are referring to.
1. The "first principle" or assumption of noncontradiction.
You claim to exist. Is existence the same as nonexistence? If so, your claim is meaningless. If not, your claim may have meaning. Before you make the claim, you assume (or presuppose) that existence is not the same as nonexistence. That in fact, if something exists, it cannot be true that it does not exist in the same way that it does exist.
You assume, or presuppose, the universality and invariance of noncontradiction. If you did not assume this, your claim would be meaningless. You seem to think it has meaning, therefore you assume that what it means is not, and never can be, what it does not mean. You assume noncontradiction.
We all do.
[continued]
2. The rational justification of this first principle.
What causes you to believe in the universality and invariance of this concept? Why do you assume noncontradiction?
Because you (along with the rest of us) are programmed to. You cannot do otherwise without making nonsense of your own thoughts.
But what rationally justifies your assumption of noncontradiction? What rational justification does this belief, that all things are noncontradictory, have?
[continued]
You cannot learn anything at all without assuming noncontradiction. No one can. Learning itself requires this "first principle". The belief in noncontradiction comes before learning. It logically preceeds it. So experiences cannot justify it rationally -- learning via experiences must instead presuppose this first principle's validity. In other words, you (and I) simply cannot, under any circumstances, we cannot possibly rationally justify our own first principles. We already have them when we begin to learn, when we begin to think. We don't develop them afterward as a result of thinking through things. You can't "think through things" without presupposing noncontradiction!
There is no such thing as rational thought without the first principle of noncontradiction.
[continued]
However, a belief that is formed by non-rational causes, a belief (in other words) that is formed without reason or logic, is itself not rational. This is simply by definition.
https://www.google.com/search?q=rational+definition
Since it is impossible for us to have ourselves rationally justified this belief in universal and invariant noncontradiction, since it itself is one of the necessary cornerstones of the process of logical justification, then, in order for this assumption to be rationally justified, it must be rationally justified by a different rational entity. Someone other than us. It must have someone else's reason or logic behind it, much like a calculator does. Further, it cannot be rationally justified by any entity that, like us, must discover the universe around him, because they, like us, must presuppose noncontradiction in order to discover the universe!
[continued]
Instead, this assumption of universal noncontradiction can only be rationally justified by a rational entity that causes the universe to be noncontradictory. The universe being noncontradictory must be a logical result of His belief that it is, not the other way around.
3. The lack of rational justification for this first principle of noncontradiction.
Any conceivable rational entity that causes the universe to be noncontradictory is rejected by all non-theists.
[continued]
Therefore, since the only way our first principles can be rationally justified, the only way they can be in accordance with reason and logic, the only way reason and logic themselves can exist at all, is by an absolute God, all who reject an absolute God necessarily reject the rationality of their own first principles. Since all conclusions are meaningless without first granting noncontradiction, since all conclusions we draw depend upon that premise of noncontradiction for meaning, and since any conclusion based upon irrational premises is itself irrational, the claim every non-theist necessarily makes is that 100% of his own claims are irrational, or without reason.
4. Conclusion.
In sum, if there is no reason, there is no reason.
You appear to believe that I need to know (or think, or believe to be true, or acknowledge) all sorts of things in order to know that I exist.
However, this is not the case. "I exist" is axiomatic. If you have an issue with that, please explain why.
The concept of "axiomatic", just like every other concept, is 100% meaningless without presupposing noncontradiction, and non-theists claim to presuppose noncontradiction without reason, or irrationally.
Axiom: If there is no reason, there is no reason.
In logic/mathematics, an axiom is a statement or formula that is stipulated to be true for the purpose of a chain of reasoning, or the foundation of a system of knowledge.
In the context of our current discussion, that which is axiomatic ("I exist") is foundational. Other concepts, such as non-contradiction, are derived FROM the axiom, but the axiom is not contingent upon them.
What can we use as axioms? Well, if we wish our system of knowledge to be based on as sound a foundation as possible, it would be best to use as axioms those things which are, as far as possible, indubitable. My existence is indubitable. It is therefore coherent and rational to accept "I exist" as axiomatic and to derive from it concepts such as non-contradiction. So in short no, I don't presuppose non-contradiction, and the idea of something being axiomatic is not meaningless without it.
The question is not "do you presuppose noncontradiction?", but rather, "is your presupposition of noncontradiction rational?", and non-theists insist the answer to that question must be "no".
You can't have a reason for anything if there is no reason for anything.
The idea of something being axiomatic without noncontradiction is to say that what is axiomatic may also be non-axiomatic in the exact same way. In other words, your statement was completely meaningless. I was simply pointing this out since it demonstrates my point about non-theism.
God bless.
the hypothetical Big Bang (a series of quantum fluctuations) presupposes the existence of time and space (volume rather than vacuum) within which those fluctuations can happen. there is no rational explanation for the existence of space or time.
in order for the results of those fluctuations to continue to exist for longer than some extremely small fraction of a second, the nett charge of those results has to sum to an amount extremely close to zero. whether you regard that to be impossible or not depends upon how you define impossibility, however it is certainly much less likely than 1:10E-50, which is a frequently used ratio for impossibility within physics and similar disciplines.
Saying that only Chaos as big as an infinite universe "over time" will produce order is like accusing a theist of "not being able to prove a god". You can't prove that theory of chaos and it goes against laws such as everything regresses, or degenerates to become choas
I know a true &valid experiment: there is a house which is messy inside with papers and boxes. It is controlled, with no wind into the rooms. Some rooms are unused, while other rooms allow people. In the many years of its disarray, no order or tidiness has ever developed, despite attempts to clean and tidy up some of those rooms