I no longer have enough faith to be an atheist.

1
I no longer have enough faith to be an atheist.

• Gil Dodgen

2
My Background

• Son of a brilliant scientist who earned his Ph.D.
  in physical chemistry in his early 20s while
  working on the Manhattan A-Bomb Project.
• Grew up in a small university town surrounded by
  intellectual atheists.
• Earned three college degrees in a highly
  secularized academic environment.

3

• I earn my living as a software engineer in
  aerospace research and development. Hobbies
  include classical piano and artificial-intelligenc
  e computer programming.
• worldchampionshipcheckers.com

4
My Father
5

• My father is the most brilliant scientist I have
  ever known, and, except for the fact that he is
  an atheist, he is the best Christian man I have
  ever known.

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(How Religion Poisons Everything)
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What I Believed

• There is no God. Man invented God. God is just a
  fantasy of human imagination, created to explain
  what we dont understand and to provide solace
  a psychological crutch.
• There is no afterlife.
• I am the product of Darwinian evolution, a
  purposeless, undirected, materialistic process
  that did not have me in mind.

8
The obvious implication of this worldview that
was clear to me even as a child

• Life is ultimately meaningless and pointless.
• But I figured that this was just the way things
  are, and I had to learn to live with it.

9
William Provine, famous historian of science at
Cornell University makes my former atheistic
conclusions clear, and extrapolates

• Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences
  that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No
  gods worth having exist 2) no life after death
  exists 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics
  exists 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists
  and 5) human free will is nonexistent.

10
One Big Problem With Provines Thesis

• Darwinism is in a state of complete logical,
  evidential, empirical, and mathematical collapse.
  It is a 19th-century, materialistically-driven
  ideological fantasy based on complete ignorance
  of the nature of living systems, which have now
  been demonstrated to be fundamentally based on
  the most sophisticated computer program ever
  written.

11
Christianity as the worldview that inspired
scientific discovery

• Historian Rodney Stark, in his important book The
  Victory of Reason writes The success of the
  West, including the rise of science, rested
  entirely on religious foundations, and the people
  who brought it about were devout Christians.

12
Great Scientists and Christianity

• Isaac Newton
• (some consider him to be the greatest scientist
  of all time)
• Newtonian Physics, Calculus
• It is the perfection of God's works that they
  are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is
  the God of order and not of confusion. I have a
  fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of
  God, written by men who were inspired. I study
  the Bible daily. This thing a scale model of our
  solar system is but a puny imitation of a much
  grander system whose laws you know, and I am not
  able to convince you that this mere toy is
  without a designer and maker yet you, as an
  atheist, profess to believe that the great
  original from which the design is taken has come
  into being without either designer or maker! Now
  tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach
  such an incongruous conclusion?

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• Johannes Kepler
• Astronomy/Laws of Planetary Motion
• I had the intention of becoming a theologian,
  but now I see how God is, by my endeavors, also
  glorified in astronomy, for the heavens declare
  the glory of God.
• I am a Christian. I believe only and alone in the
  service of Jesus Christ. In Him is all refuge,
  all solace.

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• Robert Boyle
• Founder of Modern Chemistry
• Governor of a missionary organization for
  propagating the Gospel in New England. Personally
  financed the translation of the Bible into Irish,
  Turkish, and Arabic. Author of The Christian
  Virtuoso, reflecting on the study of nature for
  Christians. Author of a Christian devotional
  book. His will after his death financed the
  "Boyle Lectures" in defense of Christianity.

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• Samuel Morse
• Inventor of the telegraph
• "Education without religion is in danger of
  substituting wild theories for the simple
  commonsense rules of Christianity."

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• Michael Faraday
• Inventor of the electric generator and
  transformer, first described field theory
• Faraday was hailed by Albert Einstein as the
  foundation for his own scientific discoveries.
• "Speculations? I have none. I am resting on
  certainties. I know Whom I have believed and am
  persuaded that He is able to keep that which I
  have committed unto Him against that day. A
  Christian finds his guide in the Word of God, and
  commits the keeping of his soul into the hands of
  God.

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• James Prescott Joule
• Described the First Law of Thermodynamics The
  Law of Conservation of Energy
• American Biochemist Isaac Asimov said that the
  First Law of Thermodynamics is one of the most
  important generalizations in the history of
  science.
• It is evident that an acquaintance with natural
  laws means no less than an acquaintance with the
  mind of God therein expressed. Order is
  manifestly maintained in the universe, governed
  by the sovereign will of God. After the knowledge
  of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next
  aim must be to know something of His attributes
  of wisdom, power, and goodness as evidenced by
  His handiwork.

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• James Clerk Maxwell
• Statistical thermodynamics, field equations of
  electricity, magnetism, and light
• The following is a prayer written by Maxwell and
  found among his notes
• Almighty God, Who has created man in Thine own
  image, and made him a living soul that he might
  seek after Thee,
• and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to
  study the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue
  the earth to our use, and strengthen the reason
  for Thy service so to receive Thy blessed Word,
  that we may believe on Him Who Thou has sent, to
  give us the knowledge of salvation and the
  remission of our sins. All of which we ask in the
  name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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My Conversion to Christianity A Confluence of
Events and Influences

• The birth of my first daughter after a long
  infertility ordeal. We named her after my wifes
  sister, who died at the age of 20 months.
• A Christian friend, Dave Pounds, whom I greatly
  admired.
• C.S. Lewis and a cartoon video entitled The Lion,
  the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I bought on a
  whim for my daughter when she was five years old.
• The realization (to a great degree thanks to
  Dave) that the science I once thought put God out
  of a job and made Him irrelevant, actually made
  belief in God an inescapable logical conclusion.

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A Month-Long Battle Spiritual Warfare

• Once all this began I was in a state of complete
  turmoil. Two Gils argued with each other, all day
  long.
• I started listening to Christian radio in the car
  driving to work, read the Bible every night, and
  called up Dave to ask questions.
• One night he prayed for me over the phone, and
  suggested that I give it a try myself. Once I
  did, the battle was over. Christ won.

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God By The Numbers

• 1
• 2

Weve invented addition!
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• The inverse of addition is subtraction
• 2 1 1
• Subtract a bigger number from a smaller number
  and we have negative numbers
• 1 2 -1

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• Repeated addition is multiplication
• 2 2 2 2x3 6
• The inverse of multiplication is division
• 6 / 3 2

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•  

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Pure Mathematics Eulers Identity and the Beauty
of Mathematics as Evidence for the Existence of
God

• The five most important numbers in mathematics
• 0 and 1
• form the basis of arithmetic.
• e 2.7182818284590452353602874713526... (goes on
  forever and never repeats)
• e is an irrational number, the natural logarithm
  base. It appears all over the place, especially
  in physics and engineering.
• p 3.141592653589793238462643383279... (goes on
  forever and never repeats)
• p is an irrational number and is the ratio of
  the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It
  appears all over the place in mathematics, and is
  the basis of trigonometry, geometry, and
  analytical mathematics. I use e and p on a daily
  basis in my work as a software engineer in
  aerospace RD.
• i is the square root of -1, the imaginary number.

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What is an imaginary number and what does this
have to do with reality and God?

•  

27
 
Eulers Identity

• Multiply the ratio of the circumference of a
  circle to its diameter by the imaginary number,
  then multiply e by itself that number of times
  (whatever that means), and you get -1. In the
  second formulation the five most important
  numbers in all of mathematics are used.

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Eulers Equation Quotes

• A poll of readers conducted by The Mathematical
  Intelligencer magazine named Euler's Identity as
  the most beautiful theorem in mathematics.
  Another poll of readers that was conducted by
  Physics World magazine in 2004 chose Eulers
  Identity tied with Maxwells equations of
  electromagnetism as the greatest equation ever.
• After proving Eulers Identity during a lecture,
  Benjamin Peirce, a noted American 19th century
  philosopher / mathematician and a professor at
  Harvard University, stated that It is absolutely
  paradoxical we cannot understand it, and we
  don't know what it means, but we have proved it,
  and therefore we know it must be the truth.

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My Favorite Quote

• A mathematics professor at MIT, an atheist, has
  said of Eulers Identity, There is no God, but
  if there were, this formula would be proof of His
  existence.

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The Mathematics of Physics The Fine-Tuning of
the Universe for Life

• The laws of physics that govern the universe can
  all be described with mathematics. Two examples
• Newtons Second Law of Motion F ma (force
  equals mass times acceleration)
• Newtons equation of gravity F Gm1m2/r2
• This is the inverse square law. Double the
  distance and the force is reduced by a factor of
  4. Triple the distance and the force is reduced
  by a factor of 9, etc. Why is this?

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All the laws of physics must be described exactly
as they are by these mathematical formulas, and
all the forces and values in physics must be
exactly as they are, or life would be impossible.
The obvious conclusion is that the universe was
designed from the outset for life. This is called
The Anthropic Principle.(Mention Brandon
Carter.)
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Anthropic Principle Quotes from Famous
Nonbelieving Physicists

• The famous physicist Paul Davies The laws of
  physics seem themselves to be the product of
  exceedingly ingenious design. There is for me
  powerful evidence that there is something going
  on behind it all. It seems as though somebody has
  fine-tuned natures numbers to make the universe.
  The impression of design is overwhelming."

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• Physicist Freeman Dyson The more I examine the
  universe and the details of its architecture, the
  more evidence I find that the universe in some
  sense must have known we were coming.
• British astronomer and physicist Sir Fred Hoyle
  A common sense interpretation of the facts
  suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with
  the physics, as well as with chemistry and
  biology, and that there are no blind forces worth
  speaking about in nature. The numbers one
  calculates from the facts seem to me so
  overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost
  beyond question.

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How fine is this fine-tuning?

• Imagine a ruler divided into one-inch increments
  running across the entire universe, a distance of
  14 billion light years. This is the distance
  light travels in 14,000,000,000 years at a speed
  of 186,000 miles per second. Thats
  82,119,744,000,000,000,000,000, or 82 billion
  trillion miles. Each inch represents a possible
  value for the force of gravity. Move it one inch
  either to the right or left, and life would be
  impossible. All the laws of physics and all the
  forces of the universe are fine-tuned to this
  kind of precision in order that life might be
  possible.
• (Mention Michael Dentons Natures Destiny.)

35
With evidence for a Fine-Tuner so obvious, how
does the atheist attempt to get out of this?

• They propose a multiverse, as opposed to a
  universe. Perhaps there is an infinitude of
  alternate universes, so just by chance ours came
  out right. Of course, it is argued, we find
  ourselves in a fine-tuned universe because in any
  other kind of universe we wouldnt exist.
• (Firing squad example.)

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Problems With the Multiverse Escape Hatch

• There is no evidence for it.
• Ockhams Razor the law of parsimony, law of
  economy or law of succinctness is a basic tenet
  of science which says that a simple or economical
  explanation that fits the facts is to be
  preferred over an unnecessarily complex one.
  Entities must not be multiplied beyond
  necessity, is how Ockham put it. The multiverse
  hypothesis is the ultimate violation of this
  principle, since it multiplies entities
  (universes) into infinity.
• In any event, it doesnt solve the problem. The
  infinite universe-generating machine would have
  to be fine-tuned to generate universes with our
  universes laws, only with different values. Why
  wouldnt it generate universes with no laws at
  all, or laws that have nothing to do with
  gravity, etc.?
• If there were an infinite number of universes,
  anything and everything that you could imagine
  would be certain to occur. A theory that explains
  everything explains nothing. (Darwinism suffers
  from this same logical shortcoming.)

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Darwinism on its Scientific Deathbed, and
Evidence of Design by a Super-Intelligence in
Living Systems

• At the behest of my Christian friend Dave I read
  Michael Dentons book, Evolution A Theory in
  Crisis. Denton has no theological axe to grind.
  As best I can figure he is an atheist or at least
  an agnostic. Upon finishing the book I realized
  that I had been conned by the scientific
  community.
• Denton writes

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• To grasp the reality of life as it has been
  revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a
  cell a thousand million times until it is twenty
  kilometers in diameter, so each atom in it would
  be the size of a tennis ball, and resembles a
  giant airship large enough to cover a great city
  like London or New York. What we would then see
  would be an object of unparalleled complexity and
  adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we
  would see millions of openings, like the
  portholes of a vast spaceship, opening and
  closing to allow a continual stream of materials
  to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of
  these openings we would find ourselves in a world
  of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.
  We would see endless highly organized corridors
  and conduits branching in every direction away
  from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to
  the central memory bank in the nucleus and others
  to assembly plants and processing units. The
  nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber
  more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a
  geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all
  neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the
  miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A
  huge range of products and raw materials would
  shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a
  highly ordered fashion to and from all the
  various assembly plants in the outer regions of
  the cell.

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• We would wonder at the level of control implicit
  in the movement of so many objects down so many
  seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect
  unison. We would see all around us, in every
  direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like
  machines We would see that nearly every feature
  of our own advanced machines had its analogue in
  the cell artificial languages and their decoding
  systems, memory banks for information storage and
  retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the
  automated assembly of components, error fail-safe
  and proof-reading devices used for quality
  control, assembly processes involving the
  principle of prefabrication and modular
  construction However, it would be a factory
  which would have one capacity not equaled in any
  of our own most advanced machines, for it would
  be capable of replicating its entire structure
  within a matter of a few hours
• Unlike our own pseudo-automated assembly plants,
  where external controls are being continually
  applied, the cells manufacturing capability is
  entirely self-regulated
• Denton, Michael, Evolution A Theory in Crisis,
  Adler, 1986, pp. 327 331.

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• If it could be demonstrated that any complex
  organ existed, which could not possibly have been
  formed by numerous, successive, slight
  modifications, my theory would absolutely break
  down.
• Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859

41
Michael Behe, Darwins Black Box, and Irreducible
Complexity

• Molecular biologist Michael Behe read Dentons
  book and had the same reaction I did. In the book
  Darwins Black Box (the cell was once a black
  box, the inner workings of which were entirely
  unknown in Darwins day) Behe makes a compelling
  case for design in living systems and the
  insufficiency of the Darwinian mechanism of
  random mutations (errors) and natural selection
  to account for what we find.
• Natural selection does not have any creative
  powers and produces nothing new. Natural
  selection is death. It only throws stuff out.

42
Irreducible Complexity

• Behe coined this term to describe systems which,
  in order to function at all, must have all their
  parts in place at once, and cannot be arrived at
  in a step-by-tiny step fashion, with each step
  being functional and therefore advantageous, as
  Darwins theory requires. An example is a
  mousetrap. Until all the parts are in place you
  dont catch any mice at all. Natural selection
  can only select for some feature that gives an
  organism a survival advantage.

43
The Bacterial Flagellar Motor

• The most efficient motor in the universe.
• Howard Berg, Harvard University

44
Irreducible Complexity has NOT been refuted.

• It is often claimed that irreducible complexity
  in living systems has been refuted. In many cases
  critics simply misrepresent Behes definition of
  IC and claim that he claims that the parts of an
  IC system cannot serve other functions. This is
  false. Behe simply claims that all the parts have
  to be in place at once for the system to function
  at all.
• In other cases, critics cite protein sequence
  similarities between parts of the bacterial
  flagellum and other proteins. This is completely
  irrelevant to Behes argument.

45
The Co-Option Hypothesis(Actually, just a story
made up out of whole cloth, with no evidence.)

• It is claimed that the flagellum could have been
  assembled by co-opting parts that originally
  served another purpose.
• I wrote the following for Bill Dembskis
  Intelligent Design blog
• In order for co-option to produce a bacterial
  flagellum (for example) all of the component
  parts must have been present at the same time and
  in roughly the same place, and all of them must
  have had other naturally-selectable, useful
  functions. There is no evidence whatsoever that
  this ever was the case, or that it ever even
  could have been the case.
• The components would have to have been compatible
  with each other functionally. A bolt that is too
  large, too small, or that has threads that are
  too fine or too coarse to match those of a nut,
  cannot be combined with the nut to make a
  fastener. There is absolutely no evidence that
  this interface compatibility ever existed
  (between all those imaginary co-opted component
  parts), or that it even could have existed.

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• 3) Even if all the parts are available at the
  same time and in the same place, and are
  functionally compatible, one cant just put them
  in a bag, shake them up, and have a motor fall
  out. An assembly mechanism is required, and that
  mechanism must be complete in every detail,
  otherwise incomplete or improper assembly will
  result, and no naturally-selectable function will
  be produced. The assembly mechanism thus
  represents yet another irreducibly complex
  hurdle.
• 4) Last, and perhaps most importantly, assembly
  instructions are required. Assembly must be timed
  and coordinated properly. And the assembly
  instructions must be complete in every detail,
  otherwise no function will result. This
  represents an additional irreducibly complex
  hurdle.
• Co-option is a demonstrably fantastic story made
  up out of whole cloth, with absolutely no basis
  in evidence, and it doesnt withstand even the
  most trivial analytical scrutiny. There is not a
  shred of evidence that this process ever took
  place, or that it even could have taken place.
  Worst of all, it requires blind acceptance of the
  clearly miraculous.

47

• There is a great irony here. This verifiably
  ridiculous co-option fantasy is presented as
  science, while a straightforward and reasonable
  inference to design is labeled pseudoscience. The
  real state of affairs is precisely the reverse.

48
Huge Improbabilities and Darwinism

• Life is based on the most sophisticated computer
  program ever devised. Can you arrive at a
  computer program through random errors and
  selection? Clearly not it is hopelessly
  improbable.
• The first computer program every student writes
  is called a Hello World program. It is a simple
  program that prints Hello World! on the screen.
• Heres a Hello World program in the C programming
  language
• include ltstdio.hgt
• int main(void)
• printf(Hello World!\n)
• return(0)

49

• This program includes 66 non-white-space text
  characters. The C language uses almost every
  character on the keyboard, but to be generous in
  my calculations Ill assume that we only need the
  26 lower-case alpha characters. How many
  66-character combinations are there? The answer
  is 26 raised to the 66th power, or 2666. Thats
  roughly 2.4 x 1093 (1093 is 1 followed by 93
  zeros).
• Recall that there are about 1080 subatomic
  particles in the known universe, so there are as
  many 66-character combinations in our example as
  there are subatomic particles in 24 trillion
  universes.
• What is the probability of arriving at our Hello
  World program by random mutation and natural
  selection, or of evolving it into another, more
  complex program that will work and produce
  meaningful output? There is no chance.
• Now one might ask, What is the chance of
  producing, by random mutation and natural
  selection, the digital computer program that is
  the DNA molecule, not to mention the protein
  synthesis machinery and information-processing
  mechanism, all of which is mutually
  interdependent for function and survival?
• The only thing that baffles me is the fact that
  Darwinists are baffled by the fact that most
  people dont buy their blind-watchmaker
  storytelling.

50
Bill Dembskis Explanatory Filter
51
By design or by chance and natural law?
52

• Romans 120 (New International Version)
• 20 For since the creation of the world Gods
  invisible qualitieshis eternal power and divine
  naturehave been clearly seen, being understood
  from what has been made, so that people are
  without excuse.