Again, just because a sense of morality, of right and …

Comment on The Creator of Time by Sean Pitman.

Again, just because a sense of morality, of right and wrong, may be inherited does not mean that it therefore has no designer or creator… that it made itself (and yes, I do believe that many kinds of animals also have a sense of right and wrong, but am not sure if they have the same liberties to work against this sense of wright and wrong as humans do). You have to see where the weight of evidence lies when it comes to understanding the origin of things – to include the origin of moral knowledge.

As with the evident design behind biological machines, the existence of morality itself requires the existence of a Designer of that morality – an ultimate Source of morality. Otherwise, given the Darwinian/naturalistic perspective on origins, there really is no such thing as ultimate right or wrong. There is only survival and that’s it. There is no real evil from that perspective. Of course, if you don’t see the need for a Designer behind the fantastic biological machines within us, or for the numerous very specific historically-fulfilled biblical prophecies, why would you be able to recognize the need for a God behind the origin of our moral knowledge?

Now, I’m not saying that environment has no influence on one’s morality. It does have a strong influence. However, everyone is born with both an attraction to evil as well as an attraction to love. This creates conflict within us. Explaining the origin of such a conflict is very difficult, essentially impossible, to do from a naturalistic perspective. In other words, from a naturalistic perspective there is no such thing as “ultimate” or “real” good or evil. However, from the Judeo-Christian perspective, there is a source of ultimate good or right. The origin of evil is simply the result of rejecting the Source of good. In other words, from an atheistic or agnostic perspective it is irrational to claim that their is anything such as actual good or evil. There may be things that you like or don’t like, but you cannot reasonably claim that these things are either “good” or “evil”.

Of course, I can say that something is good or evil because I’m stand on the position that ultimate good exists. Evil is simply the rejection of the good (in the same way darkness is the absence of light).

Now, this rejection can be realized even without personally knowing the Source of good – by rejecting one’s God-given conscience which tells us right from wrong.

You might be interested in the following discussion of the origin of good and evil by Ravi Zacharias:

Sean Pitman Also Commented

The Creator of Time
It’s been enjoyable having you. I wish you all the best. Someday, if I’m right, everything will be made clear and you will see your Maker face-to-face. Of course, if I’m wrong, neither one of us will be the wiser…

By the way, I am not a “young Earth creationist” or “YEC”, but something a bit different – a young life creationist (YLC). Of course, from your perspective it makes little difference. 😉


The Creator of Time
A “Rational Wiki” quote? – about proof and disproof? 😉

First off, science isn’t about absolute proof, but the weight of evidence. Nothing can be absolutely proved in science – only disproved. The power of science is in the ability for the hypothesis in question to resist disproof, thereby gaining predictive value. This means, of course, that a valid scientific hypothesis must be testable in a potentially falsifiable manner.

Now, as far as the particular claim that ID hypotheses are not and cannot be falsifiable (and by extension any notion or hypothesis of God-like activity isn’t falsifiable either), it’s clearly not true or modern sciences that actually detect ID wouldn’t be possible – like forensics, anthropology, and SETI. As previously noted for you, the ID-only hypothesis can be tested in a potentially falsifiable manner – quite easily. All you have to do to falsify the ID-only hypothesis is show how something else could more reasonably explain the phenomenon in question – and the ID-only hypothesis is neatly falsified.

For example, if you can find a mindless naturalistic mechanism that can reasonably explain the origin of a highly symmetrical granite cube, you would neatly falsify the hypothesis that only ID can explain the origin of the cube. Short of this, however, the ID-only hypothesis gains a great deal of predictive value based on the strong weight of evidence that is currently in hand. That is why it is possible to tell the difference between the most likely origin of such a granite cube vs. a snowflake or the like.

The same is true for the God-only hypothesis. As I’ve explained for you multiple times now, there are various levels of phenomena that require various levels of intelligence to explain. As higher and higher level phenomena require higher and higher levels of intelligence and creative power to explain, one eventually comes to a point where the level of required intelligence and creative power is so high that it cannot be readily distinguished from what one would normally attribute to a God or God-like being. It is for this reason that if you yourself saw someone you knew was dead and decaying in the grave, raised to life at the word of someone claiming to be God, even you would tend to believe this claim – and rightly so. That means, of course, that the detection of God-like creative power is rationally detectable, at least in theory, given the presentation of such evidence.

Philosophical naturalism, on the other hand, is not at all testable in a potentially falsifiable manner. It is not even theoretically possible to falsify a theory that is dependent upon evidence that you have yourself proposed will show up at some undetermined time in the future. It is therefore not a science or otherwise rational, but is on the same level as wishful thinking – just not helpful.

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    As an aside, I have to also point out that the claims for the creative potential of the evolutionary mechanism presented on this particular “Rational Wiki” webpage are not backed up by demonstration or reasonable statistical analysis or workable genetic theories – at least not beyond very low levels of functional complexity. They’re nothing but just-so stories. I mean, why hasn’t James Tour been convinced by this stuff? Because, there’s simply no science here… as you would know if you did your own independent research into the potential and limits of the evolutionary mechanism. Their claims regarding “flagellar evolution” are a case in point when it comes to glossing over the details and not understanding the exponentially growing problem of finding novel beneficial sequences in the vastness of sequence space with each step up the ladder of functional complexity: Link


The Creator of Time
How long should you look for a mindless naturalistic mechanism to explain a highly symmetrical granite cube before it becomes obvious that such a mechanism will most likely never be discovered? – that intelligent design is by far the most likely reason for its existence regardless of when or where such a cube might be found? – even if found on an alien planet like Mars?

Suggesting, at this point, that a mindless mechanism must be the answer for the origin of our granite cube, and that one day such a mechanism will be discovered, is not science – but faith that is deliberately blind to the strong weight of evidence that is currently in hand which puts a clear statistical limit on what all known mindless mechanisms are able to achieve, or are ever likely to achieve this side of eternity, with the material of granite.

Likewise, any religion that is based on the same blind faith, faith that is directly opposed to the weight of empirical evidence that is currently in hand, is no more helpful or trustworthy than the religion of philosophical naturalism. Such a religion would be “effectively indistinguishable from atheism” (William Provine, 1987).

As with science and any helpful hypothesis or theory, any useful religion which aims to establish a solid hope in rational people must be based on the weight of evidence which establishes the credibility and predictive power of the religion. If God exists, He is the creator of rational thought and scientific investigation and would not give these reasoning powers to us if He expected us to “forgo their use” (Galileo, 1615) – particularly when searching for Him and His signature in the works of nature or the inspiration of texts claiming to be derived from Him.


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.