Give Me Evidence, and Proof Doesn't Count!

     We've all heard it at some point: "Oh, I'm just an innocent and highly rational atheist who only believes in that for which there is empirical evidence which, unfortunately for you, does not include invisible flying wizards with anger issues! The burden of proof is on you, y'know? Pfft! Invisible flying wizards..."
     Sounds reasonable enough, right? After all, it is, to some extent, the same logic that we (theists) apply to a great number of things (aliens, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, vampires, the Jersey Devil, fairies, Mothman, etc). But, there is one painfully obvious difference between each one of those things just mentioned, and God: those things, if they exist, are material, and God, if he exists, is immaterial. It is in no way unreasonable to deny the existence of fairies on the basis that those who believe in fairies have never been able to produce any sort of physical evidence, but what about God? He is said to be 100% immaterial and 100% omnipresent. How can we begin to approach the task of proving such an entity exists? Actually, it is quite simple:

Premise 1: The mind exists.
Premise 2: The mind is immaterial.
Premise 3: Substance dualism is false.
Conclusion: All is mind.

     The first premise is (hopefully) pretty intuitive. If you are self-aware, you cannot doubt the existence of your own mind. We know that the second premise is true because the mind can exist in a completely immaterial world, and matter, by definition, cannot. Whenever you dream, your mind is existing in a completely immaterial world. I hope we can just agree that dreams are immaterial.
     The third premise takes a little explanation. "Substance dualism" is the philosophy that says there are to fundamental types of "stuff" in the universe, material and immaterial. In this worldview, rocks, trees, planets and prunes, are all material, while minds, souls, spirits and God, are all immaterial. However, if two things, say a mind and body, are capable of affecting each other, they must share a property, and if they share a property, they cannot be fundamentally different. Now we know that the mind is immaterial because it can exist in an immaterial world, but we also know that things we do to our bodies, like taking drugs, can affect our minds. That means that our minds and our bodies cannot be made of fundamentally different stuff. The philosophy that says there is only one fundamental substance is called "monism." There are two types of monists; those who believe that all is matter are called "materialists," and those who believe that all is immaterial are called "idealists." But, we know with absolute certainty that materialism is false because we know with absolute certainty that the mind is immaterial because we know with absolute certainty that the mind can exist in an immaterial world because we have all experienced dream worlds. Because both substance dualism and materialism are certainly false, idealism is certainly true. Because we know that mind exists, and that dualism is false, we know that all is mind.
     So there you have it. All is mind. There is no rational way to deny this, and yet atheists somehow do. Usually they do this by saying that the mind is merely a function of the brain, and then leaving the conversation before it can be pointed out that this gets them nowhere. Or else they just get mad.
     Anyway, let's have some more fun with logic!

Premise 1: If time had no beginning there would have been infinite amount of time before this moment in time.
Premise 2: If there had been an infinite amount of time before this moment in time, this moment in time would never occur. 
Premise 3: This moment in time is occurring.
Conclusion 1: Time had a beginning.
Premise 4: Space and time are mutually dependent aspects of space-time.
Conclusion 2: Space had a beginning.
Premise 5: Matter cannot exist without space.
Conclusion 3: Matter had a beginning.
Premise 6: Energy and matter are mutually dependent.
Conclusion 4: Energy had a beginning.
Premise 7: The existence of anything that had a beginning is contingent upon something pre-existent.
Conclusion 5: The existence of time, space, matter, and energy, are all contingent upon the pre-existence of something which is outside of time, occupies no space, is immaterial, and requires no energy to function.

     "Hmm, could it possibly be the Mind of God? Nah! Must've been, like, somethin' else, cuz' everyone knows there ain't no God, cuz' if there was there'd be evidence! And proof doesn't count! After all, the crusades were bad..."
     I may address the crusades some other time, but for now, I just want to say that atheists don't want proof, or even evidence; they want atheism. But, for any of you atheists out there who reject the logic used in the above arguments, but feel that some hard, tangible evidence might persuade you, I suggest you check out Miracles by Craig Keener. Or better yet, go on a mission trip to a remote tribal area and witness some miracles first hand! Or best of all, sit in your basement with the lights off angrily denying anything that goes against your silly worldview. 

Ultimate Reality vs. Other Types of Reality

     Let me begin by defining exactly what I mean by "ultimate reality." The ultimate reality is the one reality which is not being simulated in any way, and whose existence does not depend on anything outside of itself, and upon whose existence all other realities depend. This excludes dreams, which are realities being simulated in a living simulator, commonly referred to as a mind, and it excludes any virtual realities being simulated in a nonliving simulator, commonly referred to as a computer. It also excludes those purposeful simulations intentionally run by conscious beings for the sake of evaluating potential actions (as in, "Maybe we shouldn't do this. Can you imagine what would happen if your mom found out we drove her car into a lava pit?") and those run simply for the sake of enjoyment (as in, "Dude, I just thought of the most perfect thing! A floating castle made of cotton candy!"). We can all agree that none of the things just mentioned are the ultimate reality, right? If a guy having a dream wakes up, the dream ends, but reality goes on. If a computer running a simulation crashes, the simulation ends, but reality continues. Those realities are evidently not of the ultimate variety. It's fairly obvious what the next question is going to be. Are we currently experiencing the ultimate reality? The question is not easy to answer, but I have an opinion.

     Have you heard the paradox of the arrow which, having been fired, crosses half the distance between the archer and the target, and then half of the remaining distance, and then half the still remaining distance, and so and so forth? In this paradox, the arrow never reaches its destination, but we know that in real life, arrows do not proceed in this manner, and they do in fact hit targets. Now let's apply that same sort of logic to another subject.

     Matter, even solid matter, is mostly just empty space. That is, of course, because there is a lot of empty space between the atoms of which the solid matter is comprised. However, the atoms themselves are also mostly just empty space. After all, there is a lot of space between the electrons and the nucleus, and between the protons and the neutrons, and between the gluons and the photons, and between the up quarks and the down quarks, etc. etc. If all pieces of all matter at all levels are mostly just emptiness, then it follows that no matter is actually solid. But matter is solid in real life, right? Sadly, physicists are finding no proof that any matter is actually solid. In fact, if we are going to be honest about it, they are finding a lot of evidence that suggests that matter does not actually exist at all. You may protest, and say that the chair upon which you are sitting still seems every bit as solid as it did yesterday, but allow me to remind you that if you were having a very realistic (and boring) dream about sitting in a solid chair, no part of that apparently sturdy piece of furniture would actually exist. In the same way, if a character in a video game were to sit in a chair, no matter how solid it may appear, not one sliver of that chair actually exists. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that modern physics is leading us to believe that our own furniture is just as illusory.

     But surely, the breaking down of matter into smaller and smaller pieces cannot continue forever, right?  That is correct, because you would eventually reach the Planck length, which is the smallest possible length that anything can be (approximately 1.616199×10^-35 meters). Because nothing can ever be smaller than a Planck length, a Plank space cannot be only partially full, it must entirely full or entirely empty. This means that at the base level, the manifestation of our reality is very similar to binary code, which seems to be another hint that our reality may not be ultimate one.

    There are many other reasons to suspect our reality is being simulated either in a mind or a computer (such the fact that particles can be connected even while separated by vast distances, like icons on the opposite ends of a desktop), but for now I would like to move on to the "religious" implications of the possibility of our reality being virtual, the most obvious of which being the possibility of an "afterlife."

     Imagine you had been in a coma your entire life, and that the entire time you were in the coma you were dreaming one long continuous and congruous dream. Imagine further that after many years of this, a doctor managed to wake you up for a few minutes, and then you relapsed into your dream. The language spoken by the doctor is unfamiliar to you, as you have only ever spoken a language created within your dream. The doctor himself is an unfamiliar creature because, having never seen yourself, you created an entirely nonhuman body for yourself. In fact, nothing in the real world makes any sense to you. However, you are aware that your senses are much sharper than they have been previously, and that whatever you are experiencing is more real than anything you have ever experienced before. How could you describe your experience to the other characters in your dream?

     In real life when this happens to someone, it is called a "near death experience," and it is often brushed aside as being the result of hormones being released within the brain. But when you take consider seriously the possibility that our reality is being simulated in the mind of a higher being, tales of the afterlife begin to make more sense. After all, wouldn't expect those briefly released from the simulation to come back with descriptions of fantastic beings, encounters with those who were previously released from the simulation, and most of all, the overwhelming sense that all of it is much more real than anything they have ever experienced before?

     I am likely to post more reasons for suspecting our reality is virtual, but I would like to leave you for now with this thought: Our universe can broken down into Planck spaces, which are essentially real-life pixels. The speed of light is the speed required to move one Planck distance per Planck time (the smallest possible time), which is why if anything were to travel faster than the speed of light, it would arrive one or more Planck lengths away before leaving its starting point, essentially traveling through time. However, in a reality which could not be broken down into Plank spaces, it would be possible to travel through time without breaking the speed of light. In such a reality, traveling from one time to another, would be as simple as traveling from one place to another. Essentially, time would lose all relevance. As time would lose relevance, so would its definition of being the direction in which entropy increases. Without the continual increase in entropy that plagues our reality, such concepts as immortality and even eternal bliss become definite possibilities. This description fits with the biblical view of Heaven, as well as with the descriptions of those who claim to have been there.

Love Me or I'll Chuck You in the Fireplace

     I saw a video a while back that was making fun of the fact that we can choose to accept or reject salvation by comparing it to a scenario in which a child has a choice between loving his dad and being thrown into the wood stove. Sounds like a pretty accurate analogy, right? After all, God basically said to the human race, "Love me or I'll throw you into an everlasting barbecue pit," right? Well, not really.
     The main problem with the analogy is that if the dad had simply ignored his son, his son may have gone on to live a peaceful and fulfilling life with a good job and wonderful family. Basically, everything was going fine until the dad got the horrid idea to say, "Love me or burn to death, son." Now, if all human beings were destined for a pleasant eternity regardless of their attitudes toward God, and then he decided to make things interesting, invented Hell, and said, "Love me or roast, humans," this would be a fair analogy. But that's not how things went down.
     If you are going to understand why things went down the way they did, and by extension why they are the way they are today, you must get rid the idea that Heaven is "the place where God lives." God, by definition, is omnipresent, and therefore "lives" everywhere. Has the thought ever occurred to you that if God is truly omnipresent, the statements, "Heaven is the place where God lives," and "Hell is the place where God lives," are equally accurate? It's strange but true. What then, is Heaven? First off, I think calling Heaven a "place" is an understatement. It's kind of like calling the entire universe "the place where people live." Let us instead refer to Heaven and Hell as "realms."
     What then are the main differences between these realms? Personally, I don't think they have as much to do with fire and worms as is often assumed in our culture. As far as I can tell, the culture to which Jesus described Hell relied heavily on metaphors to portray situations involving extreme emotions, and they would have understood the fire and worms to be metaphors for the extreme negative emotions experienced in Hell. I may be wrong about this, so don't blame me if the they turn out to be literal! Anyway, before I address the nature of the two possible everlasting homes, I need to make a point about the nature of humanity.
     Imagine that for some reason you decided to throw a brick through Mrs. Smith's window, so you did, and when you turned make your getaway, you found that she was standing behind you and saw the whole thing. How much shame would you feel? You can't really say without knowing what sort of person Mrs. Smith is. Let's say she's a terrible person and she's always throwing bricks through your windows and deflating your tires and setting fire to your lawn, and she recently shot your dog. How much shame would you feel for getting caught throwing a brick through her window? Probably none, or at least very little.
     Now let's say that Mrs. Smith is a wonderful person and she's always baking you cookies and taking care of your numerous pets while you're on vacation and weeding your garden when she knows you're busy, and she recently saved you from drowning in a tar pit, and then you get caught throwing a brick through her window. How much shame would you feel? Probably quite a bit.
     Any number of scenarios could serve to illustrate that fact that the amount of shame we feel for immoral actions depends very much on the sort of person who sees us doing them. If a drunk hobo sees us litter it's not such a big deal as if Morgan Freeman sees us littering. Anyway, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. God, if he exists, is the greatest possible being. Standing before the greatest possible being, and knowing that he has seen every thing you've ever done and every thought you've ever had would be even worse than having the nice Mrs. Smith catch you throwing a brick through her window. If you have never been so ashamed that you hid your face, count your blessings, but if you have, imagine that amount of shame multiplied several thousand times over, and being unable to hide your face from the greatest possible being. Got it?
     Next, a bit about the nature of God. God, being the greatest possible being, is by definition omnipotent and omniscient and morally perfect. Imagine now that something immoral and corrupt has entered your home. If it stays, it will be because you don't care that it's there, you don't know that it's there, or you are not capable of removing it. If you knew it was there, it bothered you, and you were capable of removing it, you would. Now imagine that something immoral and corrupt has entered God's home. He knows it's there, he hates immorality and corruption, and he is capable of removing it, so we will not tolerate it.
     But wait! Everywhere is God's home, and every human being has been corrupted by immoral behavior! Do you see where this is going? Because he is the greatest possible being, God will not simply overlook humanity's corruption, and because we are corrupt, our shame will drive us away from God, but we can NEVER get away from an omnipresent being.
     Now back to Heaven and Hell. What is the difference between them? Heaven is the realm into which the morally perfect are drawn to be in perfect everlasting fellowship with their creator, and Hell is the realm into which the morally corrupt will be driven by their shame. (Babies are incapable of feeling shame, and have nothing to be ashamed of, in case you were wondering.)
     Of course, other than babies, everyone has been morally corrupted to some degree, so Heaven is starting to look like a giant nursery, but if you are at all familiar with the gospel, you probably know what happens next. No corrupted construct can be rectified from within, no amount of dirty water will cleanse filthy clothing, and no amount of flawed human effort could redeem a lost race. Something perfect and pure had to step in and bear our shame, and God alone fits that description. That is why God incarnate was publicly crucified like a common criminal.
     Now let's look at God's offer again. It's not, "Love me or burn," it's "Give me your shame and corruption, and I'll give you my moral perfection." Remember what happens to the morally perfect? Remember what happens to the morally corrupt?
     But you may protest, "Why would anyone cling to their corruption?" and honestly, I don't know. At any rate, a better analogy for the offer of salvation is a lifeguard throwing a life preserver to a man who is being pulled underwater by the weight of his giant bundle of worthless junk, and saying, "Let go of the junk and grab the life preserver! If you don't you will surely perish!"

The Magical Bronze-Age Wish-Granting Goat-Herding Bearded Sky Daddy Genie Thingy

     A few years ago I became interested in the whole atheism-versus-theism scene, and since then I have probably watched hundreds of videos and read dozens of articles that either attempt to prove that God exists, or attempt to make the concept of God look ridiculous. While watching these videos, I've noticed some common mistakes made by people on both sides of the debate. 
     First, to my fellow theists: Do NOT try to use the Bible to prove that God exists. This is a textbook example of circular reasoning, and the vast majority of atheists will call you out on it. In the end, that just makes your position look indefensible.
     Now for the atheists. I couldn't help but notice you all seem to share this idea of God being a bearded old man in the sky that floats around granting wishes and throwing brimstone at people. So I want to clear some things up. Michelangelo had absolutely NO IDEA what God looked like. God does not have a beard. In fact, God doesn't even have a chin on which to grow a beard, or a face on which to have a chin, or a head, or a neck, or even a torso. You see, God has a condition that is commonly referred to as being immaterial.
     Where is God right now? Is he floating around fleshless in the sky somewhere? Nope. You see, one of the consequences of being omnipresent is that you are literally everywhere at once. God is in the sky to exact same degree as he is underground, in outer space, beneath the oceans, and in our homes and bodies. So he doesn't float around. The concept of motion breaks down when you are already everywhere. (Just a side note, in this post I am only talking about God the Father. Jesus was of course able to walk during his earthly ministry, and the Holy Spirit moves from place to place.)
     Is God "magical?" Not really. Have you ever had a dream where you could move objects with your mind? That's not magic. Have you ever been playing a video game and interacted with the virtual characters? That's not magic. Our universe exists within the mind of God in the same way that a virtual world exists in a computer, or a dream world exists in the mind of a dreamer. Know what that means? Miracles aren't magic. They're just a simulator interfering with his simulation. Nothing magical about it.
     In sum, if you can't attack God for what he is, don't attack him at all. I don't believe in the magical bearded old man in the sky anymore than you do. I do however believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove that our universe is being simulated in the mind of God. I will probably post something about that in the near future.