Adelaide Chapter

Archive for the ‘Philosophical Issues’ Category

Scientism and scientific naturalism by Tom Daly On the 9th November 2023, Reasonable Faith Adelaide hosted a presentation on ‘Scientism and scientific naturalism’ by Tom Daly.

Scientism and scientific naturalism are two ideas that shape how many people view the world around us and what we consider as knowledge, and yet they are often more assumed than examined. Scientism basically says that if you can’t prove it scientifically, it doesn’t count. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism takes it a step further, claiming that everything that exists is part of the natural world and there’s no room for the supernatural. “You have faith, but I have reason” is the common refrain from the secular world and yet, when we compare scientism and scientific naturalism with the Christian faith, a far richer picture quickly emerges. Tom Daly examines some of the background and implications of these 2 beliefs.

Tom’s slides contain several hyperlinks as follows:

Why I believe in God | Dr. John Lennox interviewed by Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnOkO….

Ricky Gervais And Stephen Go Head-To-Head On Religion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ZOw….

What Is Science and Scientism? | Ian Hutchinson at https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=des….

Definition of Methodological naturalism at https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Methodo…. Straw Dogs Quotes at https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes….

Mind & Cosmos Quotes at https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes…. Does science prove everything? At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxJQe….

Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTn6E….

Is There Meaning to Life? | William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, Jordan Peterson – Toronto 2018 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4oI….

Tom Daly

Tom Daly is a member of our committee and is an IT professional who has worked in hi-tech for nearly 40 years.

The strongest argument against the existence of a loving God is supposedly the problem of evil, but probably the second strongest argument is called the hiddenness of God. The argument is basically as follows:

If God wants us to believe in him, why doesn’t he make himself known more clearly and unambiguously? But He doesn’t. So, the most likely explanation is that he doesn’t show himself clearly because he doesn’t exist.

Paul claims that God’s ‘invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse’ (Romans 1:20). Apologists also use arguments for God’s existence based on the observable world and from logic. However, many are not convinced. They object that these general arguments are not convincing enough. and that God could or should have made his existence more obvious.

In this presentation, the following questions will be considered:

  • Is general revelation sufficient?
  • Are we without excuse?
  • Does God deliberately make his existence known only to those who have eyes to see?
  • Does he reveal himself personally to some and hide himself from others?
  • If we seek, will we find; If we knock, will God answer?
  • Is the Divine Hiddenness argument a good argument?

Kevin’s talk is available on YouTube.

Dr Kevin Rogers

Kevin Rogers is the director of Reasonable Faith Adelaide. He is a former electrical engineering lecturer, researcher, and research supervisor at the University of South Australia. He is now mostly retired but continues with part-time research in acoustic atmospheric tomography. He is also learning New Testament Greek, and is blessed with a wife, 4 children and 8 precocious grandchildren.

C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He was a gifted academic and held positions in English literature at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. He is best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but he is also noted for his other works of fiction, such as The Screwtape Letters and The Space Trilogy. He is also well known for his works on Christian apologetics, including Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis became an atheist in his teens. However, in his 30s he converted to Christianity under the influence of J.R. Tolkien, author of ‘Lord of the rings’. Lewis described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

Lewis had a particular style of apologetics. His Christian world view infects most of his fictional works, but his explicit main arguments for Christian belief were arguments from desire, reasoning, and morality. Are these still effective today?

Ken’s presentation can be viewed on YouTube.

Ken Samples

Kenneth Richard Samples earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy and social science from Concordia University and his M.A. in theological studies from Talbot School of Theology. He is a senior research scholar at Reasons To Believe (RTB). He uses his knowledge to help others find the answers to life’s questions and encourages believers to develop a logically defensible faith and challenges sceptics to engage Christianity at a philosophical level.

On Thursday 22nd September, Dr Kenneth Samples from Reasons to Believe, spoke to RFA on “Abductive reasoning & Conspiracy Theories”.

What does this mean? Reasoning can be deductive, inductive or abductive.

  • For deductive reasoning, the conclusions are certainly true.
  • For inductive reasoning, the conclusions are probably true.
  • For abductive reasoning, the conclusions are plausibly true.

Abductive reasoning is the ‘best’ explanation for a given phenomenon, where the best explanation is the one that is most likely to be true.

A conspiracy theory is a theory that explains an event that is the result of a secret plot by powerful conspirators. Examples are:

  • the American government were engaged in a plot to kill President Kennedy.
  • a select group of people who are part of clandestine societies control the world.
  • getting vaccinated is a bigger risk to their health than getting infected with the coronavirus.

Most conspiracy theories are false, but some are true. Ken described how best to evaluate them. A video of his talk and the ensuing discussion is available on YouTube.

Kenneth Richard Samples earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy and social science from Concordia University and his M.A. in theological studies from Talbot School of Theology. He is a senior research scholar at Reasons To Believe (RTB). He uses his knowledge to help others find the answers to life’s questions and encourages believers to develop a logically defensible faith and challenges sceptics to engage Christianity at a philosophical level.

Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15)

How does the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth compare to the other sages? How did the Sages view themselves? Were their lives and philosophies really that different? The comparisons are revealing!

Bronwyn Pearse

Bronwyn Pearse is a primary school teacher who currently works with a number of people from different religious backgrounds. Having grown up in a Christian family she has always enjoyed asking questions and digging deeper into the truth claims of Christianity. In recent years she has been exploring what makes Christianity unique amongst the world religions.

Bronwyn’s talk can be viewed on YouTube

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds was popular in Europe, particularly in many leading philosophical circles. To Francois-Marie Arouet, more commonly known as Voltaire, this was nonsense, and he set out to lampoon the concept in brilliant satire.

But:

  • What was the basis of this belief in the first place?
  • How effective is Voltaire’s response?
  • And what should we make of it today, particularly in our covid-ravaged world?
Brian Schroeder

Brian’s presentation is available on YouTube.

We all know that our planet is special. But how unique is it really? Is there any evidence that pertains to our existence being extraordinary?

Join Gordon and Bronwyn as they explore this fascinating topic on what science has actually uncovered about the universe’s beginning and the features of our place in space that contribute to earth’s unique features. This will be a joint presentation from Bronwyn Pearse and Gordon Stanger.

Bronwyn Pearse is a primary school teacher who currently works with a number of people from different religious backgrounds. Having grown up in a Christian family she has always enjoyed asking questions and digging deeper into the truth claims of Christianity. In recent years she has been exploring what makes Christianity unique amongst the world religions and the scientific evidence for a creator found, particularly in cosmology. During Bronwyn’s talk she refers to a couple of key web links. These can be found at https://reasons.org and https://reasons.org/connect-to-a-scho….

Dr Gordon Stanger

Dr Gordon Stanger is a geologist, hydrologist, water resources specialist, and a climate-change impact analyst. He is semi-retired and is a keen advocate of ‘sensible Christianity’. He has spoken on several occasions at our meetings. He is very knowledgeable on scientific issues, and we greatly appreciate his contribution.

Bronwyn and Gordon’s joint presentation can be viewed on YouTube.

How can you or I know that Christianity is true? One of the main aims of Reasonable Faith Adelaide is to demonstrate that Christianity is plausible and more reasonable than the alternatives. We believe that we can have confidence that God exists, and that Jesus Christ is as is ascribed to him in the Bible. In other words, our aim is to demonstrate that Christianity is true. But can we actually “know”? Is that even possible?

Brian Schroeder will address some of the evidence and will endeavour to demonstrate, as far as possible, that we can know that Christianity is true, and how we can know. Brian Schroeder is a Reasonable Faith committee member. He has BSc and BA degrees from Adelaide University (Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics), and an MA in Theology.

Brian Schroeder

His talk is available on YouTube.

According to Wikipedia, the “God of the gaps” is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are cited as evidence or proof of God’s existence.

This would have been a particularly attractive position at a time when people knew almost nothing, and could thus ascribe everything to God, but now that we know more and more, is God is getting squeezed out? Failures in gap arguments in the past have been embarrassing and counter-productive.

Are we in the process of eliminating God, or do gaps we still point to God, or is this an entirely erroneous concept in the first place?

Brian Schroeder presents the issues, and argue for the standard Christian response to this question. His talk is available on YouTube.

From ancient times people have gazed at the sun, moon and stars observing their consistent daily and seasonal motion, and assumed that all of this was ordered by a maker. The Enlightenment dismissed this as fanciful imagination, but as our power of observation of both the atomic and stellar scale has grown, we see increasing signs of order that only needs the slightest variation to prohibit life supporting conditions. Is there any other reason that can explain this observed fine tuning in our physical environment?

Multiverse?

Steve White presents an outline of Fine Tuning and the Multiverse. He presents evidence for the fine tuning of our universe from the sub-atomic to the stellar scale and then discusses whether Multiverse theory can explain it. Do we just happen to live in one lucky, life-supporting version, among many other universes?

Stephen White

Stephen White has had a career as a physicist and is now retired.

The presentation is available on You Tube