If you missed the “Has Science Disproved God?” panel discussion at Auckland University last week and you just cannot wait for the video to be edited, formatted and uploaded to You Tube then simply follow this link: “Has Science Disproved God?” to listen to the podcast of the event.
In the first hour the speakers addressed four issues:
1. Should a working scientist operate as a methodological atheist or, in other words, does the scientific project necessarily exclude God? – Dr Jeff Tallon
2. Scientific beliefs are based on measurable, verifiable evidence, is belief in God any different? – Dr Matthew Flannagan
3. Does evolution threaten belief in God? – Dr Neil Broom
4. Science and free-will. – Dr Robert Mann
The second hour consisted of questions from the audience.
Hat Tip: Thinking Matters
The second and final event in this series, Christianity on Trial, is on at Auckland University tonight at 7pm.
Tags: Events · Jeff Tallon · MandM on Video · Matthew Flannagan · Neil Broom · Richard Dawkins · Robert Mann · Science and Religion · Thinking Matters13 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
MP3 file not found? 🙂
Really? Admittedly I did just steal Thinking Matters’ link and paste it but when I right click and save I get an MP3 file.
What browser are you using? I’m using FireFox
.-= My last blog-post ..“Has Science Disproved God?” The Podcast =-.
Tried again, still no go, I get an actual 404 error.
Tried both Firefox and Chrome, OS X.
Same here…file not found.
That is weird because when I right click and select “save link as” I get an MP3 file every time.
I swiped the link from Thinking Matters so I have emailed them and asked them to check it. Try using the link above to Thinking Matters (it will take you to the page I swiped the link from) and try getting the file direct from them – let me know if that makes any difference.
.-= My last blog-post ..Can State Expropriation of Minerals be Justified? Part I =-.
The file has been moved to zshare while the issues are sorted on the Thinking Matters server so just follow the link and all should be well.
.-= My last blog-post ..“Has Science Disproved God?” The Podcast (Fixed!) =-.
Thanks for posting this so quickly.
The new link is working great. I am listening to it right now. Thanks again, for sharing this!
Thanks for getting it to work Madeleine. I’m listening now and really enjoy it.
Matt,
Your answer in regards to the origins of morality at the very end was outstanding. Thanks for it.
I listened to this broadcast and learned a few valuable insights from all the speakers. Matt’s contribution was substantial, yet as someone who exists on the fringes of what today is called Christianity, I am saddened but not surprised to hear that despite some promising assertions, there was not a real bible believer on the panel. Ie you are all ‘modernists’ who have swallowed the notion that the bible is fallible and also that evolution is plausible and even that it is a fact.
I was happy to hear Matt, though he took the path against a literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis and would have us believe that because there is a historic lineage for non-literal interpretation that it is therefore a legitimate doctrinal position, that at least he said that he had not come to a definite decision on the theory of evolution.
If it is true that God can use the base things of the world to confound the mighty may I be so bold as to present to you my unlearned challenge that such great soldiers for Christ as Matt and Co, and even the mighty William Lane Craig have all fallen victim to the many pitfalls of modernist theology that is a theology corrupted by faith in scholarship above faith in the word of God.
Let me share with you a scriptural doctrine that correlates both a literal interpretation of Genesis and the scientific indications of an ancient earth.
I think the panel mistakenly believes a false dichotomy exists between the two concepts.
First of all Adam and Eve are verifiable via the genetic evidence ie The fact that we are all members of one race that descended from ‘an Eve’ is the latest fact of Genetics that vindicate the Genesis record.
Secondly there are two beginnings in the scriptures.
The one we are discussing in Genesis, and one in the Gospel of John.
Now it is my contention that the beginning spoken of in John is the real beginning of all creation….First there was just God the Trinity. Then he made the angels in heaven (Lucifer and co). Then God / pre-incarnate Jesus/The Word made the Universe and the original Earth (This is when the stars of heaven/Angels sang in wonder (Isaiah).
This was in the ancient past possibly billions of years ago.
I believe God created life on earth and put the Dinosaurs here.
Lucifer and the angels would walk upon the earth too.
Next was the Rebellion and the beginning of evil.
God not only judged Lucifer and co but also destroyed the earth/ and maybe even the whole universe by flood.
This is when the earth (dry land…not planet) was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep (The scriptures tell us God did not originally create the world without form or void in Isaiah)
‘Time’ went by and then Gods Spirit moved across the face of the waters.
Here we have the second beginning, or the preparation of the earth for Adam and mankind. Now this beginning would have happened in the recent past around 4000bc. This is when God abated the waters and re-established the universe for Mankind…after the fall of Lucifer and the scene was set for the story of the fall of Man.
I believe Dawkins is right to lambaste Christians who foolishly try to Dawinize the book of Genesis. I say If evolution is true God is out of a Job and Christian ethics are hogwash because Darwinian survival of the fittest is incompatible with the morality of the God of the Bible.
I myself came to Christ via the rejection of the theory of evolution.
If evolution is true then I made a big mistake!
But evolution is not true! It is a Satanic Lie…and utterly absurd.
Now I am an engineer. I see the evidence of design! I apprehend that God wrote the genes for kind after its kind…not transmutation.
God made man with freewill, he did not develop it from an amebic amorality.
For an engineer to claim evolution is the same as design is whacked!
That is a contradiction of the highest order and Dawkins has won and he knows it…if you accept the Darwinian premises.
It is all very well to say you must turn to Revelation to found ethics, and then spend an hour a day in Prayer and Study, but then deny the validity of the early chapters of Genesis as interpreted by Christ and St Paul.
Sin entered into the world via the literal first Adam.
Christ was the second Adam!
This is utterly incompatible with the gradualism of evolution.
The incarnation itself is made into a joke if the Word became simply a highly evolved ape!
Man is a special creation.
Man was created in the image of God not King Kong!
The absurdities of the theory of evolution can be seen in such movies as the X Men, or the Planet of the apes…or Water world!
It is Bat shit insane.
The day you realise these things will bring you liberty and truth and knowledge of God!
It was this realisation that led me to bow to God and ask for the Salvation that is in Christ.
Don’t tell me Evolution and the Bible are the same thing.
That is a big Fail!
It is a Satanic lie.
For your panelist to say evolution is a fact is proof of how far Modern theologians have swallowed atheist premises and pseudo science.
Belief in Adam and Eve does not mean you must embrace a young earth.
[…] weeks ago I was a panelist at a forum on Science and Religion at the University of Auckland, the podcast of that forum is available here. After this forum a member of the audience sent me the following email. I have reproduced my […]
I think it all depends on which side of the fence you sit on. I belive in god but I also believe in science. But I will say that science has definitely eliminated the simple minded thought of GOD and that this world was created solely for us. I believe there is a creator but if he even knows we exist is another story.