Hitler and Christianity

I’m becoming very interested on this topic. I was first introduced to this idea in a debate between Dinesh D’souza and Christopher Hitchens. And this video made me really interested. Not interested because I agree that Hitler was acting in line with the will of God, but rather because a lot of people do. Has anyone considered that Hitler used all kinds of ideologies and twisted them to fit his agenda? He was a politician, and acted like it. He claimed Catholicism and Christianity, but rejected the very teachings of Christ. Such as, “love your enemies”, “turn the other cheek”, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”. I can go on and on, and explain them to you if you like. Let me show you some more direct evidence.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1753469.stm

This source states “The Nazi Master Plan; The Persecution of Christian Churches”, shows how the Nazis planned to supplant Christianity with a religion based on racial superiority.”

Read it, check it out. It’s short. And let’s chat it up.

The Intelligible Code of Matter & DNA

I heard Ravi Zacharias say “Behind intelligence, intelligence is assumed.” He then went on to make the analogy that goes something like this: If I had a dictionary and told you that it appeared out of an explosion in the sky you would not believe me. You would think that’s ridiculous. Because a dictionary is intelligible, you assume intelligence, in this case, an author. Now imagine a universe that is made up of a code, like an alphabet. The basic pieces are put together in different arrangements to create different molecules and compounds that are then put into different arrangements that make more and more complex combinations and compilations of matter. All matter is essentially compounded of the same basic pieces that are arranged differently to work like a code to contain different meanings according to arrangement. Grass, rocks, humans, fish, and Neptune are all essentially made up of the same matter in different amounts and arrangements.
Consider biology. These combinations of matter create proteins that connect and work together to create DNA- and intelligible code as well. Through different arrangements of DNA all biological matter is composed. A tree, a fish, humans, and fungus are all essentially determined by the same particles in a different arrangement. It is a code, that works like an alphabet. All english books are made up of english words that all find their root in the english alphabet. And through the code we get intelligibility. It is a brilliant and sophisticated system at all level. DNA contains more information than any of our books, and is a more complex code, wouldn’t you assume an intelligence equally complex?
Also, from a book what can you tell about the author- excepting an autobiography? You can assume there is an author, but the knowledge of what he is like, what he is composed of and things of that matter is easily theorized, but hardly known. Just something to keep in mind.

Genesis: The Prophetic Allegory

A good friend of mine, AF as I will call him, loves to ask the leading question of who spilled first blood? Most Christians he has asked the question to say Cain. He then says no, God did. And then he moves into tell you all about the prophetic nature of the Genesis story- of Adam and Eve. AF is really smart, and one of my closest friends. This blog is inspired by him and I dude, you rock.
In the garden of Eden Eve was deceived into eating the fruit, and gets Adam to do the same. Now they realized their nakedness and were ashamed. In response to all this God said

“[To the serpent]
Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

[…]
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”

It becomes obvious that God began animal sacrifice to cover then naked shamefulness that came about by disobeying his commands, and our consciences (Romans 3). Only sacrifice of God’s creation could serve to cover the shame of Adam and Eve. This does two significant things:

1. Alludes to Christ’s sacrifice to eternally wash away our sin, not just cover it up through lesser sacrifice.
2. Gives insight into God’s character as merciful. Instead of smiting the sinner for his wrong doing He makes the sacrifice on our behalf so that we may have relationship with Him. After all, what father does not?

God’s words to the serpent are also very powerful. It is known that the society in which these words were written were patriarchal. All societies were patriarchal at the time with a few exception of some african cultures that traced their lineage maternally instead of paternally. That is the only exception I know of, but am interested to know more if you have some insight. So, in this society to be the offspring of woman, the seed of woman, you must not be the seed of man. There is no reason for the author say woman instead of man in that context unless man could not apply. Psychologically the culture would say man. We know from the accounts in the gospel that Jesus is said to have a virgin birth. Jesus is the only person ever who could be called seed of woman in this cultural context. If you then replace he with Jesus, and the serpent with satan or sin, then the text now reads “Jesus will crush your head, and you [satan] will strike his heal.” thus the first prophesy of Jesus is made in Genesis 3. The text is so intertwined and meshes so perfectly that you can’t help but feel it’s divinely inspired. I can’t, at least.

Scientifically Moral Atheists?

I was reading an interesting blog (here) and had a coincidentally interesting thought. SVS’s blog mentioned new atheism lacking compassion because everything is determined through rigid reasoning and science. The mindset of “if there is no evidence, there is no meaning” is applied to everything, especially religion (which is a fatal flaw in itself, since there is evidence). But I want to put this thinking alongside morality and see what result we get.
I have read and heard answers from atheist concerning morality and the best sense of an answer I have received, the only answer at that, was morality was developed through our genes by evolution. In that case, we all have different genes, and therefore a different sense of morality. That makes sense, right? It actually sounds pretty accurate. But now we test it: What evidence is there that this is because of evolution?
I hate to break it to any new atheists out there, but you can’t have any insight into morality because there has been no scientific research into the origin or even the true existence of morality- perhaps it was all made up by some group of people conspiring against the world. (sorry for being so suggestively mean).
But it goes further than that, does it not? If morality is specific to each specific person, we all have differing DNA, then all morality is absolutely subjective since it is defined absolutely objective but different for each individual. One could then make up their own morality and not be immoral since they are merely ‘dancing to the tune of their own DNA.’ In fact, why not just get rid of law because someone thinks it is moral to speed, or rape, or kill. To have a rigid law the government would be DNA discriminatory. Murder is only wrong if your DNA says so. I don’t believe that, and no atheist should either since there’s no scientific evidence to support it. I’m not making a case for Christian morality, though it is pretty good, but I am pointing out the ridiculousness of the ‘evidence must be shown, or I will doubt’ philosophy. Of course there is a right and wrong that is not individually defined. Search for it.

Genesis Theory

I am a skeptic of Genesis- especially the creation story. According to the bible the Jews were in captivity in Egypt, where they became the nation of Israel. Joseph went through his trying life in order to get into his position of authority in Egypt through which he was able to bring his family into the country during a time of famine. They became slaves, and multiplied. Then through another odd chain of events Moses is a position of authority in Egypt, and similarly leads the people out through yet another odd chain of events. Then he decides to sit down and write all of history from the beginning of time until now based on oral tradition of the people kept in slavery. That is the origin of Genesis. Just so you know, I do believe it was divinely inspired. However, I do not believe it to be literal on every point. The creation story reads like classic mythology. Any student of mythological religion would agree that the way Genesis 1-3 is not written to be literal, but is a highly figurative story. I would say, because of my belief that it was a prophetic allegory alluding to future events. I’ll write a few more blogs on that idea, since it’s super interesting. I’m tired of creationists, and I’m tired of hearing atheists rant on how the earth isn’t 6,000 years old and concluding that God is all a myth because of some obviously bad interpretation of the bible. Stop being a young Earth creationist. And if you’re an atheist, stop having this one little misunderstanding be the backbone of your disbelief. Read the scripture; look at science; ask: do they really conflict?

Strong Atheism: The Cartoon Universe of Theism

In response to the article http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/cartoon_universe_of_theism/

The only thing this article actually argued was is God’s will arbitrary or goal oriented? And that is what I will discuss in this post. I am putting the argument expressed into the article into these logical terms, so please be quick to point out if I misrepresent the article.

1. Rationality is due to goal-orientation
2. God has no such objective reference point
3. God can not have goals (from 1 and 2)
4. God is arbitrary, and irrational- assuming he exists at all.

Logically I would tend to agree with this argument, assuming that it is clear that God has no objective reference point. To translate what “objective reference point” actually means: God cannot be added to; by definition He does does not need. Since God does not need, he cannot have goals. I want to crush this idea, because it is false.

Inconsistent nature of atheistic arguments:
When an atheist makes a statement being with “If God exists…” and goes on to ‘disprove’ God by some characteristic attached to God I always want to ask, do you buy into the non-cognitivism of the idea of God? Based on non-cognitivism arguments you cannot assign any real characteristics to God, and certainly nothing meaningful. They have to either believe that the whole idea of God is non-sense or disprove Him through other means. One cannot argue the Cartoon Universe of Theism and the Non-Cognitive nature of God. If you are an atheist and have reconciled the two, I’d be glad to hear it.

A self-referencing God:
If you have read my blogs to date this will all be repeated information. According to the bible (the source on which Christians base their concept of God) when Moses asks God his name God replies, “I AM”. This is a fascinating reply because it implies that God is self sufficient. That by nature he exists, and existence is through him. Interesting idea. But “I Am” doesn’t really say that I’m self-referencing, and that by nature i exist, or anything like that. Oh, but it does. Names are given by parents, and tell a lot about the history of a person. It can tell the culture, ancestors and so on. God saying “I AM” means that none of that applies. All of the begining of existence that we carry around in our names do not apply to God. He IS.
Cute. But is that all we have to work with? Luckily, no. Jesus left us some teachings that became the doctrine of the Trinity. This gives us some insight on who or what God is. Father is relevant only in reference to a Son. See, without the Son the Father would be meaningless, and without the Father, the Son would also be meaningless. In light of each other, THEY ARE. Self-referencing. Also, Jesus says “I and the father are one.” In the Old Testament it is written, “The Lord your God is One.” This word One is not one in a unitary sense, like I have one cupcake, or one dollar. But rather one in spirit. It’s the same word that describes a man and woman being united in marriage into “One flesh”. God also uses an odd plural way of referring to himself in the Old Testament. Read it, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. The Spirit is the most elusive to me, though. I have trouble figuring it or him out..? Is the Spirit what makes the Father and Son Echad, One, or an equal component in the Oneness bound by a spirit that each of them share…. Or what? It’s a hard concept, and one that I don’t know how much understanding we will ever have, but I do know that this idea of Trinity makes God a self-referenced goal-oriented being whose needs are inherently met by his own being.

Now, why do we exist? That question was kinda shoved under the door through this thinking. If God is needless, then he doesn’t need humanity to exist, so why do we? Instead of rushing to the conclusion, “God doesn’t exist!” I challenge you to think about it. Think. Now think some more because you probably haven’t figured it out yet.
What i know is that because God is complete does not mean he would not create us. Think about a mother. If she were merely a woman, or a wife would she be less complete? Perhaps, in some psychological sense, but there are plenty of women who are totally fulfilled without a child. In their circumstance children may add meaning to them, or add another layer of fulfillment, but they are not a necessary component to their completion. So can God be goal-oriented for us to be brought into existence and love him and yet not be relying on us for completion of who he is? Yeah, I would say so.

Strong Atheism: Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God

This argument was found n the article Introduction to Materialist Apologetics. The actual Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God, or TANG is found here. The argument refutes some idea called the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God or TAG. I’ve never heard of TAG before this article, so I guess I’m claiming not it. But I will refute TANG and some mentions of the TAG argument will come up. TANG says that logic, science, and morality disprove God.

So let’s get into logic. TANG states that if logic were dependent on God then he could manipulate logic, and do the illogical, or unnecessary. Logic is necessary, so God cannot exist. I disagree. I do not believe that logic was devised by God. logical thinking is a way of systematically breaking down what we perceive to find if it holds any weight as truth. logic is not gravity, it is not a marble. It isn’t even an solid idea within itself, but rather a way of testing ideas. God is the standard of truth, from a theist’s perspective, that does not make logic bend to the “arbitrary will of god”.

Science, the uniformity of nature. TANG says that science would not be uniform if it was dependent on God. God would literally have to make every reaction for every action, thus making it all subject to God’s will, subjective, and unpredictable. Which then proves God false as well since science is predictable. Martin of TANG also mentions miracles of violation of the uniformity of nature, which also disproves God. I’m going to refer you to my Blog on the necessity of naturalism. Check out the last paragraph, and fill in the gaps to apply it to this situation. Also, if God is all that he claimed to be from his inspired word, as we Christians like to call it, then is it so hard to imagine that he’s so wonderfully powerful that he created the universe to be self sustaining? Imagine a self sustaining universe with an all-relational creator and sustainer. Moreover, based on what I wrote in my other blog, I would say that miracles are more real, and the reality we live in is less real. So that when we observe or read about a miracle that’s a touch of reality, of truth, in our false world. Take it how you will, it is more an idea to ponder than a solid argument.

Morality. This is my favorite of the three, because I get to make it an Ontological argument. Again, TANG states that there is no objective moral code according to TAG, since morality is subjected to God’s “arbitrary will”. First I have an appeal to find where they’re sourcing God’s will as arbitrary, or if that was just made up to fit the argument. Because if we could find that God’s will is not arbitrary, but purposeful and consistent, then the TANG falls apart, and TAG fits pretty well. But is God’s will arbitrary or not? Well I want to refer you back to my blog on the Argument from Non-Cognitivism. We are assigned secondary attributes like love, kindness, servanthood, and so on. But God’s primary attributes are those things. We are who we are, and can obtain love as a characteristic, but God is love. Morality is not defined by God, God is the definition for morality. See, so God cannot violate this morality, it is not up to His arbitrary will.

Tell me, did I miss anything?

Strong Atheism: Non-Cognitive Nature of Infinity

This argument here, is not very engaging, or interesting on any level. Mostly because it runs off a few basic assumptions, which violate other arguments found in the previous articles on the site, and it makes a defense for the existence of some sort of ‘beginning’ which the Big Bang theory does not satisfy. I will do my best to make this blag-o-post interesting.

The first assumption this article makes is that time is a constant. This can easily just be said as a cop-out answer to say it is not relevant because time isn’t the same in every context. But it is a good thought to keep in the back of your mind. If the passage of time, or at least the best way we know of measuring it, is not accurate in our universe, then how can we assume that it is the same outside of our universe? (That was my way of making it fun).

Next, it assumes God adheres to the same rules of time that we do. Now there’s two ways this thought has been received by theists I’ve engaged with: 1. Of course God adheres to time, if not there would be no such thing as actual free will, it would all be determined beforehand. 2. God created time, like gravity, and is not bound to it. Since we’re getting really deep into hypothetical thinking let me bring us back up a little. Answer to 1. It does not matter if God adheres to the same rules of time that we do, we will still have free will. I can make a decision to do something, or not, no matter what I will decide. The point of decision existed, and will exist again. Answer to 2. I am not absolutely sure if God created time, but I tend to agree. However, even if God is bound to time in the same way we perceive it, it does not make Him any less divine. Let’s face it, this is not a central part of Christian doctrine, or anything of that matter, just pure speculation. The real point I’m getting at, is you cannot disprove God based on the assumption that he adheres to time, which contradicts the idea of infinite. Because, you do not know. Also, one is less disproving God than they are disproving our definition of finite, anyway.

What the argument really says is that if infinity is in some way existent, then there would be an infinite number of regresses to get to where we are, and could never arrive at this present moment in time. Since God is defined as infinite, then through an infinite number of regresses, he would never come to the point of creation, or even to now. This leads us into a Causation argument. Everything in existence was caused; something else was here before what is here now, infinite times over. This argument actually says there must be some first cause. The universe must be finite. It is logical to conclude that time as we perceive it does not agree with infinity as we perceive it, thus we have two options. 1. Infinity is only possible outside of time which is from whence the origin of the finite, that is to say time-bound, came about. 2. This is all hog-wash, and I’ll ignore it.

Christianity answers this. God answers this. I’d be really happy to write a blag explaining Genesis in a comprehensible way for everyone who’s read it with the same skepticism i have. The world around us points to a beginning. The bible begins with the beginning. there’s something to it, don’t ignore it.

by the way, I’m feeling like I missed something… anybody see something I missed?

Strong Atheism: Necessity of Naturalism

This is not a well formed argument. Maybe in a forum where the author of the article here could respond it could make more sense. As it is, there are a few huge flaws in the argument given:

1. Supernaturalism is only meaningful in that it is a negation of material causes.

2. Negation of material causes would only be possible if one had no limit of knowledge.

3. A transcendent knowledge base is necessary because we have limits of knowledge.

4. Supernaturalism is impossible. (from 1, 2 and 3)

5. Naturalism is an absolute. (from 4)

Where to begin. Well, this argument basically says that since humans have finite thinking and admittedly do not know everything that nothing other than we can observe can happen. The thought in itself is a contradiction. Let me explain how I derived that statement. I disagree with 1. The statement should read supernaturalism is only proven without any form doubt through the negation of all material causes. From the Christian perspective it should read Absolute Naturalism is only proven without any form of doubt though the negation of all supernatural causes. Both are equally unsatisfiable, and thus we cannot know one or the other absolutely. Also, even if I did agree with 1, 2 and 3, the statement in 4 would not be a reasonable conclusion. It should read: We do not know (from 1, 2, and 3).

So then, one might ask, why if you do not know either way, would you believe in a crazy supernaturalist explanation? Consider this: an account is given from a credible source, as far as we can tell, that a man walked the dusty streets of Palestine and said through a crowd to a paralyzed man “Get up, take your mat, and walk.” And the paralytic got up and did so. Then one might ridicule such a source and cite numerous contradictions and conspiracies. But the truth is, the bible stood the test of scrutiny from eye witnesses, from archeology, extra-biblical history, manuscript evidence, and so on. The naturalist must either shove off the argument ignoring the evidence (which is contrary to his nature), or believe that as Jesus told him to get up and walk, then by coincidence the nerves in his body shot through with electric signals, and his legs were strengthened totally unprovoked by anything but the biology within the man, or some secret acupuncture treatment no one noticed. Honestly, which sound more crazy, the naturalist explanation, or the supernaturalist.

Also, I prepose a serious shift in viewpoint inspired by C.S. Lewis. If you haven’t figured it out, he’s one of my favorites. I prepose that is is not the world around us that we call natural, and the wold unknown to us that seems to intervene every now an then is not the supernatural. Instead what we call natural is in fact the subnatural, and the supernatural becomes the natural. This world is described as a shadow, an obscure outline giving shape and basic characteristics of the real. I often have the mindset that the supernatural, as it is called, is more two dimensional. C.S. Lewis would argue that as we pass from the natural to the supernatural we become more real, and the world around us becomes more clearly defined instead of become faint and airy. It is not that the supernatural intervenes so much as it is reflected and what we call a transcendent experience is less transcendent and more an experience of what really is. I believe it was Plato, among others who said that the world is not true reality, but just a thin sheet upon which reality is reflected. At first I thought he was dumb. I now think he was right in a lot of ways. But that’s just something to think about independent from the arguments.

Strong Atheism: Process based Non-cognitivism

The Process based Non-Cognitivism argument found here is an argument against obtained God belief (OGB), as defined in the previous blog’s article. Obtained God belief is best understood as the process leading to deism. OGB can be simply defined as follows: By looking at the  universe around us we can deduce that God exists. I don’t care for the term OGB or agree entirely with it, but I’m not going to get into that. I am merely going to assess the argument from the link, and offer some insight.

Let’s look at section II of the article. I already refuted the first part of MGB in my previous blog, and will look at the second formal argument.

Posit that we attempt to define “god” by OGB.

1. To be considered a valid OGB-type hypothesis, a concept must be a viable explanation for a given observation or set of observations.
2. There is no observation that the god-concept can viably explain.
3. The god-concept cannot be considered a valid OGB-type hypothesis. [from 1 and 2]
4. Therefore, the term “god” is meaningless.
5. Therefore, the god-concept is invalid.

To begin, I must say that from 1 we run into problems. Define viable. Clearly people have accepted belief in God, no one would deny that. God explains things. So, to the people who believe in God, and the explanations that come along with God is it not by their definition a viable explanation? This can quickly be as subjective as that, but I will not leave it to that cop-out remark. The issue with 2 is addressed in section III of the article, “Is it indeed the case that ‘there is no observation that the god-concept can viably explain’?” This is a good question, and the true point of this argument. I think it’s necessary to consider some people who have accepted God in form of deism or christianity. If a logical mind would agree with God, wouldn’t it prove that the god-concept can viably explain observations? Einstein agreed with the God of Spinoza. I’ll let you look that one up. He supported the existence of God with his findings in science. C.S. Lewis former atheist and leading intellectual became a theist in 1929 and a Christian in 1931. He said something to the effect of “I believe in God as I believe in the sun. Not only because I see it clearly, but because by it I see everything else.” This is a very popular quote, and for good reason.  He agreed that the god-concept viably explained the world he saw. There’s a long list of people like this. For example, Frank Morrison, who set out to disprove the events of the cross, and ended up becoming a Christian. Josh McDowell who has a similar story, looking to prove the bible an illegitimate argument and begins finding that at every point Christianity stood up to scrutiny. Even Anthony Flew rejected atheism very late in life for deism (even though his story is questionable). Richard Dawkins even expressed his surprise that the universe was formed with the universal laws of nature already in place. God answers this. God viably explains. But, we can’t leave it at that. We have to look at some arguments that prove, not that God exists, but that the god-concept viably explains observations.

To the question “is there an observation the god-concept can explain” the article in reference says, “it is not our burden of proof to demonstrate that there are.” This is a good call by the author. I’ll come back to it later, I just wanted to note it now, so it’s in your mind as I recite the citations in the article.

The scrutiny of apologetic arguments begins with Cosmological Arguments, or better said in Christian perspective as Causation or First Cause. You can read the argument in section III of the article, which would be helpful, since I’m not going to quote it all here. Now, to get into this argument, I don’t think the author understands this argument, or how it’s supposed to be used. It is not that everything thing is in movement, but rather that everything is. It’s more of an Ontological Argument (which the author butchers, I’ll get into that later). The real argument reads something like this: It is posited that everything that is was caused. Everything is doing what it is doing because something else caused it to do it. In physics it’s said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Things don’t act without another action making them act. This is not exclusively a Christian or theist idea. What the Causation argument says is that something had to make the first cause. Otherwise there is an infinite number of causes, and we would never reach this point, and these actions, these causes, that are happening in the present. Think about it, it’s kind of heavy. Anyways, that is the real argument. God explains this observation viably. However, this alone has a flaw that the author of the article notices. That is, what caused God? Now in essence this boils down to ‘show me a time when God, who by definition always existed, did not exist.’ Well, the god-concept in itself answers that. But I won’t leave it at that, there’s more, and the author helps us out a little on this one, too. The argument cited states “everything we observe” and “They commit the fallacy of composition by transposing the property of being… to the entire universe without justification.” Well, it is justified, the previous articles justify it, you can dig through them to figure out to what I’m referring. But see, we only observe the finite. Again, by definition we cannot observe the infinite. In fact, because infinite is a negative term it only states what God is not. God is not (insert properties of finite). One of these properties is causation. The finite exists because something else caused it. God, again by definition, is uncaused, even the opposite of caused. That is, God is self-referencing. Check out LT Jeyachandran’s chapter in Beyond Opinion for better understanding, or my previous blog.

Next argument: Ontology. If you look at the article’s citation of this argument you will see that no logically sound person would ever consider this. Make no mistake, this is not a theist’s approach in the least. I found this  site http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm and had a good laugh at some of these “proofs”. It is apparent that these are jokes. Not serious arguments. This exact “Ontological Argument” is found as number 3. also, check out 33. and some of the others. They are funny. So with that I’m going to skip this one, and refer you to both the above argument and my previous blog for a real ontological argument.

Theological Arguments. I’m starting to get annoyed by the names of these arguments. They’re arguments, for theism. They’re all theological. This is a Scientific Argument, using science is the hint. So now I’m going to state a truth and explain how it applies, please read the argument in the article before hand. Behind intelligence intelligence is assumed. What I mean by that is best explained in the example of a book. If I had a dictionary and claimed it came about from an explosion, no one would buy it, even if I claimed the molecules combined into the shape over millions of years. A book is written by a person, so if we have a book, we can assume a person exists. The universe is much the same, in that elements and atoms and molecules work like language combing to make new levels of understanding. DNA is a code, atomic structure and alphabet. It’s systematic, it’s orderly, it adheres to specific law and is universal. That is the clearest picture of intelligence I can think of. Intelligence must be assumed. Is the god-concept a viable explanation for what we observe according to science? Yes.

Argument from the Intellect and Emotionalism. Morality, Intelligibility and so on. These apologetic arguments are shrugged off in the statement “The main problem in all these arguments is to prove that natural processes are insufficient to bring about the existence of these X.” To use the author’s own words, I’d like to say “it is not our burden of proof to demonstrate that there are.” Why should I have to prove that evolution does not account for the beginning of consciousness. It’s the atheists job to do that, and my job to either adequately refute it, or take a new position. Also, it’s not that other ideas are insufficient, only that the god-concept is not insufficient. Again, I’ll state that the goal is not to prove the existence of God, but rather that God is a viable explanation for our observations.

Back to the book analogy. From a finished book we can assume an author, derive a name, possibly infer what books the author has read, and so on. But we cannot know the author. We can’t define a distinct physical feature, or life style from the book alone. We can never really know the author based solely on his creation. Why would we expect more from God’s creation? He created the universe, and he put pieces of who he is into it, even “created he they in his image”. But it is not an autobiography. Praise God we have revelation that gives us insight into who He is and a little bit on the ‘Why?’ That is why deism and Christianity are different. God is a reasonable conclusion for the universe, but God is made known to us by other means. Get to know God, read the bible, talk to him. I believe without doubt he does exist. Do the same.