The Curtis/Vacula Debate, Does the Christian God Exist?: 1st Rebuttals

This post will constitute my first of two rebuttals that will take place in the debate between me and Justin Vacula. In order to see Justin's rebuttal to my opening statement (which appears below this thread), just visit his website at JustinVacula.com

While perusing Mr. Vacula's opening statement there were a few items that caught my attention and I will list them for his consideration and comment.

Can one honestly believe that malaria, AIDS, Indian Ocean Tsunamis, Chilean earthquakes, andthe like are the work of an omni-good god?

While we are discussing the concept of whether the Christian concept of a god exists, it is important to bear in mind that these things occur, according to orthodox Christian doctrine, because we all live in a fallen world. These things came about after the fall, this world/plane of existance isn't paradise, and the existance of these aforementioned items only serve to reinforce and help prove that contention. If the narrative was such that these things did not exist, then it would seem contradictory that they do, however, that is not the case.

I contend that 'natural evil' – earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, animal suffering, and the like – is incompatible with belief in an omni-good god and serves as a defeater to Christian belief

I notice that Mr. Vacula made the huge leap of terming these things 'evil' without ever explaining how he arrived at that conclusion. At no point does he explain the criteria that must be met in order for any of these things to be defined as 'evil'. I would posit the fact that Mr. Vacula views these things as 'evil' counts towards evidence that an objective good exists by which we can gauge these things. And if that objective good exists, then what is it?

A strict materialist would simply look at these things and shrug. An earthquake causing destruction? A seismic event that is the result of plate tectonics, and why did they make the decision to live near a fault line anyway? Should they be shaking their fist at God or do they carry at least part of the blame if it affected them or their loved ones? Same goes for a flood wiping out a bunch of houses and displacing hundreds, the materialist would think that it's the result of a meteorological event such as heavy rain. Did anyone put a gun to their respective heads and force them to live in a flood plain? Is it God's fault if the didn't do their homework? Do humans bear any responsibility at all in these equations whatsoever?

Again, by what standard are these things termed 'evil'? If a tsunami occurs out at sea and hardly anyone notices, is it 'evil'? If a tornado doesn't actually kill anyone, but does delay my flight out of Tulsa for an hour and a half, is it 'evil' or merely a 'nuisance'? If a hurricane causes some property damage and minor abrasions, is it 'evil' or just 'not very nice'?

I do hope that some measurement for clarification is offered up by Mr. Vacula to help us understand how he determined this. And furthermore that any clarification put forward isn't based on anything so highly subjective as personal feelings, experience or opinion. Because after all, we know that these things indeed vary greatly from person to person. We'll see.

In addition to human suffering, an egregious amount of animal suffering exists – ecosystems thrive because animals kill other animals, often in a slow and painful fashion. Does this seem to be the work of an all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing being?

You know what? That's quite interesting. I don't recall that I have ever heard of the so-called suffering of animals objection that Mr. Vacula raises as being a valid argument against the existence of God.

But I wonder if we actually know how much these animals are truly 'suffering'. For instance, some animals inject a numbing venom so their prey doesn't feel the pain of being bitten. But setting aside the uncertain level of pain that some animals feel when being eaten by others, I would like to know why Justin simply settled on animals. I mean, who is going to stand up for the vegetables? What was the criteria considered when the animal kingdom got the big 'thumbs up' for approval that their experiences were valid and those of plants are not? Recent research would suggest that plants are suffering too.

"When a plant is wounded, its body immediately kicks into protection mode. It releases a bouquet of volatile chemicals, which in some cases have been shown to induce neighboring plants to pre-emptively step up their own chemical defenses and in other cases to lure in predators of the beasts that may be causing the damage to the plants. Inside the plant, repair systems are engaged and defenses are mounted, the molecular details of which scientists are still working out, but which involve signaling molecules coursing through the body to rally the cellular troops, even the enlisting of the genome itself, which begins churning out defense-related proteins.

Plants don’t just react to attacks, though. They stand forever at the ready. Witness the endless thorns, stinging hairs and deadly poisons with which they are armed. If all this effort doesn’t look like an organism trying to survive, then I’m not sure what would. Plants are not the inert pantries of sustenance we might wish them to be.

If a plant’s myriad efforts to keep from being eaten aren’t enough to stop you from heedlessly laying into that quinoa salad, then maybe knowing that plants can do any number of things that we typically think of as animal-like would. They move, for one thing, carrying out activities that could only be called behaving, if at a pace visible only via time-lapse photography. Not too long ago, scientists even reported evidence that plants could detect and grow differently depending on whether they were in the presence of close relatives, a level of behavioral sophistication most animals have not yet been found to show."

So why do plants get the short end of the stick here? They seem to have an awareness of whats going on. And lest you think that a diet of mushrooms would solve the problem and let you off the hook, the above article contains a link explaining how fungi are even more closely related to us than plants are. (provided evolution is correct) So I guess they are 'off the table' so to speak, also.

I don't wish to make my opponent's arguments for him, but are animals used in this argument against God because they have faces and perhaps we are more sympathetic towards them for mere sentimental reasons? Or perhaps because they have brains? The above quoted author brings up the example of Jellyfish which "can be really tasty when cut into julienne and pickled, [and] have no brains, only a simple net of nerves, arguably a less sophisticated setup than the signaling systems coordinating the lives of many plants" and asks "How do we decide how much sensitivity and what sort matters?"

Since Justin brought up this line of argument, I will assume that he has carefully thought through his position on the matter and will await for him to tell us just where the terminator line is as to whose suffering is uplifted and who the ultimate losers are to be in these scenarios.


If the amount of good in the world renders belief in an omni-evil god unreasonable, why doesn't theamount of suffering and death in the world render belief in an omni-good god unreasonable?...we are equally justified in believing that of evil in the world demonstrates that there is not a good creator god.

I don't believe that my opponent has a rudimentary understanding of one of the more basic concepts of Christianity, namely, that according to widely accepted, orthodox belief, the God of this world is not the Creator God. This is made quite clear in 2nd Corinthians 4:4 "Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God". There are various other passages that confirm this and I admit that I'm a bit puzzled that my opponent was (seemingly) unaware of this doctrine.

Premise One: Naturalism, the philosophical belief that all that exists is the natural world, is very inductively justified.

Premise Two: If naturalism is very inductively justified, we are justified in rejecting any supernatural explanations.

Premise Three: The Christian god is a supernatural explanation.

Conclusion: We are justified in rejecting belief in the Christian god.


I would like to turn this discussion back towards Christianity (or the 'Christian God'). Exactly where did Natural Law come from and was it in fact a necessary prerequisite that lead to methodological naturalism and ultimately sytematic science? Christians typically do not seek supernatural explanations except perhaps on origin of life discussions and numerous scientists seem to hold their faith concerning where the first living, reproducing organism came from with equal ardor. As one man put it, "Supernatural intervention plays no role in Natural Law, except to have set the ground rules".

EDIT: 2nd rebuttals are to be posted on our respective blogs on Thursday night.

Yet another sign that the apocalypse is upon us..

Nothing says that you are a complete pagan/heathen like sacrificing your child on the Lord's day...

"Regardless of one’s personal or political views on abortion, most people on both sides of the aisle would probably take issue with a clinic marketing coupon deals on the procedure as nonchalantly as if it were a manicure or spa-facial. On Monday, LifeNews reported that a coupon promising discount Sunday abortions for a “limited” time only, was issued by the Orlando Women’s Center – as if they were advertising a “fire sale.”

Do we really need such prompting? This is beyond sad and makes you wonder where our sick society is heading with such complete callousness as this.

The Curtis/Vacula Debate, Does the Christian God Exist?: Opening Statements

This debate came about through a series of emails between me and atheist Justin Vacula. In order to see Mr. Vacula's opening remarks, please visit his website at JustinVacula.com.

In our opening statements we are to limit ourselves to a maximum of five main points. I will attempt to to abide by that rule in order to streamline this discussion as much as possible and avoid plunging into any senseless rabbitholes.

For me personally, the answer to the question 'Does the Christian God exist?' would be a resounding 'yes', I believe that He does. Let me attempt to lay out what I think are five good reasons why I believe this is so. Please note that my beliefs are not limited to these five reasons, but after no small amount of consideration, I decided to use these in my arguments for the purposes of our discussion here.

#1. The fine-tuning of the earth's position in our solar system. There are numerous criteria that must be met in order for this planet to sustain life. Our moon must be positioned precisely where it is in order to slow the earth's rotation. If it were not for the moon then we would have 6 hour days and high, sustained winds[1] of approximately 500 miles an hour and thus life would be much less likely to form and survive. If our planet were to be located a mere 5% closer or further away from the sun, then the three states of water that exist (liquid, frozen and vapor) that are so necessary for life on earth would be much less likely to "prevail"[2]. Additionally, If the earth did not have the large, outer planets in our solar system protecting it, we would be bombarded much more by space debris such as meteors.[3]

These are just a few of the supposed 'coincidences' that led to habitability on this planet. A couple others that could be added are our location within a 'co-rotation radius' that is to say, between the spiraling arms of the Milky Way[4] and the earth's 23.5 degree tilt on it's axis that prevents much greater tempurature extremes in our summers and winters [5]. I believe that if one considers the mathematical odds of all of these factors lining up in an arbitrary manner, the statistical probability as such would appear to be quite remote if not practically impossible. If Mr. Vacula would like to utilize mathematics to demonstrate the likelihood of these factors all coming about randomly through undirected processes, I would invite him to do so.

This brings us to the next point I would like to bring up...

#2. The possibility that life first arose on this planet through completely random, undirected processes is so low that it constitutes an argument against such an occurance.

Or as one well known writer put it..

"There is zero evidence that abiogenesis ever took place, robustly imagined mechanisms for it notwithstanding. To claim that because there was no life before, but there is now, ergo abiogenesis occurred, is the very sort of philosophy that science has largely come to supplant." [6]

In support of the remote possibility of life occurring as such, I would like to quote this professor who offered up his thoughts on the matter...

"..the mathematical odds of assembling a living organism are so astronomical that nobody still believes that random chance accounts for the origin of life. Even if you optimized the conditions, it wouldn't work. If you took all of the carbon in the universe and put it on the face of the earth, allowed it to chemically react at the fastest rate possible and left it for a billion years, the odds of creating just one functional protein molecule would be one chance in a 10 with 60 zeros after it." [7]

So as you can see, it would appear reasonable that one could believe that these two things had an intelligent first cause directing a desired outcome.

However, all I've done so far is raise two arguments in favor of a generic god. What makes me think that Christianity is unique here? Aren't there other religions that also have their own creation account? Out of the other competing claims out there, why is it that I believe the Christian God is responsible and the ultimate source of truth?

For me anyway, the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazereth is evidential enough. After considerable study, the scholar NT Wright has written that the resurrection and post-mortem appearances of Jesus of Nazereth are "in the same category, of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70".[8] In fact, according to one author, "The textual case for the historical Jesus is orders of magnitude stronger than the one for the historical Alexander the Great..There are no primary sources for Alexander and the most trustworthy of the five secondary sources was written by Arrian approximately 470 years after Alexander’s death."[9] And practically nobody doubts the historicity and accomplishments of Alexander.

You must admit, if someone suffered a very public and horrific death and then came back to life three days later, that would certainly constitute a miracle. For my other three points, I would like to offer up what I think are the best evidences for the Resurrection.

#3. The apostles were transformed. Following the crucifixion and interment of Jesus of Nazereth we read that the remaining apostles at least believed he was dead and they had little reason to believe otherwise, prior predictions by Jesus not withstanding. The apostles then became aggressive proclaimers of the Resurrection of Christ and despite facing hardships and terrible martyrdom, there is absolutely no record whatsoever of any of them ever changing their story in the least. There was nary an Oliver Cowdery or David Whitmer among them.

#4. Why do the gospel accounts record that it was women who had found the tomb empty? This is especially interesting in light of the fact that the testimony of women was not considered to be admissible in those times in the Ancient Near East. This is hardly suprising given that attitudes haven't changed that much over the millenia in this part of the world.

If the empty tomb account was simply made up, wouldn't if have made much more sense to have the apostles there at the tomb in this case and (additionally) not making them look like such doubters and failures that even Peter refused to stand up for his faith when asked about it by a young servant girl?

As an interesting aside (I really don't expect Justin to address this), this leads to another question stemming from the opposite end of Christ's earthly existance, the account that it was shepherds out in the field who were among the first people recorded to herald the birth of Jesus. Why would the writers of the gospels use them in this narrative if the testimony of shepherds was not admissible either during this period of time in the Ancient Near East?

This hardly seems like a firm foundation for "the Christian church, which is the largest institution or organization that has ever existed on the face of the earth, with membership easily passing two billion people by the end of this decade. Nothing comparable to her or even close has ever existed before. The Grand Canyon wasn't caused by an Indian dragging a stick, and the Christian Church wasn't created by a myth."[10]

In reference to the women discovering the empty tomb (along with shepherds heralding the birth of Christ), maybe there was something at work here in addition to the Son of God becoming flesh here on earth to make our relationship right with God. Perhaps as a byproduct of this happening, God wished to see the existing order of doing things shaken up and irrevocably changed.

The last point I would like to raise in support of the resurrection would be..

#5 The complete lack of any widespread, competing claims from the 1st century A.D. as to what happened to the body of Christ. If it wasn't a bodily resurrection, then what happened? There simply is no sort of 'Solly and Biff from Haifa spirited the body away on the Saturday night following the crucifixion and dumped the body in the Mediterranean. And thus Jesus of Nazereth sleeps with the fishes.' There's nothing remotely like an accepted, competing account from the time and thus applying Occam's Razor in this instance, the earliest, most widely accepted version of events would tend to be the correct one in this case.

I'll give Dr. Jerry Newcombe the last say on the topic of the empty tomb.

"Historians-secular unbelieving historians-tell us that the Christian Church began in Jerusalem in 30 A.D. [It could have been 33], the year Christ was killed and that she began because the apostles began to preach that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. You strip everything else away from their preaching, their main message was that Christ rose from the dead (e.g. Acts 2:23-24)

..many adherents to many religions can travel to the place where the founder of their religion is currently entombed and say, "Here lies the dust of our estimable founder." You cannot say that about Christ. He was not in the grave. He is risen. For 1,700 years there was virtually no contraversy that the tomb was empty. The Jews didn't deny it. The Romans didn't deny it. Nobody denied it until just recently. With our vast "rear view mirror" wisdom, we look back through more than 1900 years and we decide, "Oh, the tomb wasn't empty." Too bad those who were there couldn't have been so smart."[11] (Emphasis mine)



[1] http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=104
[2] http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Water
[3] http://people.hofstra.edu/lois_miceli/modules/SOLARS1.html
[4] http://www.reasons.org/location-location-location-research-reveals-fine-tuning-solar-systems-position
[5] http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast03jul_1/
[6] Day, Vox; http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/08/lecturing-butterfly-collector.html
[7] Bradley, Walter, PhD. Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University (interview)
[8] Wright, NT; The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003
[9] Day, Vox; The Irrational Atheist pg. 116, 2007
[10] Newcombe, Jerry, DD. Sunday school notes, 10/30/11, The New Presbyterian Church, Pompano Beach, Florida
[11] Ibid

EDIT: I forgot to mention, our respective 1st rebuttals are going to be posted on Tuesday night.

Liberals and Mohammedans: Making children the world over miserable together‏

Yes folks its true. We just can't go around giving gifts to the most dirt poor kids around the world. That just might mean that we are following Christ's command to 'Love thy neighbor'.....

"The Air Force Academy apologized Thursday night after it was accused of religious intolerance for promoting Operation Christmas Child – a program designed to send holiday gifts to impoverished children around the world.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said military commanders crossed the line when they promoted the gift program, sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, an organization run by Franklin Graham.

Operation Christmas Child said they expect to send more than 8 million shoe box gifts to underprivileged children in 100 countries. Around 60,000 churches and 60,000 community groups in the United States are participating.

MikeyWeinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said an evangelical Christian message is also included in the boxes.

“This is a proselytizing entity of Franklin Graham,” said the group’s president, Mikey Weinstein. He filed a complaint on behalf of 132 Academy personnel including two sets of Muslim-American parents."

Thanks imbeciles. I'd really like to see somebody defend this lunacy. Exactly WHAT is this 'message' that is included in these boxes? Telling some kid that receives nothing all year and is lucky to even eat that they are important to someone? What next? That they actually matter and have value? We can't have that now, can we?


EDIT: While the Obama administration is curiously absent from weighing in on this contaversy, it has no problems telling the WWII memorial that FDR's prayer cannot be included. Link

The best article on the Herman Cain contraversy you will find

Trust me, I visit numerous news sites and blogs and pour over entries from all types of pundits on a regular basis. Since allegations from the 1990's started coming up this past week concerning Herman Cain's conduct while serving CEO of the National Restaurants Association (ironically enough, about 12 hours before he was to address the National Press Club for the first time), this has got to be BY FAR the most informative article on the entire debacle. It's extensive, well written, informative, contains some points that other media outlets didn't cover and is even-handed in it's coverage. By all means, feel free to weigh in with your thoughts on this contraversy in the comment box below. Here's a brief snippet of the linked article from The Hayride...

"This thing could be a great opportunity for a transformational moment, and Cain’s campaign could well have led the way to a discussion that would greatly benefit the country. It’s somewhat analogous to the opportunity Obama had early in 2008 when the nation found out he’d spent 20 years in a church led by an anti-American charlatan who regularly trashed white people and bastardized the country’s history as a key element of his ministry. Naturally, Obama mucked that moment by throwing his “typical white person” grandmother under the bus, though he got away with that thanks to the media’s happy acquiescence in the faux racial-healing propaganda offensive. But a presidential candidate who isn’t a typical white person and whose qualifications as a candidate include a demonstrated ability to generate achievement in large organizations and who then points to old allegations of an arguably minor import as a reason why we’re killing ourselves with intolerance toward each other in our daily dealings would be perfectly placed to capitalize on it. And in doing so, said candidate would cement himself as a uniter on the national scene."


ADDENDUM: Additionally, check out this video response from Cain supporters. I think it can be an effective message but you be the judge.

EDIT: Politico runs 90 92 stories on Cain in 5 days, and counting...

Ward: 'Religion answers the factual questions science neglects'

There's an excellent article in today's Guardian regarding the faux 'war' between science and religion. You can click here for the entire article, but here's a brief snippet...

"A huge number of factual claims are not scientifically testable. Many historical and autobiographical claims, for instance, are not repeatable, not publicly observable now or in future, and are not subsumable under any general law. We know that rational answers to many historical questions depend on general philosophical views, moral views, personal experience and judgment. There are no history laboratories. Much history, like much religion, is evidence-based, but the evidence is not scientifically tractable...

Claims that the cosmos is created do not "trespass onto" scientific territory. They are factual claims in which scientific investigators are not, as such, interested. Scientific facts are, of course, relevant to many religious claims. But not all facts are scientific facts – the claim that I was in Oxford last night, unseen by anyone, will occur in no scientific paper, but it is a hard fact. So it is with the miracles of Jesus, with the creation of the cosmos and with its end. The interesting question is not whether religion is compatible with science, but whether there are important factual questions – and some important non-factual questions, too, such as moral ones – with which the physical sciences do not usually deal. The answer seems pretty obvious, without trying to manufacture sharp and artificial distinctions between "hows" and "whys"."

Is Newt Gingrich a viable candidate?

Throughout most of the summer and up until quite recently, the poll numbers indicating support for a Gingrich presidency were hovering in the low, single digits. Those numbers are recenty starting to tick upward ever so slightly as Tony Lee recently observed...

"In a volatile election cycle, Gingrich has battled his way back into contention, rising to third place in several national and state polls on the force of his ideas and breadth of knowledge of how Washington does and does not work. After nationally televised debates and local town halls, Gingrich has made voters want to give him a second look, especially after he speaks emphatically about American Exceptionalism and about bureaucrats and unelected judges who threaten to undermine it."

Gingrich answers some of the tough questions facing anyone who would like to lead this nation in the linked Human Events article. And kudos to Gingrich and Herman cain agreeing to an unmoderated Lincoln-Douglass type of debate. Today's televised debates seem to be moderated disproportionately by media figures whose political leanings skew leftward.

John Hawkins cuts to the heart of the matter by spelling out why a Gingrich candidacy is so appealling to conservatives...

"Over the last fifty years, the three most important politicians to the conservative movement have been Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich. Goldwater got the ball rolling while Reagan and Newt proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that conservative governance would work in the real world.

Newt's books and columns have been consistently conservative, his public comments have been consistently conservative, and his debate performances have been consistently conservative. As a matter of fact other than perhaps Michele Bachmann, Newt is the purest movement conservative on the stage. If you're a conservative who wants someone who represents your beliefs in the White House, you couldn't do much better than Newt Gingrich."

I wholeheartedly agree with Hawkins on the above statements as few people in American politics are a solidly conservative as Gingrich. Hawkins goes on in the article to present his idea that Newt's personal baggage isn't as bad as it seems at first glance. Perhaps so, but it's a given fact that the MSM never treats faux pas by conservatives the same as those by leftists and thus I don't think Gingrich would receive anywhere near the lack of attention and abscence of inches of type as were curiously not devoted to Al Gore or John Edwards.