Chapter 1

This is what I have so far.

 

                Any debate requires that both parties share at least one postulate to be fruitful. A postulate can be defined as a self-evident truth. In debate, it is a belief someone does not even feel the need to specify. It’s something utterly universal and obvious, such as “the sky is blue.” It is a truth often crucially overlooked that it is fundamentally necessary to specify all postulates.

                If, for example, a Christian and an atheist debate apologetics, should both sides retain their basic postulates, no fruitful debate can result. The Christian holds as a postulate that God exists and his words are true. The atheist holds as a postulate that God does not exist and his words are meaningless.

                Too often, debaters assume that their postulates are common knowledge- or else they would not be postulates. No matter how trivial or obvious a truth may seem, it is critical to name it. Every assumption, every truth, every obvious fact, must be communicated and shared. Before a debate can commence, before any information can be transferred, every single postulate must be verified and every last term must be defined.

                Terms are the necessary building blocks of postulates. Words are symbols for concepts. If two people discuss different concepts, they can find no common ground. If one person defines “justice” as “everyone gets what they earn” and one defines it as “everyone has enough to live”, they will not be able to agree on things such as welfare, wages, and poverty. In fact, each will think the other is a lowlife who does not care about justice, when really, each cares deeply about justice the way he defines it. A honeybee and a snake looking at the same flower would be completely befuddled at each other. The honeybee would wonder why the snake did not see the obvious ultraviolet hues of the petals, and the snake could only assume the honeybee was mad or dishonest for not describing the flower in pulsating shades of infrared.

                Before any intellectual discussion, define every term. Are you discussing justice? Define in it terms of morality. Define morality as well. Define everything in terms of absolutes. Define how a definition is reached. Define, essentially, the very nature of everything.

                Definitions are made in relation to other definitions. Large is defined as “great in size”. Great is defined as “wide-spanning”. Every subjective term, such as large, small, right, wrong, or beautiful, must eventually lead back to an objective base. This objective base must be definitively unchangeable, standard, and principle. This unquestionable foundational truth is the prime postulate.

                Such a prime postulate is indistinguishable in concept from the idea of a god. There is nothing immutable, foundational, and self-evidently true that is not a god. There is nothing that can serve as the basis of all truth and a universal standard that is not a god. We must, however, define “god” to make that claim.

                A god can be defined as anything unquestionable, absolute, capable of overruling any natural law, and undeniable. This does not claim that the god must be personal, sentient, caring, nurturing, or any other trait. It merely needs to exist. A more secular term for the god might be the “source”.

                An atheist will argue that god does not exist, but he will not argue that a source does not exist. By its mere existence, the universe declares the presence of a source. Nothing comes from nothing. Everything comes from something. The universe is something. Since everything includes something, the universe must have come from something. This something is the source or the god.

                Examine the requirements for the source. There was nothing before the universe. The universe must have come from nothing. This violates our postulate that nothing comes from nothing. Therefore, the source by which the universe came into being violated the most primary postulate imaginable. Anything that can violate that most fundamental of rules and make something from nothing is indistinguishable from any definition of a god.

                An atheist and a theist cannot meaningfully debate if they hold opposite postulates: that God exists and that God does not exist. However, atheists and Christians fundamentally hold the same prime postulate: that there is a source. An atheist may name The Big Bang, while a theist would name one of any number of deities or entities.

                A closer look at the idea of The Big Bang shows that the concept involves is identical with that of a god. The Big Bang created the universe from nothing. The Big Bang violated the premise that nothing comes from nothing. The Big Bang is then, by our definition, a god. It is not necessarily a personal god or even a sentient god, but it is a god. It is the primary, undeniable postulate on which every other statement can be based. Theists and atheists never debate the existence of a god by this definition. They both acknowledge the presence of this basic source. They can only argue over the god’s description.

                Whether the god is a being or the impersonal Big Bang, it is impossible to deny its presence by our definition. There must necessarily be a source that can violate every natural law and create nothing from something. Whether an atheist insists it is random chance or a theist calls it a being, we are the same. Everyone acknowledges the source. The source is identical to a god. Everyone, then, acknowledges a god. The only difference is in our conception of the source.

                A man who seeks to deny the existence of a god in truth seeks to deny his subjection to the god. No one denies that there is a source. An impersonal source such as The Big Bang requires no obligations or morality. I put forward as an unproven assertion that this is the main reason anyone denies the existence of a god that is in any way involved with the universe.

                I know that most atheists will back up their view with the statement that evolution is evident and obvious. To deny that logic I must defy it.

                The first reason to doubt random macroevolution following a random Big Bang is the lack of any positive proof. Any scientific law or theory requires proof. Any scientist’s first requirement is that any statement must have proof. And yet there is not one example of observable macroevolution in human history. Proponents argue that this is because evolution takes thousands and thousands of lifetimes to produce any effect. This would indeed answer the lack of visible change in higher animals with long lifespans. However, among the lower animals, the same lack of change is apparent. After observing 800 generations of fruit flies (genescient), still every fruit fly gave birth to fruit flies. They never gave birth to anything requiring additional DNA material. They displayed microevolution in things such as wingspan and durability, but absolutely none of the genetic alteration required for macroevolution to a different species occurred. In all recorded history, no life has ever given rise to unlike life. This does not, of course, disprove macroevolution. It merely shows that there is no definitive proof. Without definitive proof, macroevolution cannot be held as a postulate. It is not disproven, but it is also not proven.

                Evolutionists will say that mutations produce variations in genetic code and allow macroevolution. I cannot disprove that. However, in those 800 generations of fruit flies, many mutations occurred. Most caused death or deformity. Of the survivors, there was still nothing but fruit flies. Mutations produced microevolution, but did not produce the fundamental transformation necessary for macroevolution. Other scientists recorded 40,000 generations of bacteria. At the end, they had the same bacteria. The countless mutations were entirely degenerative and completely incapable of making any new species ( Michigan State University).

                In addition to the lack of positive proof for beneficial mutations, there is no shortage of positive proof that mutations are largely degenerative. Any attempt to cross two species to make a new species results in sterility and often premature death. An example of the first result is a mule, while ligers and tigons are both plagued with health problems and dramatically shortened lifespan. This does not disprove beneficial mutation, such as the increased immunity of some people to certain diseases. I do not deny it exists. I deny it exists in the numbers needed for macroevolution. The vast majority of life is born unmutated. The vast majority of mutated life dies before or shortly after birth. The vast majority of living mutations are sterile. The vast majority of mutated, unsterile, living mutations are degenerative or inert. There is, to be sure, an incredibly tiny population of living, unsterile, beneficial mutations. However, such an uninterrupted progression of unsterile, beneficial, constantly developing mutations that would be needed to make something as complex as a wing or as simple as a tail would require such a chain of perfect, unbroken coincidences in just the right order that the odds are truly astronomical. It would take trillions and trillions of years, not the imagined 4.6 billion (source).

Author's Note

I still need to add my sources. I'll get to that. Please be as honest as you can.

Reviews

[Paul]

This is well written. Your points are made clearly and while I disagree that individuals with different definitions can not debate each other, I do agree that individuals should define their terms. In serious debate it may be tedious but it is necessary to know how individuals define terms in order to come to some conclusion about their points. On the matter of writing choices I would say that the bee and snake analogy was confusing for me. I think it would help to try out some different choices in this section.