More Thoughts on The Golden Compass

About a month ago (yes, it’s been a while), I went to see the Golden Compass at the theater. It was as I expected; the movie was very anti-authority. It’s hard to understand how it is so much about “killing God” as the author claims. It seems that this is only possible if the “authority” is God. In the movie however, the authority was a group of people, much like a government or law/rule makers, maybe even similar to a church. So, in my mind, it would be more logical to say it is about anarchy, or at the least against organized religion. Because the church or religion does not equal God, either the author is confused, or I am. Christianity isn’t even about rules; it’s about following Christ’s example, trusting, and believing His sacrifice paid for sins.

As it was, it may be dangerous for the implications an anti-authority view might have, but I have a hard time understanding what everyone is upset about. I don’t think these concepts are new in entertainment.

Atheism Video

A friend of mine found this video on atheism and creationism. I found it very humorous at the least. I’d encourage watching it, but I must put a disclaimer on this: I don’t agree with everything Kent Hovind mentions.

Extended Atheism Notes

Looking back over my incomplete, scrambled notes on atheism, I was able to pull out at least one more interesting point.

Irreducible complexity is an extremely fun concept pertaining to atheism. For this, an illustration is helpful. Think of the simplest mousetrap; it consists of a base, spring, wire, hammer, and catch, and it is irreducibly complex. In order for it to retain its function, not one part can be taken away. The same can be said of the human reproductive system (male and female). If one part of the human reproductive system is taken away, humans can no longer reproduce. Also, there is absolutely no other use for any of the reproductive organs than to reproduce. How could we have evolved to this state? Why would we produce any of these parts individually? We couldn’t have; they would serve no purpose. Furthermore, our reproductive system is complicated. Wouldn’t it be much more simple if humans just reproduced asexually? It would give us a distinct advantage in this world if survival of the fittest is our goal. On that thought, why reproduce at all? Wouldn’t it be better to just evolve the ability to live forever? Certainly it is the dream of many.

After doing some research, I found that the mousetrap example and concept of irreducible complexity can be attributed to Michael Behe. To read more on this, visit this link.

Also, the example of the human reproductive system was explained to me by the founder of Midwest Christian Outreach, Don Veinot.

Atheism

I had a discussion with a former atheist from Midwest Christian Outreach that really interested me. These are my notes:

Atheism literally means belief in no God. Some may confuse this with agnosticism which is the belief that we cannot have knowledge of God. There are two types of agnostics, those that are passive, and those that believe no one can have knowledge of whether or not there’s a God. By these definitions, it seems that atheists claim to have knowledge that there is no God. For those that believe this way, an exercise may be helpful.

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
2. Draw a dot on the piece of paper. This is you.
3. Draw a circle on the piece of paper around the dot that represents all the knowledge you have.
4. The question is, can God exist here (pointing to a point outside of the circle)?

I understand that all illustrations break down at some point; so, you can have fun with that if you’d like. However, the point still stands. Even with all knowledge, there is still a possibility that God can exist outside of it. To know for certain that God does not exist anywhere, one would have to be omnipresent so that he/she could look everywhere. One would also have to be omniscient to be sure. These are the very attributes of God. And if the atheist claims to be God, they are no longer an atheist. At this point if an atheist acknowledges that they cannot know if there is a God, they have now become an agnostic, one who has no knowledge of God.

My notes are incomplete on the rest, but I thought the point described above was the most interesting.