This statement of mine seems to have touched a raw nerve with an apologist: “It’s amazing to think that less than 100 years ago, the majority of Christians in the USA denounced evolution.”
(The statement specifically refers to the USA in the 1920s, which featured, for example, a movement led by William Jennings Bryan, “the leader of a full-fledged national crusade against evolution” and the Scopes trial in 1925.
The point is this: The majority of American Christians in the 1920s were strongly opposed to the teaching of a theory that had been established for sixty years. Some Christian leaders were so strongly opposed, they would go so far as to take legal action against those who taught the theory.
The apologist tries to counter this information by turning the tables with a list of theories that were similarly opposed by atheists. Obviously, this strategy fails because there’s never been a scientific theory that a group of atheists have opposed or have tried to make illegal. The apologist therefore provides a glaring example of avoiding the issue.
Here is his post:
"Less than 100 years ago, the majority of atheists argued for an eternally-extent, basically static universe--and built their beliefs around the assumption that the universe had no beginning or "creation" moment.
Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists believed that the physical laws we observe perfectly accounted for the universe and its existence on their own terms, not as a one-in-ten-to-the-hundredth-power improbability that would allow for the eventual development for life as we know and observe it, not to mention almost certain other manifestations of life and consciousness that we have not directly observed yet.
Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists argued for "light" being the irreducable component of "reality," not for quantum phenomena which demonstrated that photons behaved differently from the time they were observed and measured, affecting even their state and actions prior to that observation.
Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists were unaware of quantum entanglement, causing even particles separated by vast distances to act in tandem at the same instant, suggesting interaction with a matrix which may be the manifestation of hyperconsciousness and the source of such.
Most atheists today probably are oblivious to their own a priori philosophical assumptions and presumptions and the resulting limited lens through which they filter their perceptions of "reality" by only referencing that which conforms to such--i.e., engaging in an endless cycle of circular reasoning.
I could go on, but..."
Hmmm… Let’s look at those statements one at a time.
“Less than 100 years ago, the majority of atheists argued for an eternally-extent, basically static universe--and built their beliefs around the assumption that the universe had no beginning or "creation" moment.”
Did they? I can find no evidence to support that idea. The earliest reference I can find to a steady state universe is by a 13th century maverick catholic philosopher called Siger of Brabant. As far as I can tell, both atheists and theists had no idea the universe was flying apart at unimaginable speeds until Einstein predicted the universe was not static in 1917 and Hubble verified the theory in 1925. There is no evidence of atheists subsequently taking court action to prevent the teaching of the Big Bang theory in schools. (It’s interesting to consider why). The only thing we know for sure is that atheists do not believe God exists and so they would obviously not believe that God created the universe, whether it be static, expanding or contracting. So this statement is factually incorrect, and off topic. Next…
"Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists believed that the physical laws we observe perfectly accounted for the universe and its existence on their own terms, not as a one-in-ten-to-the-hundredth-power improbability that would allow for the eventual development for life as we know and observe it, not to mention almost certain other manifestations of life and consciousness that we have not directly observed yet."
Again, there is no evidence as to what the majority of atheists thought about cosmology in the 1920s. The idea that the laws of nature can explain the origin of the universe itself is very recent and there’s certainly no evidence that the majority of atheists believed what the apologist says they believed. It might be more accurate to say that some atheists believed physics would eventually explain the origin of the universe. The only thing we can be sure of is that atheists didn’t believe God was responsible for the existence of our universe.
The “one in ten to the hundredth power improbability” comment is presumably the fine tuning trope, debunked long ago. The apologist apparently believes it to be true, which implies he’s never read the counter arguments. In short, the “improbability” argument is based on a set of assumptions which are then multiplied together. This idea fails because the assumptions are either demonstrably wrong or purely speculative. The overall approach is wrong because it assumes each physical constant stands alone. For example, creationists will argue that if a physical constant (such as the atomic strong force) was to vary by the tiniest fraction, a universe capable of supporting life would not result. This is a false assumption - a different universe may be the result of such tinkering, but the value could change significantly and still result in a universe that can support life. Fine tuning/improbability also ignores the interdependencies between the various physical constants which hints at an underlying relationship, hence fundamental constants simply can’t be changed stand alone. So the true position is that the probability of our universe existing is unknown. It could be 0.000000001% or 99.9999999% or any number in between. No one knows because we don’t know the exact mechanism responsible. For the same reason, we don’t know the probability of God existing despite His apparent fine tuning. A different set of assumptions will provide a completely different result.
With regard to the topic, the apologist’s entire paragraph is yet another example of theories that atheists have not tried to ban and so again, avoids the issue. Next…
"Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists argued for "light" being the irreducable [sic] component of "reality," not for quantum phenomena which demonstrated that photons behaved differently from the time they were observed and measured, affecting even their state and actions prior to that observation."
This reveals a misunderstanding of quantum physics which I will explain in a minute. But the point here is that for thousands of years, there were varying beliefs regarding the nature of light. Sometimes it behaved like a wave, sometimes like a particle, depending on the type of experiment. There was no difference of opinion on religious grounds. It was just as likely for a theist to believe light was a particle (or a wave) as it was for an atheist. It wasn't until 1905 that the truth emerged when Einstein suggested light exists not as waves or particles, but as tiny packets (photons) in other words, quanta, which are ripples in a quantum field. And again - there is no contention to this idea on religious grounds.
There is a further misunderstanding in the second half where the apologist suggests the behaviour of a photon can be affected by a measurement in the future. This is a misunderstanding of the “delayed choice quantum eraser” experiment. There is no “backwards in time” effect as implied by the apologist. The state of a particle before it was measured is not affected by the measurement. The state of a particle (or system of particles) before it is measured, is unknown and not determinate. Measurement causes the wave function to collapse, revealing its state.
So again - no evidence of a religious controversy with theories of light, no difference of opinion between atheists and theists on the quantum nature of photons. We have a misunderstanding of the subject and avoidance of the issue. Next…
"Less than 100 years ago the majority of atheists were unaware of quantum entanglement, causing even particles separated by vast distances to act in tandem at the same instant, suggesting interaction with a matrix which may be the manifestation of hyperconsciousness and the source of such."
Same issues as before. No one (be they atheist or theist) was aware of quantum entanglement until 1935 when Einstein realised it was a prediction of quantum mechanics and Erwin Schr̦dinger formalised the theory. Einstein assumed the ides was silly and sadly didn't live to see it verified by experiment forty years later. The concept is accepted equally by theists and atheists Рthere is no opposition to this idea on religious grounds.
The pointlessness of the apologist's argument is compounded by a major misunderstanding of the concept. Entangled particles do not “act in tandem”. There is a sort of “interaction with a matrix” if we consider quantum fields to be “a matrix” but it's this "matrix" that manifests the particles in the first place. There is certainly no evidence to suggest that entanglement is the “manifestation of hyperconsciousness” whatever that means, because there is no communication between entangled particles. If two particles are entangled they form a single system, the measurement of the state of each particle is correlated but as with any quanta, the states are unknown until measured. If particle A is measured and appears “left handed” then we know the other particle is “right handed” even if it’s a trillion miles away, and vice versa. And when we measure the state of one of the particles, they are no longer entangled.
Even if the apologist understood what entanglement was, atheists and theists are comfortable with entanglement being taught in school, there is no dispute between atheists and theists regarding the concept of entanglement so again, not relevant to the issue.
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