For years now I have been arguing with theists about the existence of God. So much so that I feel I have exhausted my enthusiasm for my own argument. I have however gained an education in the arguments of the other side and so wish to undertake an experiment.

I will argue, to the best of my ability, for the existence of God and I invite any Religionists out there to argue for atheism. In the spirit of interesting debate I will do my best not to use straw man arguments and I expect the same level of integrity from my opponents.

I will begin with short arguments and will elaborate on them as I come across rebuttal. Remember if you are a believer you MUST argue for atheism, and visa versa. If you are agnostic you disqualify yourself from the discussion, unless of course you can find an opposite to your position...

So here goes.

First of all I must contest that the Universe had a beginning as shown by modern cosmology, and hence must have been caused by something, as nothing only begets nothing. That something must not be made of material, or else it would itself require a cause. It must have no beginning or again it would require a cause, and it must be conscious as it must have interacted with the temporal realm which requires a choice. Only conscious beings can make choices. It also must be singular, as any differentiation between immaterial things would constitute "something". This singular definition is also supported by Occham's Razor which states that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, when speculating about philosophical necessities such as God.

So we are talking about a single, uncaused, conscious, eternal, immaterial being.

We have clues from history as to how God is relevant to human kind. This is attested to by the universal existence of religious belief across all cultures. Obviously there are differences in interpretation of God's form and this is expected due to the diversity of human experience and habitat. A God is not relevant for instance in granting success in music careers if you live in the African savanna in 2000 BC, but might be to a modern day American at the MTV awards.

Some core values however appear to proliferate among all religions, those being the "wrongness" of murder, rape, adultery, cowardice, dishonesty, jealousy etc and the righteousness of honesty, kindness, charity, courage, respect etc. And these always seem to originate from the beliefs of a culture. The belief system also seems to solidify and justify the monitoring of such behaviours, and in the case of many cultures leads to a system of laws and guardians of those laws which enable larger and larger populations to live in harmony. So the "rightness" of such values is attested by the results amongst populations. This suggests that those populations and those values have a common origin, a common creator.

So this suggests that God is also concerned with what is "good", in making us in such a way as to value "good" he leads us to the conclusion that he is himself "good".

On a pragmatic note, such an prime origin is required in order for such tenets to be justified, because, if your creation and the creation of your values are one and the same then your are by definition bound to those values - they are by definition innate.

Not only does this give your life value but it gives a justification for the application of such values. However if your values originate only from your own creation the application of those values to others is unjustified, it also makes your own value compromised, as it is contingent on your own subjectivity rather than a objective standard.

So in addition to this single, uncaused, conscious, eternal, immaterial and good being God also appears to interact with human kind, and in doing so illuminates a set of values inherent in his creation.

I will not attest to any one religion but endorse, through this argument, those religions that attest a God defined as in the above paragraph.

History also holds much empirical evidence for such interactions, miracles such as the virgin birth of Jesus, and his resurrection (I use Christian miracles only because of the reliability of their texts, and the corroboration of contemporary historical accounts) have no other satisfactory explanation other than the intervention of supernatural forces. If such supernatural force is present in the world then this begs the question who is in control of such force and for what purpose is this force used. Occham's Razor suggests it is the only supernatural force, God.

Another argument that resinates with me is the extreme fine tuning within the universe and the appearance of design throughout the universe and life itself. An appearance that is so obvious that even atheistic evolutionists use the word "design" to describe the traits of creatures, and "purpose" to describe behaviours.

But, beginning with the Universe itself. There are at least 7 coinciding forces that are required for the Universe to exist.

Neutron Mass = Proton Mass
Proton Charge = Electron Charge
Strong Nuclear Force
Epsilon Constant
Primordial Escape Velocity
The Cosmological Constant
The Weak Nuclear Force

The chances against these highly specific values are astronomically large. And are unfathomable in a single instance to have come together by chance.

There are also many other events and combinations that are essential to the progression to a life sustaining planet, and the mechanism of life evolving from inert matter is, at present, unexplainable.

Life is not possible on earth without the presence of DNA or in the least RNA which contains a combination of proteins which are simply impossible to create by chance. And as the evolutionary mechanism which requires DNA cannot account for the development of DNA itself, evolution must have been set in motion in much the same way as the Universe was. Applying Occham's Razor once again, it is logical to assume that this was set in place by God.

Now we understand how DNA works. It is a blueprint of coded information, which must be highly accurate in order to create a living being. It also requires variation, heredity and selection to move forward. However, as there is no evidence of information ever being added to the genome through evolution or any other process it stands to reason that variation and hence evolution can only happen as a result of a loss of genetic information. This means that the potential for any life that evolves must be present at the beginning it must be front-loaded, at the very first DNA strand. This makes the creation of DNA all the more incredible. And requires foresight to create.

Occhams Razor again suggests that that foresight came from the only intelligent being preceding physical life. God.

As I said I'm trying to keep this short, so if I have missed any major points I'm sure they will be fleshed out as I defend this position. I think this is a good start. Please respond, in character as your belief-system counterpart. I look forward to hearing from you.

I have recently been putting together a website for my company Branch Out Media Limited, it is coming together slowly but is now a working site. If anyone has any CSS or HTML tips for me (after they look at my hideous code) please feel free to share. It's growing all the time, and will be get more interactive as I learn more about web design. Feel free to check it out.

Something from Nothing

The Universe began as nothing.

What is nothing? "Nothing" is a negation of "something", and therefore cannot be defined as having any properties as "something" does. The only conception possible of "nothing" is therefore randomness. Pure randomness.

From pure randomness, non-randomness is inevitable (or else the randomness is not truely random).

The conception of "something" comes from a balance of positive and negative forces which cancel one another out making the sum total of energy in the universe Zero. So "something" is simply a non-random arrangement of "nothing".

Gravity

Given randomness, some aspects of randomness will inevitably attract others, some will repel and others will do neither. Some will attract and repel different aspects to variable degrees.

Those that repel will never take form. Those that attract will unify, resulting in the illusion we have that gravity is universal. It is not universal, it is exclusive to unified systems which arise out of those things which have "gravity". Gravity is therefore tautological.

There is no mystery. Gravity inhabits a tiny fraction of the universe. Gravity exists to the extent you would expect were it the result of randomisation.

The Bouncing Universe

This theory fits nicely with the conception of the bouncing universe. Those aspects of randomness that attract will collect together indefinitely. At some indefinite point they will become unstable and explode, propelling the gravitons out into, what is now, space... therefore extending the reach of the collective gravity and pulling more gravitons, and inert aspects of the universe into the centre, in a cycle of ever increasing "bangs", leading inevitably to our Big Bang.

Each "bang", like with a supernova, transfers various forms into consistently identical forms (ie Carbon). All matter in the "bang" is exposed to, and transformed by, an identical force (therefore creating identical forms of matter). This explains why the elements are so consistent and categorisable and no longer random.

The Anthropic Principle

The Anthropic Principle states that the Universe appears to suit our needs to a remarkable degree. This is inevitable, firstly because we could not exist in an environment that was not suited to us, we wouldn't exist to say "the Universe is not suited to our existence", so we should expect to see a world around us that is suitable to us. Also there is the point that we know not whatever other conditions might be suited to whatever other self-reflexive beings there might have been.

In addition the above theories support the notion that the conditions that arose in our Universe are not as statistically unlikely as we would assume if we took our Universe as in a void of time and space. In an accumulating, bouncing Universe, self-reflexivity is actually likely to arise because this bouncing universe literally absorbs complexity.

If it were not our universe it would be the one after, ad infinitum.

Hi myspace readers/viewers, I am trying to transfer all of my blog regarding Africa to ArtInAfrica.Blogspot.Com I won't be using my myspace address from now on but would really appreciate if you continued to follow the blog at the new address, I will post bulletins, but otherwise I will posting every week so just check in once a week for new posts. Asante, James

This weekend I am having a play with some sample masks sent to me to try out for a class while I'm in Africa, turned out to be an interesting problem-solving activity. Check out their website if you're interested in these masks for youself, here: Maskworx

Just one week to go now, thanks to all of you that came to my farewell drinks last Friday it was a great send off. If you're interested in keeping up to date with my blog while I'm in Africa (which will no doubt be much more interesting than watching me opening packages and doing craft works in my apartment in Auckland) then jump over to my Blogspot site, which will be my first port of call, and depending on my internet speed, perhaps my only port of call. Thanks for your interest in the blog so far, I've had lots of encouraging feedback and I really appreciate it.

This one is for die hard fans only folks, picture me reading broken Swahili from a piece of refill for four minutes on the subject of art, form, context and originality. Not for the faint hearted, or the short of attention span.



And anyone out there that might speak some Swahili, please feel free to correct me on my numerous mistakes, mispronunciations and inaccuracies. And for those of you english speakers out there, I have no interest in your feedback regarding the the art-wank I am spouting, I very rarely spout art-wank and when I do one quickly learns why I do so rarely.

To the Editor of The Dominion Post,

Original Article

After reading about Ticketek's recent refusal to sell tickets for
Greig Wilson's Fetish Ball I was encouraged by how far we have come in
finally breaking free of our rampant secular immorality, and getting
back to good ol' "values".

But wait, aren't Ticketek also selling tickets for the international
conman Deepak Chopra?

Of course I agree we must protect our mainstream sensibilities from
being exposed to the sinful acts of a few deviants, for fear of
developing an open mind, and kinship with minority groups. But surely
we should also be protected from being fleeced by an industry built on
unfounded speculation and anecdote?

While Deepak Chopra does, admirably, celebrate diversity, this is
clearly not Ticketek's concern. Chopra's 2000 tickets at $55-$250 and
particular brand of kookery--(Prof. Pille & Mt. Palomine Institute of Mysteries©) are apparently more immune to criticism
than Greig Wilson's particular brand of diversity.

Good to see Ticketek is fighting the good fight to stifle
open-mindedness to the interests of minority groups in New Zealand,
while encouraging the abandonment of critical thinking by importing
entrepreneurial new age physicians to give us advise about our health,
well being and generally anything important in our lives, based on
junk science and superstition.