AJ,
Earlier you said, "Disbelief isn’t just 'one perspective to start from', it’s the only reliable perspective to start from if one wants to help ensure that the conclusions that they reach are reliable." From what I understand, your persepctive is that one must start with disbelief. That's healthy scepticism. So for investigating the question, what is the evidence for God being, you start from a position of disbelief in God, and see if there is sufficient evidence to rise up and convince you otherwise from your disbelief in God.

I said the approach has merit. Yet I also fear that it could lead to a self fulfilling prophecy. When your initial outlook is one of disbelief, if disbelief is your governing perspective, then the disbelieving position is predictably where you're likely to finish.

Yet Don Batten would ask you, are you being consistent? Do you approach other questions with the same starting position of disbelief? Don gives the atheist five specfic, real world examples.

For one example (the origin of life), the philosopher Thomas Nagel formulates the question like this, "Given what is known about the chemical basis of biology and genetics, what is the likelihood that self-reproducing life forms should have come into existence spontaneously on the early earth, solely through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry?"

Now if you were consistent, you would start from a position of disbelief. That's healthy scepticism. Non-living chemicals don't normally (in fact, never in our experience) bring self reproducing life forms into existence spontaneously. Louis Pasteur famously demonstrated this. The canning industry depends on this fact everyday. Every ordinary tin of sardines is an experiment, repeated thousands of times, that non living matter won't produce life, even under favourable conditions (such a can is far more favourable than any theorised 'primeval soup'.)

So where is your initial scepticism to an unseen and mind-blowingly unlikely occurrence? Shouldn't you begin with disbelief? What happened to your previous maxim, 'remarkable claims require remarkable (sufficient) evidence'? Please try and be consistent.

Thanks, Grateful, for supporting Don's article. In doing so you opened yourself to the aggressions of those with only a superficial understanding of religion.

I agree that this was a succinct but powerful article. Why did it receive an almost unprecedented surge to the comments section? It obviously struck a chord or hit a nerve somehow. I suppose that was something to do with the quality of the article, or maybe simply that here was a knowledgeable scientist giving an opposing voice to the only one people usually hear in popular media, that 'science is inevitably leading the world towards atheism' type mantra. And so came the reaction, much of it rather more emotive than reasoned. For example, Jayb still owes some kind of explanation as to why he feels justified in responding with insults and invective when presented with rational evidence and argument from a qualified scientist (12/6/16).

Yuyutsu,
Amongst everyone here, you opened the batting, asking Don what he was trying to achieve. You seemed adverse to a religious person looking towards the material world for evidence. You asked me, what would happen to my faith if the physical evidence pointed away from there ever being a global flood? I could have easily responded, what would be the effect on others' disbelief if they started to see the evidence for the flood?

I think Don as a believer was aiming to show that there are intellectually satisfying answers to support theistic claims, for people who are openly seeking, despite the noise being made by the new atheists; information often kept hidden within the flow of mainstream culture. It's healthy that people can find such answers that relate to the real world where real people live (rather than the illusory world where nobody really lives,) and that God might be gracious enough to use such information to overcome obstacles to saving faith. The essence of the gospel message is still about the Rock of Ages rather than the age of rocks. Nenertheless, the real, tangible world does matter to people, and to God (having created it) .

dsdm: Jayb still owes some kind of explanation as to why he feels justified in responding with insults and invective when presented with rational evidence and argument from a qualified scientist (12/6/16).

My justification is in the rational evidence and argument from a qualified scientist. Don Batten is a God fearing man. I am not. There is no God therefore no-one to fear. He maybe a qualified Scientist but his article is still only his opinion. His opinion is as valid as mine & anyone else's, for or against. I am a qualified Mechanical Tradesperson with a "lot" of extra modules added to my Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic, Computer & Business knowledge. That doesn't make me an expert to present rational evidence or argument on Astronomy.

Dear Dan,

«I could have easily responded, what would be the effect on others' disbelief if they started to see the evidence for the flood?»

I addressed this question in page 16:

"What need have we and of what value would it be if a bunch of materialists worship a materially-based, scientifically-proven god after being convinced with clear evidence that doing so would help them achieve their material aims? Wouldn't this amount to idolatry?"

«I think Don as a believer was aiming to show that there are intellectually satisfying answers to support theistic claims, for people who are openly seeking,»

I agree, he so aims.

Now what are those people seeking? Are they seeking God? Are they approaching God?

If not, if they only seek answers to satisfy their curiosity and material desires, then what would those people find? Will it help them to find God?
For this, see my response to Johnheininger on the bottom of page 9, beginning with: "Has the possibility occurred to you that this world could have a creator who is not God?" (note that I'm not saying that this is the case, only that anyone who is convinced by Don Batten's arguments might consider other possibilities instead of God).

HOWEVER, what if those people do in fact seek and approach God? Then possibly, as you say, "God might be gracious enough to use such information to overcome obstacles to saving faith", a very interesting prospect indeed, Amen!

The Bhagavad-Gita 7:16, http://auromere.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/gita-chapter-7-vers-16, tells us about four types of people who approach God. The one relevant here is the 'jijnasu', the knowledge-seeker.

As you see on this reference, this verse has various conflicting interpretations: http://www.bhagavad-gita.us/bhagavad-gita-7-16. Of these, I mostly respect the view of Sri Adi Shankaracharya, who does not elaborate much, but says:

"jijnasuh, the seeker of Knowledge, who wants to know the reality of the Lord"

So here I believe is the key: does the reader of this article comes with the desire to know the reality of the Lord, or just about the origins of the mundane?

That’s right, Dan.

<<From what I understand, your persepctive is that one must start with disbelief.>>

Especially if we care about the truth of our beliefs.

<<So for investigating the question, what is the evidence for God being, you start from a position of disbelief in God, and see if there is sufficient evidence to rise up and convince you otherwise from your disbelief in God.>>

Correct.

<<Yet I also fear that [this approach] could lead to a self fulfilling prophecy. When your initial outlook is one of disbelief, if disbelief is your governing perspective, then the disbelieving position is predictably where you're likely to finish.>>

If one lets it “govern” one’s inquiry, then sure. This is why a healthy scepticism must be employed instead.

<<For one example (the origin of life), the philosopher Thomas Nagel formulates the question like this...>>

We have no way of knowing the chances. They’re probably pretty small. So are the chances that you and I were going to be born, given all the chance events that had to occur throughout history for the right sperm and ovum to eventually meet, but that doesn’t mean we’re not here.

<<Now if you were consistent, you would start from a position of disbelief [with regards to abiogenesis].>>

Correct.

<<Non-living chemicals don't normally (in fact, never in our experience) bring self reproducing life forms into existence spontaneously. Louis Pasteur famously demonstrated this.>>

Correct, Pasteur debunked the spontaneous generation. He did not, however, debunk abiogenesis. Which is entirely different. That link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf62sE

<<So where is your initial scepticism to an unseen and mind-blowingly unlikely occurrence?>>

It faded with the evidence. Regardless, a lack of evidence would not be evidence for a god, and mistaking it as such is the Argument from Ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance).

<<Shouldn't you begin with disbelief?>>

I did. I was even a Christian creationist at the time.

<<What happened to your previous maxim, 'remarkable claims require remarkable (sufficient) evidence'?>>

Nothing. I still regard it as an important maxim. There is nothing extraordinary about abiogenesis, however.

<<Please try and be consistent.>>

I have been, and I will.

I realise this discussion is now dead, but I read the following last night and can’t help but share it. It so perfectly describes why my discussions on this thread (particularly the one with grateful) went the way they did, that I think it would be an apt note to end on:

“Challenge a person's beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes. Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali is the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs, and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them—or worse, who credibly rebut them—they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage ...” — Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

“Play your games with someone else AJ. I can't see you as anything other than fraud and slander” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18201#325520)