“Does God Exist? – Many absolute proofs!”

Last Updated on 2022-07-08 by Joop Beris

I stumbled upon an absolute gem of a video series on YouTube. It is called “Does God Exist? – Many absolute proofs!” and is a production of the Restored Church of God. The series is presented by a man called David C. Pack, who is Pastor General at the Restored Church of God. Does this series contain the many absolute proofs of the existence of God? Prepare to be seriously underwhelmed.

I’ve sat through the first half hour of this 2 hour long series and I can safely tell you that not a single proof is demonstrated. If you watch the video, you’ll see David C. Pack utterly embarrassing himself to an extent you’ll feel ashamed in his stead. The half hour that I saw, is nothing but a long line up of straw man arguments, non sequitur logic, poor understanding of science, misrepresentation of science and sheer stupidity. The video is embedded below but don’t blame me if your brain starts leaking out of your ears.

For those of you not willing to risk brain damage, here are some of the points the video makes and my commentary on them.

The video begins with a misrepresentation of atheism. Pack says that atheists say that God doesn’t exist but this is of course false.  Atheists do not claim that God doesn’t exist, atheists say that there isn’t sufficient  evidence for the existence of God so they don’t believe. We’ll reconsider once the proof comes available. Of course “the fool has said in his heart, there is no God” is mentioned. Thanks, Dave! Fortunately, no atheist I know is as big a fool as you’re about to make of yourself.

Next, we go after evolution because apparently the question of Gods’ existence is closely tied to the question of how life began. We hear arguments as “evolution requires more faith than believing in God” and “no true facts have been found to support it”. (Are there false facts?) That’s an often heard fallacy among creationists and it’s simply not true. See an earlier article on this blog for more.

Pack then asserts that science proves God and that scientific facts point to Gods’ existence. Since he has already demonstrated he doesn’t understand evolution, this ought to be good…

The source of Pack’s argument that science makes the case for God, is revealed to be a Wall Street Journal article: “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God”, by Eric Metaxas and published on December 25, 2014. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay-wall. A newspaper article written by someone who is not a scientist is not exactly the most reliable source to base your argument on, but let’s follow along.

The proof for the existence of God

1. SETI hasn’t found any extraterrestrial civilization yet.
   We seem to be alone in the universe, therefore God exists. Not only is this a complete non sequitur, the argument as presented makes it sound as if SETI is a hugely funded research project which is evidently not the case. And even if it were, the universe is so vast, it shouldn’t be surprising that the search takes a while. Even if it would turn out that we are indeed alone in the universe, that still would not be proof that we are created by a God.
2. Life is so improbable that it shouldn’t even exist.
   We’ve heard this one before but it is really a silly argument. First of all, it is another non sequitur. You can’t say “It’s so improbable so God must have done it”. Also, we have no idea how probable or improbable life is. As life-supporting universes go, we have a sample size of 1, so it’s impossible to do any kind of meaningful statistics.
3. The values of the laws of physics are fine-tuned.
   Pack asserts that not only is life existing incredibly improbable, the existence of the universe is also totally improbable. If the values of the four fundamental forces had been off by even a fraction, the universe as we know it, could not have existed. This is backward reasoning. Only a universe that is capable of supporting intelligent life could produce intelligent life. Had the universe been very different, we would not be here to ponder the fine-tuning.
4. We can tell time by looking at the universe.
   Apparently, that we can tell time by looking  at the universe, is evidence of the existence of God. Much of our time keeping is based on the Earth’s orbit around the sun and other astronomical objects both inside and outside of our solar system. From ancient times, people have looked at the skies and noticed regular events. Our way of telling time (hours, days, years) is derived from these observations. Apparently, because we can tell time by looking at the universe, God has to be the master clock maker. Another total non sequitur and backward way of looking at things.
   Cesium 132 vibrates at 9,192,631,770 times per second, therefore God. “No honest mind can believe otherwise”.
   By using lasers and cooled mercury ions in optical clocks, time can be measured even more accurately, to a slip of 1 second every 30 billion years. More proof for God, apparently.
   The argument that human watches are not as accurate as optical clocks built by humans is of course silly to use as proof of God.

5. 

   The creation of matter at the Big Bang, violates the First Law of Thermodynamics.
   More specifically, the principle that matter and energy can not be created or destroyed. There are two problems with this statement. The first is that the Big Bang does not address the creation of the universe, it is merely a step in the development in the universe. The Big Bang does not refer to a universe created out of nothing (ex nihilo), so nothing was created at the Big Bang. Energy (and matter) changed form, which they are allowed to do. Furthermore, as you approach the formation of the universe, the laws of physics cease to apply or rather the laws apply to the current state of the universe since its formation but not necessarily at formation.
   Pack argues that since radioactive elements such as uranium decay, this proves they came into existence and have not been around forever (or there would be no more uranium by now). What he does not seem to realize is that uranium was formed much later than the Big Bang, having it’s origin in stars that have exploded into supernovae as recently as 6 billion years ago. He seems to confuse matter with elements. While uranium is an element and it is matter, matter does not have be an element. A single sub-atomic particle is matter but it is not an element.
   The Big Bang theory does not violate the First Law of Thermodynamics and even if it did, this would not prove God. Bad science and a non sequitur in a single argument.

6. Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
   Pack moves on, stating that the Theory of Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. He argues that “evolutionists” teach that everything is constantly changing and improving, things are getting better and better. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is often phrased as “everything moves from order towards disorder”, which is in direct contradiction with the teachings of “evolutionists”.

   

   What Pack does, is set up a strawman argument for evolution, which he then knocks down using the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Not only does he fail at understanding evolution, he also fails at understanding physics here, which is why this argument is my favorite. The Second Law of Thermodynamics actually says that “the entropy in a closed system cannot decrease”. The Earth however, is not a closed system. The Second Law further states that the total amount of entropy can not decrease so it is possible for entropy to decrease at one point while increasing at another point.
   Pack claims says that even “evolutionists” admit that evolution totally contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics (we’ve just seen it does not) and he “proves” this with a quote from Henry M. Morris, who is not only not a biologist but a Young Earth Creationist. This means he doesn’t accept evolution at all! Does Pack not know this or is this a deliberate lie on his part?
   Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics and even if it did, it would still not prove God.

This concludes the arguments for Pack, who goes on to confidently claim that “we have established that creation demands a creator”. In reality though, he has not achieved anything remotely like it.

“Scientific proofs of creation”

With the foundation laid, Pack gets ready to deliver some “amazing, scientific proofs” of creation. Are you ready?

1. Evolution is full of inconsistencies
   How this is scientific proof of creation I don’t know. Pack then produces a quote from geologist Dr. Derek V. Ager: “It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student […] have been debunked.” This quote is however not what Ager said. The way it is quoted here, it is made to seem as if Ager completely dismissed evolution. What he actually said is this:
   “It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student, from Trueman’s Ostrea/Gryphaea to Carruthers’ Zaphrentis delanouei, have now been debunked“. Ager is only talking about the scientific interpretation of the evolution of certain species of mollusk, not evolution!
2. Evolution is full of terrible logic
   And this proves creation how exactly? I’m not sure either. Another quote from the same Henry M. Morris (not a biologist, remember?) is carted out: “Many evolutionists have tried to argue that humans are 99% similar chemically to apes…” Evolution is further ridiculed by claiming that “milk chemistry indicates that the donkey is man’s closest relative”, etc.
   Chemical make-up is not why we are so closely related to chimpanzees. Our DNA (not our chemical make-up) is nearly 99% similar to that of chimpanzees. That means something completely different and is proof that we are very closely related.
3. Explosions don’t create order but chaos and destruction
   I’m not making this up, Pack actually uses this claim as scientific evidence for creation. See for yourself! An explosion creating the entire natural realm of nature or the order in the universe? Bah, humbug, says Pack. Of course the “tornado sweeping through a junk-yard” analogy by Sir Fred Hoyle is used again.
   It is another strawman argument against evolution. Evolution is not a random process. It doesn’t work like an explosion but by well understood mechanisms.
4. Irreducible complexity

   

   The tired old creationists “warhorse” of irreducible complexity is introduced once again. Including the mouse trap analogy. Never mind that irreducible complexity has long been classified as pseudo-science, almost no creationists fails to mention it.

Conclusion

This video is simply painful to watch as David C. Pack piles one non sequitur upon another, puts up strawman after strawman, misrepresents pretty much all of actual science and just generally makes a complete fool of himself. What’s worse though is that he fails to provide any proof of God’s existence. There’s not s single good argument in the whole half hour. Not once do you scratch your chin and go “hm…”. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities unless you enjoy watching someone humiliate himself without realizing it. This first video is actually so bad that I am not going to bother with the rest of the series because I might risk real brain damage from just watching. The mere thought that this man has a following who soak up every word is too scary to mention.