Category: Apologetics

Are There Contradictions In The Bible?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Bible, Biblical doctrines

 Are There Contradictions In The Bible?

“There have been prophets and students who handle the Bible like a child’s box of bricks; they explain to us the design and structure and purpose; but as time goes on things do not work out in their way at all. They have mistaken the scaffolding for the structure, while all the time God is working out His purpose with a great and undeterred patience.” Oswald Chambers

 

The following article is based on the belief that God for the most part, does not give over- whelming evidence or proof of his existence in order to create faith[1].  The norm is that God hides or veils himself to protect mans free will.  God does this so that men might freely enter a love relationship with him without being mentally compelled by overwhelming proof.  God does not like shotgun weddings.

The answer to the question, “Are there contradictions in the Bible?”, would depend on a few things; one’s definition of contradictions and the way one looks at the Bible.  If a person approaches the Bible from a  particular point of view which  carries  certain human presuppositions, one could find what they might call contradictions.  However, from another point of view they might be called anomalies.[2]  One of these determining viewpoints is to approach the Bible as if it was totally divine; absolutely perfect, similar to the way we think of God.  This is the position of the fundamentalists of the 18th and 19th century and it was the view that the skeptics of the enlightenment know and rejected and attacked, and may I add, rightfully so.  It still is the view held by many fundamentalists and the skeptical educated class that criticizes the literalist and the Bible.  The sad thing is that for many in the educated class, it is the only view held and even known by most, making them as one dimensional as the fundamentalists whom they reject.

The problem with a fundamentalist view of the Bible is that it overlooks the Bible’s origin as being both human and divine.  In holding to this view fundamentalists approach the scriptures in a one-dimensional way; they often only look at the outward form and ignore the inward substance.  In my thinking, the scriptures should be viewed much the way we view Jesus, who was both human and divine.  Jesus the man (the outward form) could make mistakes, get sick, and hurt himself.  The Scriptures tell us that in every way He was human but without sin[3].  When skeptics say Jesus was a man they are right, they err when they say he was just a man.

You could say that God was hidden in the man Jesus and revealed himself gradually as God lifted the veil, showing his glory, or divine nature to the disciples.  Case in point is the wedding at Cana where Jesus turns water into wine and the scripture tells us, “He showed his glory.”  His resurrection from the dead was the final unveiling of his divine glory, and his transformation into something other than human.

As Jesus was very much like all men on one level, but on another level he was highly different. For example, when Jesus spoke things happened.  People’s lives were changed and they began seeing things on a new level of awareness.  Using this example the Bible is a lot like Jesus.  On one level (in its outward form) it is like other books.  However, on another level the Bible seems to have the ability to create faith and the power to change lives.  Like many books it seems to bear the spirit of its author, and its authority is based on that Spirit.

The difference between the Bible and other books is the Spirit that it bears; it is the spirit of Jesus Christ and his Father.  Jesus said, “My words are spirit and life.”  If you take the Spirit out of the scripture you no longer have the word of God but simply a book; a book that can do the very opposite of what it was intended to do, i.e. give faith and life to humanity.

Let’s make a comparison study with science.  Science is the study of the physical reality and has developed many theories about reality based on observation.  Most good theories are based on the best known knowledge at the time.  However, we need to remember that knowledge is human, which means it is imperfect and incomplete and is constantly changing.  In science when they come across some inconsistency, which seems to contradict their theory, they do not throw out the entire theory, but they set the irregularities aside and look at  them later, believing that when they have more knowledge they will be able to explain it.  These things set aside are often called anomalies[4].  Anomalies are pieces which seem to belong to the puzzle but at the time cannot be fit in.  When we are putting a jigsaw puzzle together we do not throw out every piece that does not immediately work.  No, we set them aside believing in faith they will fit later as we progress.  We often find that some pieces are so hard to fit we must wait until the very last minute to make them work.

Just imagine how hard it would be to put together a difficult puzzle without the completed puzzle picture on the box as a guide.  Trying to understand the Bible without having a picture passed down by the community of believers, is like trying to put together a puzzle without a picture.  To make things even harder just think if someone had mixed your puzzle up with another puzzle and you had bystanders telling you that there isn’t any picture and you should just give up.  This is exactly what is happing today.  People believe that they can put together the puzzle of the Bible without the picture and then when they get stuck they blame the puzzle (filled with contradictions) or they just quit giving up all hope of understanding it.

One of the views of the Bible that gets people into the puzzle predicament is approaching it with the idea that it is simple or easy to understand.  This idea has been propagated by many fundamentalists who often have an anti-intellectual point of view and other believers trying to get people to read their Bibles.  The truth is the Bible is as simple to understand as the one that it attempts to explain, i.e. God.  Then add the limits of our culture, language and our finite minds and you begin to see the problem.  However, this does not mean that you have to be a Bible scholar to understand it, but it does mean you must be diligent in your study and it might mean that you will have to ask an expert for some help to understand it.

You will not get to know the Bible by just reading it a few times and to be fair to the Bible, I would say that it would be very presumptuous to say that there’s contradictions in it when one does not know it and it author well[5].  Even if there are contradictions, those contradictions would have to be qualified.  One such qualification would be, does the Bible contradict itself or does our interpretation have contradictions in it?  I had one man tell me that he found a contradiction and when we turned to it, it was not God talking, but Satan.  You surely could not call the words of Satan God’s word, yet often in the Bible you find Satan’s words and the words of men mixed in with God’s word, for example, read the Book of Job.  How do you tell the difference? Very simply, know the context of the passage you are reading.  It is only after you know the textural and the cultural context that you are prepared to understand the text.

What does the Bible claim for itself?  It claims to be a sufficient guide to God.  It says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17).  In the work of growing and perfecting the soul it claims to be perfect (Ps 19:7).  I believe this because I have seen it in others and have experienced it myself.  When a person accepts the Scriptures as the bearer of God’s spirit the Scriptures will change their life.

We are back to the question, are there contradictions in the Bible?  My response is based on the above; you will find in the Bible what your worldview allows you to see and what you are looking for[6].  If you are looking for God you will find Him.  If you are looking for the human with all its contradictions, you will find that as well.  It all depends on your point of view, disposition and what you are looking for.

[1] In view of this it would be improbable for God to give us a book that is beyond question or criticism. Such a book would rob man of his free will and would in itself become an idol. Faith is like a hunch, a hunch becomes faith when you are willing to act on it.

[2] Anomalies are something that deviates from the norm or from expectations. In science what seem to be contradictions or inconsistencies are called anomalies.  In religion they are called errors or contradictions.  This is one example of the bias of the secular mind.

[3] For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. (Heb 2:17)

[4] All scientific theories have anomalies otherwise they wouldn’t be a theory but rather, a fact.  However, some theories have more anomalies than others, e.g. the theory evolution has far more problems to solve than some theories in physics.

[5] A proper understanding of the Bible only comes to the pure in heart, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Therefore, seeking God begins with the heart and not the head.

[6] If you are looking through a dirty lens you will see dirt. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:22-23).

Dogma?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense, Religion

“Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.  As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.  When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality,  when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass.  Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded” C.K. Chesterton.

The world is filled with ideas, and many of those ideas could be classified as dogmas.  Now, a dogma is an idea that has hardened to a point that is no longer thought about but just accepted on authority.  The word dogma is not used as much today, this may be because it sounds too religious for a secular age, which itself has accepted the dogma of secularism.  However, we do have a word or idea that is very close to it.  It is the word presumption.  A presumption is an idea that we take for granted without much thought or for the most part, without any or little thought.

In view of the above it is a self-event truth that all men have and live by dogma to some degree. One thing that can be said about the religious man is that he has accepted parts of his faith as dogma while the secular man is still in a state of denial, believing he is living by reason alone or in some neutral zone free of presumption or dogma.  He has reached the unconsciousness of grass and he glories in it calling it tolerance or enlightenment.

Of course, there are some men who have very little dogma.  Some of these folks fancied themselves as skeptics.  Skeptics claim not to live by or believe dogma according to their dogma. The only dogma that they can believe is the dogma of skepticism.  According to them, you must doubt everything except skepticism.  Then you have the agnostics who believe nothing because they believe that it is impossible to be certain about the truth.  Of course, they are certain agnosticism is true.  We should not leave out the relativist which believes everything and nothing, and that everyone is right except the person that believes others are wrong.  Of course, they believe that the skeptics, and the agnostics are right.  The only person that they do not agree with is the dogmatist.  They do not seem to like people who think they know something which is true.

Out of all of the above, the relativist is the one most likely to be tossed about by every wind of teaching that comes along, for they lack a foundation of truth by which to judge any new ideas.  As it has been said, “a man who believes nothing will believe anything.”  In fact, the relativist really does not believe in objective truth. What they believe in, is personal truth, i.e. truth is what you believe.  What makes it true is that you believe it.  Most of these folks belong to the same cult, the cult of personal opinion.

The relativist are also the most likely to become fanatical and completely out of balance. Many  progressive folks fall within this group always moving forward without knowing which direction is forward; always seeing a cause to give their meaningless life purpose.  To me, the really progressive person is the one that when traveling in a direction that is not working turns around and goes in a different direction, like back.  Of course, if you are a relativist you don’t know which way is back.

It may be time for all of us to ask some serious questions about some of our new dogmas.  Question like, are they really taking us forward or are they simply getting us deeper into the woods.  So, deep that we will never find our way out.  Why not try putting some of your dogmas, or the lack of it to the test?  Start with your religious assumptions using the Bible as an objective standard to judge your ideas.  You do not have to believe it, but simply use it as a source of information to compare your personal dogma with.  You also might try the same exercise politically with the Constitution and other founding documents.  In doing this you might find these source documents truly refreshing and challenging.

 

Does Reason have Anything to do with Evolution?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Does Reason have Anything to do with Evolution?

The true naturalist, as Darwin, has got to say no to this question.  They’re closed system of naturalism says that reason or intelligent design can have nothing to do with evolution.  For if they were to say yes, it would allow the camel to get his noise in the tent.  However, this leads to another question, if reason or intelligence really has nothing to do with evolution.  How could evolution give birth to reason?[1]  What about when reason gets into the  evolution process by the practice of select breeding?  So, we could say that reason is involved in some evolution because human intelligence is directing the evolution of some species through selective breeding.  What about when scientists messing with genes and manipulating them, could you call that intelligent design?  Reason, directing or influenced evolution.

If human reason can tinker with genes and evolution why is it so far-fetched that super reason can be tinkering with it, designing it and directing it to achieve his goals?  There is only one reason for denying this hypothesis, that being a predisposition of science toward materialism and atheism.  This predisposition, being a built in bias in science toward metaphysics, came out of its attempt to distinguish itself from philosophy.

Richard Lewontin (evolutionary geneticist), hints at this predisposition and bias when he says “[The public] take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” [2]

“So the moral of the story told by a historian of science is at once simple and endlessly complex. Knowledge without prejudice is not possible and neither is social life. Prejudice can be selectively managed and disciplined but it cannot be eliminated. We have to pick out those prejudices that we find intolerable and oppose them as vigorously as we can with whatever resources we can. But we are going to have to do so without a rational master”[3]

It does seem from the above the following things, (1) many in the scientific community have a presupposition bias towards intelligent design in evolution. (2) Intelligent design has been practiced in the barnyard and in the laboratory for centuries. (3) The hypothesis that the processes of evolution or at least aspects of it are controlled by a super intelligence is not contrary to observation and true science. Intelligence has been observed influencing evolution. (4) Many arguments against intelligent design is grounded more in materialistic philosophy than authentic science.

[1] They use reason to explain how evolution created reason and reason to explain evolution. Is this not based on the presupposition that reason can be trusted, which in turn is based on the supposition that a mindless process could create a rational process. Can these suppositions be supported scientifically? Evolutionist will say that nature gave birth to reason through the process of natural selection. However, natural selection presupposes that there is something to select from. If there was no reason in nature how could it be selected by natural selection?

[2] “Billions and Billions of Demons,” page 31 quoted in Never Pure by Shapin, Steven

[3] Shapin, Steven (2010-07-24). Never Pure (p.46, 56). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.

 

The Cornerstone of Liberalism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Christ and Culture, Liberalism, Progressivism

The Cornerstone of Liberalism

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!  John 8:43-45 NIV.

The foundation of Liberalism[1] is made up of many stones.  However, the cornerstone of the philosophy is the autonomy of the individual.  What do we mean by the autonomy of the individual?  It simply means that the individual is self-governing and to some degree is self-directed.

It may surprise you to hear that the Bible has quite a bit to say about this doctrine of the autonomy of the individual.  In the story found in the book of Genesis, God created man free to make a choice and he also warned man that if he made the wrong choice there would be consequences.  The choices were to governor one’s self and be independent of God (autonomous) or to choose to be self – denying and allow God to govern one’s life.

If we look at the liberal faith through the lens of the story.  Liberalism is nothing more than an organized rebellion against God[2].  Like Adam in the story liberals do not believe God, of course in our age it’s not a matter of believing God, but rather not believing IN God.  However, no matter how you word it, it’s the same old story.  Man , wanting to be independent and free from the authority of God.  In the story Satan deceived man in two ways.  He first convinced man that God’s word was not true and then that God did not mean what he said.  Both of his arguments were attacks on the truth of God’s word.  Based on what I’ve all already said, it only follows that the liberal faith would be attacking God’s word today and even setting themselves up as the judges of God and his Word.  Well, that exactly what we find.

It is the liberal faith that has embraced relativism (the denial that there is any absolute truth) and has led the attack on scripture and on the living word who is Jesus Christ.[3]  In fact, liberals and their siblings[4] despise any authority, but especially anything or anyone that represents the authority of God.  Like their father they hate God and everything that pertains to the true God.  Like their father they know how to subvert language and appear as angles of light to naïve and gullible men.  The apostle Paul says of them “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness” 2 Cor. 11:14-15.  Still to this day we have liberals masquerading as Christians for their own purpose or the purpose of their father.

Even from a utilitarian point of view, liberalism has a number of problems, if every person is self-governing and self-directed, what happens when people begin to go in different directions and they then begin to disagree on whom and what should govern?  The liberal answer is that a man’s freedom or self-governing ends where any others man’s freedom begins.  But does this really take care of the problem or does it just raise more questions?  For example who will determine where one man’s freedom ends and any other man’s begins?  The state?[5]  If the state is to determine this, is the individual really free?  What happens if the state defines freedom differently than the individual?  Maybe we should toss a coin?  No, the one with the most power wins and in the modern world that means the state.  Liberalism therefore will always look to the state to determine where freedom begins and ends.  The state then judges the difference between good and evil.  In other word the state begins to determine morality.  Could this be the source of political correctness?  It surely is the beginning of a totalitarian state.

In the story, God creates man and then gives him freedom.  In the liberal system it is the state that defines and gives freedom to the individual, of course, if the state gives freedom, the state can take it away.  If the deity gives freedom no government would have the right to take that freedom away.  This was the thinking of the founding fathers when they said that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” and government was created to protect those rights.  It is quite obvious that the founding fathers were not liberals.  This is the reason why liberals are not extremely fond of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  They simply don’t believe them.

There is any problem with the liberal faith, which is, who has the authority to define the concept of freedom?  Freedom is one of those elusive concepts that could be defined in a numbers ways.  For the atheist it could be defined simply by the expression “Freedom is doing what I what to do or simply being left alone by the authorities”.  For the Christian freedom would be defined “as being free from self to serve God and others.”

Now liberals, will respond by saying that the state should stay out of defining freedom or liberty.  But if this true, why then do they use the public school to push their liberal faith?  In fact, every time they have a change, liberals use the government and the court system to impose their liberal faith on the American people.  They get away with this because the American people do not recognize liberalism for what it is, a godless religion that is against all other religions.

In the story when man sinned something happened to his nature.  Before the fall his will was directed toward God, after the fall his will was directed to himself.  His will was directed to satisfying his lower nature.  He then began to live not for God, but rather to satisfy his lower nature’s appetites.  The story therefore depicts liberalism, perfectly, for liberalism is nothing more than a high form of hedonism (living for pleasure).  Even, discipline and self-restraint is practiced primarily to extend the ego.

The conclusion is this; liberalism is nothing more than an organized rebellion against the living God.  It is a religion or a philosophy that denies and subverts God’s word.  Therefore, it is sinful for Christians to be involved in liberalism or to support any group or politic party that supports it.

[1] Liberalism is not being nice or compassionate. It is a philosophy that competes and stands in contradiction to the Christian faith. The advanced liberals which often call themselves progressives are liberals who have embraced the liberal philosophy and have taken it to its end, which is anarchy.

[2] The symbol and the height of the liberal move is the French Revolution with its motto “No king and no God”.

[3] Liberals have used the methodology of higher criticism to deny the authority of scripture and to deny the Lordship of Jesus. Note Eta Linnemann Book  “Historical Criticism of the Bible” with the sub-title “Methodology or Ideology? Reflections of a Bultmannian turned evangelical”. Also note Jude 8-16

Harry Blamires book “The Christian Mind” saved me from embracing a liberal view of the Bible.

[4] The two siblings of liberalism are atheism and libertarianism. Atheism is the ultimate distortion of the image of God in man and libertarianism is a secular counterfeit of the Christian faith which in its true state lives above the law.

[5] In the end for the liberal the state becomes God walking on the earth. A good example of this that the state in the abortion controversy ended up determining what is life or non-life. In this Secular liberalism is nothing more than man playing God.

The Burden of Proof and Non-Belief

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Burden of Proof and Non-Belief

 About two years ago I became interested in the new atheist movement and began to spend some time reading and contemplating it.  As I got into it, it struck me how much stress the new atheists puts on the question of who has the burden of truth[1] and on their belief that atheism should be categorized as a non-belief and not a belief.  It seemed that the significance they gave to these beliefs in their blogs diverted the attention away from the question of ‘does God exist’ and on to peripheral subjects[2]. At first this puzzled me and then it dawned on me how crucial these beliefs are to their thought system.

Why are these beliefs so important to new the atheists?  My suspicion is that some of them on the top of their intellectual food chain know that human reason can question and deny almost any belief.  Reason can  lead you to doubting your doubts.  So, how do you avoid this?  By simply declaring your thought system as an non-belief, making it immune to doubting and skepticism.  You never have to question it, for how can you question a non-belief?  So in essence, you can be a true believer without believing anything.  Ingenious to say the least.

What about the burden of proof?  Everyone who has dabbled in philosophy knows that you cannot prove empirically metaphysical ideas, you must infer them from facts and the inferences you contribute to the facts.  These inferences can always be questioned and doubted.  The atheist knows that the hard work is not questioning the inferences but creating them.  So, in their discussions with believers most stoop to the level of criticism.  This is why we find very few arguments against the existence of God and numerous arguments against the arguments of the theist, which proves nothing but the strength of the argument.

Some atheists have gone so far as to declare their un-belief as an absolute, claiming to have proven atheism[3], even to the point of criticizing and attacking agnosticism, which is the very state of mind that doubting is grounded on.  The agnostic says I do not know, therefore ‘I should question everything including my doubts’[4].  On the other hand some atheist[5] say you should doubt everything, but not your doubts about the existence of God and of course whatever else they deem as important.  Now I admit that atheism is the more manly and brave position rather than agnosticism, but it’s not the most rational or consistent position, from a doubters (skeptics) and believers point of view.

[1] I have a number of articles on my website about the burden of truth.  The technical definition of burden of truth basically says that it falls on the person making a positive affirmation. However, you can make a positive affirmation on a negative.  Example: there is absolutely no God.  Most reasonable people will admit that this statement cannot be proven beyond a shadow of doubt but the statement itself demands evidence or else it is simply an empty statement.  If not then why do atheists argue about it all the time?

[2] In one exchange the new atheist spent so much time arguing about the burden of proof we never got to the subject of the existence of God.  The young man seemed incapable of simply carrying on a conversation about the question, ‘does God exist’.

[3] Not many will make this assertion.  However, a few are brave enough.

[4] The true skeptic believes that the way to truth is through doubting.  Thus if you stop doubting you close off the source to truth and actually become a believer.  Atheistic absolutists’ are true believers in that they brand their abstract reasoning as absolute, and put their faith in it.

[5] These atheists are true believers, that believe that reason is pure and therefore can be absolute.  Of course reason is never pure and human knowledge never reflects reality totally.

An Exchange with a Naturalist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

An Exchange with a Naturalist 

The radical monotheists are the true skeptics. When the majority believes in many gods, they believed in one. When the majority is atheistic, they continue to believe in one true God. The human impulse is to deny the true God because of the tremendous tension it bring into existence. Mankind escapes the tension by creating false gods or denying the existence of God. Both are forms of escapism from the true God.  Lyle Duell 

The following is a reply to my article “Does God Exist?” by an atheist and in turn my reply to him. The article was forwarded to him by a friend. I never engaged him personally in correspondence. 

Unbeliever to my Friend:

He (Lyle) states that there is some form of religion, be it shamanism, ancestor worship, etc., in every group of people everywhere in the world. I and most rational people accept this to be true based on years of observation and exploration of even the most remote areas of this planet. All cultures have faith or religion. They all have a sense of right and wrong. They all have a sense of fairness. The question is: What explains this best? Is it the God hypothesis or the naturalist hypothesis? Just to say the condition exists says nothing.

Lyle:

Your friend is right. However, I believe it is more reasonable to expect to find a world filled with morality and faith if you start with a moral God hypothesis rather than a naturalist hypothesis that believes the world is an accident created by irrational and amoral causes. The latter would only seem rational to a person who is irrational or has accepted on faith the dogmas of naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophy, which taken to its logical conclusions, would deny reason, on which it claims to be based. Can you really trust a mind that was formed by a mindless process of natural selection alone? Is it reasonable to believe that reason was created by an unreasonable force or cause?

Though the presence of universal faith and morality does not prove the existence of God, it is exactly what you would expect to find if a moral consciousness (God) had directed the process of the creation of the world.

Moreover, the naturalists have a hard time demonstrating why this spiritual consciousness and morality evolved equally in all humans throughout the world in the same time frame. This phenomenon seems to fit the ideal of revelation more than a naturalistic causation.
Unbeliever to my Friend:

It is here that Mr. Duell misses the mark and uses faulty logic. This does not prove that God is self-evident.

Lyle:

I did not say it proves the existence of God or that He is self-evident. However, it is consistent with a God hypothesis. You cannot prove a self-evident truth to anyone who is dead to it, for the conditioning of his ideology and his disposition keeps him from seeing the truth. These people’s perception has been so distorted by false ideology it would take more than evidence to convince them. You cannot cure blindness with an argument.

Unbeliever to Lyle’s Friend:

It (the existence of religion and morality) merely proves that we are all human and think basically alike.

Lyle:

You have stated the facts correctly, but the facts in themselves do not answer the question of why. Why are we basically alike when it comes to morality and religion? You attempt to answer the question with a narrative or a story of history, which you admit you cannot prove. So in essence, you did not answer the question of why. You attempt to answer a why question with a how answer, which is simply begging the question. The truth is that your atheistic worldview cannot answer the question of why things are the way they are and not some other way. In contrast, the theistic worldview simply says that all men were created in the image of God and therefore inherited his natural characteristics and tendencies from God. Moreover, your how answer cannot even answer the how question, because it is based on assumptions and speculation with fragmented and thin evidence and no proof. So, in the end you must admit that your position is held by faith.

It seems if your thinking is correct, we would think alike on everything; however when we look at humanity we are divided on just about everything. We cannot carry on a conversation with another human but for a few minutes before we start disagreeing. Why do all humans think the same about things like faithfulness, compassion, justice, and retribution if these concepts were created by mindless evolution? And why did all the cultures evolve equally in the same time frame, having all these basic moral elements in them? If evolution is not directed by a consciousness, why did all the cultures in the world develop civilizations with the same basic morality in the same time frame?

Unbeliever:
Man did not evolve with long teeth, sharp fangs, great strength, or great speed compared to other animals. Our secret weapon was to evolve a problem solving brain to better cope and increase our chance to survive as a species.
One downside of a problem solving, thinking brain is that it is always thinking and trying to solve problems or riddles. Think of it as exercising our weapon to make it better, like young animals play-fighting, or cats mindlessly sharpening their claws. When there is no problem to solve, we invent one.  Just consider the number of games and puzzles we have created to amuse ourselves.

When early humans finally evolved this thinking, self-aware brain, they found that they were in an unfriendly, hostile world and likely feeling frightened and vulnerable and unable to explain the mysteries all around them. After witnessing events like lightning and volcanoes, it would seem likely that they would attribute these and other events to creatures much more powerful then themselves, even if these creatures were invisible to them Everywhere on the planet, it is only  human to want to improve one’s lot and chances for survival in this world. What better way to gain some small sense of control than to beseech these powerful beings with offerings and rituals. Thus religion is born out of our own frailty and need for our thinking brains to find some way to influence the forces that seem to be against them. The small odds that things went their way could only reinforce their belief systems because the only other option was to admit that they have no control over their environment or elemental forces at work. Admitting that would be too darn scary, so the belief in supernatural forces would continue until a time when science would begin to answer the mysteries of thunder and flash floods and slowly erode the need for religion.

Today we are in this period of science eroding the need for religion. The older the country and more educated, the faster the population is turning away from the religious view of the world. In the countries of central Europe, including Italy, the churches have lost so many members that the government has had to step in to preserve the great historical church buildings because there are not enough members to pay the bills. In Germany, if you do not belong and contribute to a church, the state will make you pay a special tax for their upkeep, and still the numbers are declining. In general, the only countries where religion still flourishes are those with extreme poverty because their population is still looking for some small bit of control over their destiny. 

Lyle: 

How could man survive long enough without long teeth, sharp fangs, great strength or great speed, to develop reason? Reason would be, by its very nature, the last characteristic for evolution to produce and yet the naturalist must postulate that it was the first. It seems quite reasonable to believe that man must have developed reasoning more rapidly than evolution could explain.

Science is about distance and measurement. Religion is about meaning and purpose. If this is true how could science erode religion? The reason religion is eroding has little to do with science. Religion is declining mainly because of its abuse of authority and the time that it takes to learn it sufficiently to experience its benefits. This does not set well with a culture that wants instant gratification and results. Moreover, the same erosion we see in organized religion is happening in all civic organizations, government, and even science. These social phenomena are difficult to understand and have more to do with a decline in civilization than the progress of science, e.g., the decline of the family and human relationships in general. People’s respect for science has been on a big decline for the last three decades because of its unfulfilled promises and its embellished claims. This is especially true as government co-ops science and pseudoscience to further its agenda as in communist countries.

Unbeliever:
Now you may ask me how I know all this to be true, as I was not there to witness it. Well, I could say the same to you about your beliefs. Given what we really know as facts after all these thousands of years, what scenario seems the most plausible? Do we finally accept science or do we continue to believe in magic and invisible beings?

You can continue to believe in the veracity of a collection of well-known stories finally written down by desert dwellers during the Bronze Age if you choose to.

Lyle

You know it is true because you accept it by faith. Everything you claim and believe about ancient man is prehistory, i.e., before any written history. I personally see no conflict between real science and religion. The problem comes in when you mix up theories with facts and history with fiction. Moreover, the people of faith that I know do not believe in magic. However, they do believe that there are things that exist, which we cannot see, and I do believe that science believes in a lot of things they cannot see. If you do not believe me, read a good book on theoretical physics.

A note to my Friend

Your friend’s argument is nothing but a tall tale that naturalists have been spinning for a hundreds of years. It is nothing but a narrative put together with little or no evidence. All of it seems plausible only because people have been indoctrinated with it in our school system and universities. Remember, the interpretation is not the observation. They have observed none of the so-called facts of their tale. Yet, they call it science. The conclusion is not the data. The explanation is not the evidence. A narrative like you friend spun proves nothing other than he has a story to tell. It says nothing as to whether or not the story is true. To prove the story takes facts, which the atheist and naturalist does not have and will never have because they are talking about things that are prehistoric. That is before history was recorded. Your friend seems to sense this but is too arrogant to refrain from spinning a yarn whether true or not. You should learn to ask people the question that God asked Adam: “Who told you that?” If you asked your friend that question, and if he were honest, he would have to admit that he got it off some atheistic website or from some college professor, most likely a non-scientist. And where did they get it from? (Note: footnote for more on the tall tale of naturalism.)

To postulate that early man was brutish has nothing to do with the debate on the existence of God. No theist whom I know would maintain that ancient humankind was in general intellectual and civilized. Even today many men are uneducated and uncivilized if left to themselves. However, the brutish picture that modern man paints of ancient man is questionable and equally unknowable. It is a red herring that has little to do with the question, “Does God exist?” Yet the tall tale represents the fallacious arguments and quibbles made by atheists.
Unbeliever
Isn’t it curious how the religion seem so slow to change, even in the face of so many facts,
while scientists and atheists would change and believe in a heartbeat if given a single verifiable fact.

Lyle 

Science does not solely deal with facts; it deals with theories about the facts. If you have noticed, the older a science gets the fewer new theories it has. When it runs the course of easy questions, it will slow down. I am not sure, but it seems that your friend and many other people believe that science has facts that disprove the existence of God. If so, he is wrong. The truth is they have no facts that disprove the existence of God and atheists do not have a good argument against the existence of God. The best they have is the tall tale. What he does have is a high opinion of himself.

Unbeliever
It is the way of science to change instantly when new facts are presented, instead of pining for the old ways.

Lyle

It is obvious this man has not studied the history of science. Whether intentional or not, what he said is a bald-faced lie. It often takes decades or even centuries for science to change its theories. The string theory, for example, has been in style for about 75 years and it’s just recently being set aside by many scientists. Science also hangs onto working theories for a long time even when it knows that it is wrong because it works well in the models that it has created.

Unbeliever

I can’t believe I wasted another afternoon responding to this article. Neither you nor your friend is likely to be influenced by it, but feel free to pass it along to him. All that has transpired here is the wasting of my time, and as you know, without a warm fuzzy heaven to look forward to, time is all the more precious to me.

Don’t expect any but the tersest responses in the future, if any on religious matters.
Yours in music,

Lyle

The Tall Tale

Unbelievers of all types typically use a short naturalistic narrative to undermine belief in God. By narrative I mean a short history of the evolution of culture and humanity. They accomplish this by first running a series of statements about prehistoric earth and man, which creates an unflattering picture of early mankind. The thing that is neglected in their narrative is the fact that most of statements are not based on facts but assumptions with very thin evidence to back them up. These assumptions have four sources: their blind faith in progressive evolution, the concept of progress, a good imagination, and of course the indoctrination of our universities.

One of the biggest problems with this picture is that an informed naturalist believes in evolution, but not progressive evolution. Progressive evolution is rejected by knowledgeable naturalists because it leaves the door open for intelligent design and the existence of God. Therefore, in their thinking, progressive or directed, evolution must be rejected. However, they continue to tell the tall tale as history based on progressive evolution to prove their assumption that there is no God. In this, they borrow from the believer the theory of intelligent design to prove the point that there is no design. In this, they tell a tale that is based on the foundation of progressive evolution, which they believe is not true.

In actuality, when they tell the tall tale, all they are doing is rehearsing a naturist world view or system, while offering no evidence for it and assuming that it is true. Neither do they inform their hearers of the massive number of pages that are missing in their story. Nor do they inform people that the story was created before there was one bit of evidence for it, which means it was not founded on scientific evidence but assumption and a good imagination. Darwin himself admitted that he had no evidence for his theory. Of course, the theory was floating around before Darwin put it into print.

Because the naturalist believes there is only one possible narrative to explain everything, every new fact is forced to fit the tall tale. If they cannot be squeezed into their narrative, they are simply labeled anomalies and set aside.

If there was no evidence for it, where did tall tale come from? Is it a self-evident truth? The problem with that is that those folks that promoted it do not believe in self-evident truth. Of course, the truth is that it is a construct of their imagination. In this, the system or narrative itself becomes the evidence for the system. In other words, if I can build a system, the truth of its premise is thereby established by the system I have created. The possibility that I can build a system on a false premise is ignored. The system is justified by the fact of its construction. They can get away with this story telling only because of the conditioning of the audience, which has been feed a steady diet of it in the school system and in the media. The myth becomes reality in their minds.

 

 

 

Francis Bacon “Of Atheism”.

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Religion, Science

The following essay was written by Francis Bacon in his book “Meditations Sacrae”. Bacon is accredited for introducing the scientific method into natural philosophy. The last paragraph of the article makes it worth reading.  

OF ATHEISM.

“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”

First, it is to be noted, that the Scripture saith, “The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart;” that is to say, he doth not so fully think it in judgment, as he hath a good will to be of that belief; for seeing it makes not for him that there should be a God, he doth seek by all means accordingly to persuade and resolve himself, and studies to affirm, prove, and verify it to himself as some theme or position: all which labour, notwithstanding that sparkle of our creation light, whereby men acknowledge a Deity burneth still within; and in vain doth he strive utterly to alienate it or put it out, so that it is out of the corruption of his heart and will, and not out of the natural apprehension of his brain and conceit, that he doth set down his opinion, as the comical poet saith, “Then came my mind to be of mine opinion,” as if himself and his mind had been two divers things; therefore the atheist hath rather said, and held it in his heart, than thought or believed in his heart that there is no God; secondly, it is to be observed, that he hath said in his heart, and not spoken it with his mouth. But again you shall note, that this smothering of this persuasion within the heart cometh to pass for fear of government and of speech amongst men; for, as he saith, “To deny God in a public argument were much, but in a familiar conference were current enough:” for if this bridle were removed, there is no heresy which would contend more to spread and multiply, and disseminate itself abroad, than atheism: neither shall you see those men which are drenched in this frenzy of mind to breathe almost any thing else, or to inculcate even without occasion any thing more than speech tending to atheism, as may appear in Lucrecius the epicure, who makes of his invectives against religion as it were a burden or verse of return to all his other discourses; the reason seems to be, for that the atheist not relying sufficiently upon himself, floating in mind and unsatisfied, and enduring within many faintings, and as it were fails of his opinion, desires by other men’s opinions agreeing with his, to be recovered and brought again; for it is a true saying, “Whoso laboureth earnestly to prove an opinion to another, himself distrusts it:” thirdly, it is a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true; not only in respect that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine; but in respect of human and civil wisdom: for first of all, if you mark the wits and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most contrary to wisdom and moral gravity.

Secondly, amongst statesmen and politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of Deity, as they which you shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence.

Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to their own cunning and practices, and to the immediate, and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, “Have sacrificed to their own nets,” have been always but petty counterfeit statesman, and not capable of the greatest actions.

Lastly, this I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it, will bring about men’s minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this, “There is no God”

 

A Letter From An Young Atheist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Letter From An Young Atheist

“So Lyle, you don’t believe that you can discover God through reason alone?  I ask then, what else does it take?  I would guess your answer would be ‘faith’, correct?  If it is as you say, that God cannot be discovered through reason and rationality alone; that is the ‘crux’ of the matter for me and it is not something that I can accept.  Starting with a conclusion/presupposition and working backwards is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do.”

You may find a god through human reason; however, it will not be the true God.  The true God is so far beyond human consciousness that human reason cannot comprehend him and only marginally apprehend him and his existence.  This is why theologians define him as the totally other.

I do believe that you have a neat and tidy view of science and how it works, which is  completely naïve and totally contrary to reality.  If you read Thomas Kuhn’s book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” you would see that science is not done as neat as you seem to think.  Do you think scientists are sitting around, talking about the scientific method like religious people talk about the ten commandments?  If they do they will respond to law (scientific method) the same way that religious people respond to the ten commandments.  They may give it lip service and then ignore them or use them as a general guide for doing science.  If they took them legalistically not much science would get done.

What you claim ‘you are NOT supposed to do’, is actually what is done much of the time in science.  It’s very common for scientists to form a hypothesis and then set out to prove it.  What is a hypothesis if it is not an opinion or a hunch?  Yes, it is a guess, but a guess with a lot of convictions behind it or what we might call  faith. You can bet more effort goes into proving them rather than falsifying or disproving them.  If they are disproven it will be by the community when they’re published. The same things happen in philosophy and theology.

When Darwin set sail on his famous voyage, he had a will to believe his hypothesis.  He was looking for evidence to prove a belief he already had held for years.  He was taught evolution by his grandfather and father.  Moreover, ideas on evolution were in the air  during his time and both his grandfather and father believed in some form of evolution.  What did he find?  He found what he was looking for.  He found some clues that there was evolution within the bird family, which he already knew.  He saw it on the farm with the select breeding of animals.  However, he found nothing that would prove his overall theories on his voyage.  Note this is not to say that I do not believe in some forms of evolution, I am just stating a fact about Darwin.  The finches (birds) of the islands did not in any way confirm the whole show of Darwin’s later theory of evolution.  I am saying this to point out that Darwin was not a legalist about the scientific method and to some degree ignored it.

You asked what else does it take beyond reason to believe in God?  As William James points out you need a “will to believe”.  Reason will come to the aid of the will, for it is often the handmaiden of the will.  It also comes to the aid of our passions, to justify them; you see this with those who are addicted to drugs.  Their reasoning will give them all kinds of rationale for using and then it will justify their using, and just about anything else.

Reason surely does not rule in human beings. The reign of reason is a myth of the Enlightenment and in much of western culture.  Humans will believe pretty much what they want to believe or what they have a will to believe[1]. The men of the enlightenment needed something to break the power and authority of the Catholic Church, so they created the myth of the preeminence of reason as the dominating force in humans.  So, they replaced the authority of the church with the authority of human reason.  The thinkers of the Reformation (Protestants) also needed something to supplant the authority of the Catholic Church, so they also threw in reason along with Scripture as the new authority.

The scientific method was created to try to keep the will and passions out of reason. However, it is doubtful that any method or law could keep the  human will and  its passions out of the human thought process.  An example of this is the atheistic communist party of the Soviet Union influencing and directing the scientific community. In communist countries the scientific method failed to keep ideological influence out.  You could say that the well was poisoned, even the scientific well by group passion and ideology.

Humans also reason within their cultural environment. In this, they think corporately as well as individually, i.e. the community controls their thinking and thus their reasoning. In this setting, science is no different from religion or philosophy.  In any discipline the various schools of thought argue and defend their party or community’s position.  Once you become a part of a community and turn into a true believer, with the help of the community, you will see the world through the eyes of the community. You will have acquired their world view.

I think you might want to spend some time thinking about this metaphysical force that you call reason.  Where does it come from and why should we trust it?  Can you trust reason totally when you believe that it comes from an unreasonable cause (evolution)?  If our minds are nothing more than blank slates, how can we know that the information that is written on them, including the idea of reason, is true? Could everything simply be created by our society and culture, even the idea of reason?  What about the concepts of freedom and virtue? Are these concepts real or just an illusion of  the biological illusion maker that we call our brain?  Could consciousness come from a universal consciousness, which exists outside of our brain and nature?

Therefore, I think a man should begin a search for God by asking why he does or does not will  to have a belief in God. It may be reason or it may be ones will or even one’s passion more than reason.

You say that you, do not believe because you want to believe the truth?  Well, atheism empties the truth of any real meaning[2].  In the end what different would it make? To the materialist or the atheist truth is nothing more than an illusion; that is, if their idea of truth is going to be consistent with their beliefs.  The only materialists who are consistent are those who have embraced nihilism.

Nietzsche was one of the few atheistic philosophers of his day and is still, to this day, one of the few that had the courage not only to embrace nihilism but to tell others of the consequences and the logical outcome of atheism.  He understood and believed rightfully so, that atheism will lead to nihilism and anarchy, if it is embraced and consistently lived out.  I believe that the French Revolution is an example of what happens when people lose their faith.

Nietzsche, said ‘truth is fiction’, and if you are a materialist you should either be honest enough to stop claiming truth in any fashion other than “my truth” because for the materialist, truth  only exists in each person’s mind.  At  best, reason can only define truth as what works for the individual and the tribe.

In your search for God by all means use reason.  However, do not make it an absolute,  for if you do you will find it chasing its own tail or falling into a series of unending doubts and questions.  Reason was given to us as a gift from God and is a fantastic tool and has brought many blessings, but if it is misused it is like a wild animal that can kill you.  It can bring you closer to God or it can cause you to fall into the abyss of unceasing doubting. That is if you have the courage to go there.

[1] I recommend the reading of William James essay on “The Will to Believe”.

[2] It seems that as atheism has increased, so has postmodernism.  Postmodernism is a philosophical position that teaches that true is a personal thing or is socially created, but has no real ground in reality. This questions the very concept of reason. Some investigation will demonstrate that most postmodern’s are unbelievers. It is extremely hard for the Christian to embrace such a philosophy that would deny human reason.

A Skeptics Takes a Look at Science Part II

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Skeptics Takes a Look at Science

Part II

Personal Observations on Science as Salvation

 

Let me share with some personal observations that I hope will help the true believers to put science in proper perceptive.

  1. It seems from my point of view that much of modern science is no longer based on observation and experimentation, but rather on metaphysical cues, e.g. string theory.  Cues that they spend an inordinate amount time and money chasing, trying to convince us  that they are truthful. Why?  Then there is the huge amount of money spent proofing things that are supposedly already proven. An example is their constant chasing for the missing links of Darwinian’s evolution.  If Darwin’s evolution is a fact why are they sill chasing the evidence as though their life depends on it?  If they have overwhelming evidence like they claim, why keep looking for more? This seem to be a case where their behaves or action do not square with their words or beliefs. I was taught when studying counseling  not to believe what people said but to watch their action to know the truth of what the belief. Of course, scientist may be trying to falsify the theory, but how can you falsify a fact? The truth is that you cannot falsify facts. The problem with many scientist is that they really think their theories are facts. When a theory becomes fact, it is no longer science but something else. It can be religion, philosophy or history  but it cannot be science. Much of Darwinian evolution can never be a fact or even a good scientific theory, because the scientific method cannot be applied to it. Note Gee’s book “Deep Time”. Of course you can change the definition of science,  which I believe is not to far off. The age of proving things with empirical evidence is just about over and when happen the age of science will be over.
  2. In general the scientific community claims the higher ground of being free of bias. This belief is absolutely not true. There is no human being that is free of bias much less a community of human beings . All human knowledge is tainted by ideology and the spirit of the age. The best that any community can do is to be aware of the problem and try their best to avoid biases, which comes from ideology and undetected presuppositions.  The scientific method was created to overcome subjectivism of every kind, but to an increasing degree these fundamental principles are being set aside. For those who have either forgotten or have abandoned the scientific method: (1) Make observations on some area of interest. (2) Create a theory that explains those observations (3)Make predictions based on that theory (4) Run experiments and make new observations to test the predictions (5) If the predictions prove wrong (that is, the new observations do not match the predictions) go to step two. (6) If the predictions prove correct, go to step three.

The basic presumption of the scientific community is atheistic[1], which in itself is a bias. You could say the scientific community is “no gods land” for many who practice science.   One of the basic law of the community is “You cannot use God to explain natural causes.” Therefore, the community actual imposes a presupposition or a dogma on its members.   If you violate this dogma you will be expelled or excommunicated from the community. Taken to  extremes this unwritten law can blind science to a world of possibilities. Fortunately , not all scientist take it to the extreme.

I once asked a scientist about this and he told me that the law was put in place to distinguish natural philosophy from natural science.  His explanation sound logical until I began to think about it. He never did explained to me how a man who was a believer in a God could practice science without deny his most basic beliefs?  And why should a believer have to do science as an atheist?  Cannot a believer do experiments and observations as well as an atheist? Is not atheism based on a metaphysical philosophy of materialism that has nothing to do with science? Why the inconsistency? Why not push atheism out of science? William James the father of American pragmatism said this about the neutrality rule of modern science which in essence is a will to atheism. “I, therefore, for one cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or willfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game.  I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.  That for me is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no matter what  the kinds of truth might materially be (The Will to Believe).

Another scientist told me that they had to leave God out of science because to bring the idea of God in would hurt the scientific enterprise because people would appeal to what he referred to as the “God of the gaps”. What he was saying is that if you bring God in to science people would stop looking for answer to the gaps or problems with a theory and in turn would just make an appeal to God. My response was, what do you do now without the god of the gaps? His answer was, we assume that when our knowledge increases that we will be able to fill the gaps. At first I thought this was a fair answer and then I came to realize that it was the only answer. However, this answer is not without problems. The problem is that it bias the scientist toward filling in the gaps at any cost, for it easier to fill gaps than to falsify and create new theories or simply to say we do not know. It is also the same answer which a theologian could use to explain the gaps in theology. However, if this argument was used by theologian it would not be accepted by many scientist as a satisfactory answer. Why should we accept it for them.

  1.  I question a of lot of science because many scientist are fundamentalist, which take metaphors literally and therefore distort them and the reality that they point to . For example  many of them must exalt nature to the place of a metaphysical absolute or embrace chaos. Most cannot embrace chaos so they must put their faith in some cosmic order, which they call nature. Because of their dogma that you cannot appeal to a God, they must refer to the cosmic order with a different symbol than god.  They choose the symbol of nature, which they believe is  “the hold show[2]” that directs and control all things, i.e. their absolute. Thus, nature is used as a symbol that replace the concept of God.  For this reason scientists could accept nature as god or even a god within nature, e.g. man or some alien life form, but they cannot tolerate a God that is over or outside of nature, which created nature as the God of the Bible. The hold show must be the alp and omega or nothing.  The hold show must be the eternal one. Of course, nature being a metaphor of a large  unseen system is itself a creation of the mind of man and is used as a metaphor to express a metaphysical concept which science need to keep from slipping into chaos. How can you do science if there are no laws of nature governing the universe? And how can you have laws without a law-maker? Well, you have nature where the laws are simple there without begin or end. Sound a lot like God. Could we be playing the game, keep the concept, but change the name of the symbol for it?
  1. It also seem the older the discipline of science gets the more it resembles a religion or an ideology. It seem to have its holy men that you dare not question like Darwin, Freud, and even Max. Of course, Freud and Max have fallen from grace. However, there was a time when to question these pillars of the faith you would be brand a heretic and  be excommunicated  form the community.  Science as religion also has its apologist and its evangelist who guard and propagate the faith[3]. Scientism says you cannot believe in a heaven and be rational, but you can believe in a universe with 11 dimensions and be a genius. In other words, you cannot believe in a two story building (heaven and earth) but you can believe in a 11 story skyscraper as long as God did not make it.

One scientist told me that science is not like religion because it is self-correcting.  However, the Christian religion has had from the begin prophets that have call the faithful to change and reform. What would you call the reformation, but a self correction?

  1. It is also obvious that a large number of scientist has been brought under the influence of the ruling class and its money, if not directly, indirectly by the placing of grant money with those that will see things the way the oligarchy see them. Of course, this is the exactly the same thing that happen to the church during the dark ages. We have examples of this happing in science were science was directed by the German Nazis and in Russian by the communist. In Russian, science was direct not only by the scientific method but by the ideology of materialism and the state. They even had a church they called “the church of scientific Atheism”. It is truly amazing to see how money and power controls and directs the march of science, but what is more amazing is the fact that so few see it.
  1. Many who have placed their faith in science base it on the continuous progress of the discipline. They believe that science will continue to progress at its present rate or its past rate. They fail to see that there are limits to human knowledge and that already the number of large discoveries are dwindling. Many of the so-called new discoveries are really the development and refining of things already know. We could say that the discipline of science has picked all the low fruit off the tree of scientific knowledge. The outcome is that it will become harder and harder and cost more and more to pick the higher fruit. It is very likely that we will reach a omega point where human knowledge will reach its end.[4]

You might say that all of this is very pessimistic about science. However, I disagree, it is not pessimistic but realistic. For when we are talking about science we are talking about human knowledge and human knowledge is finite, which means it has limits and is often filled with Gaps and errors which will never be filled or corrected. The belief in unlimited progress is an illusion that denies our finiteness. This illusion in the end will unravel much of the progress that we have made and take us into an abyss of human arrogance.

[1] Richard Lewontin (evolutionary geneticist), “[The public] take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” “Billions and Billions of Demons,” p. 31.

[2] That is everything that is, which means that there cannot be anything outside of her or above her. Sounds a little like God. Some are using the word universe instead of nature as the ultimate reality.

[3] Neil DeGrasse is an example of an apologist and evangelist for atheistic science.

[4] Many scholars feel that physics as we know it as the queen of science has reached its end. The science of biology will probably be the heir to the throne at least for a short time. However, it to will come to its end.

A Skeptic Takes a Look at Science Part I

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

A Skeptic Takes a Look at Science

Part I

It would like to share with you why I am skeptical of many of the theories of modern science.  My motive for writing this is not to put down science but to put people’s understanding of it into a proper perspective.  That perspective is this, science is not God and it is not your salvation from death or nature.  Those that put their faith in it for salvation will be sadly disappointed.

My concern for Peoples attitude toward science began to mount when talking to a young man at a funeral about death; something he seemed very uncomfortable to talk about.  Shortly into our conversation he told me that he believed by the time he approached old age that science would discover a cure for death.  First I informed him death was not a sickness or a disease, but rather a law of nature and there was no cure for it, at least by science.

One of my complaints about modern science is its unspoken attitude toward nature.  It seems to think that nature is an enemy or a disease that needs to be overcome or cured[1].  For all I know it may be an enemy but if it is, it is one, where I don’t think we’re going overcome or cure it unless we evolve into gods.  And at the present rate of evolution I don’t think that’s going to happen before sun burns out.

In contrast to the above young man, I talked to a real scientist that headed up a research group in a large university and asked her if she thought that science would overcome cancer in the near future.  Her answer was forth right and struck an authentic cord of realism.  She said that they really did not know what caused cancer.  She went on to say that science had made tremendous advancements in treating cancer but it is lagging behind in the understanding of what causes it.  She said the latest theory was that it was a combination of a virus, the immune system, and genetics; she did not see a cure on the near horizon.  Then she dropped the bomb, when I asked hear what her personal opinion was about cancer.  She said she believed it was death and if they found a cure for it, it would just break out in some new form.  Now that is realism.

The above young man who had accepted the myth of science as salvation has accepted a false religion.  The young scientist had a proper perspective of science and a realistic view of salvation and science.  Science can hide you from nature for a time and it can heal you from some of the wounds of nature, but in the end it cannot save you from it, nature will kill you.  So if you are looking for ultimate salvation you had better look elsewhere than science.

[1] Some want to overcome it and others want to worship it.