Category: Science
Faith, Religion and Utilitarianism
Faith, Religion and Utilitarianism
Those skeptical of religion often say they believe in science because it works. In this statement, they are making ‘utility’ the standard of truth. However, when they change the discussion to religion, their standard of truth switches from utilitarian reasoning (what works) to whatever absolute aligns with their view of physical reality. In other words, it is ok to establish science and other disciplines by pointing to their utilitarian benefits, but it’s not okay to point to religion in the same way. Still another inconsistency is that it’s okay for science to use allegories and metaphors that point to something that is veiled in reality, but not religion or theology. Why the difference in standards? The answer is clear, they have a prior commitment to materialism and atheism.
It does seem to be quite self-evident that religion and faith works for billions of people and recently a number of studies seem to offer evidence that faith and even religion[1] has some very strong pragmatic and useful benefits[2]. This must raise the question, why are atheists so bent on destroying it? Could it be that they truly believe that atheists are happier than believers and that mankind would be better off without religion? I don’t think so[3]. Did atheism bring happiness to Russia or has it led to happiness in China? The evidence seems to be that atheism can work for some individuals, but it destroys societies. It appears from surveying the societies where atheists are in charge, that the government is totalitarian and oppressive in its nature.
A lot of skeptics will say they do not believe because faith and religion are simply not true[4], but this brings us back to the question of how do you define ‘truth’? It seems that when they claim that faith is not true, they are in fact saying that it does not align with or reflect reality, which is the imperialist way of defining the word ‘truth’. However, in order to do this, you must attempt to analyze faith using the scientific method. One problem with this is that the scientific method may tell you how faith works, and even what it does, but it cannot tell you what it is. If you absolute the scientific method, as many skeptics claim to do, the only way to know anything would be to rule out much of what we call human knowledge. Of course, they only apply this rigorous application of the scientific method to faith and religion, which demonstrates their bias towards religion.
The truth is that atheists assume that their presuppositions are true and have faith (like the believer) that their views are right. Many atheists still suppose falsely, that science in some fashion supports their claims, but the more knowledgeable atheist knows that science does not sustain their views[5]. The truth of the matter is that science is the study of nature and therefore has nothing to say about a God that has no being and is outside of nature. This means that science can neither support religion or atheism on the question of God’s existence.
If you’re wondering why men become atheists, read my paper on “The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist” on my website; lyleduell.me.
[1] There is a difference between faith in God and religion. Religion tends to emphasize what you do and faith emphasizes what you trust in.
[2] “The Happiness Hypothesis, Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” By Jonathan Haidt. Ernest Becker in his book “The Denial of Death” makes a strong case for faith as a plus for dealing with life and death. Though his arguments do not prove the existence of God. They do demonstrate that faith does not poison everything as the new atheist claim, but rather it is beneficial to many people.
[3] If they believe this then they should be willing to prove it with science, by the use of the scientific method. Where is there proof that atheism is the best way to the good life?
[4] Some religion does not align with reality nor does it work. This simply proves that there is such a thing as bad religion. It does not prove that there is no God.
[5] The US National Academy of Sciences has gone on record with the following statement: ‘Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.” Taken from “Who Made God, Searching For A Theory Of Everything” by Edgar Andrews.
Diversity Destroys Social Cohesion in the West
In my study of ancient history I found that ancient empires after conquering a nation would import foreign immigrants for the purpose of weaken that nations culture in order prevent it from rebelling against the Empire. After reading this it struck me that this is exactly what Western governments are doing to themselves and their people. Did these ancient rulers know something that are governmental leaders don’t? Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Science Against Abortion
Religion Poisons Everything Or Does It?
Religion Poisons Everything Or Does It?
In the August first edition of The Harvard Gazette[i] an article appeared entitled “Gods in the Details” in which Prof. Joseph Henrich demonstrates that faith and religion is more than a bunch of taboos and superstitions as propounded by most atheist.
His study seems to be indicating that religion was one of the key factors in unifying people in large civilizations and in building a base for their morality. Of course, it has been known for a long time by historians that whenever a civilization stopped believing in their gods they soon sunk into depravity and ceased to exist. It seems now that this has been verified by evolutionary psychology that many in the atheistic community will have to change their rhetoric that religion is worthless and poisons everything.
This study seems to support the idea that religion has contributed to the creation of morality and unity in large civilizations. This, at least on the surface seems, to be indicating that the atheist position that reason alone can create morality and ethics is simply an oversimplification of religion and morality.
[i] The Harvard Gazette is a free on-line newsletter.
A Short letter to a Materialist
A Short letter to a Materialist
I have often had materialists[1] tell me that” there is nothing in nature that requires a supernatural explanation per say. My reply to that is, I might as well say there is nothing in nature which requires a scientific explanation[2]. Nature has no requirement to understand her. You can put any interpretation on her; you wish and she will not protest a bit. Moreover, who says that everyone must look at nature or anything else through the narrow lens of our present human knowledge and the way some atheistic scientists constructed reality?[3] Their whole narrative is based on the assumption that there is no God, which they cannot prove any more than the theist can prove the existence of God. Both start from an assumption and then build a whole world view around that assumption[4]. One big difference is that the believer can still be open-minded enough to do science in his world view while the atheistic scientists are total blind by their materialism to anything outside of their narrow way of looking at things.
Read very carefully the below quote. It is extremely telling about people assumptions and the power they have over a person and groups of people. You also see there a man who I would say is a true believer in science-ism, although a weak form of it, because he knows much of it is false. However, he does admit that his faith is based upon an assumption that materialism is true.
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some 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, to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our prior adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”[5]
[1] A materialist is a person which believes that everything is made up of matter and denies the existence of spirit. Thus denying the supernatural.
[2] Read my article “Rocks on The Ground” http://wp.me/p5pJxI-lTw at lyleduell.me
[3] I feel no intellectual compulsion to view all of life from a materialistic point of view. When you force reality into a closed ideological system as materialism you will surely distort reality. I also have chosen not to believe in Materialism for pragmatic reasons and my mind is closed to it. As William James would say “I am dead to it”. There is simply no life in that world view.
[4] If scientists that are believers and scientists that are atheist wish to argue and fight about the existence of God that’s fine but both sides must admit that they are debating as philosophers and not a scientist.
[5] Richard Leonine, “Billions and Billions of Demons”, New York Review of Books 44, no. 1 (January 9,1997) 28-32 . Lewontin teaches biology at Harvard.
Did Einstein Believe in God?
One of the best articles on this subject.
Michio Kaku: Is God a Mathematician?
One of the most respected scientists of today says he has found evidence of the action of a force “that governs everything.”
The theoretical physicist Michio Kaku claims to have developed a theory that might point to the existence of God. The information has created a great stir in the scientific community because Kaku is considered one of the most important scientists of our times, one of the creators and developers of the revolutionary String Theory which is highly respected throughout the world.
To to come to his conclusions, the physicist made use of what he calls “primitive semi – radius tachyons “.
Tachyons are theoretical particles capable to “unstick ” the Universe matter or vacuum space between matter particles, leaving everything free from the influences of the surrounding universe.
After conducting the tests, Kaku came to the conclusion that we live in a “Matrix”.
“I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence”, he affirmed. “Believe me, everything that we call chance today won’t make sense anymore.”
“To me it is clear that we exists in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.”
An Argument from Size
An Argument from Size
Once I had an atheist tell me that extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Now, this may or may not be true, but it does demonstrate something about a number of atheists that I know. It demonstrates the inconsistency in their thinking for they say they cannot believe in a God that they cannot see, for which they point out that there is no scientific evidence. And yet they believe that it is likely that there are alien life forms in the universe, which they have not seen nor do they have any evidence for their existence. I’ll grant that this may change at any time, however, for now it is the truth based on current knowledge.
They say the reasons for their readiness to accept alien life forms are based on the size of the cosmos and probability[1]. However, does not size and probability leave the door open as well to the existence of a God in the vast universe? Therefore, to make a dogmatic statement that there is no God is neither reasonable nor logical, or at best inconsistent. The universe is so vast one would have to be everywhere at the same time and know everything there is to know to make the statement “There is no God.” The only proper statement that can be made about Gods existence would be, “I am skeptical of it” or “I don’t know.” However, if one is a skeptic he would have to be skeptical of his skepticism. This would simply mean that when everything is said on the issue, he would have to confess that he is an agnostic.
Part of the problem with their size argument resides in their concept of God. As a matter of fact, the size argument tells us more than anything else about the picture thinking of the atheist. It tells us that they have a corporal image of God in their minds. In other words, God is a big man or spaghetti monster somewhere up in heaven, which of course would making him pretty large to have created a universe that is so vast. Of course, this is similar to the picture thinking of a small child, who may equate God with Santa Claus or a bearded man sitting on a throne in some distant heaven. It is little wonder for many atheists that a flying tea-pot or a flying spaghetti monster are their favorite metaphor for God.
This is keeping with and explains the fact that I’ve had a number of atheists claim that they rejected God when they were children. The truth is that most mature people reject the image of God that they had when they were children, replacing it with an adult concept of the deity[2]. In fact, the Scriptures tell us that we should not have any image of God in our minds for God cannot be imaged. Any image of God that a human has in their minds is an image of an idol.
Here is where more strangeness comes in to the mix. Atheists claim that their position of denying the existence of God is not a faith or even a belief, as though theirs was some kind of neutral position, like that of the agnostic. If a person were to make the statement that they did not believe in alien life forms and in the same breath propound that his statement was not a belief, we would think them mad. Yet, the atheist seems to think such claims are the mark of genius. In other words, it is a dogma that cannot be proven, but at the same time it is not a dogma. What it seems to be to me is either a claim of infinite intelligence on the part of atheist, or a personal faith similar to a religious faith, but it cannot be a non-belief. That borders on nonsense.
Of course, if you infer that their belief, or whatever it is, resembles a religious faith they go ballistic. Yet their movement is organized like a religion, it has its evangelists like a religion and it has apologists like a religion, it even has a salvation message like religion. It is saving the world from religion, but of course it is not a religion[3].
Nevertheless, the atheists have a burden of proof to prove why they can go beyond the claims of agnosticism, to atheism. This burden of proof is not owed to Christians or believers in God, but to reason itself. There is not enough evidence for anyone to postulate that there is no God, and to insist that they have evidence to prove their claims, border on insanity[4].
The atheist, in order to be intellectually honest, must admit that their claims are based on faith similar to those of religion. It is here where the believer stands on a higher ground than the atheist, for he knows and confesses that his belief is ultimately based on faith, though it is faith that is not without reason or evidence. The atheist refuses to face the fact that his unbelief is based on a supposition because to do so would destroy the illusion that his belief is based on reason alone.
One thing that science has done for us, it has given us knowledge of the vastness of the universe. In doing this, it has demonstrated how very little we know about anything. If we were to put all knowledge into a container that encompasses everything that there is to know about the universe, how much of that knowledge do you think humanity now has? Would you say, 1% or maybe 5%? I think if you were to say 1% your answer would demonstrate that you have a good imagination. Human beings are mere infants in a vast universe which is infinitely big and infinitely small; which means that no one can claim absolute knowledge based on rationalism.
In the end the size of the universe does not prove or disprove the existence of God. It does tell us that if you choose to believe in God, your God must be big enough to accommodate the size of the universe. Of course the problem with most atheists, and most believers, is that their God is too small to begin with. It is not hard to deny the existence of a small God as the atheist has done, nor is it hard to avoid the commandments of a small God, which most believers have done. Humanity tends to shrink their gods to fit their intellect and their appetite.
[1] The readiness of so many atheists to believe pseudoscience, is evidence of the inconsistency in their use of reason and basing their beliefs only on evidence. They seem to have a great imagination except when it comes to things spiritual. They have a burden of proof in explaining their inconsistencies. Could it just be simply old bias.
[2] Most mature believers believe that God is pure consciousness or personality diffused throughout time and space or that he is totally other and is beyond man’s ability to form an image of him.
[3] Many atheists refuse to look at the word religion as a broad concept resulting in a narrowly defined definition of religion as organized religion. Of course this is done because of their awareness that their movement has many marks of a religion. In fact arguing over the semantics of the term religion is proof in itself that their thinking has reached the point of being a religion.
[4] Only few make this claim.
Does Reason have Anything to do with Evolution?
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.
Lyle Duell 