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Tag: science and religion
The Decline of Organized Religion
The Decline of Organized Religion
I have noticed that many of my atheist friends on the net seem to be gloating that organized religion in the West is on the decline. I suspect that some of them who have a high opinion of themselves even imagine that they are influencing its decline.
Let’s, for the moment, assume that religion is declining just as some of the new atheists seem to believe. This would, out of necessity, cause us to ask the question “Why?” Could it be, as some of the new atheists assume, that humanity, at least in the West, is more educated and getting smarter?[1] I have doubts that education has had little, if any effect on the decline of organized religion or even on the true number atheists. Their growth could be contributed more likely, to a ‘coming out of the closet’ rather than any actual growth.
There has always been a large number of unbelievers in organized religion, especially when the religion is the dominant cultural religion and it has become socially and economically beneficial to pose as a believer. It’s easy to come out the closet when you live in a culture that believes nothing. If this is the case then I personally, as a believer, am thankful to the new atheist for helping us rid ourselves of the chaff within the Christian faith. However, I really don’t think that this is the case.
One huge contributor to the decline in organized religion and other social organizations is the transfer of the dependence of poor people on their faith community and other social organizations to their dependency on the state for all of their needs.
Personally, it’s hard for me to see anything very positive about this transfer of power. The only result is that the poor have lost their moral compass, and the state has gained more power over them thereby expanding their power over the entire population. On the other end of the economic spectrum, the wealthy and business class no longer have to demonstrate their goodness and honesty by going to church, although many still go to church for what they call “net working”; to sell their wares.
All of this has little or nothing to do with the level of intelligence of people living in the West or the new atheist movement, both of which I believe are a part of the declension and decay of civilization. One mark of a declining civilization is its loss of faith in its gods or religion. This loss of faith many not be causal but it does go hand and hand with the death of civilization and is a sign of a decaying culture.
The churches like all social institutions in Western culture are losing membership and this is not something to be gloating over for the reason that people are becoming increasingly isolated from each other, which in turn gives the state more power. This is one of the factors contributing to our loss of freedom. Taking religion out of the public square is not the separation of powers, it is the enthroning of state power without any organized resistance. This is why dictators and tyrants make it their goal to eradicate religion as soon as they gain power. Therefore, most tyrannical governments support atheism.
In addition, the creation of democracy and the rise of individualism also can give rise to an anti-authority mindset, that also can cause a decline in any authoritative organization. So, it is not surprising that organized religions, which have an authority structure, are declining the most in democratic societies. This would include mainline Protestant and Catholic churches which have an authoritative structure. Independent churches which are more democratic in their structure are maintaining their membership and even growing in membership.
Again, we see that the increase of knowledge seems to have little to do with the decline of religion and the rise of atheism. The rise of atheism can be traced much more easily to social and psychological[2] reasons then to any level of education.
[1] If people are getting smarter why is there a decline in philosophy students which seems to be corresponding with the decline in religion?
[2] Note my article on “The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist” and “Prerequisites for Atheism” at: lyleduell.me
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.
Dogma?
“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.
Religion and Freedom
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.
An Exchange with a Naturalist
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”.
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
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.
Lyle Duell 