Tag: science and religion

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.

A letter to a Christian Science Teacher

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

A letter to a Christian Science Teacher

Your interpretation of the Bible seems to align with those that you dislike i.e. fundamentalist, and your defense of science seems to contradict your statement that it is not a religion.  You defend science as though it is your religion and the way you defend it seems to be a little over the top. If you view it simply as a method of finding the truth i.e. the scientific method why the big fuss. No one disagrees with the scientific method. The question is do scientists really follow the scientific method? I personal think not. The scientific method is used pretty much to make the scientific community respectable and they keep it as law about as well as the Jews kept the Law of Moses and Christians the commandments of Jesus.

I think it is self-evident that in many people’s minds science has become a metaphysical concept, which goes way beyond people in white jackets applying the scientific method to their research.  Science has become the authority that people appeal to in a secular atheistic culture and in this, for many science has evolved into a new religion which has been labeled “scientism”. It used to be that people would appeal to the Bible or the church as the authority for their statements. “The Bible says so or the church says so” now it is nothing but science says.  For many in our culture the only knowledge that has not been debunked and found useless is that which is called science.  Of course, this is nonsense; however it is fostered by many in the scientific community.

To me there is far more truth in a good work of art than in most scientific theories or more power in a song than all the science in the world. Science has given us many toys and made life easier in some ways, but I think it has not given many people meaning, peace of mind, joy or love. In fact, many scientists are arrogant jackasses.  “Knowledge puffs up love builds up”. Science does not teach this the Bible does. Moreover, the false god of science has taken us to the very edge of the abyss. It has given evil men the power to take away our humanity and turn us in to machines. The state is already using it to manipulate the herd in any direction it wishes. Science is now the handmaid of the state as religion was a century ago.  I personally, value my freedom more than comfort, ease, and pleasure which science promises.  To me science is like religion, it is human and therefore needs to be criticized and critiqued often.  The power that it has is equal to that of religion and is therefore one of the powers that the Bible speaks about as being oppressive to human beings.  Remember that our battle is not with flesh and blood but rather with the metaphysical principalities and powers.  Those heavenly powers have their counterpart on this earth and science as metaphysics is one of them. What do you think stands behind the metaphysical concept of science?

The way I see it, science is the false god of many worldly people and even some that profess Christ. It promises them salvation if they will give it their money and commitment.  It promises health and wealth to all that follow it. It claims to be able to predict the future (global warming), something the Bible says only God can do. Not only does it claim to know the future, it also claims it can control it. It also boasts of its miracles of healing and its signs and wonders. To me this sounds a little like the antichrist in the book of Thessalonians and surely sounds a lot like false religion and not true science. Of course, I think science is what you make of it, but for many they have made it their faith and religion.

Remember what the apostle Paul says, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders,  and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie  and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess 2:8-12).

Am I saying that science is the antichrist? Absolutely not , but when used and controlled by bad men it become as dangerous as religion that is controlled by bad men. Like religion it can empower evil men which use their power to oppress humanity.

“Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

 

 

 

The Jack and Jill of unbelief Naturalism and Atheism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Jack and Jill of unbelief

Naturalism and Atheism

    Naturalism and atheism are the Jack and Jill of unbelief[1].  Naturalism is the world view and ideology which teaches that nature is all there is and rejects all spiritual or supernatural explanations of the world[2].  On the other hand, atheism is simply a non-belief in the existence of God.  However, when someone is challenged to prove their atheism they usually turn to naturalism, which is a belief and a world view.

Now, naturalism assumes that its explanation of reality is true, but its explanation is based upon s the fundamental assumption that there is no God and nothing, other than nature, exists.  In order for any of their explanations to be true,  they must first prove their fundamental assumption within their own world view, but unlike atheism they have a belief to prove.  Furthermore, their basic assumption cannot be proven by science because the question of the existence of God is outside of the realm of science[3].

So, the naturalist explains everything, as though there is no God and then they say that their explanation is proof that there is no God.  But, if their explanation does not come from science, where does it come from?  Could it be their imagination?  And is not their claim just circular reasoning?  They say that their explanation proves their assumption, and that their assumption proves their explanation.  Their whole argument is based on faith in their assumption that there is no God.  Since when does simply having an alternative view ascertain that view as the truth?

Their explanation, which I call the ‘tall tale’, does not in itself  prove it is rational or true. It is simply a human construct that offers an alternative view to theism[4].  A naturalist is different from an atheist in that the atheist denies the existence of God; the naturalist has a world view or a belief which does not include God and it assumes that he does not exist.  Then they use their assumption that there is no God to prove their naturalistic explanation of everything and then they use their explanation to prove their assumption.  Remember that an  explanation and an interpretation are not the same as evidence or reality. The interpretation is not the reality. The map is not the territory.

Atheism is a denial of God’s existence and it is a non-belief.  However, atheism is seldom alone and it needs materialism and naturalism to support its non-belief.  As soon as the atheist commences to explain the world though naturalism, they become a believer and begin to live by faith within the naturalistic explanation and assumptions.  When this happens the burden of proof is as much on them as it is on the theist.  Of course, they have no proof but only the explanation and assumptions of materialism and naturalism.  Their so-called evidence and proof all hang on their tall tale, most of which come from their fertile imagination.

What we have in naturalism is a series of assumptions (1). All that exists is nature and she is the whole show.  There is nothing outside of her to intervene in her course (non-provable assumption).  (2). That reason alone can figure her out (non-provable assumption).  (3) That she is controlled by certain laws, that allow reason to work.  Of course this raises the question, how  can mindless nature create the laws of nature?[5]  (4). Reason then assumes that she (nature) is irrational and chaotic, no design and direction, which contradicts number two (reason cannot figure out chaos).  (5) Based on reason (physics) nature had a begin and an end. This seems to indicate that there is something outside of her that brought her into existence.  However, this contradicts  assumption number one, that there is nothing outside of  nature.  Is the idea of something coming from nothing reasonable, or is this an unreasonable faith which comes out of an atheistic necessity?

[1] Like Jack and Jill naturalism and atheism stands or falls together.

[2] Seeing that we only have a limited knowledge of what makes up the universe, it takes a great deal of faith to believe that nature is the whole show or the only thing that exists.  My word, we cannot even define nature.

[3] 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.

[4] Both naturalism and theism have a story to tell.

[5] The naturalist usually responds by shrugging their shoulders and saying they were always there. You can have eternal laws but you cannot have any eternal lawgiver.

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Extraordinary evidence

Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”  The problem with this is that Sagan does not define what would constitute an extraordinary claim[1] or what would represent extraordinary evidence.  So, no matter what evidence you give the skeptic he will simply say it is not evidence or it is not extraordinary evidence.  The skeptic then becomes the judge of what is evidence, what is not evidence, and what is extraordinary evidence.  From this simple observation I would have to conclude that evidence is for the seeker or for a person who has the will to believe.  A seeker or a person who has a will to believe is surely not a person who has a prior commitment to skepticism.

 

Usually, what the skeptic wants is absolute or overwhelming evidence.  In other words he wants you to beat him into submission.  Of course, this is a requirement and condition that many skeptics only apply to the existence of God.  For example, many of them believe in the string theory and the existence of aliens, both of which have no evidence at the present time, yet they believe these highly speculative theories.  So, what is the difference between these  beliefs and the belief in a deity?  These theories seem to be extraordinary claims, which means they should all have extraordinary evidence to prove them.  However, they have none and yet they are believed.  This is said not to disagree with Carl Sagan but rather to show the inconsistencies of skeptics and their bias towards faith in God.  Many of them have a prior commitment to materialism and atheism[2].

We also need to point out that you can prove very little to a person who has a will to doubt.  René Descartes the famous French philosopher believed that you could only prove to yourself your own existence.  Thus his famous statement, “I think therefore I am”[3].  When people demand proof before they will believe something, they are asking for a lot.  Proof and evidence seem to be somewhat in the eyes of the beholder.  Absolute proof cannot be given, because a person could claim that the thing to believe, or the evidence, is an illusion or that we live in a matrix where everything is not real.  On the other hand, there seems to be room for different degrees of evidence which point to the truthfulness of something.  There can be circumstantial evidence which is inferred from other things and there can be eyewitness evidence.

However, I do believe there is some extraordinary evidence for the existence of God.  That extraordinary evidence comes in the form of miracles.  By miracles I mean something that cannot be explained by natural causes or by the laws of nature.  When we use the word miracle we also are inferring that the things that we are talking about are very rare or only happened once in the history of the universe.  These miracles are (1) That something came from nothing. (2) That part of the something was alive. (3) That some of the living stuff had consciousness (4) That something which was alive changed into something else.

Let’s look at each one of the above.  First, that something came from nothing.[4]  This miracle happened when the universe came into existence.  Science refers to this event as the big bang theory.  If you wanted a detailed explanation of what happened in the big bang, you need to go to science.  If you go to the book of Beginnings (Genesis) it simply says in  concise speech, “In the begin God created the heavens and earth”.  In this we find that the something came not from nothing, but was rather created by a something (God).  For the how of that, you would have to go back to science again.

My question is this, what is more of extraordinary claim.  That God, an intelligent being, created the heavens and the earth or the claim of the naturalist atheist, that something came from nothing.  If you believe that something came from nothing please send me your extraordinary evidence.

The second miracle is that a part of the something that was created is alive.  When we look at the universe, its order and its complexity, we must stand in awe not only of the universe but also of the fact that there is life in it.  Life is a miracle and there is no evidence  of life coming out of nonlife today[5]. That secures the creation of life a place among miracles of miracles.

The third miracle is that some of the living stuff had consciousness; certainly we are talking about the existence of man.  The fact that the universe gave birth to a conscious being like man is an extraordinary happening beyond imagination.  There is one thing that is more miraculous than consciousness  and it is that conscious beings could believe that consciousness came from unconsciousness.

The fourth miracle is that something that was alive, changed into something else.  Yes, I am talking about evolution or continuous development.  Did you ever think about how much of a miracle, evolution is?  In essence the universe and life does not exist but it is becoming and we do not know what it is becoming.  Some say it is dying, but I don’t think so.  I think it is simply changing, growing and maturing.  Could it be evolving toward the omega point?

A part of this growth and development is still another miracle which was the resurrection of Christ into a higher life form, or the new being.  His resurrection was the last evolution of mankind into his final and complete form.  In his pre-resurrection form he was called “a root out of dry ground” which expressed the unlikelihood of his existence.  His existence like the other miracles was a onetime happening that is hard to explain.  In his death and resurrection he demonstrates something coming from nothing, something that was dead coming to life, and something changing from one state to another and becoming something else.  In this, he is the one that all existence points to. As scripture reads, “He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”.  He is the over man of Nietzsche or the omega man who is over all of creation.

I know that all of these miracles can be explained away by materialists and their tall tale of naturalism.  They tell an unbelievable story of how these things happened and then declare the story as evidence that all these miracles just happened naturally without an intelligent guide behind it.  In other words they were just accidents.  It is up to the reader to choose what they will believe.  Accidents or miracles?

[1] Sagan being an atheist or at best an agnostic only used this criteria when talking about religious questions. He seemed to have no problem with the speculative theories of physics, i.e. string theory, big bang theory and black holes. All of which are based on very thin scientific evidence. Sagan is a classic example of scientific bias, which comes from a prior commitment to materialism.

[2]  Richard Lewontin (evolutionary geneticist), s,” 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.” “Billions and Billions of Demons,” page 31 Quota in Never Pure by Shapin Steven

[3] A statement by the seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes. “I think; therefore I am” was the end of the search Descartes conducted for a statement that could not be doubted. He found that could not doubt that he himself existed, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place. In Latin (the language in which Descartes wrote), the phrase is “Cogito, ergo sum.”

[4] “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing” By Lawrence M. Krauss is an attempt to explain the universe without God  or a first cause. The book is a disappointment, for the nothing that it propounds that the universe came from, turns out to be a something.   Jan 1, 2013 by Lawrence M. Krauss and Richard Dawkins

[5] There was a time when some scientists believed in spontaneous generation, however, this theory was disproven by Louis Pasteur when he established beyond a shadow of a doubt that spontaneous generation is impossible under present day conditions. Even if science were to create life in the laboratory, it would only confirm that the lesser comes from the greater. For such an experiment would show that it took consciousness to arrange the elements to make life.  In 1953 the Miller-Urey experiment created some of the chemical ingredients that are found in basic life forms.  However, these scientists’ claim that they had done this by reproducing early earth conditions has been proven false.  Plus, it is basically a false presupposition that they created life.  A few of the building blocks of life is not life.  A few bricks are not a house.  Even if science were to create life in the laboratory, it would only confirm that the lesser comes from the greater.  For such an experiment would show that it took consciousness to arrange the elements to make life.

 

What is Religion?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, Religion

What is Religion?

  In my conversation with people about religion I have found that the term itself is difficult to define with any degree of concreteness. Some have attempted to define the word by limiting it to what people call organized religion but in doing this, they are inferring that there are other meanings. If there is an organized version of religion there must be an unorganized version. I believe if we attempt to define the concept too narrowly we will end up limiting its usage to an unwarranted degree and may subvert some usages of the word. Of course, for some subversion might be their intention.

Let’s begin with how the word is used. It is used to denote a person’s behavior or belief that they are intensely committed to. “John exercises religiously or John’s religion is exercising.” Both expressions work well to relay the idea  that John is extremely committed to exercise; to the point of being fanatical. In this context the word is used to denote excess in something, which it does not deserve it. Exercise is good, but it should not be made your ultimate concern.

Religion can also denote a commitment to an  organization as “John belongs to the Roman Catholic religion” or Dick is  a follower of the Moslem religion. This commitment can go beyond a commitment to an organized religion.  It can be a devotion or commitment to a belief, behavior or lifestyle.  The stoic religious was to practice virtue. This seems to be the way that is used in the Bible. When James says, “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1;27).

From the above, we can gather that the word has various shades of meaning, which is determined by context. Can a non-belief or a negative belief be a person’s religion? Yes, if one is committed to it intensely. e.g. .if one spends an inordinate amount time on it. It could be said to be one’s religion[1]. “John’s religion is playing video games or debunking theism.” The latter is the religion of many of the new atheists.

When the word is used for organized religion you run into another problem of defining the word “organized.” You could say that there is no universal definition of what constitutes an organized religion. For some, a group with a leader is an organization. To others, it may take a written Constitution  with a formal membership to be classified as an organization. You can organize around a man, a group, a belief or an idea. People can organize against a belief or an idea; in this, they organize around their commonly held un-belief, which could be any negative idea. The Protestant religion was formed around a group of non-beliefs. People can belong to certain movements, which are loosely organized and formed around  a set of ideas and led very informally by a group of charismatic  leaders. You see this kind of religion in the New-Age  movement and in the new atheist movement. Both could rightly be called religion but their followers viciously contend that their movements are not a religion. However, just recently the seventh court of appeals has ruled that atheism is a religion[2] and the Supreme Court has ruled prior that secular humanism is a religion for legal purposes[3].

I have found that when people begin to split hairs about what constituted religion, they usually have an agenda. It could be a religious group (usually a cult) that wants to set itself apart from a larger group or an atheists group or individual who does not want to be compared to a faith group. In their spitting of hairs, these groups and individuals actually demonstrate they are very must a part of a religion. If not, they would have no reason to be protesting. Protestantism is a religion when it demands your attention and especially if it is your ultimate concern or an all-consuming interest as some of the new atheist have done,  many of which have been taught  to hate what they call religion to the point they are allergic to the word itself. Get over it you guys, your movement is a religion.

After reading the article my wife said to me, ” you did not answer the question what is religion?” No, I did not. There have been books written on the subject and to some degree they have all failed to encompass the entirety of the subject. To me, the best concrete definition of religion was given by Paul Tillich when  he said religion was ones “ultimate concern.”[4]  So, what is your ultimate concern? When you answer that question, you have found your religion.

[1]  The Supreme Court has held that non-theistic viewpoints can qualify as religious when they “occupy the same place in [a person’s] life as the belief in a traditional deity holds United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 187 (1965).

[2]  Note (Kaufman, James v. McCaughtry, Gary) “Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of ‘ultimate concern’ that for her occupy a ‘place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons,’ those beliefs represent her religion.”

“We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2003) (‘If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.’)”

[3] Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)

[4] Paul Tillich, “What is Religion?” and his “Systematic Theology”.

One Thing Missing-One Thing Missing An Argument Against the Existence of God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

One Thing Missing

An Argument Against the Existence of God

 Not long after I started to study atheism, it dawned on me that atheists lack one thing in their philosophy. That one thing is an argument against the existence of God. Now, this is not to say that they do not have arguments, for they have numerous arguments ranging from the nature of the world and the universe to arguments attempting to prove the superiority of their reasoning power over believers in God. They have arguments showing the source of faith and the evils of religion. However, the one thing they lack is a clearly defined argument against the existence of God.

This is one reason why they are continuously trying to shift the burden of proof to those that believe in God. Of course, their arguments about the burden of proof somehow, in their  way of thinking, it seems to further justify their arguments or should I say their lack of arguments for the non-existence of God. However, shifting the burden of proof to the believer is really a confession that they have no actual argument for their faith. If they did have a real argument, we would hear little about the burden of proof.

What about their arguments from science? They have no arguments from science[1]. The so-called arguments from science are mostly the pointing out of things that we now understand which in the past were not understood and were contributed to God by some religious men. The atheist often uses the expression, “God of the gaps”[2] as though the only reason for belief in God was to fill in the gaps in human knowledge (an assertion without any evident to support it). In fact, theologians were warning Christians not to use God in this way before atheistic scientists even came up with the idea or the expression.

Some unbelievers claim that religion slows down the march of human knowledge because people will fill the gaps either by ignoring them or by filling them in with God[3].  On the other hand, a brief survey of the history of science reveals that many discoveries,  including some of the most outstanding ones were discovered by believers. I think the truth is that dogma is what slows down progress in any discipline and science has its own brand and share of dogma. If you work against the established tradition or dogma in science, just  as in religion, you will be ostracized from the community. This God of the gap’s argument is a quibble and not a real argument, for it says nothing about God but rather demonstrates how ignorant or indifferent some men were in the past to science, and how some of them justified their ignorance.

Take, for instance, the big-bang theory, which explains how the universe came into existence. The atheists will say your see “You religious folks could not explain the creation of the universe, so you simply said God did it” e.g. the God of the gaps[4]. The believer could simply respond “We now know how God did it thanks to science.” Science tells us how, but faith tells us who; that a super-consciousness did it. He started with creating the universe out of nothing as taught in the opening verses of the Bible and then ordered it from the simple to complex. All this was taught in scripture while science was still teaching that the universe was eternal, without beginning or end.  By the way, it was a Catholic priest who first set forth the theory that is now known as the big bang[5]. It seems he was not retarded by the God of the gaps.

It is amazing that very time science finds the mechanism that God used to create or make things the atheist heralds that God is no long needed to explain things. However, finding out how God  accomplished something does not prove that he doesn’t exist, it simply tells us how he did it. Learning how Henry Ford  built the first car doesn’t prove that Henry did not existence.

The only way unbelievers can prove that God does not exist, is by starting with the dogma or presupposition that He does not exist. But, if your view (opinion) of the evidence comes from a presupposition or a dogma, you are simple reasoning in circles. Your suppositions prove the evidence, and the evidence proves your suppositions. Now, that sounds more like faith than reason and more like religion than science. Yet, this is exactly what atheists often do. In the end, the God of the gaps is just another straw man to deflect people’s attention away from the lack of real evidence. Remember that the explanation is not the evidence. To explain everything with a naturalistic explanation is not proof in itself that your explanation is indeed a fact.

In reading the material of many atheists, I have discovered that many of their supposed arguments against God appear to be more like arguments against organized religion. Of course, if you do not have any facts or an  argument against one problem (the existence of God) you need to find something else, another straw man. In arrogating their  argument about the non-existence of God, they have chosen religion as their primary straw man. I had often wondered why atheists resist the idea that there is a difference between religion and faith in God, and then it dawned on me, that to make a distinction between faith and religion would take away their straw man of religion. Once faith and religion are separated, they would have no metaphysical concept to criticize. Atheism needs organized religion in order to survive[6]. It needs a target that it can construct arguments against. It cannot construct a sound argument against God so it must target religion.

In what I am about to say I do not wish to leave the impression that I am for or against religion. However, we should strive for an accurate appraisal of religion.  When atheists argue against religion, they seem to try to focus on all the negative aspects of religion and they totally ignore all the good it has done. It appears that they believe that if you can heap enough dung on religion, it might kill it.  For some this tactic may work, but not for the honest person.  In most cases the target of  choice is the Christian religion, for it is the biggest target and is hard to miss. It is made up of billions of people throughout the ages and has attracted all types of people, some good and some bad. Like people in general, it has done good and evil. However, to be fair, in the past before the welfare state came into existence it had taken care of the poor for centuries, and it continues to minister to the poor and disadvantaged around the world. It laid the foundation for Western civilization by building schools and hospitals. It has resisted the spread of totalitarian governments around the world, which includes atheistic communism. On the other side of the coin, where are the hospitals or nursing homes, which were built by atheists? In my experience (which I admit is limited) I have never seen an organized attempt by atheists’ to minister to people in nursing homes or hospitals. Yet they rail on the evils of the Christian church. At their best, atheists use the absolute power of the state to collect money in the form of taxation to help people, which seems to be nothing more than a form coercion, which they somehow interpret as a moral virtue.

This is not to say that religion does not have its problems. But, should we expect anything different? Religion is made up of human beings and humans have a propensity for messing things up. Where is the human system that has not failed to live up to its ideals? I think the best,  that humans can do is to make sure that the system  they cling to offer a higher vision of human potential, but we should not be surprised when they fail. This holding out of a high vision of human potential, I believe is done to varying degrees by most religions. Of course, like everything, there are good religion and bad religion. This is simply a fact that many atheists do not recognize.  The radical atheist believes that religion poisons everything, and this faith demonstrates their distorted view of reality. It is totally out of balance and is just not true. What I am calling for is a fair and accurate view of religion, which many atheists have not done.

However, ones view of religion has nothing to do with the question of God. At this point, the matter of the utilitarian nature of religion is a question that can be debated, but is seldom actually  brought up by atheists.  Religion is typically brought up as a straw man by atheists to divert people’s attention away from the question of God’s existence, since they have no real answers or arguments. At best, they raise some questions and make shallow attempts to use science to prove their faith and dogmas.

Some may reply that their conclusion from science, that there is no God, is inferred from  scientific fact. That may be true, but inferences are not facts. Facts, like stone lying on the ground, tell you nothing[7].  An inference is simply your interpretation of the facts. Inferences or interpretations are not based on reason alone. Reason is one part of the equation and is never alone. There) are hidden biases and suppositions in any inference. An honest person of faith will admit this by adding the element of faith to the equation. It is the atheist who hangs on to the enlightenment faith and dogma that reason can stand alone. In many cases, reason is the handmaid of one’s passion and dogma.

In my personal discussions with atheists, again I admit that it’s limited, I have sensed that their views of God and religion are influenced by strong passions of anger and hatred, which seem for most to be void of any real personal source. I have asked them what religion had done to them, to make them so bitter toward it. Some retort that their father made them go to church or that their parents were religious, and it did not help them; they were hypocrites. Others have pointed to all the bad done by religion in the past. But, does religion hurt people or do people hurt people.  You see religion is neutral. Its character is made up of the people in it.  In this, it is like government; it can be good or bad depending on the men and women in it. I can hardly believe that reasonable people will use reasons like this to reject God or for that matter, even religion. However, there is a reason for their rationale and in most cases; no one will ever know the true root of their unbelief. For those interested in reading more about the possible reasons for atheism see my article entitled the “Roots of Atheism, The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist.”

[1] Werner Heisenberg physicist and Nobel prize winner for physics confirms  this, “If anyone wants to argue from the indubitable fact that the world exists to a cause of this existence, then this assumption does not contradict our scientific knowledge at a single point.  Scientists do not have a single argument or fact with which they would contradict such an assumption, even if it was about a cause which–how could it be otherwise– would evidently have to be sought outside our three-dimensional world” Wermer Heisenberg quoted by Hans Kung Pages 79-80 in “The beginning of All Things: Science and Religion”.

[2] The expression “God of the gaps” was coined by a Christian theologian Henry Drummond. He used it to point out that the Christian should never use God to fill in the gaps of human knowledge.  Strangely the expression was picked up by some scientists who accused Christians of doing the very thing Drummond condemned.

[3] Atheists and scientist might consider that early man was just not interested in filling the gaps. History bear out that they were wholly capable of filling a number of the gaps if they so desired. However, they were busy building languages, systems of thought, religion and political theory, which were a necessary foundation for modern science.

[4] Christians and Jews have believed for centuries the universe was created. It was science, which lagged behind for thousands of years. Before the Big Bang theory science believed that the universe was eternal with no beginning or ending.

[5]  Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest, was the first to propose the bi… g bang theory and was given approval by the Pope to publish it.

[6] Atheism is a negative parasitical worldview which is wholly dependent on religion. Without religion it would contribute nothing to humanity.

[7] See my article on “Rocks on The Ground” on lyleduell.me.

What Do Rocks on The Ground Prove?-Evolution and The Fossil Record

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

What Do Rocks on The Ground Prove?

Evolution and The Fossil Record

 

One huge problem with Darwinian evolution is not the theory itself but rather those evolutionists who believe it and who say the evidence for it is in the fossil record. However, when asked about the anomalies and other problems with the fossil record, they will say the problem is that the earth tends to erase its history and therefore the fossil record is not complete, which may be true. But if the fossil record is complete enough to say that Darwin’s evolution is a fact[1], it seems it should be complete enough to answer the anomalies and other problems that the fossil record presents. The truth is that evolutionists have made so many claims about the fossil record that it hard to know the truth from fiction. The truth is that fossils are just like rocks lying on the ground. The narrative that you give to explain them comes partially from preconceived ideas, one’s imagination, and one’s indoctrination. However, absolute knowledge of how they actually got there is unknowable unless you were there to witness it, and the only way you could get that kind of knowledge is to create a time machine to carry you back in time so you could witness those past events. The problem is that for many evolutionist the narrative has become the facts and the evidence in itself. In other words the map has become the territory.

The other day I saw a truck dumping a pile of rocks on the ground. I wonder what the explanation of this event would look like 10,000 years after a great ice age had erased human history, a time when there were no dump trucks. How do you think the rocks would be explained? Do you think mankind would just throw up their hands and say there are no answers to the rock pile, or would they come up with a convoluted story? What kind of story would they come up with if they were told they could not make any appeal to intelligence of any kind, and that they would have to explain it totally by citing natural causes?

Let’s take my illustration of stones on the ground and analyze it using the scientific method. The question would be: How did the stones get on the ground? For the fun of it, let’s use some real stones. Let’s look at the rocks at Stonehenge, which is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. The fact is that these stones are sitting on the ground in an orderly fashion in Wiltshire, England. With this observation, we have the facts that there are rocks on the ground and they are arranged in an orderly fashion. Next comes the question: How did the rocks get there? Then we would have to come up with a hypothesis or a guess of how they got there. Well, because they are arranged in an orderly way, we would think it safe to infer that an intelligent creature was involved in placing them on the ground. Of course, that is an assumption, something which we had inferred from the order and design of Stonehenge. So this data that points to design would rule out any hypothesis that an act of nature alone placed them there, or at least it makes it highly improbable. Therefore, we could eliminate the theory that stones were placed by glaciers, volcanoes, or the shifting of the earth. Now, I have heard a few hypotheses about those stones and how they were placed on the ground. (1) They were placed by a deity. (2) An alien life form from space placed them on the ground. (3) Lastly, somehow ancient man placed them on the ground through some method as yet unknown. All these theories have one thing in common. They all have an element of intelligence built into them based on the intelligent order of the stones.[2].

Now, here is the problem. The Stonehenge stones are prehistoric. In other words, they were placed before recorded history began. There are no written records of how they got there and there are no witnesses left alive that were present at their placing. This means that if I put together a narrative or a story of how these stones came to sit on the earth the way they do; it would have to come from my imagination more than the facts, for the facts end with their existence and their orderly placement. They have no story to tell other than they exist in their order. If I am good at spinning a story with graphic details, one could write a textbook and even make a movie of how the stones were set on the earth. If I was really good, I could come up with a whole scientific scenario which would explain how they got where they are, but no matter how detailed or graphic the story was, it still would only be a story made up by my imagination. However, if the story was told enough times by people, others would begin to believe the story to be a fact. It still would be only a myth. You see, man is incorrigibly gullible and will fall for a good story every time. In fact, the more unbelievable the story, the more likely they will fall for it. The bigger the lie, the more believable it becomes. The reason for this is that people cannot believe that anyone would have the arrogance and audacity to tell such a story.

What about applying the scientific method[3] to discover the truth about the stones? The scientific method will not work for the question of how the stones got there for two reasons. Though the facts can be observed (the rocks on the ground), the way they got there cannot be observed, and the scientific method requires the observation of the thing being studied or questioned.[4] The question is how the rocks got on the ground. You can observe the rocks on the ground, but you cannot observe how they got there, for it was a onetime happening, which took place before recorded history and cannot be observed. Therefore, the scientific method cannot be applied. The scientific method also requires experimentation to verify one’s hypothesis. There is no experiment that could reproduce the erection of the stones. How could there be, seeing as we know nothing of how they were first erected? We could bring in equipment, e.g., bulldozers, excavators, and cranes and reproduce the site, but this would not be re-creating the original erection or construction method. The new model that we erect would prove nothing more than the original facts, i.e., that there are stones on the ground and that an intelligent being erected them. In view of this, we have to conclude that any hypothesis about how Stonehenge was constructed would be nothing more than a guess and would not be science and could never be called a fact of science.

To say that the knowledge we have of Stonehenge is not based on science is not earthshaking, but what if we apply the same logic to the fossil record? The truth is that fossils are like the stones of Stonehenge. They’re just there. In themselves, they have no story to tell other than the one we read into them. And what story do we read into them? It is a story that was popularized by Charles Darwin; one he created without any scientific evidence that natural selection had ever produced a new species.[5] Darwin had heard these stories of how evolution happened from his father and grandfather all of his life. When he sailed to the islands on the ship H.M.S. Beagle, he did not go as an unbiased bystander, but rather as man on a quest to prove a preconceived idea. He surely did not come to his conclusion by the scientific method nor did the scientific community of his day which accepted his theories without any evidence. Their beliefs in his story came out of a need to tie together or complete a naturalistic way of looking at everything. The result was that the scientific method was completely ignored when it came to the new science of evolution. It was given a pass because the only other explanation would be God, which the scientific community could not accept. Necessity is the mother of invention and we can add, it is the mother of some unbelievable stories.

Another example of a tall tale is the story of the caveman, which is used to support the evolution story or could it be that the evolution story is used to support the caveman story? Either way, it goes something like this: Once upon a time there were hairy ape-like creatures that lived in caves in Europe and elsewhere. The caveman creature was the ancient ancestor of modern man but quite primitive in his morals and mating practices. The caveman was less intelligent than we are and secured his food by hunting. He painted pictures on the walls of his caves, and we know that he knew how to use primitive tools because we have found them in caves with some of his remains. He was so different from us that he was not the same species and could not interbreed with us Homo sapiens.[6]

How much of the caveman lore is based on science and how much is based on the preconceived idea of progressive evolution read into the fossil evidence? The facts that are based on science, which can be proven, are very few. The actual facts tell us that there were some men in the past who sometimes inhabited caves. However, there are probably more living in caves today than there were then. At least some of these prehistoric men used tools and could draw pictures. That’s it for the science. The rest of what you have learned about cavemen is fiction and came from the fertile imagination of those who could spin a fine tale.

Here are a few things that are based on modern man’s assumptions, which in turn are based on our belief in progressive evolution. The caveman was less intelligent than we are. He had a lot of hair all over his body, a protruding jaw, huge eye sockets, a large sloping forehead, all of which is actually the description of one of my neighbors. Maybe my neighbor is the missing link. Back to the unscientific gibberish. He was a brute and forcibly mated with the females of his species. He carried around a club to subdue the females. He was a polygamist and had a herd of females with whom he mated. He lived permanently in caves. In actuality, this sounds like a want-to-be list for a lot of American males.

But did he really live in caves or were they just temporary shelters in severe weather, or were they places of worship? Could they have been safe places for woman and children? Could the picture on the walls of the caves have been done by children, like children write on the walls of their bedrooms as my children did? I know, for I had to clean the writing off. Could caves have been a burial ground like the Pyramids in Egypt, a stronghold in time of war, or maybe a nursery for the kids?

All this was said about cavemen to point out there are many things we assume to know, which in truth, we are actually quite ignorant of. It would seem that much of what we call science and history is nothing but speculations drawn from our imaginations and presented as facts.[7] We tend to blindly trust the system of authority which teaches these things without anyone questioning the source of its facts and its interpretation of the facts. These authorities propagate their assumptions by setting themselves up in privileged positions of authority in our universities and schools, leaving the impression that they have special access to the truth, which sounds a little like priest craft to me.

The answer is for us to start asking a similar question as the one which God asked Adam: “Who told you that?” We need to ask this question to ourselves and of other men we are listening to. This includes those in our universities. We also need to learn how to distinguish or discern the difference between the facts and people’s interpretation of the facts. You will find that this is very difficult for most people and involves a great deal of thought and practice.

[1] Evolution is a fact, you see it taking place everywhere in the creation. However, Darwinian evolution is not a fact but only a theory.

[2] What would you say of a discipline or men who told you to ignore the design and come up with a theory of how the stones got there without making any appeal to intelligent design? Is not design in this case a self-evident truth?

[3] The scientific method is a systematic system used by scientists to logically form their conclusions. (1) Frame a question. (2) Collect the data. (3) Create a hypothesis. (4) Do experiments. (4) Make observations. (5) Try to falsify the hypothesis. (6) Publish your findings to the community for review.

[4] Hypotheses without tests are no more than cocktail party chatter and are without value except perhaps as entertainment. They are not science. (My emphasis) Henry Gee, Deep Time Henry Gee is a senior editor at Nature. He holds a PhD in Zoology from Cambridge.

[5] The Road of Science and the Ways to God by Stanley L. Jaki Page 282, the University of Chicago Press.

[6] This has just been debunked by DNA studies at Harvard. Harvard Gazette, January 29, 2014.

[7] Henry Gee in his book Deep Time gives a realistic history of what we know and what we don’t know about the history of the earth.

I Believe (An essay on science and faith)

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

Author:  Skip Reith

Date:  9/26/2015

I Believe

I believe!  These two little words contain a lot of power.  These two little words are also misused, misunderstood, abused, and often ridiculed.  What do we mean when we say I believe?  That is what I will explore today.

Belief is that understanding a person has when they analyze and process all of the facts and information they have on a particular subject.  Belief can come from direct observation (I’ve been to New York so I believe it exists); or belief can come from indirect information – that is from an authority on the subject (I’ve never been to Tokyo, but I believe it exists because I have been told by maps and people who have been there that it exists).

One important note before I continue.  When I use the term authority here, I am not talking about some governmental organization.  I am talking about an expert on the subject whose knowledge, skill, and background gives them a special place in the hierarchy of understanding on the subject.  An authoritative source is one step up from an expert.  If the authoritative source is a person then that source not only is an expert, but that person also has a breadth and depth of knowledge around the main subject that allows them broad understanding on the subject.  If the source is not a person, then the source is complete and detailed.  For example, a professional astronomer with 30 years experience is an authority on astronomy.  The complete body of written papers and books on astronomy is an authoritative source on the subject.  In addition, an authority on the subject is one that other people agree and believe is an authority on the subject.  Is possible to think a person is an authority on a subject when they are actually not an expert and may have little knowledge in the subject.  (This technique is used all of the time by advertisers.  They get a famous person to promote their product.  Since people know the authority of the famous person’s specialty, they subconsciously assign authority to this other, advertised subject as well.)

Let’s look at belief in more detail.  Belief and knowledge are similar, but not identical.  Belief is your understanding of a situation, but you may not be able to prove that understanding to another.  Knowledge is a direct understanding of something that you can easily prove.  I know one plus one equals two and I can prove it in a number of ways, including demonstrating the summation with two pennies.  I know New York exists (or at least it did) because I was there.  I cannot prove its existence now because I am not there.  I can show evidence of my trip (pictures and souvenirs) but until I go back I can’t definitively prove its existence.  So, at the moment I believe that New York exists.  My belief in the existence of Tokyo is indirect.  My only proof is the maps and pictures I have seen of Tokyo.  If someone does not accept the authority of my proofs then they will not believe in Tokyo.

Science is the attempt to quantify beliefs and turn them into provable knowledge while authenticating the proofs.  The scientific method (described in my Observation – Applying the Scientific Method to Religion) is a disciplined approach to proving an understanding and turning belief into knowledge.  For example, I could apply the scientific method and fly to Tokyo and prove to myself that it exists, turning my belief into knowledge.

The problem with science is that it can only prove physical things.  It can prove the existence of matter and the existence of something called gravity, and so on.  It can dig out the understanding of how things function and explain the interactions of various objects.  Science also has beliefs, but to make it sound more important, scientists call those beliefs theories.  The scientific method attempts to prove that the theories are correct and to expand the understanding and details of those theories.

Science cannot prove strictly personal items.  It is not possible to weigh love, measure directly satisfaction, or count hate.  It is not even possible to directly analyze pain.  Scientists try to measure these strictly personal objects, but everything science does with these items is indirect.  For example, a doctor may ask you your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, but that is a subjective measure and not an objective measure.  It is impossible for the doctor to measure directly your pain level.  The doctor cannot get a scale out and weigh your pain.  Even brain scans and EEG measurements do not measure pain they just measure physiological response to nerve stimulation.  Your awareness of pain is greater and more personal than the physiological response.

Consider, for example, love.  I know that I love my wife, son, step children, grandchild, dog, cats, and so on.  I cannot prove that love, except by my actions and that is just indirect.  No one could take out a ruler and measure my love.  Science cannot apply the scientific method to my love in such a way that others could know definitively my love.  Love is completely and utterly personal.

It is impossible for one person to know directly what another person feels.  Even if we could hook two people’s brains together, they still could not know each other’s feelings because our emotions, our response to external stimulations, our core being is determined by every experience we have had up to that point.  Since no two people follow the same path in life, no two people experience emotions the same way.  This puts love in the belief column.  Although I KNOW I love my family, I cannot prove it.  So ultimately, I can only say I believe in my love.

Others may believe that I do, in fact, love my family.  Others experience love themselves, and even though they do not have the same feelings towards my family as I do, they understand that those feelings exist.  Sometimes people may not understand why that particular feeling exists (“how is possible that people actually loved Hitler”), but they understand that there is such feelings.

What about stuff that many people may not experience directly?  What about, for example, spiritual experiences that many people may never encounter.  If something like love cannot be quantized or measured and therefore are not subject to the scientific method, something like spiritual experiences are even further removed from science.  If we cannot prove our love to another, when that other person also experiences love, how can we prove spirituality and religious belief to someone who has never undergone that experience?  It is at this point that ridicule and disbelief occur.

If a person cannot understand directly a spiritual belief of another and has no indirect proof, then that person is faced with a problem.  If the unbeliever (atheist) accepts that the other has had a spiritual experience, then that means the atheist is deficient in some manner.  Unless the atheist wants to admit this deficiency (which is rare) they then have to take the second path – trying to prove the other person’s beliefs are false.  Yet, spiritual experiences are not something you can measure.  It is not possible for the atheist to get out a scale and say “see your belief does not measure up!”  The attack on spiritual and religious knowledge must take different approaches.

One approach is the strawman approach.  In this approach, the atheist constructs a strawman; that is, they liken the religious belief to some other, more tangible belief, and then attack the strawman.  For example, someone could say that the belief in God is like the belief in Santa Claus.  Since we all know Santa Claus does not exist, it is obvious that God does not exist.  This argument fails on many dimensions.

Santa Claus is a belief children develop because they accepted their parents and adults as an authority on the subject.  The adults lied to the children (we hide that fact by calling it a fantasy or a story, but it is still a lie).  The children have no other source, so they accept the adult’s authority.  They believe in the existence of Santa Claus on authority of the lying adults.  Once the children grow old enough to perform an independent validation, they uncover the lie.  Their belief changes because they have new facts and data.

An atheist saying that belief in God is like a belief in Santa Claus is actually saying that belief in God is like a belief in a lie that some authority told you.  This may hold for children and extremely gullible people, but it does not hold for discerning, open minded adults who have directly experienced God.  In addition, the believer has additional proof of God that the believer in Santa Claus does not have.  There are corroborating historical documents that validate some of the religious writings.  There is the fact that millions of people have died for their belief – something that has not happened over the belief in Santa Claus.  More importantly, the belief in God is open to everyone, and everyone can run the religious experiment.  That is, each person has the opportunity to follow the authoritative sources on God and see the results for themselves.

The other approach an atheist can try to discredit a religious belief is to claim that science has never proved God exists and they only believe in science.  Before I get into what science can and cannot prove I have to address this belief in science.  Science has brought a lot of knowledge and understanding to the world.  Science has enabled a lot of engineering and technology that brings enhanced medicines, labor saving devices, and so on.  (It also enhanced war, pollution, oppression, and other ills, but we don’t need to go there for our current discussion.)  So, saying you believe in science seems reasonable.  The problem is most people have no idea what they are talking about or what they believe in when they say they believe in science.

First off, almost everything we call science these days is actually engineering.  Computers, cell phones, air planes, medicines, surgical procedures, cars, TVs, and on and on are all engineering feats.  For the most part, the science on these things is done behind closed doors and people never see the actual science.  Most people wouldn’t even know the scientific method if it hit them in the face.  So, what people are really saying when they say they believe in science is that they believe in the technology they have and they believe the authoritative sources that they are exposed to who proclaim the greatness of science.

Let’s look at those authoritative sources.  In most countries a major part of scientific research is funded by the government.  Research gets published in journals, but most people have never even seen a scientific journal, let alone read one.  Even though scientists publish, the publication is controlled by a review from scientific peers.  The government controls what scientists investigate through funding, and therefore control what scientists understand and believe.  I will point out that the government is controlled by politicians and bureaucrats not scientists or even people with a scientific background.

People’s exposure to science first comes about in school.  The classes are taught by the teachers, who are managed by administrators, and the whole thing is controlled and regulated by the government.  A lot or research and enhanced scientific advances come from universities.  Universities get a major part of their funding either directly (through grants) or indirectly (through tuition) that is paid by the government.  Other sources of scientific information and “discovery” comes from governmental agencies like NASA, national science foundation, food and drug administration, US department of agriculture, the atomic energy commission and its various follow on agencies, the department of defense, environmental protection agency, national weather service, US geological survey, and on and on.

Some people are exposed to science through things like public television.  Public TV gets a majority of their funding from the government.  If you perform a review of a lot of “scientific” articles on public media you will find that a lot comes from some governmental source (like NASA). Non-governmental entities, like the Discovery Channel may present “scientific documentaries” but these are often sensationalized stories.  Interestingly enough, many of the critics of these documentaries are government funded agencies and government supported public media.

So, when a person says they believe in science, they are really saying that they believe in the government.  The government is controlled and run by politicians, and we all know that politicians lie, cheat, twist the truth, hide information, and do whatever they can to remain in power.  Since most people have no direct experience with science, then when an atheist says they believe in science what they are saying is that their belief is just like the belief in Santa Claus – it’s based on a lie.

As I have shown, science cannot prove or disprove love.  Science cannot measure anything that is personal.  Scientists cannot measure thoughts, feelings, ideas, responses, or any of thousands of deeply personal experiences.  Yet, we all know these are real.  Science cannot answer basic questions like why does the universe exist or what is the meaning of life?  While modern science has discovered a huge amount about the physical reality, there is way more to our existence than just the physical.

Science (as people define science, which are the physical and social sciences) cannot, and never will, be able to scientifically prove personal, internal experiences of people.  Science is limited.  So, when an atheist says they only believe in science, they are also saying that they do not believe in emotions, thoughts, ideals, creativity, art, spirituality, honor, or God.  That’s kind of a limited point of view.

When I say I believe in God, I am not saying that I believe that someone once told me God exists and I accept their authority on the subject.  I say I believe because I have personal knowledge that I have tested using the scientific method.  I have investigated life with and without God.  I have researched God, the authoritative writings, and talked with people who I feel are experts on the subject (both for and against).  I have weighed all of the evidence and data and I have found that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of believing that God exists.

I cannot prove God’s existence.  I cannot pull out a photograph of God or take out my telescope and show you God.  However, I have looked deep inside myself and have found God there, waiting for me.  I cannot force you to believe.  I can only say that if you run the experiment – that is, if you follow the teachings of an authoritative source on religion and God, then you too may experience God in a way similar to (but not exactly the same as) my experience.

I hope you do.  I hope that you run the experiment and prove to yourself the existence of God.  However, if you instead try to hide behind science and use science as a shield, you will find that the shield is very small indeed and not much protection against larger truths.