Is there any reason to believe that science isn't as debased as the arts are in our day? We can see how Rationalism has destroyed artists who bought into it (e.g. John Cage, Jackson Pollack, etc.) but is there reason to believe this hasn't happened in the sciences?
I think we must assume the same negative (destructive, corrosive) process has been affecting scientists... but do we see any evidence of this? A big difference here is that while art deals with small c. creation; science deals with discovery. This means we have to be careful in our analysis.
I think it's when they come to dealing with specifically human issues that scientists have been affected by Rationalism. (It doesn't require a great deal of spiritual acumen to deal with inert matter, but it takes true wisdom to be able to deal with human issues correctly.) This is even more the case when these issues cross major biblical doctrines.
In my opinion ideas like a universe coming from nothing without cause is as absurd as a Pollack painting. The idea life came from non-life as absurd as a Cage silent sonata. The idea man 'evolved' from the animals as absurd as Duchamp exhibiting a urinal as art. In these examples (and there are storehouses full of others) we see that ideas trump art; that the idea art should be about representing the creation has been supplanted by the idea of art as the expression of individual ideas and feelings.
The new artist (having imbibed of Rationalism) claims that art is anything he says it is. He forces his view of things onto the world. Is a urinal really art? Is someone sitting with folded hands at a piano really music? Is a can with holes in it dripping onto a canvas below really art? It wouldn't appear so. People in previous eras would have mocked such a notion. But yet we're told (very seriously) that this is indeed art, and that we're too simple minded to understand (if we should dare to disagree). So who's right? Is it art or not?
What has happened is that a complex of ideas called Rationalism has trumped all other views in the last century or so. This basic idea has determined how artists and scientists (etc) view the world. The rational trumps the real as they say. The Rationalist (materialist, atheist) knows a priori that no creator god exists, and therefore there has to be a materialistic explanation for everything. (Even for himself.)
This insistence on materialism affects even the scientist (though it affects the artist more) as he endeavors to make discoveries about the universe. ie. he knows in advance (he thinks) what he can and cannot discover. e.g. if he sees something that appears to be Design, he knows it cannot be evidence of design... and so his 'eyes' are deceiving him; what he sees can only be the appearance of design. The result is that we have a new definition of science. As art was redefined so now is science. Science we're told isn't about discovering the truth, but it's about finding materialistic explanations for everything in the universe. Truth has been displaced by Materialism. This new definition limits what the scientist can discover, and it means he will be forced to formulate theories that have little or nothing to do with reality. (If we assume materialism is a false notion.)
A key idea behind modern art is that truth doesn't exist. If all is merely matter in motion the idea of truth is obsolete. This means that art is anything one says it is. This idea can't help infecting scientists as well. I see more and more people interested in telling accepted or desired stories rather than caring about truth. (The modern artist and the modern materialist in science are basically telling the same story. ie. all is merely matter in motion, and this means that traditional ideas of man and truth are obsolete. Science is becoming less a field involved in discovery, and more a field that's engaged in creating various models that fit with materialist assumptions.)
One could make the argument that a painter like Rembrandt was more of a scientist than some of our cosmologists who speak of a universe coming from nothing or who talk about many universes and the like. He at least was concerned with giving a representation of reality; an order he took to be God created.
It's interesting to me that the faithful rendering of human beings is absent from abstract art. Why? Isn't it because Materialism has murdered man? turned him into chemicals and particles. He's as absent from these paintings as God is. The scientist tells us there was no God behind creation, and the artist shows us a world where man has disappeared as well. Rationalism has led to the death of god and then to the death of man.) Of course this isn't the case with popular culture, where the human form is exploited with a heartless gusto unparalled in our history. But the human forms of popular (porno) culture aren't the men and women of traditional culture. The concept of man that christianity presented to the world has been replaced by something new; the trousered (or not) ape of Rationalism. (Not exactly the kind of fellow who would paint himself into the crowd at a crucifixion scene.)
It's in the human sciences that we see the most horrific influence of Rationalism. (Defined as man as the only starting point for knowledge. i.e. the universe is what man determines that it is.) Here we see the obscenities of modern art as in a mirror. e.g. man has no mind, but only a brain. Thought is an excretion of the brain. (Now do you understand why artists have hung bags of their own waste on gallery walls and called it art?)
We see the 'Skinnerian' notion that man is just an animal and should be treated as one. (And so all the art featuring man as animal, and Picasso grotesqueries.) Man has no soul. (And thus the blank canvas as art.) There is no truth and no meaning. (Random drippings on a canvas.) Beauty is an illusion. (Painted soup cans.)
If man is just matter in motion then he can be best explained by the methods of the hard sciences; thus the obsession with measurement and chemical levels of this and that. In the end the dream is to treat man in mathematical terms. (We see the beginnings of such a program in various quota systems.) In the end (as Da Vinci feared) man will be treated like a number. So when we come to the end of the road Rationalism has turned man into an animal, then a collection of chemicals, and finally a number. (Should we say thanks?)
If all is matter in motion there can be no meaning (in a transcendent sense) this means that people must try to find some individual meaning in things. (An individual meaning isn't really meaning at all, but we'll let that pass.) This means he must impress his meaning upon a meaningless universe. He thus knows ultimate meaning doesn't exist, but must create some substitute meaning to cover up this naked fact. What this means is that an illusion must substitute for reality. We already see this playing out in art, but as scientists move further away from basic discoveries (we might date the modern advance from Galileo) they move further into areas of theory and speculation... and its here that the influence of Rationalism comes into play.
The assumption of materialism cannot allow certain ideas (or claims) about the universe to be true. This means there are some avenues the rationalist can't go down. This means he must come up with models of the universe (and its workings) that are attractive to the postulates of his wview. Thus story will trump discovery if the data appear contrary to the basic materialist assumption.
As art is more and more about ideas (as opposed to representing the creation) so science is becoming more and more about ideas. (I realize this notion runs counter to the common conception of scientists getting ever closer to a true view of reality as time passes.) I fear that as art has 'gone off the deep end' as we say, so science will do the same. (I see this as already happening in various fields and specialties. e.g. so called neuro-psychology; the rejection of sin for chemical imbalance; speculations like multiverses; Darwinian views of literature and justice; and so on.) We've seen art become painted philosophy; will we see science become painted philosophy as well? (eg. The idea there cannot be a creator god isn't science, but philosophy masquerading as science.)
The rationalist doesn't know what art is all about; neither does he know what life is all about. If man is but matter in motion, then it follows that man's life isn't about anything at all. (This is as certain a conclusion as there is no god.) In biblical terms art and science are ways of taking dominion over the earth, and of responding to the negative effects of the fall. Life is about communion (relationship) with god; and this means living in conformity with God's commandments. Since that's what life is all about; that's what art and science are all about. (Religion, art and science are separate spheres of man's life; but all have a similar impetus or source.)
Notes;
1. A good example of rationalist thinking is Kant's rejection of the atonement. He rejects it solely on the basis of his own thinking. He finds the idea absurd and so rejects it. i.e. nothing can be true if it violates his idea of what must be the case. [Religion within the limits of reason alone]
2. Notes on true art;
'In all Liberal Arts, in the most as well as in the least important, the praise and glory of God are to be enhanced. The arts, says he, have been given us for our comfort, in this our depressed estate of life. They react against the corruption of life and nature by the curse. - Kuyper/Lectures on Calvinism/#5/153
- The modern' art of our day is comfort to no one - except maybe Satan himself.
- This connection between the Fall and art is a fascinating one. It would seem that the modern (rationalist) artist in rejecting the idea of the fall, has lost a major source of motivation to produce great (beautious) art. ie. since he sees our world as 'normal' (ie. unfallen) he sees beauty as unreal, as a kind of sentimentalist yearning for illusions... rather than as a longing for an unfallen state (or for a redemption to come). We might look at art (in its christian sense) as a longing for redemption... as enjoying a glimpse of our redeemed state as it were. (In beautiful art we see ourselves as unfallen, and living in an unfallen world. (Not that this is all art is; true art can also show us our fallenness; it shows both sides or all sides. True art then shows us creation, the fall, and redemption.)
3. 'In view of all this we may say that Calvin esteemed art, in all its ramifications, as a gift of God, or, more especially, as a gift of the Holy Ghost; that he fully grasped the profound effects worked by art upon the life of the emotions ; that he appreciated the end for which art has been given, viz., that by it we
might glorify God, and ennoble human life, and drink at the fountain of higher pleasures, yea even of common sport ; and finally, that so far from considering art as a mere imitation of nature, he attributed to it the noble vocation of disclosing to man a higher reality than was offered to us by this sinful and corrupted world.' ibid
4. 'But if you confess that the world once was beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beautiful of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster. ibid/p.155
- the Christian lives (spiritually) in 3 worlds; the perfect world of creation, the fallen world of today, and the redeemed world of the new heavens and the new earth. He goes wrong when he denies or ignores any of these three.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Deconstructing the creation
In this post I want to compare the Darwinist 'reading' of creation with our PC professors and their (deconstructionist) readings of literature. If you want a name for it, you might call it deconstructing Darwin.
Quotes and comments;
A. I was listening to a lecture on Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and the person giving the lecture mentioned some of the strange new interpretations of the play. As an example; a Stephen Greenblatt claimed the Tempest was all about colonialism; this despite the fact the island in question has no natives (not really) and is located a few miles off the coast of Italy. In other words, professor Greenblatt has fabricated a PC version of the play for some political reason or other. He clearly doesn't care what the text said or what it was about. [1]
In my opinion Darwinists do the same kind of thing. i.e. they're determined to read 'nature' in the way they want... for reasons that have nothing to do with the living forms they're dealing with. I see little evidence they care anything about the truth, or being honest to what we might call the text. This doesn't stop them from pretending that they, of all people, are reading the 'nature' right. (Our professors do the same. Though they don't care what the text says, they usually pretend to be getting at its 'real' meaning... a meaning only the 'expert' can understand. A plain reading is just too naive and simplistic, it misses what's really going on.)
- I think we can see that if an author's (e.g. William Shakespeare) intended meaning (we might call it design) can be ignored, or given an interpretation foreign to his intent, how nature can be even more easily ignored. It's a 'dumb' text that can be used to dump whatever one wants onto it. (As an example of what I mean; they can look at the punctuated data of the fossil record and still teach a gradualist model of evolution.)
- We know that life only comes from life, but the Darwinists deny this truism and tell us life 'emerged' from inert matter once upon a time.
- Darwinists are well aware of the limits to change exhibited by living organisms (e.g. that a fruit fly remains a fruit fly no matter what you do to it) but yet they claim animals transformed themselves from one kind to another. (e.g.some mythical land animal became a whale, reptiles became mammals and so on.) In other words they deny the text and the Author and concoct whatever story they want.
This kind of deliberate 'misreading' of things is rampant on campus. The examples are numerous. We can see the same thing with what feminists say; they look at men and women, (deny the data) and claim men and women are exactly the same. You wonder how anyone can come to such an absurd conclusion; but their politics and worldview demands it, and so the data is ignored or twisted.
Let's not forget our PC theologians, as they play the same game. They can honestly (or so they claim) look at the Bible and declare that it says nothing against homosexuality; they say it says nothing about people going to Hell; they say Christians are under no commandment to obey God's law; deny the divinity and work of Christ and so on. (They also claim the bible teaches evolution, or at the least says nothing against it.) They claim that anyone who doesn't share their modernist views is misreading the text.
- Our professors make a career out of denying obvious truth. They make outrageous claims like; man has no mind; man is no different than an animal; there is no truth; God doesn't exist; Jesus didn't exist; Christianity is responsible for most of the evil in the world; (and on and on the denials go) I don't know why anyone should believe them when it comes to origins then, as they've shown they have no respect for the truth, and indeed care nothing for it. (The Bible tells us, "No one seeketh the truth, no not one." Some claim that this is an exaggeration, but it comes close enough to the mark.) [2.]
Men can be neutral (or near enough) when it comes to objects and inert things for the simple reason man isn't a thing (he transcends things, he's greater than they are), but he cannot be neutral when he looks at man, because he can't transcend himself. (Not only can't he be objective about himself, he can't even see himself as he is.)
- I could go on and on here, but clearly truth isn't a high priority for our academic elite. Few of them care about truth, and in fact a great many deny such a thing exists. I'll leave you with a question; do you think people who deny truth exists are going to tell the public the truth about Origins?
Notes;
1. lecture on Tempest [TTC: Shakespeare, Word and Action]
- I think the Greenblatt essay was 'Learning to curse' or somesuch. [The above are my comments about Greenblatt, not the lecturer. To avoid confusion I'm not giving his name.]
- The connection with the play is interesting in that Prospero is a great magician who uses books and words to control nature (etc.) So the Darwinist uses words to cast spells on people, to get them to believe they're not seeing design.. but merely seeing matter in motion. [We don't see design Richard Dawkins says; we only see the appearance of design.] Words are a form of power for the professor of our day (and self-consciously so). They use words to fight their political and social battles. They might not look like it, but they're modern magicians, hardly different in spirit from the magicians of the Renaissance.
2. What Paul is referring to here (and quoting an old testament passage) is that no one seeks the Truth with a capital T. i.e. no one is interested in the truth that God created the world and placed man on it. (The whole truth of the Bible is what Paul is referring to.) Men claim to want to know the truth, but they deny everything biblical Christianity teaches. (i.e. the one thing man claims to know, the most certain truth he possesses, is that biblical Christianity is not true. If truth exist, it most certainly is not biblical.
Quotes and comments;
A. I was listening to a lecture on Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and the person giving the lecture mentioned some of the strange new interpretations of the play. As an example; a Stephen Greenblatt claimed the Tempest was all about colonialism; this despite the fact the island in question has no natives (not really) and is located a few miles off the coast of Italy. In other words, professor Greenblatt has fabricated a PC version of the play for some political reason or other. He clearly doesn't care what the text said or what it was about. [1]
In my opinion Darwinists do the same kind of thing. i.e. they're determined to read 'nature' in the way they want... for reasons that have nothing to do with the living forms they're dealing with. I see little evidence they care anything about the truth, or being honest to what we might call the text. This doesn't stop them from pretending that they, of all people, are reading the 'nature' right. (Our professors do the same. Though they don't care what the text says, they usually pretend to be getting at its 'real' meaning... a meaning only the 'expert' can understand. A plain reading is just too naive and simplistic, it misses what's really going on.)
- I think we can see that if an author's (e.g. William Shakespeare) intended meaning (we might call it design) can be ignored, or given an interpretation foreign to his intent, how nature can be even more easily ignored. It's a 'dumb' text that can be used to dump whatever one wants onto it. (As an example of what I mean; they can look at the punctuated data of the fossil record and still teach a gradualist model of evolution.)
- We know that life only comes from life, but the Darwinists deny this truism and tell us life 'emerged' from inert matter once upon a time.
- Darwinists are well aware of the limits to change exhibited by living organisms (e.g. that a fruit fly remains a fruit fly no matter what you do to it) but yet they claim animals transformed themselves from one kind to another. (e.g.some mythical land animal became a whale, reptiles became mammals and so on.) In other words they deny the text and the Author and concoct whatever story they want.
This kind of deliberate 'misreading' of things is rampant on campus. The examples are numerous. We can see the same thing with what feminists say; they look at men and women, (deny the data) and claim men and women are exactly the same. You wonder how anyone can come to such an absurd conclusion; but their politics and worldview demands it, and so the data is ignored or twisted.
Let's not forget our PC theologians, as they play the same game. They can honestly (or so they claim) look at the Bible and declare that it says nothing against homosexuality; they say it says nothing about people going to Hell; they say Christians are under no commandment to obey God's law; deny the divinity and work of Christ and so on. (They also claim the bible teaches evolution, or at the least says nothing against it.) They claim that anyone who doesn't share their modernist views is misreading the text.
- Our professors make a career out of denying obvious truth. They make outrageous claims like; man has no mind; man is no different than an animal; there is no truth; God doesn't exist; Jesus didn't exist; Christianity is responsible for most of the evil in the world; (and on and on the denials go) I don't know why anyone should believe them when it comes to origins then, as they've shown they have no respect for the truth, and indeed care nothing for it. (The Bible tells us, "No one seeketh the truth, no not one." Some claim that this is an exaggeration, but it comes close enough to the mark.) [2.]
Men can be neutral (or near enough) when it comes to objects and inert things for the simple reason man isn't a thing (he transcends things, he's greater than they are), but he cannot be neutral when he looks at man, because he can't transcend himself. (Not only can't he be objective about himself, he can't even see himself as he is.)
- I could go on and on here, but clearly truth isn't a high priority for our academic elite. Few of them care about truth, and in fact a great many deny such a thing exists. I'll leave you with a question; do you think people who deny truth exists are going to tell the public the truth about Origins?
Notes;
1. lecture on Tempest [TTC: Shakespeare, Word and Action]
- I think the Greenblatt essay was 'Learning to curse' or somesuch. [The above are my comments about Greenblatt, not the lecturer. To avoid confusion I'm not giving his name.]
- The connection with the play is interesting in that Prospero is a great magician who uses books and words to control nature (etc.) So the Darwinist uses words to cast spells on people, to get them to believe they're not seeing design.. but merely seeing matter in motion. [We don't see design Richard Dawkins says; we only see the appearance of design.] Words are a form of power for the professor of our day (and self-consciously so). They use words to fight their political and social battles. They might not look like it, but they're modern magicians, hardly different in spirit from the magicians of the Renaissance.
2. What Paul is referring to here (and quoting an old testament passage) is that no one seeks the Truth with a capital T. i.e. no one is interested in the truth that God created the world and placed man on it. (The whole truth of the Bible is what Paul is referring to.) Men claim to want to know the truth, but they deny everything biblical Christianity teaches. (i.e. the one thing man claims to know, the most certain truth he possesses, is that biblical Christianity is not true. If truth exist, it most certainly is not biblical.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Abraham Kuyper on faith and science
I'm going to devote this post to a long quotation by Kuyper on the relationship of faith and science. It's taken from his lecture 'Calvinism and Science'.
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Notice that I do not speak of a conflict between faith and science. Such a conflict does not exist. Every science in a certain degree starts from faith, and, on the contrary, faith, which does not lead to science, is mistaken faith or superstition, but real, genuine faith it is not. Every science presupposes faith in self, in our selfconsciousness; presupposes faith in the accurate working of our senses; presupposes faith in the correctness of the laws of thought; presupposes faith in something universal hidden behind the special phenomena; presupposes faith in life; and especially presupposes faith in the principles, from which we proceed ; which signifies that all these indispensable axioms, needed in a productive scientific investigation, do not come to us by proof, but are established in our judgment by our inner conception and given with our self-consciousness. [1.]
On the other hand every kind of faith has in itself an impulse to speak out. In order to do this it needs words, terms, expressions. These words must be the embodiment of thoughts.
Those thoughts must be connected reciprocally not only with themselves but also with our surroundings, with time and eternity, and as soon as faith thus beams forth in our consciousness, the need of
science and demonstration is born. Hence it follows that the conflict is not between faith and science, but between the assertion that the cosmos, as it exists today, is either in a normal or abnormal condition. If it is normal, then it moves by means of an eternal evolution from its potencies to its ideal. But if the cosmos in its present condition is abnormal, then a disturbance has taken place in the past, and only a regenerating power can warrant it the final attainment of its goal. This, and no other is the principal antithesis, which separates the thinking minds in the domain of Science into two opposite battle-arrays.
The Normalists refuse to reckon with other than natural data, do not rest until they have found an identical interpretation of all phenomena, and oppose with the utmost vigor, at every turn of the line, all attempts to break or to check the logical inferences of cause and effect. Therefore, they also honor faith in a formal sense but only as far as it remains in harmony with the general data of the human consciousness and this be considered as normal. Materially, however, they reject the very idea of creation, and can only accept evolution,—an evolution without a point of departure in the past, and eternally evolving itself in the future, until lost in the boundless infinite.
No species, not even the species Homo sapiens, originated as such, but within the circle of natural data developed out of lower and preceding forms of life. Especially no miracles, but instead of them the natural law, dominating in an inexorable manner. No sin, but evolution from a lower to a higher moral position.
If they tolerate the Holy Scriptures at all, they do it on condition that all those parts which cannot be logically explained as a human production be exscinded. A Christ, if necessary, but such a one as is the product of the human development of Israel. And in the same manner a God, or rather a Supreme Being, but after the manner of the Agnostics, concealed behind the visible Universe, or pantheistically hiding in all existing things, and conceived of as the ideal reflection of the human mind.
The Abnormalists, on the other hand, who do justice to relative evolution, but adhere to primordial creation over against an evolutioin infinitum, oppose the position of the Normalists with all their might; they maintain inexorably the conception of man as an independent species, because in him alone is reflected the image of
God ; they conceive of sin as the destruction of our original nature, and consequently as rebellion against God ; and for that reason they postulate and maintain the miraculous as the only means
to restore the abnormal; the miracle of regeneration; the miracle of the Scriptures; the miracle in the Christ, descending as God with His own life into ours ; and thus, owing to this regeneration
of the abnormal, they continue to find the ideal norm not in the natural but in the Triune God.
Not faith and science therefore, but two scientific systems or if you choose, two scientific elaborations, are opposed to each other, each having its own faith. Nor may it be said that it is here science
which opposes theology, for we have to do with two absolute forms of science, both of which claim the whole domain of human knowledge, and both of which have a suggestion about the supreme Being
of their own as the point of departure for their world-view.
Pantheism as well as Deism is a system about God, and without reserve the entire modern theology finds its home in the science of the Normalists. And finally, these two scientific systems of the
Normalists and the Abnormalists are not relative opponents, walking together half way, and, further on, peaceably suffering one another to choose different paths, but they are both in earnest, disputing
with one another the whole domain of life, and they cannot desist from the constant endeavor to pull down to the ground the entire edifice of their respective controverted assertions, all the
supports included, upon which their assertions rest. If they did not try this, they would thereby show on both sides that they did not honestly believe in their point of departure, that they were no
serious combatants, and that they did not understand the primordial demand of science, which of course claims unity of conception.
B. 'He, who subjectively looks upon his inner being and objectively upon the world around him as normal, cannot but speak as he does, cannot reach a different result, and would be insincere in his position
as a scientific man, if he were to represent things in a different light. And therefore from a moral point of view, not thinking for a moment of such a man's responsibility in the judgment of God, nothing can be said against his personal stand-point, provided that, thinking as he does, he shows the courage to voluntarily
leave the Christian church in all its denominations. [2.]
C. 'It [Calvinism] does not keep itself busy with useless apologetics; it does not turn the great battle into a skirmish about one of the outworks, but immediately goes back to human consciousness, from which every man of science has to proceed as his consciousness.
This consciousness, just on account of the abnormal character of things, is not the same in all. If the normal condition of things had not been broken, consciousness would emit the same sound from all ; but as a matter of fact, this is not the case. In the one the consciousness of sin is very powerful and strong, in the
other it is either feeble or entirely wanting. In the one the certainty of faith speaks with decision and clearness as a result of regeneration, the other does not even understand what it is. [3.]
- I find this a convincing bit of evidence that Materialism isn't a true picture of man or the universe. i.e. If man were but matter in motion how is it people think so very differently? If it's all chemical reactions (operating on strict cause and effect) why doesn't everyone think the same? If all is matter in motion why is we have creationists and materialists? And if this is all we are, why does anyone care about the Origins debate?
Notes;
1. Lectures on Calvinism; lecture #4 Calvinism and science/p. 131-133
- the book is available for free online at Reformedpublishingproject.com
2. ibid p. 136
3. ibid
4. I should in passing that I don't like the term Calvinism. (Kuyper begins by admitting much the same, but uses the term for convenience sake.)
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Notice that I do not speak of a conflict between faith and science. Such a conflict does not exist. Every science in a certain degree starts from faith, and, on the contrary, faith, which does not lead to science, is mistaken faith or superstition, but real, genuine faith it is not. Every science presupposes faith in self, in our selfconsciousness; presupposes faith in the accurate working of our senses; presupposes faith in the correctness of the laws of thought; presupposes faith in something universal hidden behind the special phenomena; presupposes faith in life; and especially presupposes faith in the principles, from which we proceed ; which signifies that all these indispensable axioms, needed in a productive scientific investigation, do not come to us by proof, but are established in our judgment by our inner conception and given with our self-consciousness. [1.]
On the other hand every kind of faith has in itself an impulse to speak out. In order to do this it needs words, terms, expressions. These words must be the embodiment of thoughts.
Those thoughts must be connected reciprocally not only with themselves but also with our surroundings, with time and eternity, and as soon as faith thus beams forth in our consciousness, the need of
science and demonstration is born. Hence it follows that the conflict is not between faith and science, but between the assertion that the cosmos, as it exists today, is either in a normal or abnormal condition. If it is normal, then it moves by means of an eternal evolution from its potencies to its ideal. But if the cosmos in its present condition is abnormal, then a disturbance has taken place in the past, and only a regenerating power can warrant it the final attainment of its goal. This, and no other is the principal antithesis, which separates the thinking minds in the domain of Science into two opposite battle-arrays.
The Normalists refuse to reckon with other than natural data, do not rest until they have found an identical interpretation of all phenomena, and oppose with the utmost vigor, at every turn of the line, all attempts to break or to check the logical inferences of cause and effect. Therefore, they also honor faith in a formal sense but only as far as it remains in harmony with the general data of the human consciousness and this be considered as normal. Materially, however, they reject the very idea of creation, and can only accept evolution,—an evolution without a point of departure in the past, and eternally evolving itself in the future, until lost in the boundless infinite.
No species, not even the species Homo sapiens, originated as such, but within the circle of natural data developed out of lower and preceding forms of life. Especially no miracles, but instead of them the natural law, dominating in an inexorable manner. No sin, but evolution from a lower to a higher moral position.
If they tolerate the Holy Scriptures at all, they do it on condition that all those parts which cannot be logically explained as a human production be exscinded. A Christ, if necessary, but such a one as is the product of the human development of Israel. And in the same manner a God, or rather a Supreme Being, but after the manner of the Agnostics, concealed behind the visible Universe, or pantheistically hiding in all existing things, and conceived of as the ideal reflection of the human mind.
The Abnormalists, on the other hand, who do justice to relative evolution, but adhere to primordial creation over against an evolutioin infinitum, oppose the position of the Normalists with all their might; they maintain inexorably the conception of man as an independent species, because in him alone is reflected the image of
God ; they conceive of sin as the destruction of our original nature, and consequently as rebellion against God ; and for that reason they postulate and maintain the miraculous as the only means
to restore the abnormal; the miracle of regeneration; the miracle of the Scriptures; the miracle in the Christ, descending as God with His own life into ours ; and thus, owing to this regeneration
of the abnormal, they continue to find the ideal norm not in the natural but in the Triune God.
Not faith and science therefore, but two scientific systems or if you choose, two scientific elaborations, are opposed to each other, each having its own faith. Nor may it be said that it is here science
which opposes theology, for we have to do with two absolute forms of science, both of which claim the whole domain of human knowledge, and both of which have a suggestion about the supreme Being
of their own as the point of departure for their world-view.
Pantheism as well as Deism is a system about God, and without reserve the entire modern theology finds its home in the science of the Normalists. And finally, these two scientific systems of the
Normalists and the Abnormalists are not relative opponents, walking together half way, and, further on, peaceably suffering one another to choose different paths, but they are both in earnest, disputing
with one another the whole domain of life, and they cannot desist from the constant endeavor to pull down to the ground the entire edifice of their respective controverted assertions, all the
supports included, upon which their assertions rest. If they did not try this, they would thereby show on both sides that they did not honestly believe in their point of departure, that they were no
serious combatants, and that they did not understand the primordial demand of science, which of course claims unity of conception.
B. 'He, who subjectively looks upon his inner being and objectively upon the world around him as normal, cannot but speak as he does, cannot reach a different result, and would be insincere in his position
as a scientific man, if he were to represent things in a different light. And therefore from a moral point of view, not thinking for a moment of such a man's responsibility in the judgment of God, nothing can be said against his personal stand-point, provided that, thinking as he does, he shows the courage to voluntarily
leave the Christian church in all its denominations. [2.]
C. 'It [Calvinism] does not keep itself busy with useless apologetics; it does not turn the great battle into a skirmish about one of the outworks, but immediately goes back to human consciousness, from which every man of science has to proceed as his consciousness.
This consciousness, just on account of the abnormal character of things, is not the same in all. If the normal condition of things had not been broken, consciousness would emit the same sound from all ; but as a matter of fact, this is not the case. In the one the consciousness of sin is very powerful and strong, in the
other it is either feeble or entirely wanting. In the one the certainty of faith speaks with decision and clearness as a result of regeneration, the other does not even understand what it is. [3.]
- I find this a convincing bit of evidence that Materialism isn't a true picture of man or the universe. i.e. If man were but matter in motion how is it people think so very differently? If it's all chemical reactions (operating on strict cause and effect) why doesn't everyone think the same? If all is matter in motion why is we have creationists and materialists? And if this is all we are, why does anyone care about the Origins debate?
Notes;
1. Lectures on Calvinism; lecture #4 Calvinism and science/p. 131-133
- the book is available for free online at Reformedpublishingproject.com
2. ibid p. 136
3. ibid
4. I should in passing that I don't like the term Calvinism. (Kuyper begins by admitting much the same, but uses the term for convenience sake.)
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Victorians, the Bible and creation
The ideas and methods of Charles Darwin are intimately connected with the theological currents of the time he lived in. The theology comes first, and the theories on biology later.
Quotes and comments;
A. "The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation." - Charles Darwin [1.]
- Darwin kept saying the world was not what we would expect if God really had created all the creatures. There can be little doubt he brought this same method of doubt to the Bible. It wasn't what he expected, wasn't what he thought it should be... and so he rejected it. He's often painted as a humble man, when he was nothing of the sort. The man overflowed with arrogance; toward both the Creator and the created world.
(I don't have Darwin's confidence, and don't think we can know (a priori) what to expect from God's word, or from the natural world. If we critique God and creation with our own expectations we're doomed to throw out the truth for the sake of delusions.)
The materialists and deists of Darwin's era attacked the bible with the same diligence and fervor they attacked all ideas of creation. They were out not to discover truth but to destroy truth. The mocked and ridiculed, and held these truths up to whimsical standards and zealous complaint. As they looked for evils in the natural world, so they combed the bible to find evils there. They made collections of their discoveries, and claimed these had disproved the idea of a good god and a good creation... claimed they had disproved the bible and disproved creation.
They employed certain methods on the 'data' in both cases. To deny the flood they used a method of Uniformitariansim; the method itself made the flood (and biblical geology) impossible. With the bible they used the method of naturalism; thus making all miracles impossible. In neither case did they discover that biblical geology was wrong, or that the miracles didn't happen... they merely defined them out of existence. (And called it science.)
In my opinion, Darwinism is about as scientific as naturalism or higher criticism. It's basically higher criticism applied to the world of living forms. It uses similar methods, and has a similar spirit. It holds God up to human standards. (e.g. it doesn't allow the supernatural.... at least in the sense of not allowing any direct influence of God upon the world.) And so, just as the bible wasn't written by the hand of God, neither were the animals created by the hand of God. The bible rather was the cobbled together words of mystics, politicians and liars; no more true than any London newspaper. And so the animals in the world were not created by god but had been fashioned together by random chance events; each animal being a cobbled collection of spare parts and available bits and bobs.
Both the bible and the average animal were full of obvious mistakes and failures. Both the bible and the natural world were full of evil things; parasites and demons, waste and genocide, harsh and brutal laws, prodigies and visions. Both the bible and the natural world were held up to perfectionist standards; standards created by sanctimonious, Victorians who imagined they sat aloft the pinnacle of the human race and human progress. They looked down on Pygmies and Australians, and they looked down on God. They looked down on odd and maladapted nature, and they looked down on the bible. They knew the way things should be if there had been a God, and they saw no sign of his existence; not in the world, and not in the bible.
With this background it can be seen why Charles Darwin was such a great success. He rode the spirit of the times as if it were lodged in his own stable.
Notes;
1. 'Concerning ‘the miracles with which Christianity is supported’, he wrote,
‘[T]he more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.’ [The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, (with original omissions restored, edited with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow), Collins, London, ‘Religious Belief’, pp. 85–96, 1958.]
- Taken from article at creation.com 'Darwin’s arguments against God' by Russell Grigg
2. ‘I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.’ - Charles Darwin [see above]
- In other words, the Bible and Christianity couldn't be true, because he didn't like them; didn't like what they said.
3. People interested in further study on this subject might read 'Darwin's God' and 'Darwin's Proof' by Cornelius Hunter. (I especially recommend the first.)
Quotes and comments;
A. "The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation." - Charles Darwin [1.]
- Darwin kept saying the world was not what we would expect if God really had created all the creatures. There can be little doubt he brought this same method of doubt to the Bible. It wasn't what he expected, wasn't what he thought it should be... and so he rejected it. He's often painted as a humble man, when he was nothing of the sort. The man overflowed with arrogance; toward both the Creator and the created world.
(I don't have Darwin's confidence, and don't think we can know (a priori) what to expect from God's word, or from the natural world. If we critique God and creation with our own expectations we're doomed to throw out the truth for the sake of delusions.)
The materialists and deists of Darwin's era attacked the bible with the same diligence and fervor they attacked all ideas of creation. They were out not to discover truth but to destroy truth. The mocked and ridiculed, and held these truths up to whimsical standards and zealous complaint. As they looked for evils in the natural world, so they combed the bible to find evils there. They made collections of their discoveries, and claimed these had disproved the idea of a good god and a good creation... claimed they had disproved the bible and disproved creation.
They employed certain methods on the 'data' in both cases. To deny the flood they used a method of Uniformitariansim; the method itself made the flood (and biblical geology) impossible. With the bible they used the method of naturalism; thus making all miracles impossible. In neither case did they discover that biblical geology was wrong, or that the miracles didn't happen... they merely defined them out of existence. (And called it science.)
In my opinion, Darwinism is about as scientific as naturalism or higher criticism. It's basically higher criticism applied to the world of living forms. It uses similar methods, and has a similar spirit. It holds God up to human standards. (e.g. it doesn't allow the supernatural.... at least in the sense of not allowing any direct influence of God upon the world.) And so, just as the bible wasn't written by the hand of God, neither were the animals created by the hand of God. The bible rather was the cobbled together words of mystics, politicians and liars; no more true than any London newspaper. And so the animals in the world were not created by god but had been fashioned together by random chance events; each animal being a cobbled collection of spare parts and available bits and bobs.
Both the bible and the average animal were full of obvious mistakes and failures. Both the bible and the natural world were full of evil things; parasites and demons, waste and genocide, harsh and brutal laws, prodigies and visions. Both the bible and the natural world were held up to perfectionist standards; standards created by sanctimonious, Victorians who imagined they sat aloft the pinnacle of the human race and human progress. They looked down on Pygmies and Australians, and they looked down on God. They looked down on odd and maladapted nature, and they looked down on the bible. They knew the way things should be if there had been a God, and they saw no sign of his existence; not in the world, and not in the bible.
With this background it can be seen why Charles Darwin was such a great success. He rode the spirit of the times as if it were lodged in his own stable.
Notes;
1. 'Concerning ‘the miracles with which Christianity is supported’, he wrote,
‘[T]he more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.’ [The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, (with original omissions restored, edited with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow), Collins, London, ‘Religious Belief’, pp. 85–96, 1958.]
- Taken from article at creation.com 'Darwin’s arguments against God' by Russell Grigg
2. ‘I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.’ - Charles Darwin [see above]
- In other words, the Bible and Christianity couldn't be true, because he didn't like them; didn't like what they said.
3. People interested in further study on this subject might read 'Darwin's God' and 'Darwin's Proof' by Cornelius Hunter. (I especially recommend the first.)
Monday, March 29, 2010
The new evidence for god; does it work?
Is the new evidence of fine tuning a good argument for the existence of God? A brief look.
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Over the past fifty years scientists have uncovered a series of amazing facts which show that the creation is an extremely unlikely place, fine-tuned in specific ways that make human life possible. It shows all the signs that it has been purposefully designed as a place for us to live.' [1.]
- Psalm 104 states of God's works ''in wisdom you made them all." To me this refutes the ideas of certain christian 'liberals' that all god did was to fine tune the universe. (Christian apologist and writer Peter Williams is a believer in the fine tuning arguement, but insists he's not a creationist.) A new website features online videos that set out the fine tuning argument as new evidence for god. (You might know this argument in the form given by people like John Polkinghorne.)
- The bible states that god's works (the wonders we see) were made in wisdom. (e.g. It says of the sea "and the Leviathan which you formed to frolic there." Psalm 104) This says to me that God did a lot more than fine tune the Big Bang; that he took an active part in creating the original life forms on this planet. In my opinion it takes a lot of 'maneuvering' to see Psalm 104 (etc.) as a reference to fine tuning the Big Bang. Apologists and scientists like this have swallowed the materialist scenario (BB to man) hook, line and sinker. (Especially the sinker.)
There's only one problem with this idea - it's impossible. The idea a mere explosion of 'matter' (singularity, whatever) can result some time later in human beings seems absurd. The laws of physics aren't creative; they act in a rigid cause and effect manner. (They can't produce genetic code for one thing.)
This 'new evidence' for God either denies or ignores the plain message of the Bible on the one hand, and adopts a materialist explanation that's impossible on the other hand. I consider it about as useful as a wet firecracker.
Mike Johnson [frfarer - at- gmail.com]
Notes;
1. Note taken from the website.
- You can check out the argument/s for yourself at God: the new evidence
2. From a short book review (on the God: new evidence website)
'If you want to read more about cosmic fine-tuning, one of the best short books is ‘Just Six Numbers: the deep forces that shape the universe,’ by Martin Rees.
Rees discusses the six numbers of the title that contribute to a life-supporting universe: the ratio of the strength of electrical forces to the force of gravity; the strength with which atomic nuclei bind together; the density of the universe; the cosmological repulsion constant; the amount of unevenness in the big bang; and the number of spatial dimensions. He argues that if any of these numbers were much different from what they actually are, life would be impossible.'
- The idea if you have these 'numbers' you will automatically have a universe full of living organisms and intelligent beings is a logical fallacy. i.e. because 'life' needs these things doesn't mean that if you have these factors in place you will have living organisms. (e.g. the fact humans need water to survive doesn't mean that if you have water on a planet you'll have human beings.) MJ
3. In case I didn't make myself clear, my criticism of the argument is not that the fine tuning of various constants isn't evidence of creation, but that the living forms we see on earth (including man) did not, and cannot have evolved via purely 'naturalistic' mechanisms. My argument is that God did a lot more than simply fine tune the Big Bang and then step aside and watch the show.
4. So what do we see here? Do we see a case of fine tuning the universe, or do we see a case of fine tuning the argument for Liberalism?
Quotes and comments;
A. 'Over the past fifty years scientists have uncovered a series of amazing facts which show that the creation is an extremely unlikely place, fine-tuned in specific ways that make human life possible. It shows all the signs that it has been purposefully designed as a place for us to live.' [1.]
- Psalm 104 states of God's works ''in wisdom you made them all." To me this refutes the ideas of certain christian 'liberals' that all god did was to fine tune the universe. (Christian apologist and writer Peter Williams is a believer in the fine tuning arguement, but insists he's not a creationist.) A new website features online videos that set out the fine tuning argument as new evidence for god. (You might know this argument in the form given by people like John Polkinghorne.)
- The bible states that god's works (the wonders we see) were made in wisdom. (e.g. It says of the sea "and the Leviathan which you formed to frolic there." Psalm 104) This says to me that God did a lot more than fine tune the Big Bang; that he took an active part in creating the original life forms on this planet. In my opinion it takes a lot of 'maneuvering' to see Psalm 104 (etc.) as a reference to fine tuning the Big Bang. Apologists and scientists like this have swallowed the materialist scenario (BB to man) hook, line and sinker. (Especially the sinker.)
There's only one problem with this idea - it's impossible. The idea a mere explosion of 'matter' (singularity, whatever) can result some time later in human beings seems absurd. The laws of physics aren't creative; they act in a rigid cause and effect manner. (They can't produce genetic code for one thing.)
This 'new evidence' for God either denies or ignores the plain message of the Bible on the one hand, and adopts a materialist explanation that's impossible on the other hand. I consider it about as useful as a wet firecracker.
Mike Johnson [frfarer - at- gmail.com]
Notes;
1. Note taken from the website.
- You can check out the argument/s for yourself at God: the new evidence
2. From a short book review (on the God: new evidence website)
'If you want to read more about cosmic fine-tuning, one of the best short books is ‘Just Six Numbers: the deep forces that shape the universe,’ by Martin Rees.
Rees discusses the six numbers of the title that contribute to a life-supporting universe: the ratio of the strength of electrical forces to the force of gravity; the strength with which atomic nuclei bind together; the density of the universe; the cosmological repulsion constant; the amount of unevenness in the big bang; and the number of spatial dimensions. He argues that if any of these numbers were much different from what they actually are, life would be impossible.'
- The idea if you have these 'numbers' you will automatically have a universe full of living organisms and intelligent beings is a logical fallacy. i.e. because 'life' needs these things doesn't mean that if you have these factors in place you will have living organisms. (e.g. the fact humans need water to survive doesn't mean that if you have water on a planet you'll have human beings.) MJ
3. In case I didn't make myself clear, my criticism of the argument is not that the fine tuning of various constants isn't evidence of creation, but that the living forms we see on earth (including man) did not, and cannot have evolved via purely 'naturalistic' mechanisms. My argument is that God did a lot more than simply fine tune the Big Bang and then step aside and watch the show.
4. So what do we see here? Do we see a case of fine tuning the universe, or do we see a case of fine tuning the argument for Liberalism?
Friday, March 26, 2010
Darwinism and the pathetic fallacy
I've been talking recently about evolutionary theory and how it depends on various reifications, and logical fallacies. Here's a very brief example of the kind of thing I've been talking about.
Quotes and comments;
A. "A basic property of life is its capacity to experience Darwinian evolution..." [1.]
- While this might be called a pathetic bit of writing, it's really an example of the pathetic fallacy. [2.]
The authors have reified an abstraction called life. (Life doesn't exist; has no capacities, and does not experience anything... let alone something called evolution.) What we find in the world are specific living organisms; not life.
The sentence should read; 'Common to all living organisms is a tendency to suffer genetic mutation and change over time.' (This by the way is a proposition that I thin all creationists would agree with.)
In my opinion materialist prefer to speak of life in the abstract for the simple reason that all living organisms possess genetic code; and we know of no way this code can be produced by the random actions of inert matter. The idea is floated around that something called 'life' exists (or existed) that doesn't have genetic code. There is no warrant from science for such a belief or dream.
The pretense (here unspoken) is that 'life' has the capacity to 'evolve' upward... that it has the capacity to gain specified information. This isn't a claim that has any scientific warrant. What we see is the opposite.
Contrary to what some materialists claim, it is Not only creationists who refer to evolutionary theory by the Darwin monicker... as this example shows.
Notes;
1. Metabolism-First Origin of Life Won’t Work Creation/Evolution Headlines 01/05/2010
2. 'The pathetic fallacy or anthropomorphic fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations.[citation needed] The pathetic fallacy is a special case of the fallacy of reification. The word 'pathetic' in this use is related to 'empathy' (capability of feeling), and is not pejorative.
The pathetic fallacy is also related to the concept of personification. Personification is direct and explicit in the ascription of life and sentience to the thing in question,
3. From the article;
“We do not know how the transition to digitally encoded information has happened in the originally inanimate world; that is, we do not know where the RNA world might have come from, but there are strong reasons to believe that it had existed.”
- Strong reasons? I guess you could say they have strong reasons if you call a rejection of God and a belief in materialism strong reasons. Apart from that there's no reason I can see of to believe such a scenario ever existed. (Again; this isn't science; this is metaphysical speculation.)
4. 'Later in the paper, they disparaged the habit of applying Darwinian terms, like “selection values”, to prebiotic molecules. Such terms are “devoid of meaning” in a chemical context, they said. “The unfortunate usage of words with clear Darwinian connotations—such as adaptation, fitness landscape, and coevolution—in the realm of pre-Darwinian systems cannot be overemphasized.”
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they do this themselves?
5. 'Three days after our report, Science Daily reported about this paper, based on a press release from Free University of Barcelona. Aside from getting the name of NASA wrong, they defined life as “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
- As the authors said themselves, you can't have 'Darwinian' evolution in non-living (reproducing) entities.
- Systems aren't people; they're not 'capable' of anything. They exhibit behavior (motion) this is not the same as being capable of these actions.
- There is no such thing as being capable of evolution. This is more reification.
6. 'Since subsequent Darwinian evolution has nothing necessarily to do with the origin of genetic information, the statement lends more support to a definition of life made by astrobiologist Benton Clark: “life reproduces, and life uses energy. These functions follow a set of instructions embedded within the organism.”
- Though this is one of the better definitions of 'life' I've seen in the e. literature, I need to point out that this is more reification. There is no such thing as life. If you replace 'life' with living organisms, the definition is not that bad.
- Since life doesn't exist, it can hardly reproduce. (I realize many people will think I'm being pedantic here, but I think it's important that people think in concrete terms and not in abstract terms... i.e. as much as possible. Abstractionism leads to sloppy thinking and is a source of almost endless error.
Quotes and comments;
A. "A basic property of life is its capacity to experience Darwinian evolution..." [1.]
- While this might be called a pathetic bit of writing, it's really an example of the pathetic fallacy. [2.]
The authors have reified an abstraction called life. (Life doesn't exist; has no capacities, and does not experience anything... let alone something called evolution.) What we find in the world are specific living organisms; not life.
The sentence should read; 'Common to all living organisms is a tendency to suffer genetic mutation and change over time.' (This by the way is a proposition that I thin all creationists would agree with.)
In my opinion materialist prefer to speak of life in the abstract for the simple reason that all living organisms possess genetic code; and we know of no way this code can be produced by the random actions of inert matter. The idea is floated around that something called 'life' exists (or existed) that doesn't have genetic code. There is no warrant from science for such a belief or dream.
The pretense (here unspoken) is that 'life' has the capacity to 'evolve' upward... that it has the capacity to gain specified information. This isn't a claim that has any scientific warrant. What we see is the opposite.
Contrary to what some materialists claim, it is Not only creationists who refer to evolutionary theory by the Darwin monicker... as this example shows.
Notes;
1. Metabolism-First Origin of Life Won’t Work Creation/Evolution Headlines 01/05/2010
2. 'The pathetic fallacy or anthropomorphic fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations.[citation needed] The pathetic fallacy is a special case of the fallacy of reification. The word 'pathetic' in this use is related to 'empathy' (capability of feeling), and is not pejorative.
The pathetic fallacy is also related to the concept of personification. Personification is direct and explicit in the ascription of life and sentience to the thing in question,
3. From the article;
“We do not know how the transition to digitally encoded information has happened in the originally inanimate world; that is, we do not know where the RNA world might have come from, but there are strong reasons to believe that it had existed.”
- Strong reasons? I guess you could say they have strong reasons if you call a rejection of God and a belief in materialism strong reasons. Apart from that there's no reason I can see of to believe such a scenario ever existed. (Again; this isn't science; this is metaphysical speculation.)
4. 'Later in the paper, they disparaged the habit of applying Darwinian terms, like “selection values”, to prebiotic molecules. Such terms are “devoid of meaning” in a chemical context, they said. “The unfortunate usage of words with clear Darwinian connotations—such as adaptation, fitness landscape, and coevolution—in the realm of pre-Darwinian systems cannot be overemphasized.”
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they do this themselves?
5. 'Three days after our report, Science Daily reported about this paper, based on a press release from Free University of Barcelona. Aside from getting the name of NASA wrong, they defined life as “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
- As the authors said themselves, you can't have 'Darwinian' evolution in non-living (reproducing) entities.
- Systems aren't people; they're not 'capable' of anything. They exhibit behavior (motion) this is not the same as being capable of these actions.
- There is no such thing as being capable of evolution. This is more reification.
6. 'Since subsequent Darwinian evolution has nothing necessarily to do with the origin of genetic information, the statement lends more support to a definition of life made by astrobiologist Benton Clark: “life reproduces, and life uses energy. These functions follow a set of instructions embedded within the organism.”
- Though this is one of the better definitions of 'life' I've seen in the e. literature, I need to point out that this is more reification. There is no such thing as life. If you replace 'life' with living organisms, the definition is not that bad.
- Since life doesn't exist, it can hardly reproduce. (I realize many people will think I'm being pedantic here, but I think it's important that people think in concrete terms and not in abstract terms... i.e. as much as possible. Abstractionism leads to sloppy thinking and is a source of almost endless error.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Playing with the building blocks of life
- If you read the popular science magazines, and especially any stories about Origins, you'll have come across the phrase the 'building blocks of life'. I find it odd that in an age where people have discovered the incredible (bottomless) complexity of the cell we still have materialists using this phrase.
It's a product of a bygone age; an age that imagined 'life' was a very simple thing, and that imagined the first primordial cell consisted of something akin to a blob of jello. The phrase conjures up an image of workmen using bricks to build a house or school. In this scenario life was a matter of rearranging the the inert matter of an early earth until one came upon the right arrangement.
The phrase 'building blocks' also conjures up an image of a child's set of toy blocks.
The problem for any materialist, or for anyone who doesn't want to accept any kind of creation for the origin of living forms on this planet, is that 'life' is most certainly not a simple matter.
To get a picture of how serious the problem is for the materialist we might image a child playing with some blocks. The blocks are brightly colored, but because he comes from a poor family, they have no letters stamped onto them. How long do you think it will take the child to spell out a message with the blocks? Let's give him a message he needs to spell out, as a metaphor for the origin of life. Let's say he has to spell out the message, ''Me thinks Richard Dawkins is a weasel.'' (Or; ''Look mommy, I've created life." How long is it going to take him?
Summary;
Since the materialist has no access to intelligence (or information) this is the true picture of the materialist dilemma. Some people (not yours truly) might be tempted to call this a blockhead cosmology. (Do the molecular machines involved in producing ATP look like toy blocks to anyone? Do they look like they were made from blocks?)
You wonder why materialists keep using this phrase. Is it because they want people to think the whole OOL issue is a simple one; that it's really no problem for the materialist scenario? (They need to put out a new edition of Darwin's phrase book; the one they're using is badly out of date.) The discoveries of cellular biology have carved an obituary in the tombstone of materialism.
If we can be allowed a little rhetorical flourish, we might say that the laws of physics are a prison from which life cannot escape. It takes an intelligence transcending the merely physical to provide the information that will allow a living organism to be created.
The scrabble of [OOL] speculation hasn't produced any believable stories on how matter can transcend itself, on how it can pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The rather obvious fact is that matter is content to be matter; that it has no capacity to be anything else. (A situation we should be grateful for. Imagine working a painting if the canvas had a mind and will of its own; imagine working on a sculpture if the stone had its own ideas on transformation :=)
Building blocks without a plan (blueprint) are useless. Can bricks 'self-organize' into a building?
Hurling a few thunderbolts around isn't going to help this Cyclopean project get off the ground. Stones remain stones, and no living forms emerge to climb the walls of this dark and hopeless prison. Not only is Materialism a one-eyed view of the universe, it's a view grown blind. You can cobble together stones to build a prison, but the walls won't breathe, reproduce or live.
From a philosophical view [i.e. linguistic analysis] the phrase building block is meaningless unless we assume a builder. Without a builder all you have are blocks.
Notes;
1. Blocks;
- Children's wooden building toys, attested by 1885, from block (n.).
- 1693: Alphabet Nursery Blocks were originally developed in 17th century England. The philosopher John Locke, in 1693, made the statement that "dice and playthings, with letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience. - Wiki
- 1798: Witold Rybczynski has found that the earliest mention of building bricks for children appears in Maria and R.L. Edgeworth's Practical Education (1798). Called "rational toys," blocks were intended to teach children about gravity and physics, as well as spatial relationships that allow them to see how many different parts become a whole. - Wiki
It's a product of a bygone age; an age that imagined 'life' was a very simple thing, and that imagined the first primordial cell consisted of something akin to a blob of jello. The phrase conjures up an image of workmen using bricks to build a house or school. In this scenario life was a matter of rearranging the the inert matter of an early earth until one came upon the right arrangement.
The phrase 'building blocks' also conjures up an image of a child's set of toy blocks.
The problem for any materialist, or for anyone who doesn't want to accept any kind of creation for the origin of living forms on this planet, is that 'life' is most certainly not a simple matter.
To get a picture of how serious the problem is for the materialist we might image a child playing with some blocks. The blocks are brightly colored, but because he comes from a poor family, they have no letters stamped onto them. How long do you think it will take the child to spell out a message with the blocks? Let's give him a message he needs to spell out, as a metaphor for the origin of life. Let's say he has to spell out the message, ''Me thinks Richard Dawkins is a weasel.'' (Or; ''Look mommy, I've created life." How long is it going to take him?
Summary;
Since the materialist has no access to intelligence (or information) this is the true picture of the materialist dilemma. Some people (not yours truly) might be tempted to call this a blockhead cosmology. (Do the molecular machines involved in producing ATP look like toy blocks to anyone? Do they look like they were made from blocks?)
You wonder why materialists keep using this phrase. Is it because they want people to think the whole OOL issue is a simple one; that it's really no problem for the materialist scenario? (They need to put out a new edition of Darwin's phrase book; the one they're using is badly out of date.) The discoveries of cellular biology have carved an obituary in the tombstone of materialism.
If we can be allowed a little rhetorical flourish, we might say that the laws of physics are a prison from which life cannot escape. It takes an intelligence transcending the merely physical to provide the information that will allow a living organism to be created.
The scrabble of [OOL] speculation hasn't produced any believable stories on how matter can transcend itself, on how it can pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The rather obvious fact is that matter is content to be matter; that it has no capacity to be anything else. (A situation we should be grateful for. Imagine working a painting if the canvas had a mind and will of its own; imagine working on a sculpture if the stone had its own ideas on transformation :=)
Building blocks without a plan (blueprint) are useless. Can bricks 'self-organize' into a building?
Hurling a few thunderbolts around isn't going to help this Cyclopean project get off the ground. Stones remain stones, and no living forms emerge to climb the walls of this dark and hopeless prison. Not only is Materialism a one-eyed view of the universe, it's a view grown blind. You can cobble together stones to build a prison, but the walls won't breathe, reproduce or live.
From a philosophical view [i.e. linguistic analysis] the phrase building block is meaningless unless we assume a builder. Without a builder all you have are blocks.
Notes;
1. Blocks;
- Children's wooden building toys, attested by 1885, from block (n.).
- 1693: Alphabet Nursery Blocks were originally developed in 17th century England. The philosopher John Locke, in 1693, made the statement that "dice and playthings, with letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience. - Wiki
- 1798: Witold Rybczynski has found that the earliest mention of building bricks for children appears in Maria and R.L. Edgeworth's Practical Education (1798). Called "rational toys," blocks were intended to teach children about gravity and physics, as well as spatial relationships that allow them to see how many different parts become a whole. - Wiki
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