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Why science cannot be the only way of knowing: A reply to Jason Rosenhouse

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People who hold the view that “there is a non-scientific source of knowledge about the natural world, such as divine revelation or the historical teachings of a church, that trumps all other claims to knowledge,” are a menace to science. That’s the claim made by mathematician Jason Rosenhouse, in his latest post over at his Evolution Blog. Science, avers Rosenhouse, is not just a collection of facts; it’s “an attitude, one that says that all theories must be tested against facts and that evidence must be followed wherever it leads.” In an earlier 2009 post, Rosenhouse criticizes the claim that “science is not the only way of knowing,” and forthrightly declares: “The ways of knowing that are unique to religion, namely revelation and the words of holy texts, have today been utterly discredited.” Is he right?

Dr. Rosenhouse is an American author and associate professor of mathematics at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. He has been writing about creationists for some years now, and is the author of the book, Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line (Oxford University Press, 2012).

In this post, which I shall try to keep this post as short as possible, I’d like to explain what I think is wrong with Dr. Rosenhouse’s whole approach to epistemology.

1. Let me begin by saying that I intend to play fair. For example, it would be very easy for me to make fun of Dr. Rosenhouse’s claim that science is the only way of knowing with the standard retort: “How do you know that?” But Rosenhouse could counter this cheap jibe by rephrasing his epistemological claim as an imperative: “Don’t trust claims that there are other, non-scientific ways of knowing!” There’s nothing self-refuting about telling people that.

2. The first thing I want to say in response to Dr. Rosenhouse is that science is not a self-supporting enterprise: there are certain background assumptions that it presupposes. (I’ll list them below.) The next thing I’d like to do is spell out what that entails:

(a) if science is not a self-supporting enterprise, then science can never hope to explain everything, since science is necessarily incapable of explaining what science itself presupposes;

(b) if science is not a self-supporting enterprise, then science cannot possibly be the only way of knowing, since the way in which we know the background assumptions upon which science rests is necessarily different from the way in which we know facts which we discover by applying the scientific method itself: the former mode of knowledge is better described as meta-scientific.

3. The following is a short (but not exhaustive) list of background assumptions about the world, which the scientific method presupposes. Science would be impossible as an enterprise, if the vast majority of scientists did not hold these assumptions:

(a) There exists an external world, which is independent of our human minds: it’s real, regardless of whether we believe in it or not;

(b) Objects in the external world have certain identifying characteristics called dispositions, which scientists are able to investigate;

(c) Objects in the external world behave in accordance with certain mathematical regularities, which we call the laws of Nature, and which tell us how those objects ought to behave;

(d) Scientific induction is reliable: scientists can safely assume that the laws of Nature hold true at all times and places;

(e) Solipsism is false: there exist other embodied agents, with minds of their own;

(f) Communication is possible: scientists are capable of talking to one another, and sharing their observations, as well as their thoughts (or interpretations) relating to those observations;

(g) The senses are reliable, under normal conditions, within their proper domain, which means that scientists are capable of making measurements on an everyday basis;

(h) There exist standard conditions, under which ordinary people (including scientists) are routinely capable of thinking logically, making rational discourse possible;

(i) Scientists are morally responsible for their own actions – in particular, they are responsible for their decision to tell the truth about what they have observed, or to lie about it; and

(j) Scientists should not lie under any circumstances, when doing science.

Science would also collapse as an enterprise, if these background assumptions were not objectively true.

The inclusion of an ethical norm (statement (j)) in my list of background assumptions might raise eyebrows in some quarters. Physicist Frank Tipler argues for its necessity to the scientific endeavor, as follows:

…[A] moment’s reflection will show that the value/fact distinction is difficult to maintain. Consider the hardest of the hard sciences, physics. The real reason that we consider physics to be a hard science and the profession of politics to be a soft science (if we consider it to be a science at all) is that we trust the experimental data produced by the physicists. That is, we assume that physicists have adopted the moral precept Thou shalt not fake data. If this moral precept were not adopted in the sciences, if physicists, for example, were known to fake their results whenever their politics required it, there would be no hard sciences. So clearly, all positive science necessarily is based on normative principles.
(“The Value/Fact Distinction: Coase’s Theorem Unifies Normative and Positive Economics”, January 15, 2007, p. 4.)

Note: Although I referred to agents and their thoughts and obligations, objects and their dispositions, and the laws that objects conform to in their behavior, I took great care not to include any purely metaphysical statements in my list of background assumptions above. All entities referred to in the above list are publicly observable.

4. In addition to the above, there exists a class of statements known as synthetic a priori truths, whose truth we can know without doing any science at all. Some examples:

(a) while causes which generate effects may precede those effects, or be simultaneous with those effects (e.g. a head lying on a pillow, in which it produces an indentation), it is impossible for such causes to come after their effects;

(b) space can have a positive integral number of dimensions (e.g. 1, 2, 3, …), but it cannot have a negative number of dimensions, a fractional number of dimensions, or an imaginary number of dimensions;

(c) the flow of time is objectively real, which means that scientists’ decisions, which are made in time, really do matter in the scheme of things; and

(d) the same object cannot be red all over and green all over, at the same time.

I’m not going to offer a general account of how we know these things without doing any experiments. All I will say is that if you claim to have knowledge of any of these truths, then you have committed yourself to an extra-scientific mode of knowledge.

5. In addition, the scientific enterprise is governed by certain rationality norms, which tell scientists what they should be investigating. Failure to follow these norms is tantamount to committing the sin of intellectual laziness, and is therefore poor science. Some examples of these norms are as follows:

(a) Contingency warrants a scientific explanation: whenever a scientist identifies a non-essential property of some object in the natural world (e.g. an arbitrary numerical value of a constant of Nature), he/she should look for an external explanation of why the object has that property;

(b) Complexity of function warrants a scientific explanation: whenever a scientist identifies a natural object performing a function involving two or more steps, he/she should look for an external explanation of how the object is capable of performing that function;

(c) Complexity of parts warrants a scientific explanation: whenever a scientist identifies a natural object composed of two or more parts, he/she should look for an external explanation of what holds the object together;

(d) Coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be warrant a scientific explanation: whenever a scientist identifies a natural object coming into being, he/she should look for an external cause of the object’s coming-to-be; and the same holds true for a natural object which a scientist observes when it is ceasing to be;

(e) More generally, any question about the natural world which is not obviously nonsensical should be regarded as falling under the purview of science, and the systematic attempt to answer this question, however bizarre it may sound, should be regarded as a legitimate part of the scientific endeavor.

6. In addition to the above, testimonial knowledge (or knowledge based on a reliable source) is a legitimate (non-scientific) way of knowing something. If your geology professor tells you that the age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years, give or take 1%, then you are perfectly entitled to take your professor’s word for it, and to claim that you know that the Earth is that old, because your professor told you so. If your friend, who is widely traveled, tells you that the roads in the center of Sofia, Bulgaria, are covered in yellow brick (as indeed they are), then you are entitled to claim that you know this for a fact, based on what your friend told you. And if a child’s parents, who are a lot older and wiser than she is, tell her to stay away from a particular person because he is a bad character, then the child is epistemically warranted in assuming the same.

7. Testability is a vital ingredient of scientific knowledge, but it is not sufficient to render a claim to knowledge scientific. A person might check the reliability of one of her sources by testing that source; but that does not make her knowledge scientific. St. John tells us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1), but this does not refer to scientific knowledge.

8. At the same time, not all knowledge needs to be testable, in order to count as genuine knowledge. For instance, sometimes you can just see, from the expression on someone’s face, that they are telling you the truth; their sincerity is impossible to doubt. If such a person swears to you that they have never harmed or betrayed you, then you have every right to say that you know they are telling the truth.

9. The above-listed sources of knowledge, coupled with the rationality norms listed for science, are all that is needed to provide a warrant for religious claims:

(a) One powerful argument for God’s existence is based on the existence of laws of Nature (written in the language of mathematics) which not only describe how objects actually behave, but also prescribe how those objects ought to behave, pointing to the existence of a Divine Prescriber, Who made those laws. This kind of transcendental argument takes as its starting point a pre-existing epistemic commitment on the part of a scientist, who is committed to the possibility of our being able to know about the external world. The argument then proceeds to show that in order to justify that commitment, one has to invoke a Creative Mind, Who is incapable by nature of deceiving us (i.e. God);

(b) Another type of argument, known as an abductive argument, takes as its starting point some observable state of affairs in the world (e.g. the existence of astronomically improbable configurations of parts performing some complex task, or executing some program), and then argues for an Intelligent Designer as the best explanation of those facts. If it can also be shown that the cosmos itself exhibits fundamental features pointing to its having been designed, then we may infer the existence of a Designer Who is Transcendent as well. In order to justify its conclusion, however, this type of argument appeals to premises based on our past and present observations of intelligent agents, and of unguided natural processes. Probabilistic calculations are then invoked, in order to show that the probability of these state of affairs occurring, given the existence of an intelligent Cause of Nature, is much, much higher than the probability of their occurrence in the absence of such a Cause;

(c) Yet another type of argument appeals to various rationality norms, relating to the kinds of questions scientists should ask. Since (as I argued above) there’s nothing obviously wrong with the question, “Why does the cosmos obtain?”, we should treat it as a legitimate question and look for an answer in a Necessary Cause Who cannot cease to obtain. More recently, Professor Paul Herrick, in his 2009 essay, Job Opening: Creator of the Universe — A Reply to Keith Parsons, has propounded what he calls his Daring Inquiry Principle: when confronted with the existence of some unexplained phenomenon X, it is reasonable to seek an explanation for X, if we can coherently conceive of a state of affairs in which it would not be the case that X exists. Herrick uses his Principle to argue for the legitimacy of inferring the existence of a Necessary Being Who created the cosmos through an act of free choice.

In a similar vein, the other rationality norms I listed above can all be used to construct powerful arguments for the existence of God. The fact that everything we see around us is composed of two or more parts prompts us to look for a Simple Cause of their existence. The fact that observable things possess arbitrary physical properties (as shown by the constants of Nature) points to the existence of a non-arbitrary Cause. The fact that the multiverse itself (according to cosmologist Alex Vilenkin) had a beginning, points to its having had a Cause – and replacing the statement, “The multiverse had a beginning” with the more innocuous statement, “Time has a finite duration” does nothing to obviate the problem either, for we can still legitimately ask why the universe has precisely that duration (since it’s an apparently arbitrary property of the cosmos-as-a-whole).

I have only sketched the arguments for God’s existence here. I explore these arguments in far greater depth in the following posts:

Does scientific knowledge presuppose God? A reply to Carroll, Coyne, Dawkins and Loftus

Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part One)

Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part Two)

Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part Three)

(The last post addresses the problem of evil, and why it isn’t a good argument against the existence of God.)

The conclusion that the God of classical theism exists is not a scientific one, strictly speaking, as such a God is not only physically simple, but also metaphysically simple. In addition, the God of classical theism is not merely free from arbitrary limitations, but also metaphysically infinite: such a God is often described as Being Itself, or Truth Itself, or Love Itself. Science cannot take us that far. Nevertheless, science can take us to a Being beyond this cosmos, as the cosmos (taken as a whole, which is how the science of cosmology takes it) exhibits features which are not self-explanatory, and which therefore require an explanation.

Religious arguments for the truth of this or that religion are not merely based on private revelation and holy texts, as Dr. Rosenhouse maintains. Rather, they are typically based on a very public revelation that is vouchsafed by large numbers of eyewitnesses who attest to having seen it. In that case, the credibility of the religious claim can be assessed by performing Bayesian logic on the testimony itself, as well as any supporting documents (manuscripts containing records of that testimony). In addition, a prior probability needs to be assigned for the supernatural claim in question e.g. a resurrection form the dead). The prior probability should not be assigned a zero value; nor should it be assigned an infinitesimal value (as that would violate Cromwell’s rule, which states that only statements that are logically true – e.g. No bachelor is married – or logically false – e.g. Tom is married and single – should be assigned a prior probability of 0 or 1).

A more sensible value for the prior probability of a miracle can be computed by following Laplace’s famous analysis of the Sunrise Problem, which would mean, for instance, that the prior probability of a resurrection from the dead is around 1 in 100 billion (the total number of individuals who have ever lived). In Chapter X of his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (2nd ed., London, 1838; digitized for the Victorian Web by Dr. John van Wyhe and proof-read by George P. Landow), which is titled, On Hume’s Argument against Miracles, the nineteenth century mathematician Charles Babbage demonstrates that the testimony of even a small number of independent eyewitnesses is sufficient to overcome Hume’s daunting odds against the occurrence of a miracle. In Chapter XIII, he calculates the number of individuals who have ever lived to be 200 billion (which is about double the modern estimate), and goes on to discuss Hume’s example of a man being raised to life. Babbage concludes that we can indeed know that such events took place in the past.

In recent years, the philosophers Tim and Lydia McGrew have written an excellent article on the evidence for the Resurrection. The best critique of their article is an online essay by Jesse Parrish, who has a great deal of respect for the McGrews, but doesn’t think that their argument quite works. (I’ll be writing a post of my own on miracles in the near future.)

Arguments for the truth of a holy text are another matter. Such arguments can only rely on the strength of testimonial knowledge. If, for instance, the subject of a miraculous claim were to testify that some book was inspired, and if this testimony were followed by a miracle, then one could reasonably take that sign as constituting powerful evidence that the statements made in the book in question were actually true. And if the statements made in that text were quite clearly at odds with the best science of the day, then it would still be rationally prudent to believe the text over the scientific claims, as the Source validating the claims in the text is a Transcendent Being, Who presumably has access to far more reliable information about the cosmos than that currently possessed by our best scientists.

In other words, belief in a young Earth is not necessarily irrational. Nevertheless, it requires a lot of conditions to be satisfied, to make it epistemically warranted. The reason why I’m personally not a young Earth creationist is that I don’t think it’s at all clear that those conditions have been met. Nevertheless, I can understand why someone might be.

10. Dr. Rosenhouse is very alarmed at the damage done to science by the stranglehold of religious claims, which can choke its progress. He is especially critical of the attitude to science shown by the Church in the Middle Ages, where natural science was treated as the handmaid of theology, the queen of the sciences:

…[T]hat attitude is practically the definition of anti-science, at least as we understand that term today. They did not believe that nature should be studied solely by natural means, or that we should follow evidence wherever it leads, or that we should test our beliefs against evidence. Rather, they believed that science was valuable only insofar as it served religious ends, and if it strayed into areas on which the Church had taken a stand that it had to be stopped. Ruthlessly, if need be…

Galileo was a threat to the Church because he suggested that science, and not scripture, should be how we learn about nature. The Church saw this as a threat to its power by challenging its claims to religious authority, so they came down on him. Hard. If you don’t see that as a conflict between science and religion, then you need to rethink your definitions.

St. Thomas Aquinas did indeed speak of sacred doctrine (or theology) as a science, and as being nobler than the other sciences. But this tells only half the story. The term “science” at that time referred to any branch of knowledge, and it did not acquire its modern meaning until the early nineteenth century, under the influence of William Whewell, John Herschel, Charles Babbage and Richard Jones.

Regarding the interpretation of Scripture, what both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas maintained was that one should hold the truth of Scripture without wavering, but that since Scripture can be explained in multiple senses, one should be ready to abandon a particular interpretation of Scripture, if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers. Augustine laid down these exegetical principles in his De Genesi ad Litteram, Book I, chapter 19, paragraphs 38-39, a commentary on the opening chapters of Genesis. Aquinas cited these principles in his Simma Theologica, I, q. 68, art. 1.

Where Galileo did part company with Augustine and Aquinas was in maintaining that the authority of the Bible is effectively limited to matters with which the natural sciences cannot deal, making science and religion two independent domains of knowledge. Dr. Gregory Dawes has described Galileo’s exegetical position in an illuminating article entitled, Could there be another Galileo case? Galileo, Augustine and Vatican II. What Galileo upheld was an early version of Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA – and it was unworkable for exactly the same reason. Whether we like it or not, religion does have things to say about the “Big Questions” (Whence came we? What are we? Whither go we?) which have empirical implications. For instance, when the Nicene Creed describes God as “maker of Heaven and earth,” then it obviously places itself in a position of potential conflict with science: if science were to show that the universe had no beginning, then God could still be its Sustainer, but not its Maker. To require religion to forego making such empirical claims is to effectively emasculate it, and confine it to the domain of purely spiritual (other-worldly) affairs. Religion confined in this way is but a shadow of its former self. It is incapable of transforming the way in which we live: it no longer provides an all-embracing worldview, as it leaves out the material universe.

Galileo’s problem was that by the standards of Augustine and Aquinas, the evidence marshaled he had for his heliocentric theory fell a long way short of “proof.” Physics was still in a very primitive state – Newton was born in 1642, the year Galileo died, and his Principia wasn’t published until 1687 – and it would take another two centuries before stellar parallax was observed by Bessel in 1838. Had Galileo been able to provide these proofs, the Inquisition would have been forced to back down; instead, they made a very bad decision based on their faulty, very rigid interpretation of some poetical passages in Scripture, such as Psalm 104:5, which (properly translated) does not speak of the Earth as never being moved, but as never faltering.

But if Dr. Rosenhouse can’t get the bad taste of the Galileo episode out of his head, then I would urge him to have a look at the progress of science in England, from the year 1660 (when the Royal Society of London was founded under King Charles II, with the motto, “Nullius in verba,” or “Take nobody’s word for it”) to the year 1865, when Maxwell’s equations were published. During that time, science flourished as never before in human history, and the spirit of intellectual inquiry was free and untrammeled. And yet the vast majority of scientists during this period were devout Christians. Does Dr. Rosenhouse seriously want to argue that these scientists’ Christianity impeded their scientific discovery-making? Did Victorian England hamper even the work of scientists such as Charles Darwin, whose Origin of Species ushered in a period of tension between science and religion on human origins? No; he was always at full liberty to pursue his research. When I look back at the intellectual freedom of the nineteenth century, I cannot help but contrast this liberty with the stifling political correctness of the modern era, when it is impossible to publicly doubt Darwin’s theory, or the latest IPCC climate projections, without being assailed as a “denier.”

And that brings me to my final point, which is that secular humanism keeps science in a straitjacket, by failing to ask the really hard questions that scientists ought to be asking. Instead of asking, “What is a law of Nature? Why do we have the laws of Nature that we do?”, secular scientists are likely to stop their train of intellectual inquiry at a nice, neat-looking “brute fact”: maybe an equation that fits on the back of a T-shirt. “This is as far as science can go,” they’ll say. And in the process, science will be horribly stunted.

Ask yourself which attitude is really more harmful to science: the view that the whole of Creation is a manifestation of the Mind of God, Who wants His intelligent creatures (human beings) to understand as much as possible about His plan for creation, or the view that we are the product of four billion years of evolution from slime, that our brains are kluges that can’t be trusted to think straight, and that scientists’ inadequate theories will always have to be revised, but should nonetheless be accepted with Gospel fervor whenever the politics of the day demands it?

Dr. Rosenhouse should be careful what he wishes for: he just might get what he wants.

Comments
Barb: Spot on, cf. here on in context. Pistis -- the term translated as Faith in the NT -- is in fact the classic term for proof in rhetoric. A definite facet of its sense in the NT is soundly arrived at conviction and trust, in a context of a tradition of testimony by reliable witnesses, as can be seen here:
2 Tim 3:14 But as for you, continue to hold to the things that you have learned and of which you are convinced [--> epistothes, rooted in the word for "faith"], knowing from whom you learned [them], 15 And how from your childhood you have had a knowledge of and been acquainted with the sacred Writings, which are able to instruct you and give you the understanding for salvation which comes through faith [--> pisteos, same basic term] in Christ Jesus [through the [b]leaning of the entire human personality on God in Christ Jesus in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness --> AMP's explicatory parenthesis, summed up as: confident, well founded trust in and surrender to God]. 16 Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action), 17 So that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work. [AMP]
In fact, we all must, as finite, fallible, intellectually and morally struggling, too often ill-willed creatures, repose trust somewhere; especially in the foundations of our worldviews. The question is, in what, why, how soundly? Where is is easy to see that evolutionary materialism -- never mind the lab coat -- is self-referentially incoherent, lacking capacity to ground the credible, knowing, reasoning mind. In a nutshell, blind forces tracing to chance and necessity simply do not have the requisite capability. KFkairosfocus
April 17, 2014
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Graham posits a question: "Can I help what I believe?" The answer, from me, would be: "I would certainly hope so." Philosophy professor John Chaffee's book Thinking Critically illustrates differing levels of belief, from questioning everything (hyperskepticism) to guillibly accepting everything. I'd like to think that Graham can use basic critical thinking skills to evaluate what he believes and why he believes it. Are his beliefs based on factual or anecdotal evidence? Are his beliefs falsifiable? Do his beliefs conform to reality? Are they supported by sound reasons? I have stated this before,and I'll repeat it here: faith is not the same as credulity. It simply is not, no matter how many atheists believe that it is. Faith in God comes from an examination of the evidence, as Paul mentions in his letters, and not in spite of the lack of evidence, as some may think.Barb
March 25, 2014
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G2 "So, after long consideration, I have decided that I dont believe in gods." Have you tried praying to Jesus and asking Him for the revelation you seek? There are many people who have had a direct revelation and have come to a personal knowledge in Christ by seeking Him.Chalciss
March 25, 2014
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I'd like to propose a new thread title. Not Even Wrong: Why Science Doesn't Even Pretend to Be Truth (Much Less, A Way of Knowing)Mung
March 25, 2014
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Yes Axel, if reasoning were the result of tantrums and pouting we would be in big trouble! :)bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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Graham2,
So, after long consideration, I have decided that I dont believe in gods.
Here are some questions to ask yourself in private: - If God interacted with me in some personal way, would I be willing to trust God's plan for me and would I be willing to obey God's teachings, whatever it might entail? - In what ways would I expect that my life might change if that happened? Would such changes be a good thing in my life? - How could God interact with me that would be non-coercive, so I'd still have my free will? From my personal experience, I believe that God can and will initiate a relationship with you, but only if you'd like to have God in your life, and you make a sincere request.
Now, do you think Im off to hell ?
I suspect that some people actually prefer hell so they don't have to live in God's presence. It's up to you, but why go there if you don't have to? -QQuerius
March 25, 2014
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'“One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.” —C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason)' bornagain77, when I read your above quote of C S Lewis, up-thread, (although not for the first time), and others both by him and by G K Chesterton, and I compare them with the fatuous, infantile jibes of truculent atheists on these boards, I find it difficult to comprehend how such an intellectual gulf could exist between them. It doesn't seem like eminent Christian academics arguing with their atheist-academic peers, but, rather, the former, arguing with primary-school children. When they are not reducing the Christian faith to belief in an old man in the sky with a long beard, unicorns, pink pixies, etc, the more putatively intellectual, atheist apologists contend that God must be nasty to allow suffering in the world, so they won't believe in him - implicitly, therefore, on principle!!! You couldn't make it up. More examples? Think of Dawkins' non-plussed expression, as he wondered why an audience laughed, when he spoke about describing nothing. And then GK Chesterton's dictum: "It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into anything." Bear in mind that both those withering quotes from Lewis and Chesterton, respectively, are matters of the simplest, most incontestable logic. But for atheists, logic is supererogatory. The use of such simple logic against atheists to such crushing effect is akin to jiu-jitsu, the damage being done by manipulating the opponent's force against himself rather than confronting it with one's own force. They say the craziest things. But such madness is so prevalent in our secular post-Christian society, it sometimes takes a Lewis or a Chesterton to spot it among all the other madness, as a wonderful standard bearer for atheism.Axel
March 25, 2014
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In spite of the fact that you refuse to be honest to the fact that reason itself demands a transcendent component to our make-up, I already answered your question: 58 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-science-cannot-be-the-only-way-of-knowing-a-reply-to-jason-rosenhouse/#comment-493871 61 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-science-cannot-be-the-only-way-of-knowing-a-reply-to-jason-rosenhouse/#comment-493875 But if you refuse to be honest at the most basic level of admitting you possess free will then what does it really matter what I believe Graham2? (assuming that there really is such a person as Graama2 to talk to of course! :) )bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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BA77: I will have one more go, then give up. I am asking you a simple question that should have a YES/NO answer. I may be completely deluded, I will even accept that for the sake of argument, but at the end I have to go one way (up or down). I am asking you which way you think Im headed. I realise you dont know all my circumstances (I may eat babies on my days off), but based on what you know, do you think Im headed for hell ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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:) And exactly who is this 'I' who may or may not go to hell since Graham2 does not believe in the 'I', i.e. personhood, of Graham2? 7.) The argument from enduring 1. If naturalism is true, I do not endure for two moments of time. 2. I have been sitting here for more than a minute. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true.bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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BA77: OK, I sound incoherent to you, lets take that as given, my question remains: do you think Im off to hell ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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Graham2 you claim: "I have decided that I dont believe in gods." But exactly who is this is this 'I' that freely decided not to believe in gods? Did not you just say that there is no transcendent component to your being so as to go against whatever your brain may dictate to you to believe? You can't have your cake and eat it too!bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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BA77: Whatever the mechanism behind it, the fact remains that I believe some things, and not others. If the foundation of these is material or not is not my point, the fact remains that I dont seem to be able to change my beliefs. Sure, on deeper reflection, study, etc I may (and have) changed some beliefs, but at the end of the process if I believe something, how can I make myself 'not believe' ? I dont understand that concept. So, after long consideration, I have decided that I dont believe in gods. Now, do you think Im off to hell ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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Graham2,
Can I help what I believe ?
Exactly, that is the question. What say ye? As a materialist you must hold that you have no choice to believe anything save for what your brain dictates to you to believe. You are merely a helpless victim of your 'random' thoughts. Is your belief true though? I hold not only is your belief completely absurd and irrational but that your belief is also demonstrably false by our latest science:
Can quantum theory be improved? - July 23, 2012 Excerpt: Being correct 50% of the time when calling heads or tails on a coin toss won’t impress anyone. So when quantum theory predicts that an entangled particle will reach one of two detectors with just a 50% probability, many physicists have naturally sought better predictions. The predictive power of quantum theory is, in this case, equal to a random guess. Building on nearly a century of investigative work on this topic, a team of physicists has recently performed an experiment whose results show that, despite its imperfections, quantum theory still seems to be the optimal way to predict measurement outcomes., However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (*conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice/free will assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html *What does the term "measurement" mean in quantum mechanics? "Measurement" or "observation" in a quantum mechanics context are really just other ways of saying that the observer is interacting with the quantum system and measuring the result in toto.
It was shown in the paper that one cannot ever improve the predictive power of quantum mechanics, our best theory in science, by ever removing free will as a starting assumption (Axiom) in Quantum Mechanics!
What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will Free will and nonlocality at detection: Basic principles of quantum physics – Antoine Suarez – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhMrrmlTXl4 How Free Will Works (In Quantum Mechanics) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMp30Q8OGOE
In the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is directly falsified by the fact that present conscious choices are, in fact, effecting past material states:
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html
You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video
Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained - 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4 "If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded." Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000).
In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my free will choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past? This experiment is simply impossible for materialism to explain! Here is another experiment along the same line that shows an observer can choose to 'steer' a particle into a desired state:
Steering by peeking: Physicists control quantum particles by looking at them - Feb 17, 2014 Excerpt: By varying the strength of the coupling between the nucleus and the electron, the scientists could carefully tune the measurement strength. A weaker measurement reveals less information, but also has less back-action. An analysis of the nuclear spin after such a weak measurement showed that the nuclear spin remained in a (slightly altered) superposition of two states. In this way, the scientists verified that the change of the state (induced by the back-action) precisely matched the amount of information that was gained by the measurement. Steering by peeking The scientists realised that it is possible to steer the nuclear spin by applying sequential measurements with varying measurement strength. Since the outcome of a measurement is not known in advance, the researchers implemented a feedback loop in the experiment. They chose the strength of the second measurement depending on the outcome of the first measurement. In this way the scientists could steer the nucleus towards a desired superposition state,,,, http://phys.org/news/2014-02-peeking-physicists-quantum-particles.html
In other words, if you don't like that the cat might be dead (nucleus pointing down), you back off the strength of your measurement until you get a reading telling you that the cat might be more alive than dead (nucleus pointing up) and then once you get that reading you increase the strength of the measurement, as long as the measurement continues to give you your desired more alive than dead state, until you finally have complete knowledge that the cat is fully alive (nucleus pointing up). The preceding experiment is obviously another strong confirmation of free will's axiomatic position within quantum mechanics, and is inexplicable for materialism: Verse and Music:
Deuteronomy 30:19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live Michael W. Smith - You Won't Let Go LIVE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZusL1OHG4
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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Graham continues,
So, in summary, modern science doesnt respect god as the creator. If it did, it would then acknowledge that mathematical formulae and the priodic table (at least) are created by god. Have I got it ?
No, as evidenced by your straw man argument above. From the article "Can A Realist Believe in God?" [Awake!, September 8, 1982]: The apostle Paul developed a powerful argument that has led many realists to believe in God. He said: “[God’s] invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship.” (Romans 1:20) Paul could see the beauties of creation, the wondrous variety of life and the awesome starry heavens, and in them discern some of the qualities of the one who created them. Modern science helps us to see how intricately designed natural things are, what power and wisdom were necessary to bring them into existence. Hence, in some ways the natural world today gives an even more powerful witness to the existence of God. True, there are some who reject this reasoning. But what alternative explanation do they have for the order that exists in the natural world? Regarding just one small aspect of that order, the protein molecules, science author Rutherford Platt wrote: “The chance of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen atoms, as well as phosphorus and a constellation of metallic elements, coming together in the right proportions, under the right conditions, can be likened to the chance that a pack of cards, flung in the air, will fall to the table with all the suits in sequence—virtually impossible, even though the cards were tossed in the air every second without pause through history.” The author goes on to say that he, nevertheless, believes that proteins came about like that—by chance. But, surely, a realistic person, on finding a deck of cards all harmoniously laid out on a table in their proper suits, would realize that someone had carefully put them there. Is it unrealistic to come to the same conclusion when observing the beautiful harmony in nature? Intellectuals, such as Rutherford Platt, doubtless feel compelled to accept a naturalistic, or non-divine, explanation for things—in spite of the evidence—because that is the kind of reasoning that is acceptable today. Even scientists who believe in God would find it difficult to credit him as the direct cause of things in their scientific writings. This is the intellectual fashion. But is it realistic to allow our view of matters to be dictated by the intellectual fashion? Fashions change. The existence of God is too serious a matter to be dependent on things like fashions.Barb
March 25, 2014
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Science cannot be the only way of knowing all there is to "know". Science is one field of study and there are various other fields of study and knowledge. Science can never answer the deeper "life" questions such as the meaning, purpose, ethics and the like. Great posts by BA77. Why are people consumed by the question 'am I going to hell?' it is almost as if they know the answer to the question and would like their answer to be validated. Wouldn't it be better to ask oneself 'am I going to heaven?' :)Chalciss
March 25, 2014
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BA77: Can I help what I believe ? I just believe it. So, given that, am I off to hell ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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G2 "I dont believe I have a ‘transcendent’ anything" Really??? Why, pray tell, do you try to convince others, using the transcendent entity of information, that your arguments are valid if you hold that consequent reasoning is merely illusory? It is a bit like me trying to tell the wind to do other than what it does is it not?
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test - Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf Physicalism and Reason - May 2013 Summary: So we find ourselves affirming two contradictory propositions: 1. Everything is governed by cause-and-effect. 2. Our brains can process and be changed by ground-consequent logical relationships. To achieve consistency, we must either deny that everything is governed by cause-and-effect, and open our worldviews to something beyond physicalism, or we must deny that our brains are influenced by ground-consequence reasoning, and abandon the idea that we are rational creatures. Ask yourself: are humans like falling dominoes, entirely subject to natural law, or may we stand up and walk in the direction that reason shows us? http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2012/09/physicalism-and-reason/ Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
And that is but a mere foretaste of the insanity that the atheistic worldview entails:
Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ 1.) Argument from intentionality 1. If naturalism is true, I cannot think about anything. 2. I am thinking about naturalism. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 2.) The argument from meaning 1. If naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning. 2. Premise (1) has meaning. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 3.) The argument from truth 1. If naturalism is true, there are no true sentences. 2. Premise (1) is true. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 4.) The argument from moral blame and praise 1. If naturalism is true, I am not morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for any of my actions. 2. I am morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for some of my actions. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 5.) Argument from freedom 1. If naturalism is true, I do not do anything freely. 2. I am free to agree or disagree with premise (1). 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 6.) The argument from purpose 1. If naturalism is true, I do not plan to do anything. 2. I (Dr. Craig) planned to come to tonight's debate. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 7.) The argument from enduring 1. If naturalism is true, I do not endure for two moments of time. 2. I have been sitting here for more than a minute. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 8.) The argument from personal existence 1. If naturalism is true, I do not exist. 2. I do exist! 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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BA77: supposing that you do believe that you have a transcendent component to your being ... No, I dont believe I have a 'transcendent' anything. Does this mean Im destined for hell ? Am I to be consumed forever by fire ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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Using the New World Translation Against Jehovah's Witness Theology http://www.jashow.org/wiki/index.php?title=Using_the_New_World_Translation_Against_Jehovah%27s_Witness_Theologybornagain77
March 25, 2014
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As to the veracity of NDE's being 'real' instead of, ahem, 'postmortem confabulations', why don't we look at what the empirical evidence itself says instead of relying on someone's opinion of NDE's???:
The Day I Died - Part 4 of 6 - The Extremely 'Monitored' Near Death Experience of Pam Reynolds - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4045560
The following is on par with Pam Reynolds Near Death Experience. In the following video, Dr. Lloyd Rudy, a pioneer of cardiac surgery, tells stories of two patients who came back to life after being declared dead, and what they told him about what they saw while they were out of their temporal bodies.
Famous Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Near Death Experiences in Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08
Here are the opinions of two Doctors who have extensively studied NDE's
The Scientific Evidence for Near Death Experiences - Dr Jeffrey Long - Melvin Morse M.D. - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4454627 Dr. Jeffrey Long: Just how strong is the evidence for a afterlife? - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mptGAc3XWPs
Moreover, it is interesting to note how the empirical evidence for NDE's compares to the evidence for Darwinian evolution:
Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species (or origin of life), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html "A recent analysis of several hundred cases showed that 48% of near-death experiencers reported seeing their physical bodies from a different visual perspective. Many of them also reported witnessing events going on in the vicinity of their body, such as the attempts of medical personnel to resuscitate them (Kelly et al., 2007)." Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B., & Kelly, E. F. (2007). Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena. In E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, & B. Greyson, Irreducible mind (pp. 367-421). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Facts about NDEs - video clip on the site Excerpt: In 1982 a Gallup poll estimated that 8 million Americans have had a near-death experience and a more resent study, a US News & World Report in March of 1997, found that 15 million have had the experience. -per NDE Light
Another piece of evidence that argues very strongly against any type of materialistic explanation for Near death Experiences is what are termed 'Shared Death Experience'. A 'Shared Death Experience' is an experience in which a loved one, though not terminally ill, is caught up into part of the Near Death Experience as a loved one passes on:
Dr. Raymond Moody on Shared Death Experiences - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-ihzzYjqeE
It is very interesting to note that even though the researcher(s) in this following study found evidence directly contradicting what he (they) had expected to find, that he was/is so wedded to the materialistic/naturalistic view of reality, the view of “I’ am my body”, that it seemed sadly impossible for him (one of the primary researchers) to even conceive of the fact that he may be wrong in his naturalistic presupposition, and to even admit to the possibility that NDE's are real, i.e. to the “I’ am a soul distinct from my body” view of reality.
'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/
Throw on top of that the finding of 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum entanglement in the body (Stuart Hameroff), then a solid case appears that NDE's are indeed trustworthy as to their overall veracity (and are definitely far more trustworthy than Darwinian explanations are). Of related interest, in this following video, although the girl in the video was written off as hopelessly retarded by almost everyone who saw her outside appearance, except by her loving father, reveals that there was/is indeed a gentle intelligence, a “me”, a “soul", within the girl that was/is trapped within her body. A “me” that was/is unable to express herself properly to others because of her neurological disorder effecting her body.
Severely Handicapped Girl Suddenly Expresses Intelligence At Age 11 – very moving video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZVV4Ciccg Carly’s Café – Experience Autism Through Carly’s Eyes – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmDGvquzn2k
Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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@ba77: The article you quote concludes:
The Thai cases support the idea that NDEs are postmortem confabulations occurring within specific cultural contexts.
@Graham2: Hell is just a state of being perished. There's no fire and no torture. You're just dead, you don't feel anything. It's like not being born. Further readings: - What Did Jesus Teach About Hell? - Hell - What Really Is HellJWTruthInLove
March 25, 2014
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My apologies, Graham. That was not the time (when you'd asked BA a serious question) for a put-down against your trash-talking about the immaterial - the substrate beneath all of God's Creation. You did get a superlative answer to your question.Axel
March 25, 2014
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I think it's QM that gives Graham and his dirt-worshipping confreres the screaming horrors. There not being a sky for the "unicorns 'n' stuff" in QM to link to. However infantile, "in the sky" was such an evocative slur. "Pie in the sky".... 'cep the "pie" could not be more fundamentally earthy; and worse..., simultaneously ethereal.Axel
March 25, 2014
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Graham2, I noticed you did not answer my question to you about whether or not you believe you have a transcendent mind that is able to reason in the first place. It is hard to reason with someone who denies he has the ability to reason in the first place! Thus why should I answer your question when you refuse to honestly address my question? But anyways, overlooking all that and supposing that you do believe that you have a transcendent component to your being that lives past the death of your temporal body, i.e. that you have a eternal mind/soul, it is not about your mind/soul personally being good enough to go to heaven. It is about imperfect humans beings being able to dwell in the perfect presence of a infinitely just and holy God.
Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament is True – Frank Turek – video – November 2011 (41:00 minute mark – Despite what is commonly believed, of someone being 'good enough' to go to heaven, in reality both Mother Teresa and Hitler fall short of the moral perfection required to meet the perfection of God’s objective moral code) http://saddleback.com/mc/m/5e22f/
i.e. To those without the 'propitiation' of Christ to enable them to dwell in the presence of God's infinite perfection, holiness, and goodness, God will be as a 'consuming fire', utterly destroying that which is 'unholy', i.e. forever destroying that which is 'imperfect', instead of God being a source of infinite goodness and joy to that person.
Consuming Fire? http://www.gotquestions.org/consuming-fire.html G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385 Falling Plates (the grace of propitiation) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24
Of related note to trying to be 'good enough' to go to heaven, all mortal humans have sinned and fall short of the glory of God:
Benjamin Franklin’s Pursuit of the Virtuous Life - 2008 Excerpt: ,,at the age of 20, Ben Franklin set his loftiest goal: the attainment of moral perfection. "I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into." In order to accomplish his goal, Franklin developed and committed himself to a personal improvement program that consisted of living 13 virtues. (He failed to arrive at moral perfection):,,, "Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it." http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/02/24/lessons-in-manliness-benjamin-franklins-pursuit-of-the-virtuous-life/
Verse, quote, and music:
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The Easter Question - Eben Alexander, M.D. - March 2013 Excerpt: More than ever since my near death experience, I consider myself a Christian -,,, Now, I can tell you that if someone had asked me, in the days before my NDE, what I thought of this (Easter) story, I would have said that it was lovely. But it remained just that -- a story. To say that the physical body of a man who had been brutally tortured and killed could simply get up and return to the world a few days later is to contradict every fact we know about the universe. It wasn't simply an unscientific idea. It was a downright anti-scientific one. But it is an idea that I now believe. Not in a lip-service way. Not in a dress-up-it's-Easter kind of way. I believe it with all my heart, and all my soul.,, We are, really and truly, made in God's image. But most of the time we are sadly unaware of this fact. We are unconscious both of our intimate kinship with God, and of His constant presence with us. On the level of our everyday consciousness, this is a world of separation -- one where people and objects move about, occasionally interacting with each other, but where essentially we are always alone. But this cold dead world of separate objects is an illusion. It's not the world we actually live in.,,, ,,He (God) is right here with each of us right now, seeing what we see, suffering what we suffer... and hoping desperately that we will keep our hope and faith in Him. Because that hope and faith will be triumphant. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eben-alexander-md/the-easter-question_b_2979741.html Kutless - Take Me In (Holy Of Holies) – music http://www.metacafe.com/w/4716801
Supplemental note: All foreign, non-Judeo-Christian culture, NDE studies I have looked at have a extreme rarity of encounters with 'The Being Of Light' and tend to be very unpleasant NDE's save for the few pleasant children's NDEs of those cultures that I've seen (It seems there is indeed an 'age of accountability'). The following study was shocking for what was found in some non-Judeo-Christian NDE's:
Near-Death Experiences in Thailand - Todd Murphy: Excerpt:The Light seems to be absent in Thai NDEs. So is the profound positive affect found in so many Western NDEs. The most common affect in our collection is negative. Unlike the negative affect in so many Western NDEs (cf. Greyson & Bush, 1992), that found in Thai NDEs (in all but case #11) has two recognizable causes. The first is fear of 'going'. The second is horror and fear of hell. It is worth noting that although half of our collection include seeing hell (cases 2,6,7,9,10) and being forced to witness horrific tortures, not one includes the NDEer having been subjected to these torments themselves. http://www.shaktitechnology.com/thaindes.htm Near Death Experience Thailand Asia - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8M5J3zWG5g
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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BAQ77: What, exactly, have I done wrong ? Im not a bad person, I dont harm others. I think the god stuff is nonsense, but surely non-believers can get to heaven ? cant they ?Graham2
March 25, 2014
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In light of this dilemma that the two very different eternities present to us spiritually minded people, and the fact that Gravity is, in so far as we can tell, completely incompatible with Quantum Mechanics, it is interesting to point out a subtle nuance on the Shroud of Turin. Namely that Gravity was overcome in the resurrection event of Christ:
Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. http://www.academicjournals.org/sre/PDF/pdf2012/30JulSpeIss/Antonacci.pdf A Quantum Hologram of Christ’s Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox. http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation
Personally, considering the extreme difficulty that many brilliant minds have had in trying to reconcile Quantum Mechanics/Special relativity, (i.e. Quantum Electodynamics), with Gravity, I consider the preceding nuance on the Shroud of Turin to be a subtle, but powerful, evidence substantiating Christ’s primary claim as to being our Savior from sin, death, and hell:
John 8:23-24 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.” G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) – poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385
Supplemental note: The process in which the image was formed on the Shroud was a quantum process, not a classical process:
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html
Verse and Music:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Natalie Grant – Alive (Resurrection music video) Lyric “Death has lost and Love has won!” http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KPYWPGNX
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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Graham2, do you believe you have a mind that is transcendent of your brain that is able to make free will choices based on logic and reason?
“One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.” —C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason)
To the primary question you asked Graham2, currently, in your present state of setting yourself resolutely against God, and wanting nothing whatsoever to do with Him, yes I do believe that you will be granted your 'free will' wish and separated from Him.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce Is God Good? (Free will and the problem of evil) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfd_1UAjeIA
But hope springs eternal Graham2, so I also believe that God will bring you to a place in your future that you might call upon Him and be saved. But ultimately your own free will choice and words will decide your ultimate fate:
Joel 2:32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.,,, Matthew 12:37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
Graham2, as to what the empirical evidence itself states, in physics we find two very different ‘eternities’ just as Theism has held for millenia. One eternity in physics is found ‘if’ a hypothetical observer were to accelerate to the speed of light. In this scenario time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop for the hypothetical observer. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/ “I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005
Some may think that time, as we understand it, coming to a complete stop at the speed of light is pure science fiction, but, as incredible as it sounds, Einstein’s infamous thought experiment has many lines of evidence now supporting it.
Velocity time dilation tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Velocity_time_dilation_tests “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
This following confirmation of time dilation is my favorite since they have actually caught time dilation on film (of note: light travels approximately 1 foot in a nanosecond (billionth of a second) whilst the camera used in the experiment takes a trillion pictures a second):
Amazing — light filmed at 1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second! – video (so fast that at 9:00 Minute mark of video you can briefly see the time dilation effect of relativity caught on film!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9vd4HWlVA
This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is also warranted, by logic, because light is not ‘frozen within time’, i.e. light appears to move to us in our temporal framework of time, yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. The only way this is possible is if light is indeed of a higher dimensional value of time than our temporal time is otherwise it would simply be ‘frozen in time’. Another line of evidence that supports the inference that ‘tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday’, at the ‘eternal’ speed of light, is visualizing what would happen if a hypothetical observer were to approach the speed of light. Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).
Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/
Moreover, we have ‘observational’ evidence that corroborates what our physics is telling us in that people who have had deep Judeo-Christian Near Death Experiences (NDEs) report both ‘eternity’ and traveling through the tunnel to a higher dimension:
‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ - Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer “I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” Barbara Springer – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel – video https://vimeo.com/79072924
Moreover, as with special relativity, in General Relativity we find that temporal time slows down the further down in a gravitational well a person is:
Gravitational time dilation tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Gravitational_time_dilation_tests
As well, as with any observer accelerating to the speed of light, it is found that for any ‘hypothetical’ observer falling to the event horizon of a black hole, that time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop for them. This is because the accelerative force of gravity at black holes is so intense that not even light can escape its grip:
Space-Time of a Black hole – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0VOn9r4dq8
But of particular interest to the ‘eternal framework’ found for General Relativity at black holes;… It is interesting to note that entropic decay (Randomness/Chaos), which is the primary reason why things grow old and eventually die in this universe, is found to be greatest at black holes. Thus the ‘eternity of time’ at black holes can rightly be described as ‘eternities of decay and/or eternities of destruction’.
"Einstein's equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist." Kip S. Thorne - "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" pg. 476
i.e. Black Holes are found to be ‘timeless’ singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang. Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternity of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of a ‘spiritually minded’ persuasion! It is also interesting to note that Gravity, despite intense effort, refuses to be unified with Quantum Mechanics into a 'Theory of Everything':
Theories of the Universe: Quantum Mechanics vs. General Relativity Excerpt: The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed. In the 1960s and ’70s, the success of QED prompted other physicists to try an analogous approach to unifying the weak, the strong, and the gravitational forces. Out of these discoveries came another set of theories that merged the strong and weak forces called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD, and quantum electroweak theory, or simply the electroweak theory, which you’ve already been introduced to. If you examine the forces and particles that have been combined in the theories we just covered, you’ll notice that the obvious force missing is that of gravity. http://www.infoplease.com/cig/theories-universe/quantum-mechanics-vs-general-relativity.html Bohemian Gravity - Rob Sheldon - September 19, 2013 Excerpt: there's a large contingent of physicists who believe that string theory is the heroin of theoretical physics. It has absorbed not just millions of dollars, but hundreds if not thousands of grad student lifetimes without delivering what it promised--a unified theory of the universe and life. It is hard, in fact, to find a single contribution from string theory despite 25 years of intense effort by thousands of the very brightest and best minds our society can find.,, This negative result is remarkable, and says something that no one wants to hear--that materialism as a philosophy of science, is spent, is toast, is worthless. - per Procrustes
bornagain77
March 25, 2014
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Graham2:
Where do you think the arrangement of elements comes from?
All the elements were designed.Joe
March 25, 2014
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BA77: Do you think Im destined for hell ?Graham2
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