(Hat-tip to Wintery Knight’s FACEBOOK) In a lively yet in-depth discussion, Piers Morgan drills down to the core of human existence with Stephen C. Meyer, the prominent ‘intelligent design’ advocate. In this Piers Morgan Uncensored special, Meyers firmly rejects the idea that a scientific worldview leads to atheism, arguing instead that ‘the universe requires a creator or cause’. When Richard Dawkin’s name is mentioned, Meyer claims that he actually really loves the atheist firebrand and admires his intensity. Lastly, Morgan and Meyers agree that the question of God’s existence is tied to more than just cold hard facts, but also human nature itself.
Richard Dawkins
Cultural Christianity: One | Secularism: Zero (New Atheism Fails)
Okay, let’s get this party started… right? I had seen a blip of Dawkins admitting — and it really is an admission of sorts — that what Christ wrought [as a worldview] is CULTURALLY what he [Dawkins] prefers to live under. He says he prefers this over Islam, but note, he didn’t mention he would rather live under some atheistic program.
“If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time.”
Self-proclaimed ‘cultural Christian’, @RichardDawkins, tells @RachelSJohnson he’s ‘slightly horrified’ to hear Ramadan lights were hung on Oxford Street rather than Easter lights. pic.twitter.com/ZY2ePfpms1
— LBC (@LBC) March 31, 2024
Why?
Because when dialectical materialism comes about as a worldview embedded into government, what do we get? (PDF version of the below)
AGAIN, to be clear via STAND TO REASON:
- Not only were students able to demonstrate the paucity of evidence for this claim, but we helped them discover that the facts of history show the opposite: religion is the cause of a very small minority of wars. Phillips and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars lays out the simple facts. In 5 millennia worth of wars—1,763 total—only 123 (or about 7%) were religious in nature (according to author Vox Day in the book The Irrational Atheist). If you remove the 66 wars waged in the name of Islam, it cuts the number down to a little more than 3%. A second [5-volume] scholarly source, The Encyclopedia of War edited by Gordon Martel, confirms this data, concluding that only 6% of the wars listed in its pages can be labelled religious wars. Thirdly, William Cavanaugh’s book, The Myth of Religious Violence, exposes the “wars of religion” claim. And finally, a recent report (2014) from the Institute for Economics and Peace further debunks this myth.
In other words, the culturally Christian West seems to diminish the propensity to “war.”
WHICH may be part of the issue, as well as culturally where we are headed with “gender,” “climate legislation/regulation,” “free-speech,” and the like that are bringing a consensus of sorts on the idea of the positive attributes of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Which leads me to my next example… a recent ATLANTIC article. Mr. Thompson starts the article thus:
- As an agnostic, I have spent most of my life thinking about the decline of faith in America in mostly positive terms. Organized religion seemed, to me, beset by scandal and entangled in noxious politics. So, I thought, what is there really to mourn? Only in the past few years have I come around to a different view. Maybe religion, for all of its faults, works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism, which threatens to swell and spill over in its absence.
Here, ARMSTRONG & GETTY discuss the article, as two non-believers/cultural Christians themselves:
As they were discussing the issue, I was thinking of this well worn quote from G.K. Chesterton: “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.” You should read the entire ATLANTIC article.
Bill Maher recently noted the following:
- For all the progressives and academics who refer to Israel as an outpost of Western civilization, like it’s a bad thing, please note: Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every [expletive] liberal precept that liberals are supposed to adore. Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women’s rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech. Please, somebody, stop us before we enlighten again.
Western civ is basically the Greco-Roman/Judaica-Christianity stream of influence. The CHRISTIAN POST, after quoting Maher, finishes their story:
- Which, in fact, brings up just what Bill Maher left out in his otherwise thoughtful and compelling monologue. As you might expect from the guy behind the faith-despising faux-documentary Religulous, he’s not quite ready to admit the role of religion in cultivating liberty and human rights. Because Voltaire and Rousseau were anti-religious, they are safe to mention. Locke and King are often praised almost in spite of their deep faith, which Maher never mentioned.
For more on the video to the right, see my post:
And it is this failure for community, freedom, and following the science (gender) that is chasing people away from secularism… into Western Foundations.
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Frank Turek author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” about the collapse of the New Atheist movement; Richard Dawkins admitting that religion may be necessary for a flourishing society; the failure of atheism in providing a sense of purpose and meaning; what prominent atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris overlooked; how only religions like Christianity and Judaism can protect a society from the worst elements of radical Islam; the spreading of social justice and woke culture in America’s churches; the case for intelligent design as a part of the story of evolution; how morality always ends up being legislated; Jordan Peterson’s utilitarian view of religion; and much more.
CROSS EXAMINED NOTED: Yes, we know that Dave Rubin is an openly gay man. CrossExamined.org does not always agree with and affirm all the held beliefs of our guests. Dave did not agree with everything Frank said when he was on The Rubin Report last month either. However, it is good to have dialogue and ask questions of non-Christian guests to see if they are open to Christ, as you will hear Frank do with Dave. We also welcome guests who can add value to specific topics on which we do agree. Despite our noted disagreements, Dave gets a lot right.
I will end with this article I found to be an interesting and pleasant read… this is how it ends:
From Relativism to Wokism: A Path of Confusion, Fallacy and Self-Destruction
Love Is Illusory (Wolpert | Sizer/Ammi | Provine | + Lennox)
UPDATED w/Dawkins & Greg Bahnsen at the end.
In this short montage I start out with Lewis Wolpert on the “Unthinkable” program with Justin Brierley. According to evolution, love is reducible entirely to natural causes. I add a response I love from a cyber friend (Ken Ammi) via his debate in March 2010 with Michael Sizer (see my upload of just this part). And of course I add Provine for good measure.
- …love better coheres within the Christian, mind-first, conception of reality—where love has role, meaning and place in a universe created by a God who is love. (THE GOSPEL COALITION)
Here is a short snippet from John Lennox’s book, “Determined to Believe? The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith, and Human Responsibility“
Naturalism is self-defeating Richard Dawkins vs. Greg Bahnsen
Are Those Who Have Not Heard the Gospel Damned? RPT Q&A +More
UPDATED WITH WRETCHED… originally posted August 2014
This evangelism encounter is POWERFUL. Watch an intelligent college student PRESS street-preacher Todd Friel on the requirements to enter Heaven, then receive a biblical explanation.
This post is a response to a question posed to me via my email by an atheist.
I brought up the idea of Native-Americas (N-A) not hearing the Gospel with my dad. It seemed, to me, unfair that they should not be afforded at least some clarity in an opportunity to be judged before their maker. My dad shared his thoughts on the matter, and it started with a reading from Romans:
- 18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. (The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. [Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2009], Ro 1:18–20.)
- But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. (Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language [Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005], Ro 1:18–20.)
He explained that the tribes that were very “war-like,” like the Comanches, acted in rejection of what they knew to be God’s creation and how they should treat their fellow man and nature via the attributes they could clearly interpret via nature. The Sioux were at other times feared as well.
Peaceful tribes – not perfect mind you, but they had a deep understanding of their Creator and how to care for their own and other Native-American tribes they encountered — would interpret nature’s revelatory aspect of Whom they were to worship, and how. The Hopi tribe is one example.
To be clear, when theologians say that God is ultimately sovereign in his decisions over his creation, I am down with this. God — in classical understanding — IS the “Good” and would have a larger view of the panoply of history (since God would be outside of it and viewing it as a whole… the Eternal Now type stuff). So His judgement would necessarily be a Just one. I am not questioning this. I am saying that there are views within orthodoxy that struggle with the boundaries of those who have lived by law seeing that redemption of nature and themselves was somehow woven into nature and never hearing the Gospel (Hebrews 11:9-11). …continuing….
So using the Romans understanding of “The Book of Nature,” and the basis for “unsaved” people seeing – yes, even God’s attributes – something metaphysical and not just material, and looked forward to this hope. Also, these stories of creation and serving a God were handed down from the beginning of mankind. Some people across the earth held close these ancient stories although changed with time.
Combine this with the story of Abraham’s Bosom (Luke 16:19-31) and what Peter tells us about Jesus preaching to these lost souls (I Peter 3:18-20). I would posit — staying within the lane-lines of orthodoxy — that those in the world [pre and post Calvary] who have not been afforded a good explanation of the Gospel message may be afforded an opportunity to respond. This is not me arguing for universalism, but for justice being metered out in some form that was communicated to the Hebraic peoples that is hinted to in the New Testament.
I marry this understanding to a view via William Lane Craig, a name you may be familiar with is on the opposing side of Christian apologetics. He has a view on Molinism I enjoy a bit. [“Enjoy a bit” – I believe is still in the pale of orthodoxy] Here is what he says, and I will emphasize the important aspect I wish to highlight:
The doctrine of Molinism seeks to reconcile God’s sovereign predestination with man’s free will. Through His divine middle knowledge, God can know all possible outcomes of any world that is feasible for Him to create, including all the circumstances required for an individual to come to a saving knowledge of Him. But what if the saving of one individual means the loss of another? Does Molinism provide answers to such a dilemma? In this article, Dr. Craig answers questions on the how God would act if his choices were bound by damning either person A or person B arbitrarily.
Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism
I see the solution to your query in your first question in the above. [And the few videos immediately below.]
And it is the same question[s] I struggled with and struggle with. This does away with the contradiction you see. I do wish to note however, that you are taking a moral position in your premise, Saby. And without God, this cannot be the case. Jesus would HAVE to be intimately involved in all of the above scenarios… intimately. None of the above take away from this fact.
I do not know your worldview you operate from, but I can assume atheistic in its presuppositions. But truth (absolute ethical statements are included in this understanding of truth) is something of a fiction to the atheistic evolutionist. Here are some quotes and audio/videos to make my point:
AND THE BELOW is taken from another post of mine:
I wish to start out with an excerpt from a chapter in my book where I use two scholarly works that use Darwinian naturalism as a guide to their ethic:
- Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1997).
- Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
My incorporation of these works into my book (quote):
Now, hear from other atheist and evolutionary apologists themselves in regard to the matter:
Richard Dawkins
(h/t: TrueFreeThinker) – A Statement Made by an atheist at the Atheist and Agnostic Society:
[side note] You may also be aware that Richard Dawkins stated,
…I asked an obvious question: “As we speak of this shifting zeitgeist, how are we to determine who’s right? If we do not acknowledge some sort of external [standard], what is to prevent us from saying that the Muslim [extremists] aren’t right?”
“Yes, absolutely fascinating.” His response was immediate. “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question. But whatever [defines morality], it’s not the Bible. If it was, we’d be stoning people for breaking the Sabbath.”
I was stupefied. He had readily conceded that his own philosophical position did not offer a rational basis for moral judgments. His intellectual honesty was refreshing, if somewhat disturbing on this point….
Stated during an interview with Larry Taunton, “Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist,” by Faith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007 (copyright; 2007-2008)
Lewis Wolpert
From the video description:
Atheists Trying to Have Their Cake and Eat It Too on Morality. This video shows that when an atheist denies objective morality they also affirm moral good and evil without the thought of any contradiction or inconsistency on their part.
Dan Barker
This is from the video Description for the Dan Barker video below:
Note as well that evolutionary naturalism has very dogmatic implication, IF — that is — the honest atheist/evolutionist follow the matter to their logical conclusions, via the ineffable Dr. Provine:
William Provine
Atheist and staunch evolutionist Dr. William Provine (who is often quoted by Richard Dawkins) admits what life has in stored if Darwinism is true. The quote comes from his debate here with Dr. Phillip E. Johnson at Stanford University, April 30, 1994.
Ethics and propositions that include ethical choice is one that rejects naturalistic origins. Some more quotes to make the point:
I hope this helped and challenged you to know the variability within faith (while remaining orthodox) as well as bringing you face-to-face with your own premises in your worldview. Remember, if you disagree with the above ethics portion, you are not arguing against me but arguing against fellow atheists (if you are an atheist… I would hope you are a soft-agnostic). I also hope you asked your questions in a manner that is in line with you truly seeking a solution to these sticky issues. I will respond to your other challenges (honest questions) at a later date,
Papa Giorgio
James Lindsay Anchorless At Sea | Based Manifesto
I wanted to share a response to a great, simple question. But first, here is the set up… The Renegade Institute for Liberty at Bakersfield College (whom I will refer to as RENEGADE), a movement of like minded peeps I fully endorse, posted the following on their Facebook:
James Lindsay, a leading critic of the philosophy of the totalitarian left and their politics, penned a manifesto outlying the key moral virtue essential to the preservation of liberty: being based. As used by Lindsay, “based” is a technical term meaning fidelity to truth. He defines it as “the trait of character [is] the willingness to resist lies, be yourself, and tell the truth even when people won’t like you (or will kill you) for it.” Unless most of us become based, totalitarianism is inevitable.
Firstly. The manifesto is well worth it’s weight in salt. I am not saying don’t read it or inculcate some of it’s meaning and ways to approach the issues of our day. Remember the 80/20 rule:
- “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is an 80 percent friend and not a 20 percent enemy” – Ronald Wilson Reagan
But as a friend noted today in a Bible study, atheist’s must steal from God – even mentioning the wonderful book by Frank Turek, “Stealing from God.” That is the deeper issue here that I pointed to.
James Lindsay invokes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn no less than 10-times by name. But James being an ardent atheist/naturalist, never explains to his audience the final conclusion of how Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn believed they got to this miserable place in human history.
Here is my post to the article being linked by RENEGADE, with a longer Solzhenitsyn quote:
RPT NOTE TO POST:
You see, in the end, James Lindsay thinks “God” is part of the problem, not the solution. Which is why I posted that. The totalitarianism Lindsay writes against thrives in godless attire. However, this paragraph I really loved. For one it references “Truth,” something I respond to. And another is this is the reason many comedians are sounding the alarm… the freedom to do even stand up comedy is under attack by the Left.
- There are, in the end, only two things that can tear such a regime down, and they are, as it happens, interrelated. They are the two most powerful weapons against tyranny in the human arsenal: telling the truth, including by refusing the lie, and laughter. Both are based, and to win both are necessary. While Solzhenitsyn tells us that the whole of a tyrannical regime can be brought down in the end by a single person repeatedly telling the truth, the fact is that the USSR that tyrannized him actually fell when its subjects—for citizens they were not—began to laugh at it. So, where being based begins in a certain stoicism, it’s the most based when it’s stoicism with a sense of humor. (THE BASE MANIFESTO)
Renegade’s Question:
RENEGADE, for reasons of keeping thought alive, being thorough, a fan of conversation and deeper thinking, asked this simple question:
- Sean G, do you think that being based implies believing in God? Or is it consistent with disbelief, as well as belief, in God?
THE REST IS ME, as well as some additions, which I will note.
Great question. Lindsay has a lot of moral pronouncements in the manifesto. A lot. All he has to enforce such things is the power of government. So, in a healthy society, government protects Natural Rights… government does not bestow them. Free speech and thought is a Natural Right, or law, if you will.
- “…the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature (LN) and of Nature’s God (NG) entitle them…. ‘oh, you know, the thing’.” (Declaration + Joe Biden)
The first (LN) cannot subsist separated from the later (NG) for long.
Having read all three Secular Manifestos, I see similar attributions to “how humans ‘should’ act,” with no reasoning behind it. Utilitarianism? Yes, many aspects therein could be helpful to society as a whole. But if that is it, someone will eventually come along to point out another “utility” as being better.
Take for instance rape. Something you would think everyone would understand as an egregious, absolute, evil.
- theism: evil, wrong at all times and places in the universe — absolutely;
- atheism: taboo, it was used in our species in the past for the survival of the fittest, and is thus a vestige of evolutionary progress… and so may once again become a tool for survival — it is in every corner of nature;
- pantheism: illusion, all morals and ethical actions and positions are actually an illusion (Hinduism – maya; Buddhism – sunyata). In order to reach some state of Nirvana one must retract from this world in their thinking on moral matters, such as love and hate, good and bad. Not only that, but often times the person being raped has built up bad karma and thus is the main driver for his or her state of affairs (thus, in one sense it is “right” that rape happens).
In a bit of an addition here, I will note that some of the four horseman of the New Atheists note that our feeling of being conscience, is illusory. Much like pantheists… which is why many atheists embrace a form of pantheism.
Consciousness an Illusion (Addition)
Below are examples of atheists and theists agreeing that if atheism is true, truth is no longer a category to be trusted (find many more or fuller quotes and videos HERE):
- Determinism is self-stultifying. If my mental processes are totally determined, I am totally determined either to accept or to reject determinism. But if the sole reason for my believing or not believing X is that I am causally determined to believe it I have no ground for holding that my judgment is true or false. (H.P. Owen)
- If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. (J.B.S. Haldane)
- The principle chore of brains is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing [the world] is advantageous so long as it… enhances the organism’s chances for survival. Truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost. (Patricia Churchland)
- He thus acknowledged the need for any theory to allow that humans have genuine freedom to recognize the truth. He (again, correctly) saw that if all thought, belief, feeling, and choice are determined (i.e., forced on humans by outside conditions) then so is the determinists’ acceptance of the theory of determinism forced on them by those same conditions. In that case they could never claim to know their theory is true since the theory making that claim would be self-referentially incoherent. In other words, the theory requires that no belief is ever a free judgment made on the basis of experience or reason, but is always a compulsion over which the believer has no control. (Roy A. Clouser)
- If what he says is true, he says it merely as the result of his heredity and environment, and nothing else. He does not hold his determinist views because they are true, but because he has such-and-such stimuli; that is, not because the structure of the structure of the universe is such-and-such but only because the configuration of only part of the universe, together with the structure of the determinist’s brain, is such as to produce that result…. They [determinists – I would posit any philosophical naturalist] want to be considered as rational agents arguing with other rational agents; they want their beliefs to be construed as beliefs, and subjected to rational assessment; and they want to secure the rational assent of those they argue with, not a brainwashed repetition of acquiescent pattern. Consistent determinists should regard it as all one whether they induce conformity to their doctrines by auditory stimuli or a suitable injection of hallucinogens: but in practice they show a welcome reluctance to get out their syringes, which does equal credit to their humanity and discredit to their views. Determinism, therefore, cannot be true, because if it was, we should not take the determinists’ arguments as being really arguments, but as being only conditioned reflexes. Their statements should not be regarded as really claiming to be true, but only as seeking to cause us to respond in some way desired by them. (J. R. Lucas)
- …a lecture he attended entitled “Determinism – Is Man a Slave or the Master of His Fate,” given by Stephen Hawking, who is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, Isaac Newton’s chair, was this admission by Dr. Hawking’s, was Hawking’s admission that if “we are the random products of chance, and hence, not free, or whether God had designed these laws within which we are free.” In other words, do we have the ability to make choices, or do we simply follow a chemical reaction induced by millions of mutational collisions of free atoms? Michael Polanyi mentions that this “reduction of the world to its atomic elements acting blindly in terms of equilibrations of forces,” a belief that has prevailed “since the birth of modern science, has made any sort of teleological view of the cosmos seem unscientific…. [to] the contemporary mind.”
- If we were free persons, with faculties which we might carelessly use or willfully misuse, the fact might be explained; but the pre-established harmony excludes this supposition. And since our faculties lead us into error, when shall we trust them? Which of the many opinions they have produced is really true? By hypothesis, they all ought to be true, but, as they contradict one another, all cannot be true. How, then, distinguish between the true and the false? By taking a vote? That cannot be, for, as determined, we have not the power to take a vote. Shall we reach the truth by reasoning? This we might do, if reasoning were a self-poised, self verifying process; but this it cannot be in a deterministic system. Reasoning implies the power to control one’s thoughts, to resist the processes of association, to suspend judgment until the transparent order of reason has been readied. It implies freedom, therefore. In a mind which is controlled by its states, instead of controlling them, there is no reasoning, but only a succession of one state upon another. There is no deduction from grounds, but only production by causes. No belief has any logical advantage over any other, for logic is no longer possible. (Borden P Bowne)
- What merit would attach to moral virtue if the acts that form such habitual tendencies and dispositions were not acts of free choice on the part of the individual who was in the process of acquiring moral virtue? Persons of vicious moral character would have their characters formed in a manner no different from the way in which the character of a morally virtuous person was formed—by acts entirely determined, and that could not have been otherwise by freedom of choice. (Mortimer J. Adler)
Frank Turek notes Daniel Dennett’s dilemma when he says:
Back to the Facebook Exchange
Let us take the secularist’s [atheist] view of rape. Here is a conversation between Richard Dawkins and Justin Brierley. Brierley asks this question, “When you make a value judgement don’t you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it’s good. And you don’t have any way to stand on that statement.” Here is the rest of the conversation:
RICHARD DAWKINS: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.
JUSTIN BRIERLEY: So therefore it’s just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.
RICHARD DAWKINS: You could say that, it doesn’t in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.
JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
RICHARD DAWKINS: You could say that, yeah.
Again, at first Lindsay’s manifesto sounds great, but not lasting in the world he would like to see in reality. He is riding on the fumes of the Judeo-Christian West to expect people to read it and say, “Yeah!”
Again, at first Lindsay’s manifesto sounds great, but not lasting in the world he would like to see in reality. He is riding on the fumes of the Judeo-Christian West to expect people to read it and say, “Yeah!”
What thinking in the end — without Nature’s God — could bring us to a lasting consensus?
Here is a favored quote of mine regarding “Beehive Ethics”
Using these ideas, one can understand how atheism/atheists cannot justify any “ought” in their ethical construct. And I point out as well that if rape and murder were adventitious for our species and its divisions in the past — for survival means — then logically it can be again for the future. (I use examples like these books: A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion | Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.)
I also note that for our species to survive, well, the atheist/evolutionist has no way to determine [evaluate] if the best way for our species to live on is through Western mores and values or if nature prefers the more barbaric aspect of radical Islam.
In another long excerpt, atheistic “ethics” is something temporal, not permanent….
In the end, it will take a hyper-intrusively large government to make people see this as the right way to think, if divorced from an “ontological ‘ought’.”
- “Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!’ But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company – I mean hell.”
Charles Francis Adams [ed.], The Works of John Adams, 10 vols. [Boston, 1856], X, p. 254. | Taken from They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions, by Paul F. Boller, Jr. & John George, p. 3.
- “…we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams, first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797–1801) President of the United States. Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull (New York, 1848), pp 265-6.
I gave this last parting quote from Mitch Stokes to drive the point home:
Who Wrote Gospel of Mark (Martyr for the Cause?)
(Jump to “Atheist Morals“)
Two Quotes I Love About Jesus:
I want to first deal with the “authorship of Mark” challenge. I may deal with the video authors challenge about the Old Testament God — but really this is old news by the “new atheists.” This has been thoroughly dealt with by many, many fine apologists over the years. If I do it will be in a “PART 2” But for now, this will suffice:
Missing The Moral Mark
Calling All Martyrs
In the VIDEO, the author tries to make a connection between the zealots who died following Jim Jones, and what Jesus has called people to in Mark 8:34-35:
What are the KEY THEMES via the ESV Study Bible?
But to sum up the people willing to die after Jesus’ ascension, you have a myriad of martyrs being burned alive, fed to lions, and the like. They did not poison themselves or die fighting to convert others. For instance, in 2016 about 90,000 Christians were killed for their faith worldwide. Christians are the most martyred group in the world. Maybe Jesus was foreshadowing this reality’s in His omniscience? (I will post a commentary at the end to show the slightly more complex idea than the simpleton one in the video.)
AUTHORSHIP!
This first – short – video is by J. Warner Wallace, followed by a quick blurb I assume many do not know well… followed still by some more of the same. I wanted to post on this topic because of a video by , the part that got me thinking was the section from the 10:32 mark to the 12:05 time stamps.
LEARN RELIGIONS has this interesting blurb for the uninitiated:
The earliest manuscripts tell us Mark wrote the Gospel: “according to Mark.” But who was Mark?
Mark, or John Mark, as he was known, lived in Jerusalem, and his mother owned a home where the earliest followers of Jesus gathered. He worked with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. Later, he joined Peter in Rome. It was in Rome, according to church tradition, where Mark wrote Peter’s version of the Gospel.
ZONDERVAN has an excellent article titled, “Who Wrote the Gospel of Mark?“. Here is part of that article:
GOT QUESTIONS also notes much of the same:
Commentary 1
- T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 339–341.
34 Mark uses προσκαλέομαι to alert the reader to expect something new or emphatic to be revealed, or some new instruction to be delivered to the disciples (cf. 3:13, 23; 6:7; 7:14; 10:42; 12:43). What is surprising here is that the object of the verb is not just the disciples, whom one would expect, but τὸν ὄχλον σὺν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. We have gained from vv. 27–33 the impression that the setting is a private retreat in the countryside in the far north of Palestine, where Jesus was presumably little known and the population probably largely non-Jewish. A crowd of people in this area who were at least potentially followers of Jesus seems incongruous, and they will play no further part in the narrative. From the narrator’s point of view, however, the introduction of the ὄχλος serves here, rather like οἱ περὶ αὐτὸν σὺν τοῖς δώδεκα in 4:10, to widen the audience for a key pronouncement; their inclusion in the audience asserts that the harsh demands of the following verses apply not only to the Twelve but to anyone else who may wish to join the movement. The introductory phrases εἴ τις θέλει and ὃς γὰρ ἐάν (vv. 35, 38) further generalise the scope of the paragraph; this is not a special formula for the elite, but an essential element in discipleship.
ὀπίσω μου is used here not as in v. 33 but in its more normal NT sense (see 1:17, 20 etc.), and the double use alongside it of ἀκολουθέω (cf. 1:18; 2:14) confirms that we have here a basic condition of discipleship. It is to join Jesus on the way to execution. This is the first use of σταυρός by Mark, and neither noun nor verb will occur again before chapter 15. Jesus’ predictions of his death in 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34 do not spell out the means of death, and this specifically Roman form of execution would not be the first to come to a Jewish mind when hearing of death at the behest of the Jewish authorities. By the time Mark wrote his gospel, of course, Jesus’ crucifixion was well known, and his readers would need no explanation for the σταυρός here. But at the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem such language is calculated to shock, and evokes a vivid and horrifying image of the death march with all its shameful publicity. The preservation of so specific an image at more than one point in the gospel tradition (see also the Q saying Mt. 10:38; Lk. 14:27) may suggest that it originates from Jesus’ own awareness of how he would die rather than from Mark’s reading back the later event.
The metaphor of taking up one’s own cross is not to be domesticated into an exhortation merely to endure hardship patiently. In this context, following 8:31, it is an extension of Jesus’ readiness for death to those who follow him, and the following verses will fill it out still in terms of the loss of life, not merely the acceptance of discomfort. While it may no doubt be legitimately applied to other and lesser aspects of the suffering involved in following Jesus, the primary reference in context must be to the possibility of literal death.
The call to take up the cross is preceded by ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτόν, a phrase not paralleled in the gospel tradition. The verb ἀπαρνέομαι is particularly associated with Peter’s eventual denial not of himself but of his master; in that context it means to dissociate oneself completely from someone, to sever the relationship. So the reflexive use implies perhaps to refuse to be guided by one’s own interests, to surrender control of one’s own destiny. In 2 Tim. 2:13 ἀρνήσασθαι ἑαυτόν (of God as subject) means to act contrary to his own nature, to cease to be God. What Jesus calls for here is thus a radical abandonment of one’s own identity and self-determination, and a call to join the march to the place of execution follows appropriately from this. Such ‘self-denial’ is on a different level altogether from giving up chocolates for Lent. ‘It is not the denial of something to the self, but the denial of the self itself.’
35–37 The talk of losing and gaining the ψυχή in these verses depends on the range of meaning of ψυχή, and poses problems for the translator. The same noun denotes both the ‘being alive’ (as opposed to dead; cf. 3:4; 10:45) which one might seek to preserve by escaping persecution and martyrdom, and the ‘real life’ which may be the outcome of such martyrdom, and therefore is to be found beyond earthly life. It is in this latter sense that the English word ‘soul’ is traditionally used here, but the wordplay is better preserved by retaining ‘life’ but where necessary qualifying it with ‘true/eternal’ or ‘earthly’.
The immediate subject of these verses, following as they do the imagery of taking up one’s cross in v. 34, is surely the literal loss of (earthly) life which the disciple is called to accept as a potential result of following Jesus. Only that sense fully does justice to the wordplay. To extend this sense to the loss of privilege, advantage, reputation, comfort, and the like may be legitimate in principle, but only so long as this primary and more radical sense is not set aside. To cling to the things of this life, the things which humanity naturally values most, is the way to forfeit true life; clinging to life itself is the ultimate example of this concern, and is set in contrast with the acceptance of death (for the right reason) as the way to real life. Jesus himself, in his death and resurrection, will be the supreme example of this new perspective.
The promise of true life is not attached to death in itself, but to the loss of life ἕνεκεν [ἐμοῦ καὶ] τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (see Textual Note). The possibility of literal martyrdom as the outcome of Christian discipleship is clearly envisaged here; cf. 13:9 (ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ). Jesus’ expectation of his own death must have raised this possibility, and the experiences of the early church from Acts 7 onwards would add weight to it. The specific mention of the εὐαγγέλιον as the cause of loss of life indicates that the disciples are to play an active role in mission rather than merely privately following the teaching of Jesus, and that it is in this missionary work that they are likely to meet with persecution and death. Best rightly emphasises that the addition of this phrase indicates the inadequacy of a view of discipleship as merely the imitation of Jesus.
In the Synoptic Gospels κόσμος does not carry the negative connotation it has elsewhere in the NT, and especially in John; it denotes the created world in a neutral sense. κερδῆσαι τὸν κόσμον ὅλον therefore simply expresses the height of human ambition and achievement, measured in terms of earthly life. While ζημιόω sometimes carries a juridical sense of penalty or punishment, the context here does not require that nuance. Its more normal sense is simply loss or disadvantage. ζημιωθῆναι in v. 36 therefore denotes the opposite of κερδῆσαι; this is a profit and loss account, and it is clearly understood that the loss of the ψυχή (here ‘true life’) far outweighs any gain in terms of earthly advantage.
The same idea is differently expressed in the rhetorical question of v. 37, where again the assumption is made that the ψυχή is all that ultimately matters, and that nothing else can compensate for its loss. The ἀντάλλαγμα (cf. LXX Job 28:15) is the ‘exchange rate’ at which the ψυχή is valued; it is beyond price. The language of exchange echoes Ps. 49:7–9 (though LXX there uses λυτρόω/λύτρωσις, not ἀνταλλάσσομαι/ἀντάλλαγμα), but whereas the psalm speaks of a payment to avoid physical death, here the focus has moved to ‘true life’, which is even more beyond the reach of human valuation. There is no reason in this context to read into the question any developed theology of redemption; it is simply a statement of comparative value.
Commentary 2
- David Smith, Mark: A Commentary for Bible Students (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2007), 157–169
Insight into the Messiah’s Task
Mark 8:[31]–33
…….3. Jesus’ First Passion Prediction 8:31–33
Coupled with the immediately preceding command to silence, the core of Jesus’ self-revelation began with a redirection of the disciples’ choice of titles. They chose Messiah; Jesus offered another, more enigmatic title: the Son of Man (8:31). What Jesus was about to say regarding suffering and death might have been incomprehensible if He had retained the disciples’ more victorious-sounding title: “Christ.” Jesus would not allow himself to be categorized. For Jesus, the title “Christ” carried too much militaristic and nationalistic baggage; it had to be tempered with the less familiar “Son of Man” designation. He went on to teach His disciples the essential issues with reference to His identity.
The “Son of Man must suffer many things” (8:31). The disciples had seen nothing but power and victory in the acts of Jesus thus far. So these words had no place to take root. Moreover, the suffering and death of the Messiah raised huge theological problems. If Jesus was indeed the Messiah, why would God allow Him to be rejected and be killed (8:31)? Though the answer is not fully elucidated in the gospel of Mark, it is part of a plan found in the Old Testament. Mark reported that the Son of Man must suffer many things. The word must is often used of divine necessity as spelled out later in 9:12 and 14:21, 49. Thus, Jesus’ rejection and death are to find their source in Scripture and the heart of the Father’s will and not in the violence of Palestinian politics. Mark would not allow Jesus’ death to be read as a sociological mistake but rather as an act of divine redemption.
The wording of each of the three passion predictions is just a bit different. It is only in this passage that the reader of Mark sees the word suffer. But with rejected, Mark draws attention to Psalm 118:22, where Christians identify in Jesus’ fate that the “stone the builders rejected has become the capstone” and His following vindication. Each of the three passion predictions ends with the same climax: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The disciples were no more attentive to this aspect of Jesus’ teaching than any other.
No matter how much explanation He provided, the disciples never achieved complete clarity. This unveiling of the messianic mission demanded a response from the disciples. And it came from Peter as he took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke him (8:32). Peter displayed that he was at cross-purposes with Jesus’ agenda. The word “rebuke” connotes a command by one taking authority over another. Jesus, without hesitation, turned and looked at his disciples (8:33), implicating them as coconspirators, as he rebuked Peter. The repetition of the same verb (8:31, command of Jesus to disciples; 8:32, Peter’s rebuke of Jesus; 8:33, Jesus’ rebuke to Peter) demonstrates irreconcilable perspectives. Jesus settled the issue when He ordered Peter to get behind Him. Note how this short statement is spatially as well as relationally oriented. First, Jesus said, “Get behind me.” This is the same language used by Jesus in His initial call of His disciples in 1:17 and could be translated, “Come, behind Me.” This might be understood as Jesus calling Peter to get back in step with Him. Further, there is another occurrence of the word in the next verse, where the phrase is translated, “If anyone would come after me” (8:34), cementing Peter’s call to follower-ship based not on his notion of power or might, but on Jesus’ revelation of rejection, shame, and death.
Relationally, Jesus called Peter “Satan.” In short order, Jesus completed His own counter-rebuke of Peter. Peter’s plan, which avoided the cross, placed him in league with Jesus’ archenemy. This is partially why Jesus commanded (rebukes) the disciples to silence, for the proclamation of a Messiah without the cross is satanic in its message. This exchange was brought to a culmination with Jesus’ closing reproof: “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (8:33). The NIV makes this a separate sentence, while in actuality it is a dependent clause, specifically a result clause: “for you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of people.” The plain teaching of Jesus (8:31) cannot be grasped on a merely human level.
The vision for ministry that Jesus is teaching is irreconcilable with the vision Peter and the other disciples have for Him as the Messiah. The misguided vision of the disciples and their determined refusal to adopt Jesus’ revelation precludes them from full comprehension. Teaching, even from such a skilled educator as Jesus, would not adequately overcome humanity’s blindness. Thus, Mark conveys a truth that became Christian doctrine: Men and women must not merely become educated (or catechized) in the Church; they must initially be transformed.
The Demands of Discipleship
Mark 8:34–9:1
- The Cost of Following Jesus 8:34–35
The call to discipleship is comprehensive in its reach (disciples and crowds), but it immediately takes on a conditional nature: “If anyone would come after me” (8:34). The phrase literally translated reads, “If someone wishes/wants after me to follow.…” Jesus demands a heartfelt choice, which eliminates other, possibly more appealing, choices.
Jesus set the agenda according to His spiritual compass; a follower must “deny himself.” Powerfully, the insertion of the reflexive pronoun himself implies the first aspect of discipleship is to refuse to be guided by one’s own interests. Moreover, self-denial is not to be confused with asceticism (the denial of things one desires) or even with self-discipline. Self-denial is the denial of the self itself (see Phil. 2:3–4). The second requirement of a follower is to “take up his cross.” This is the first use of the word in the Gospel, certainly creating a link back to Jesus’ earlier prediction of His own death. In the first century, a cross indicated punishment of a shamed criminal at the hands of the Romans. Moreover, this Roman form of execution might be heard by the listeners as a call to rebel against Rome and to risk their lives. Yet, the word will not reoccur until chapter 15. This provided Jesus with ample time to define the impact and meaning of His own death and the cross-bearing imagery associated with His followers. For in summary, the self-denial to which Jesus calls one is abandonment of one’s autonomy and adoption of Jesus’ leadership and lordship.
Finally, Jesus beckoned His disciples to “follow me” (8:34). Jesus’ initial thrust into discipleship-making seems more directional than doctrinal. His call is bracketed with terms of motion. “Mark is rich in verbs of motion. Jesus is on the move; he summons disciples to come after him” Each time Jesus called His disciples, He was in motion (1:16, 19; 2:14; 10:17). Further, His call was to get in step directly behind Him. Thus, for one to be a disciple, one must follow. The mark of a faithful disciple is to be seen not in fully comprehending all the theological nuances of the person of Jesus, but in setting one’s sight unwaveringly on the path laid out by Jesus. The path to the cross is costly and counterintuitive, yet Jesus clearly laid out the directional markers for all who are willing to follow.
The demands of discipleship are further refined. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (8:35). Jesus offered this paradoxical principle for savings one’s life, using two meanings of “life.” The word implies physical life in its first use (as opposed to death; see 3:4; 10:45). In this sense, people might think they can preserve their lives by avoiding conflict and persecution. However, Jesus’ other meaning was that by losing one’s physical life, one receives (saves) eternal life. More precisely, this call to a loss of life is not a morbid acceptance of death. Rather, it is an adoption of Jesus (for me) and His mission agenda (for the gospel) around which one reorients one’s focus and through which one discovers true life. A disciple is to follow Jesus by publicly adhering to the gospel, proclaiming it to the world, and dying if necessary.
- Keeping an Eternal Perspective 8:36–9:1
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (8:36). Here the contrast between this world and the next (soul) is made more explicit. In this Gospel, “world” represents the created order in a neutral sense. Gain implies human ambition and drive for worldly success. Thus, one should not connote an evil intent on the part of the pursuer, but the explicit contrast as the loss of one’s life or soul far exceeds any profit in terms of earthly gain. This contrast is continued in the rhetorical question “Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (8:37). This passage continues with the theme that we cannot grasp the priceless value of one life or soul, and that there is another way to categorize value apart from what we can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste.
Verse 38 repeats the conditional emphasis begun in 8:34: “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” The contrast of honor and shame was a primary value of the first century. So, if anyone was ashamed of Jesus (of me) and His authoritative demands (and my words), she or he might have received worldly honor, but forfeited honor in the future, coming Kingdom. David Garland summarizes it this way:
Jesus uses the threat of judgment to induce his followers to be faithful. To be put to shame is the opposite of vindication (Ps. 25:3; 119:6; Isa. 41:10–11; Jer. 17:18). Those who may be frightened by the edicts of earthly courts (represented in the Gospel by Herod Antipas, the high priest’s Sanhedrin, and the Roman governor, Pilate) should fear even more the decision of the heavenly tribunal, which determines their eternal destiny.
The use of the adjective adulterous reminds the reader of the frequent Old Testament charges against the nation of Israel as she constantly committed spiritual adultery and went out after other gods (Isa. 1:4, 21; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 2:4).
The traditional early church understanding of the Son of Man “coming” was that of the parousia or the second coming. Yet the imagery and background in this material comes from the visions of Daniel 7: “… one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.” He is presented before the throne of the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:13–14), and “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” The scene is clearly set in heaven, and His “coming” is better described as an entrance into the throne room of God, not the “second coming” to earth. One must keep in mind that Jesus’ teaching in 8:31 is an intricate series of contrasts between this world and the next, with the Son of Man prophecy as its climax. Thus, the shaming of the Son of Man on earth by people will result in their judgment in the heavenly realm.
There is an interesting combination of Son of Man language and the Father’s glory. The voice at Jesus’ baptism directly referred to Jesus as His Son (1:11). Jesus only referred to God as His Father again in 13:23 and in His prayer in Gethsemane (14:36). Yet the importance is not simply familial but theological. For here the Son of Man and Son of God concepts are closely linked with each other and with the messianic overtones of the entire passage. This would not happen again until Jesus’ confession before the high priest in 14:62.
And he said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power” (9:1). Seemingly, 9:1 assures the first-century disciples (and subsequent readers) that for all they abandon in this lifetime, they will indeed see the kingdom of God come and share in His exaltation. The implication is that the event being referred to is near enough that a privileged few will catch a glimpse of this unveiling. Numerous suggestions have been offered regarding the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction. The most prominent suggestions include (1) the death of Jesus and the resultant tearing of the Temple curtain, (2) victory over death in His resurrection, (3) His ascension and enthronement in heaven, (4) the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and (5) the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. All of these would certainly be viable options within the lifetime of the original hearers. Yet nearly all except the first option fall outside the narrative of the gospel of Mark. Possibly the most text-centered line of interpretation would be to look forward to the Transfiguration (9:2–13). The events are linked temporally and precisely—after six days—a highly unusual practice for Mark outside of the passion narrative. Additionally, the Transfiguration narrative reports what the disciples saw, and the cloud appearing and enveloping the disciples is suggestive of the Mount Sinai theophany (Exod. 19), leaving the reader with the impression of Jesus coming in power. One could feel less than satisfied with seeing Jesus transfigured on a mountain being equated with seeing the kingdom of God come with power. Yet throughout the Gospel of Mark, the kingdom of God and the person of Jesus are inseparably linked. The Kingdom was brought near with the coming of Jesus and the proclaiming of the good news of God (1:14–15). Later, the secret of the Kingdom was revealed in Jesus’ parabolic instruction (4:10–12). Thus, it seems appropriate for Mark to make known the joining of the Kingdom of God and the person of Jesus as a signal of the real, though not yet fully revealed, presence.
Experts, the CDC, Lockdowns, and Depression (+Moral Mockery)
Experts now say the COVID lockdowns and school shutdowns went too far. A new report from the CDC claims 1 in 3 teen girls are suicidal. Could these issues be related? It’s no surprise to Dennis. After all, he always said, “the lockdowns are the greatest mistake in human history.” Experts at the CDC have advice for how to treat this mental health crisis, but should we listen to them or have they lost credibility?
Also, “Experts”:
Science Needs To Stop Using Terms Like Male, Female, Mother And Father
Not a fan of Dawkins, but…. “Dawkins Vows to Continue Using ‘Prohibited Words’ Like ‘Male’ and ‘Female’“
TO WIT:
Bad ideas are everywhere, spreading like viruses. Ironically, the antidote is readily available. We just have to have the courage to use it. Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, provides the prescription.
More via Black Conservative Perspective
Richard Dawkins Is 30-Years Behind The Curve
This is with a hat-tip to Denyse O’Leary who notes this about UD’s post: “Is The Selfish Gene holding back medicine and cancer cures?” UNCOMMON DISSENT has the following:
Before I get to a comment from UD’s post, I must recommend an old post of mine: What is a Gene? (Denis Noble vs. neo-Darwinism). Okay, enough self puffery… here is a good comment via Martin_r
February 6, 2023 at 7:59 am
Of course this would be a good time for a FLASHBACK:
Where Do Ethics Come From? Atheist Convo (Bonus Material)
(Originally posted Sept 2017)
A chap in a Facebook group posted a few points in a post, of which I took this point up to respond to.
- …My moral values have a simple root…if an action causes harm to another person, that act is immoral. If my inaction causes harm to another person, that inaction is immoral…
I first posted this as a response:
- You would have to define and then implement this definition in a way that non-theistic governments would accept (like the many Eastern-block countries of our past for example). Some countries would view the disabled and farmers as harming society, and thus view the moral rout for said society as a whole to rid themselves of these persons/groups. They would say to NOT do so causes harm.
BUT, I didn’t have to really do any heavy lifting… this person did it for me. After reading through the discussion, the same person said this:
- …Morality actually derives from human self interest in preserving the group they needed to be part of to survive in a hostile world. It had to be a feature in the lives of the earliest human ancestor species…
To which I replied:
BONUS!
A couple examples of this ethos at work:
“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”
Mussolini, Diuturna (1924) pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (Ignatius Press; 1999), by Peter Kreeft, p. 18.
“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law [natural selection] did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all…. If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translator/annotator, James Murphy (New York: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 161-162; found in: Norman L. Geisler & Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable Foundations: Contemporary Answers to Crucial Questions About the Christian Faith (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2001), 206.
“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.” — Richard Dawkins
Stated during an interview with Larry Taunton, “Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist,” by Faith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007.
Atheist Daniel Dennett, for example, asserts that consciousness is an illusion. (One wonders if Dennett was conscious when he said that!) His claim is not only superstitious, it’s logically indefensible. In order to detect an illusion, you’d have to be able to see what’s real. Just like you need to wake up to know that a dream is only a dream, Daniel Dennett would need to wake up with some kind of superconsciousness to know that the ordinary consciousness the rest of us mortals have is just an illusion. In other words, he’d have to be someone like God in order to know that.
Dennett’s assertion that consciousness is an illusion is not the result of an unbiased evaluation of the evidence. Indeed, there is no such thing as “unbiased evaluation” in a materialist world because the laws of physics determine everything anyone thinks, including everything Dennett thinks. Dennett is just assuming the ideology of materialism is true and applying its implications to consciousness. In doing so, he makes the same mistake we’ve seen so many other atheists make. He is exempting himself from his own theory. Dennett says consciousness is an illusion, but he treats his own consciousness as not an illusion. He certainly doesn’t think the ideas in his book are an illusion. He acts like he’s really telling the truth about reality.
When atheists have to call common sense “an illusion” and make self-defeating assertions to defend atheism, then no one should call the atheistic worldview “reasonable.” Superstitious is much more accurate.
Frank Turek, Stealing from God (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2014), 46-47.
….Darwin thought that, had the circumstances for reproductive fitness been different, then the deliverances of conscience might have been radically different. “If… men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering” (Darwin, Descent, 82). As it happens, we weren’t “reared” after the manner of hive bees, and so we have widespread and strong beliefs about the sanctity of human life and its implications for how we should treat our siblings and our offspring.
But this strongly suggests that we would have had whatever beliefs were ultimately fitness producing given the circumstances of survival. Given the background belief of naturalism, there appears to be no plausible Darwinian reason for thinking that the fitness-producing predispositions that set the parameters for moral reflection have anything whatsoever to do with the truth of the resulting moral beliefs. One might be able to make a case for thinking that having true beliefs about, say, the predatory behaviors of tigers would, when combined with the understandable desire not to be eaten, be fitness producing. But the account would be far from straightforward in the case of moral beliefs.” And so the Darwinian explanation undercuts whatever reason the naturalist might have had for thinking that any of our moral beliefs is true. The result is moral skepticism.
If our pretheoretical moral convictions are largely the product of natural selection, as Darwin’s theory implies, then the moral theories we find plausible are an indirect result of that same evolutionary process. How, after all, do we come to settle upon a proposed moral theory and its principles as being true? What methodology is available to us?
Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, eds., Contending With Christianity’s Critics: Answering the New Atheists & Other Objections (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2009), 70.
DAWKINS (44-Seconds):
PROVINE (43-Seconds):
BARKER (Almost 5-Minutes):
Wolpert (About 5-mins)
Rolling Rock Ethics
Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014), fn.2, 319 [added linked reference from Evolution News for context]:
2 Peter 1:5-8:
In other words, there is no absolute moral ethic, Dawkins wants to have a consensus of people agreeing what is “right” and “wrong” — he says as much in the audio above. Which means that rape and murder are only taboo… not really wrong.
We know Dawkins’ position is not science, so… what is it? Here begins the journey for the truly curious.
Ghost In The Machine – Richard Milton
This is chapter 15 (The Ghost In The Machine) from Richard Milton excellent book entitled, “SHATTERING THE MYTHS OF DARWINISM” (PDF), as well as a bit from near the end of the book regarding a “spellchecking” program to shore up his ideas from chapter fifteen. It really has to do with responding to the idea that a computer program is shown to “evolve.” That in some way there is an increase in novel information in the program that is adding to the specificity of the program apart from the designers/software engineers.
I would be remiss to not link to an article that also goes through this example well:
- Weasel, A Flexible Program For Investigating Deterministic Computer “Demonstrations” Of Evolution (Creation.com)
- Dawkins’ Weasel Revisited (Creation.com)
- Evolution Program (Creation Wiki)
- Weasel Words: Refuting A Common Ploy To Persuade People That Evolution Has Been “Proven By Computer” (Creation.com)
Enjoy… mind you this book was read by me in 1998, but the ideas here have been sustained through today.
Ghost in the Machine
pp. 167-176
[167>] Russel and Seguin’s 1982 picture of a human-looking “evolved” version of a dinosaur was an impressive feat combining science and imagination in a constructive and entertaining way. Yet few in 1982 foresaw that in little more than a decade, over 100 million people around the world would pay to be scared by the even more impressive feat of the computer generated dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park”.
Nothing that has entered the evolution debate since Darwin’s time has promised to illuminate the subject so much as the modern computer and its apparently limitless ability to represent, on the monitor-screen, compelling visual solutions to the most abstruse mathematical questions.
The information handling capacity of electronic data processing, with its obvious analogy to DNA, has been enthusiastically enlisted by computer-literate Darwinists as offering powerful evidence for their theory; while genetic software systems, said to emulate the processes of genetic mutation and natural selection at speeds high enough to make the process visible, have become a feature of most up-to-date biology laboratories.
The computer has been put to many ingenious uses in the service of Darwinist theory. And it has changed the minds of not a few skeptics by its powerful visual imagery and uncanny ability to bring extinct creatures – or even creatures that never lived – to life in front [168>] of us. But, compelling though the visual images are, how much confidence should we put in the computer as a guide to the evolution of life?
In his book The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins describes a computer program he wrote which randomly generates symmetrical figures from dots and lines. These figures, to a human eye, have a resemblance to a variety of objects. Dawkins gives some of them insect and animal names, such as bat, spider, fox or caddis fly. Others he gives names like lunar lander, precision balance, spitfire, lamp and crossed sabers.
Dawkins calls these creations “biomorphs”, meaning life shapes or living shapes, a term he borrows from fellow zoologist Desmond Morris. He also feels very strongly that in using a computer program to create them, he is in some way simulating evolution itself. His approach can be understood from this extract:
Nothing in my biologist’s intuition, nothing in my 20 years experience of programming computers, and nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. I can’t remember exactly when in the sequence it first began to dawn on me that an evolved resemblance to something like an insect was possible. With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect. My incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance…. Admittedly they have eight legs like a spider, instead of six like an insect, but even so! I still cannot conceal from you my feeling of exultation as I first watched these exquisite creatures emerging before my eyes.[1]
Dawkins not only calls his computer drawings “biomorphs”, he gives some of them the names of living creatures. He also refers to them as “quasi-biological” forms and in a moment of excitement calls them “exquisite creatures”. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real world of living animals and insects. But they do not correspond in any way at all with living things, except in the purely trivial way that he sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the “biomorphs” that is [169>] biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. As far as the “spitfire” and the “lunar lander” are concerned there is not even a fancied biological resemblance.
The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.
His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls he sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the “biomorphs” that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. As far as the “spitfire” and the “lunar lander” are concerned there is not even a fancied biological resemblance.
The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.
His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls the rate of occurrence of mutations. Despite Dawkins’s own imaginative interpretations, and even with the deck stacked in his favor, his biomorphs show no real novelty arising. There are no cases of bears turning into whales.
There is also no failure in his program: his biomorphs are not subject to fatal consequences of degenerate mutations like real living things. And, most important of all, he chooses which are the lucky individuals to receive the next mutation – it is not decided by fate – and of course he chooses the most promising ones (“I began to breed from whichever child looked most like an insect.”) That is why they have ended up looking like recognizable images from his memory. If his mutations really occurred randomly, as in the real world, Dawkins would still be sitting in front of his screen watching a small dot and waiting for it do something.
Above all, his computer experiment falsifies the most important central claim of mechanistic Darwinian thinking; that, through natural processes, living things could come into being without any precursor. What Dawkins has shown is that, if you want to start the evolutionary ball rolling, you need some form of design to take a hand in the proceedings, just as he himself had to sit down and program his computer.
In fact, his experiment shows very much the same sort of results that field work in biology and zoology has shown for the past hundred years: there is no evidence for beneficial spontaneous genetic mutation; there is no evidence for natural selection (except as an empty tautology); there is no evidence for either as significant evolutionary mechanisms. There is only evidence of an unquenchable optimism among Darwinists that given enough [170>] time, anything can happen – the argument from probability.
But although Dawkins’s program does not qualify as a simulation of random genetic mutation coupled with natural selection, it does highlight at least one very important way in which computer programs resemble genetic processes. Each instruction in a program must be carefully considered by the programmer as to both its immediate effect on the computer hardware and its effects on other parts of the program. The letters and numbers which the programmer uses to write the instructions have to be written down with absolute precision with regard to the vocabulary and syntax of the programming language he uses in order for the computer system to function at all. Even the most trivial error can lead to a complete malfunction. In 1977, for example, an attempt by NASA to launch a weather satellite from Cape Canaveral ended in disaster when the launch vehicle went off course shortly after takeoff and had to be destroyed. Subsequent investigation by NASA engineers found that the accident was caused by failure of the onboard computer guidance system – because a single comma had been misplaced in the guidance program.
Anyone who has programmed a computer to perform the simplest task in the simplest language – Basic for instance – will understand the problem. If you make the simplest error in syntax, misplacing a letter, a punctuation mark or even a space, the program will not run at all.
In just the same way, each nucleotide has to be “written” in precisely the correct order and in precisely the correct location in the DNA molecule for the offspring to remain viable, and, as described earlier, major functional disorders in humans, animals and plants are caused by the loss or displacement of a single DNA molecule, or even a single nucleotide within that molecule.
In order to simulate neo-Darwinist evolution on his computer, it is not necessary for Dawkins to devise complex programs that seek to simulate insect life. All he has to do is to write a program containing a large number of instructions (3000 million instructions if he wishes to simulate human DNA) that continually regenerates its own program code, but randomly interferes with the code in trivial ways, such as transposing, shifting or missing characters. (The system must be set to restart itself after each fatal “birth”.)
[171>] The result of this experiment would be positive if the system ever develops a novel function that was not present in the original programming. One way of defining “novelty” would be to design the program so that, initially, its sole function was to replicate itself (a computer virus). A novel function would then be anything other than mere reproduction. In practice, however, I do not expect the difficulty of defining what constitutes a novelty to pose any problem. It is extremely improbable that Dawkins’s program will ever work again after the first generation, just as in real life, mutations cause genetic defects, not improvements.
Outside of the academic world there are a number of important commercial applications based on computer simulations that deserve to be seriously examined. A good example of this is in the field of aircraft wing design where computers have been used by aircraft engineers to develop the optimum airfoil profile. In the past wing design has been based largely on repetitive trial and error methods. A hypothetical wing shape is drawn up; a physical model is made and is aerodynamically tested in the wind tunnel. Often the results of such an empirical design approach are predictable: lengthening the upper wing curve, in relation to the lower, generally increases the upward thrust obtained. But sometimes results are very unpredictable, as when complex patterns of turbulence combine at the trailing edge to produce drag, which lowers wing efficiency, and causes destructive vibration.
Engineers at Boeing Aircraft tried a new approach. They created a computer model which was able to “mutate” a primitive wing shape at random – to stretch it here or shrink it there. They also fed into the model rules that would enable the computer to simulate testing the resulting design in a computerized version of the “wind tunnel”- the rules of aerodynamics.
The engineers say this process has resulted in obtaining wing designs offering maximum thrust and minimum drag and turbulence, more quickly than before and without any human intervention once the process has been set in motion.
Designers have made great savings in time compared with previous methods and the success of the computer in this field has given rise to a new breed of application dubbed “genetic software”. Indeed, on the face of it, the system is acting in a Darwinian manner. The [172>] computer (an inanimate object) has produced an original and intelligent design (comparable, say, with a natural structure such as a bird’s wing) by random mutation of shape combined with selection according to rules that come from the natural world – the laws of aerodynamics. If the computer can do this in the laboratory in a few hours or days, what could nature not achieve in millions of years?
The fallacies on which this case is constructed are not very profound but they do need to be nailed down. In a recently published popular primer on molecular biology, Andrew Scott’s Vital Principles, this very example is given under the heading “the creativity of evolution”. The process itself is called “computer generated evolution” as though it were analogous to an established natural process of mutation and selection.[2]
The most important fallacy in this argument is the idea that somehow a result has occurred which is independent of, or in some way beyond the engineers, who merely started the machine by pressing a button. Of course, the fact is that a human agency has designed and built the computer and programmed it to perform the task in question. As with the previous experiment, this begs the only important question in evolution theory: could complex structures have arisen spontaneously by random natural processes without any precursor? Like all other computer simulation experiments, this one actually makes a reasonable case for special creation – or some form of vitalist-directed design – because it specifically requires a creator to build the computer and devise and implement the program in the first place.
However, there are other important fallacies too. The only reason that the Boeing engineers are able to take the design produced on paper by their computer and translate that design into an aircraft that flies, is because they are employing an immense body of knowledge – not possessed by the com put er – regarding the properties of materials from which the aircraft will be made and the manufacturing processes that will be used to make it. The computer’s wing is merely an outline on paper, an idea: it is of no more significance to aviation than a wave outline on the beach or a wind outline in the desert. The real wing has to actually fly in the air with real passengers. The decisive events that make that idea into a reality are a long, complex sequence of human operations [173>] and judgments that involve not only the shaping and fastening of metal for wings but also the design and manufacture of airframes and jet engines. These additional complexities are beyond the capacity of the computer, not merely in practice but in principle, because computers cannot even make a cup of coffee, let alone an airliner, without being instructed every step of the way.
In order for a physical structure like an aircraft wing to evolve by spontaneous random means, it is necessary for natural selection to do far more than select an optimum shape. It must also select the correct materials, the correct manufacturing methods (to avoid failure in service) and the correct method of integrating the new structure into its host creature. These operations involve genetic engineering principles which are presently unknown. And because they are unknown by us, they cannot be programmed into a computer.
There is also an important practical reason why the computer simulation is not relevant to synthetic evolution: because an aircraft wing differs from a natural wing in a fundamental way. The aircraft wing is passive, since the forward movement of the aircraft is derived from an engine. A natural wing like a bird’s, however, has to provide upthrust and the forward motion necessary to generate that lift making it a complex, articulated active mechanism. The engineering design problem of evolving a passive wing is merely a repetitive mechanical task – that is why it is suitable for computerization. So far, no-one has suggested programming a computer to design a bird’s wing by random mutation because the suggestion would be seen as ludicrous. Even if all of the world’s computers were harnessed together, they would be unable to take even the most elementary steps needed to design a bird’s wing unless they were told in advance what they were aiming at and how to get there.
If computers are no use to evolutionists as models of the hypothetical selection process, they are proving invaluable in another area of biology; one that seems to hold out much promise to Darwinists – the field of genetics. Since Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule, and since geneticists began unraveling the meaning of the genetic code, the center of gravity of evolution theory has gradually shifted away from the earth sciences – geology and pale-ontology – toward molecular biology.
[174>] This shift in emphasis has occurred not only because of the attraction of the new biology as holding the answers to many puzzling questions, but also because the traditional sciences have proved ultimately sterile as a source of decisive evidence. The gaps in the fossil record, the incomplete-ness of the geological strata, and the ambiguity of the evidence from comparative anatomy, ultimately caused Darwinists to give up and look somewhere else for decisive evidence. Thanks to molecular biology and computer science they now have somewhere else to try.
Darwinists seem to have drawn immense comfort from their recent discoveries at the cellular level and beyond, behaving and speaking as though the new discoveries of biology represent a triumphant vindication of their long-held beliefs over the irrational ideas of vitalists. Yet the gulf between what Darwinists claim for molecular biological discoveries and what those discoveries actually show is only too apparent to any objective evaluation.
Consider these remarks by Francis Crick, justly famous as one of the biologists who cracked the genetic code, and equally well known as an ardent supporter of Darwinist evolution. In his 1966 book Molecules and Men, in which he set out to criticize vitalism, Crick asked which of the various molecular biological processes are likely to be the seat of the “vital principle”.[3] “It can hardly be the action of the enzymes,” he says, “because we can easily make this happen in a test tube. Moreover most enzymes act on rather simple organic molecules which we can easily synthesize.”
There is one slight difficulty but Crick easily deals with it; “It is true that at the moment nobody has synthesized an actual enzyme chemically, but we can see no difficulty in doing this in principle, and in fact I would predict quite confidently that it will be done within the next five or ten years.”
A little later, Crick says of mitochondria (important objects in the cell that also contain DNA):
It may be some time before we could easily synthesise such an object, but eventually we feel that there should be no gross difficulty in putting a mitochondrion together from its component parts.
This reservation aside, it looks as if any system of [175>] enzymes could be made to act without invoking any special principles, or without involving material that we could not synthesize in the laboratory. [4]
There is no question that Crick and Watson’s decoding of the DNA molecule is a brilliant achievement and one of the high points of twentieth-century science. But this success seems to me to have led many scientists to expect too much as a result.
Crick’s early confidence that an enzyme would be produced synthetically within five or ten years has not been borne out and biologists are further than ever from achieving such a synthesis. Indeed, reading and rereading the words above with the benefit of hindsight I cannot help but interpret them as saying “we are unable to synthesize any significant part of a cell at present, but this reservation aside, we are able to synthesize any part of the cell.”
Certainly great strides have been made. William Shrive, writing in the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, says, “The complete amino acid sequence of several enzymes has been determined by chemical methods. By X-ray crystallographic methods it has even been possible to deduce the exact three-dimensional molecular structure of a few enzymes.”[5] But despite these advances no-one has so far synthesized anything remotely as complex as an enzyme or any other protein molecule.
Such a synthesis was impossible when Crick wrote in 1966 and remains impossible today. It is probably because there is a world of difference between having a neat table that shows the genetic code for all twenty amino acids (Alanine = GCA, Praline = CCA and so on) and knowing how to manufacture a protein. These complex molecules do not simply assemble themselves from a mixture of ingredients like a cup of tea. Something else is needed. What the something else is remains conjectural. If it is chemical it has not been discovered; if it is a process it is an unknown process; if it is a “vital principle” it has not yet been recognized. Whatever the something is, it is presently impossible to build a case either for Darwinism or against vitalism out of what we have learned of the cell and the molecules of which it is composed.
It is easy to see why evolutionists should be so excited about cellular discoveries because the mechanisms they have found appear to [176>] be very simple. But however simple they may seem, as of yet no-one has succeeded in synthesizing any significant original structure from raw materials. We know the code for the building blocks; we don’t know the instructions for building a house with them.
Indeed, the discoveries of biochemistry and molecular biology have raised some rather awkward questions for Darwinists, which they have yet to address satisfactorily. For example, the existence of genetically very simple biological entities, such as viruses, seems to support Darwinist ideas about the origin of life. One can imagine all sorts of primitive life forms and organisms coming into existence in the primeval ocean and it seems only natural that one should find entities that are part way between the living and the nonliving – stepping stones to life as it were. It is only to be expected, says Richard Dawkins, that the simplest form of self-replicating object would merely be that part of the DNA program which says only “copy me”, which is essentially what a virus is.
The problem here is that viruses lack the ability to replicate unless they inhabit a host cell – a fully functioning cell with its own genetic replication mechanisms. So the first virus must have come after the first cell, not before in a satisfyingly Darwinian processes.
But despite minor unresolved problems of this kind Darwinists still have one remaining card to play in support of their theory. It is the strongest card in their hand and the most powerful and decisive evidence in favor of Darwinian evolutionary processes.
[….]
pp. 223-227
[223>] Earlier on I referred to computers and their programs as a fruitful source of comparison with genetic processes since both are concerned with the storage and reliable transmission of large quantities of information. Arguing from analogy is a dangerous practice, but there is one phenome-non connected with computer systems that could be of some importance in understanding biological information processing strategies.
The phenomenon has to do with the computer’s ability to refer to a master list or template and to highlight any exceptions to this master list that it encounters during processing. This “exception reporting” is profoundly important in information processing. For instance, this book was prepared using a word-processing program that has a spelling checker. When invoked, the spell checker reads the typescript of the book and compares each word with its built-in dictionary, highlighting as potential mistakes those it does not recognize. Of course, it will encounter words that are spelled correctly but are not found in a normal dictionary – such as “deoxyribonucleic acid”. But the program is clever enough to allow me to add the novel word to the dictionary, so that the next time it is encountered it will be accepted as correct instead of reported as an exception – as long as I spell it correctly.
In other words, the spelling checker isn’t really a spelling checker. It has no conception of correct spelling. It is merely a mechanism [224>] for reporting exceptions. Using these methods, programmers can get computers to behave in an apparently intelligent or purposeful way when they are really only obeying simple mechanical rules. Not unnaturally, this gives Darwinists much encouragement to believe that life processes may at root be just as simple and mechanical.
In cell biology there are natural chemical properties of complex molecules that lend them-selves to automatic checking and excepting of this kind. For example many molecules are stereospecific – they will attach only to certain other specific molecules and only in special positions. There are also much more complex forms of exception reporting, for instance as part of the brain’s (of if you prefer, the mind’s) cognitive processes: as when we see and recognize a single face in the crowd or hear our name mentioned at a noisy cocktail party.
In the case of the spelling checker, the behavior of the system can be made to look more and more intelligent through a process of learning if, every time it highlights a new word, I add that word to its internal dictionary. If I continue for a long enough time, then eventually, in principle, the system will have recorded every word in the English language and will highlight only words that are indeed misspelled. It will have achieved the near-miraculous levels of efficiency and repeatability that we are used to seeing in molecular biological processes. But something strange has also been happening at the same time – or, rather, two strange things.
The first is that as its vocabulary grows, the spelling checker becomes less efficient at drawing to my attention possible mistakes. This unexpected result comes about in the fallowing way. Remember, the computer knows nothing of spelling, it merely reports exceptions to me. To begin with, it has only, say, 50,000 standard words in its dictionary. This size of dictionary really only covers the common everyday words plus a modest number of proper nouns (for capital cities, common surnames and the like) and doesn’t leave much room for unusual words. It would, for instance include a word like ‘great’ but not the less-frequently used word “grate”.
The result is that if I accidentally type “grate” when I really mean “great”, the spell checker will draw it to my attention. If however, I enlarge the dictionary and add the word “grate”, the spell [225>]checker will ignore it in future, even though the chances are that it will occur only as a typing mis take – except in the rare case where I am writing about coal fires or cookery.
One can generalize this case by saying that when the dictionary has an optimum size of vo-cabulary, I get the best of both worlds: it points out misspellings of the most common words and reports anything unusual which in most cases probably will be an error. (Obviously to work at optimum efficiency the size of dictionary should be matched to the vocabulary of the writer). As the dictionary grows in volume it becomes more efficient in one way, highlighting only real spelling errors, but less efficient in another: it becomes more probable that my typing errors will spell a real word – one that will not be reported – but not the word I mean to use. Paradoxically, although the spelling checker is more efficient, the resulting book is full of contextual errors: ‘pubic’ instead of ‘public’, ‘grate’ instead of ‘great’ and so on.
It requires a human intelligence -a real spelling checker, not a mechanical exception reporter to make sure that the intended result is produced.
I said two strange things have been happening while I have been adding words to the spelling checker. The second is the odd occasion when the system has highlighted a real spelling mistake to me- say, “problem” instead of “problem” – and I have mistakenly told the computer to add the word to its dictionary. This, of course, has the very unfortunate result that in future it will cease to highlight a real spelling mistake and will pass it as correct. The error is no longer an exception it is now a dictionary word.
Under what circumstances am I most likely to issue such a wrong instruction? It is most likely to happen with words that I type most frequently and that I habitually mistype. Anyone who uses a keyboard every day knows that there are many such ‘favorite’ misspelled words that get typed over and over. Once again, only a real spelling checker, a human brain, can spot the error and correct it.
The reason that the computer’s spellchecker breaks down under these circumstances is that the simple mechanisms put in place do not work from first principles. They do not work in what electronics engineers call ‘real time’ (they are not in touch with the real world) and do not employ any real intelligent understanding [226>] of the tasks they are being called on to perform. So although the computer continues to work perfectly as it was designed to, it becomes more and more corrupted from the standpoint of its original function.
I believe that this analogy may well have some relevance to Darwinists’ belief that biological processes can at root be as simple as the spelling checker. It is easy to think of any number of simple cell replication mechanisms that rely on exception reporting of this kind. I believe that if biological processes were so simple, they too would become functionally corrupt unless there is some underlying or overall design process to which the simple mechanisms answer globally, and which is capable of taking action to correct mistakes. This is the mechanism that we see in action in the case of the “eyeless fly”, Drosophila; in Driesch’s experiment with the sea urchin and Balinsky’s with the eyes of amphibians; the ‘field’ that governs the metamorphosis of the butterfly or the reconstitution of the cells of sponges and vertebrates.
Darwinists believe that the only overall control process is natural selection, but the natural selection mechanism could not account for the cases referred to above. Natural selection works on populations, not individuals. It is capable only of tending to make creatures with massively fatal genetic defects die in infancy, or to make populations that are geographically dispersed eventually produce sterile hybrid offspring. It is such a poor feedback mechanism in the sense of exercising an overall regulating effect that it has failed even to eliminate major congenital diseases. Natural selection offers only death or glory: there is no genetic engineering nor holistic supervision of the organism’s integrity. Yet we are asked to believe that a mechanism of such crudity can creatively supervise a program of gene mutation that will restore sight to the eyeless fly.
This is plainly wishful thinking. The key question remains: what is the location of the supervisory agency that oversees somatic development? How does it work? What is it’s connection with the cell structure of the body?
FOOTNOTES
- Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 1997), 167-176; 223-226.
(Editor’s Note. The author did not footnote what page he was quoting from, he only cited the work itself)
Evolution Cannot Account for: Logic, Reasoning, Love, Truth, or Justice
(Recently Updated – Originally Posted 12-2015)
(H/T ~ Debunking Atheists)
One of the most deep thinkers of the Founding Fathers, John Adams, noted that even “liberty” ~you know, one of the ideals impregnating our Founding Documents~ would be groundless if naturalism were true [among other things]:
Ever hear an atheist say he’s a freethinker? Well, if atheism is true, an atheist, cannot be free nor would his thinking make any real sense. Frank Turek explains.
- If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. (J.B.S. Haldane)
These are some of my favorite quotes and dealing with “naturalism” and their logical end-result, consequences, or logical conclusions. Merely a combining of MANY quotes and a “not-so-few” videos.
Here is a detailing of the above in a book I recently read:
See also my post on logical conclusions in meta-ethics and evil (like rape), HERE:
- “Relativists aren’t interested in finding truth but in preserving their own autonomy. This isn’t a logical argument against relativism, of course. I’m just trying to point out that the true(!) basis for relativism is ultimately rooted in its motivation rather than in any good reasons or persuasive arguments.” — Paul Copan
This childish rejection of God in light of the evidence provided through the Book of Nature comes way of True Free Thinker, and shows the juvenile manner in which evidence is rejected in lieu of the ego:
(For the above audio) Well respected [in evolutionary circles] University College London Professor (Emeritus) of Cell and Developmental Biology answers this, and explains that most people want more. And indeed, the Judeo-Christian God is the only answer to this conundrum. You can see how the answer to the problem actually resonates and responds to the truth of human need.
In other words, if naturalistic evolution is true, reductionism is also in play. Then we are determined by the chemical make-up, firing of synapses, and whole of historical events leading up to us controlling our actions. So one could ask in all seriousness, “how much does love weigh?”
It is a cold world, unbelief.
I wish to start out with an excerpt from a chapter in my book where I use two scholarly works that use Darwinian naturalism as a guide to their ethic:
- Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1997).
- Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
My incorporation of these works into my book (quote):
Now, hear from other atheist and evolutionary apologists themselves in regard to the matter:
Richard Dawkins
(h/t: TrueFreeThinker) – A Statement Made by an atheist at the Atheist and Agnostic Society:
[side note] You may also be aware that Richard Dawkins stated,
…I asked an obvious question: “As we speak of this shifting zeitgeist, how are we to determine who’s right? If we do not acknowledge some sort of external [standard], what is to prevent us from saying that the Muslim [extremists] aren’t right?”
“Yes, absolutely fascinating.” His response was immediate. “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question. But whatever [defines morality], it’s not the Bible. If it was, we’d be stoning people for breaking the Sabbath.”
I was stupefied. He had readily conceded that his own philosophical position did not offer a rational basis for moral judgments. His intellectual honesty was refreshing, if somewhat disturbing on this point….
Stated during an interview with Larry Taunton, “Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist,” by Faith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007 (copyright; 2007-2008)
Lewis Wolpert
From the video description:
Atheists Trying to Have Their Cake and Eat It Too on Morality. This video shows that when an atheist denies objective morality they also affirm moral good and evil without the thought of any contradiction or inconsistency on their part.
Dan Barker
This is from the video Description for the Dan Barker video below:
Note as well that evolutionary naturalism has very dogmatic implication, IF — that is — the honest atheist/evolutionist follow the matter to their logical conclusions, via the ineffable Dr. Provine:
William Provine
Atheist and staunch evolutionist Dr. William Provine (who is often quoted by Richard Dawkins) admits what life has in stored if Darwinism is true. The quote comes from his debate here with Dr. Phillip E. Johnson at Stanford University, April 30, 1994.
People think evolution is “science proper.” It is not, it is both a historical science and a [philosophical] presupposition in its “neo-Darwinian” form. The presupposition that removes it from “science proper and moves it into “scientism” is explained by an atheist philosopher:
Likewise one of the most celebrated pediatric surgeons in the world, whom a movie was made after, “Gifted Hands,” is a young earth creationist. And the inventor of the MRI, a machine that diagnosed my M.S., is also a young earth creationist.
Evolutionary Darwinism is first and foremost an “historical science” that has many presuppositions that precede it, making it a metaphysical belief, a philosophy, as virulent anti-creationist philosopher of science, Michael Ruse explains:
video erased
What merit would attach to moral virtue if the acts that form such habitual tendencies and dispositions were not acts of free choice on the part of the individual who was in the process of acquiring moral virtue? Persons of vicious moral character would have their characters formed in a manner no different from the way in which the character of a morally virtuous person was formed—by acts entirely determined, and that could not have been otherwise by freedom of choice.
Mortimer J. Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1985), 154.
What Is Faith? Is It Blind? Or Is It Trustworthy? (Updated)
RE-POST
(Originally Posted In February 2017)
I just wanted to update the below a bit with a great explanation of how theists view evidential propositions about God as compared to agnostics and atheists. Tim Stratton makes a great short example of what is being discussed in the below — but clearer: “ATHEISM: LACK OF BELIEF OR BLIND FAITH?“
I reside when discussing apologetics with persons in category two. If I feel moved to pray a sinners prayer with a person, I am speaking from category one, and the person who is inviting the Holy Spirit into their life is falling into that category as well. “… fundamentally, the way we know Christianity to be true is by the self-authenticating witness of God’s Holy Spirit.” Tim’s whole post is worth reading
HOW ATHEISTS VIEW CHRISTIAN’S FAITH
LETTING CHRISTIANS DEFINE FAITH
See also:
Is Blind Faith Better Than Belief Based on Evidence?
- Evolution Cannot Account for: Logic, Reasoning, Love, Truth, or Justice
- The Definition That Will Not Die! (Transcript)
Click To Enlarge
Misc. Responses
Here is the response to Russell’s position:
Here is the response to Logicel’s position:
Here is the Comment from Professor Gray: