An Obituary of the Human Race
The Human Race, age 20 (billion years), passed away early Saturday Morning, after a long fight with gradual extinction. No one was with Human during her last days, and she left no living relatives. She spent most of her tragically short life as a resident of the planet Earth. In her youth, she enjoyed pleasure seeking and competition with her neighbors for survival, but as she aged, she became interested in preserving the health and quality of the her own life and that of the Earth. She managed to beautify and preserve her home for hundreds of millions of years. Of course, she was not able to do this without drastically decreasing her numbers, and moving many of her number to Mars and Titan. Unfortunately, despite her valiant and commendable efforts, she was unable to stop the destruction of her homes by the expanding Sun. Fortunately, and to her credit, she foresaw this tradgedy and was able to move a small portion of her population to a nearby solar system, where she was able to live for a few billion years, though her population steadily declined due to the less than optimal conditons on that harsh planet. She did manage to beautify that world as well, as muchas she could, and she commended herself for her ability in preserving and protecting her environment and prolonging her own life. In the end, however, she dwindled to a few hundred individuals, and the last human passed away peacefully and alone by the light of a dim sun. I wish we could say we will remeber her and her noble efforts, but alas, there is no one here to remember.
The Ten Commandments of Science
1. You shall Have no other gods before me. I, the Lord Science, have spoken.
2. But you can make for yourself idols of every living thing: trees and insects, owls and whales.
3. You shall not worship and serve any supernatural gods; for I, the Lord Science, am a jealous god.
4. You shall not take my name in vain: you shall not engage in pseudoscience. You shall not question me. I, the Lord Science, have spoken.
5. Remember the brithday of Darwin, and keep it holy.
6. Honor your apelike ancestors.
7. You shall not murder. I know, you can’t help it because you have been evolutionarily conditioned to selfishness, but you have also been evolutionarily conditioned to care for your fellow humans. Obey the second impulse, and not the first. Why? Because it is best for society.
8. You shall not commit adultery. I know, you can’t help it because you have been evolutionarliy conditioned to want to procreate and ensure the survival of your genes, but really, it is better for society if you don’t take anothers wife. What do you care about society? How dare you ask such a question. I, Lord Science, have spoken.
9. You shall not lie. Again, I know that you may feel the need to lie in order to preserve your genes, but it is better for society as a whole if you don’t. Sacrifice yourself for society.
10. You shall not covet your neighbors wife, house, car, etc. Again, I know you can’t help it, but try not to do it because it is not what is best for society. You want what’s best for society, don’t you?
Frustrated by Atheists
Why do they frustrate me? Because they claim that reason is supreme, and then they abandon it.
I was reading a blog by Homo Economicus this morning, and it drove me crazy. I have nothing against him personally, and I am sorry that he was brought up as a Jehova’s Witness, but it raised some issues I have been thinking about recently.
First, and this is certainly not true of all atheists, is that he does not seem to see how evolution threatens faith in God. For one thing, it absolutely destroys the idea of sin. I have wrestled with this idea for a long time, and I have tried to reconcile the two ideas, but failed.
Evolution explains sin as a natural phenomena. How does it do this? This brings me to the next frustrating point in the blog. The writer does not seem to understand, and implies that Dawkins does not understand, sociobiology. That is, he seems to imply that we “fight against our genes” when we live in socially stable ways. Do ants “fight against their genes”? Why not for a purely naturalistic explanation: that altruism evolved along with society? I think it was Hillel who said something like “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”
The struggle with sin becomes the struggle between these two evolutionarily implanted desires. Sin vaporizes. And if sin, then Christianity.
Of course, evolution presents other problems for Christianity, not the least of which is providing a naturalistic explanation for what the Bible claims God did. Yes, we can try to talk about God using evolution to create, but the bottom line is that the naturalistic explanation explains the the same thing that the Bible explains. One must be wrong. “God” is not part of the naturalistic explanation, nor does it leave him room.
The second, and by far the most frustrating thing about the blog, and I think this is true of many atheists, is that he appeals to morality:
Above all is the recognition that life is precious and fleeting – that life is over too quickly for too many in this world. We must use our collective talents to get a grip on the problems of this world. Too often religion, ideology, nationalism, even the human ability of kinship get in the way of recognising that as humans we are descended from the same ancestor. These differences are few compared to the many similarities we have – yet we allow trivial things to divide us.
In the global world how will we respond to the challenges facing ourselves and the planet? Can we go beyond our selfish self preservation and do what benefits all? What will we look to for the answer – because whether we think it is faith or science (or even both) one thing I do agree with the Archbishop on in his sermon:
It starts with us embracing our common humanity.
Who cares if we have the same common ancestor? Why should I do what benefits humanity?
The writer admits that:
Science is no way to base morals. Social Darwinism (nothing to do with Darwin) is to be confined to the trash bin of political ideology. When anyone suggests that we should have a public policy based on it shout them down with reason and humanity.
But what is the alternative source of morals?
This is existentialism. Their morals are based on some nebulous, subjective feeling: a leap of faith.
The frustrating part is this: why don’t they come out and say it? Where do you get your ideas of morality, beauty, and “humanity” and brotherly love, and all that? It is not an argument from reason.
If they come from evolution, if we value the good of humanity because we have been evolutionarily conditioned to do so, that does not mean that I must follow it. If they do not come from evolution, then where do they come from, and again, why should I follow them?
There is one more thing that frustrates me about atheists and naturalists in general: Science is God. Don’t you dare question infallible science. Science has spoken. Bow before almighty science, the savior of the world.
Faith, Evidence and Subjectivity
For a long time now I have been wrestling with the nature of faith (see previous entries). Is it based on evidence? Can it be 100% certainty? How does one come to faith? What is the role of miracles in faith?
From the book of John it can be seen that evidence can at least play a role in faith. Perhaps it is not necessary, but Jesus does appeal to evidence (John 10:38, 14:11, and more), and so does John (20:30-31).
Belief is subjective, as I have noted before. We can never prove the things we believe with 100% certainty. Instead, we believe when we are subjectively persuaded (and we can then experience a paradigm shift). This is the case with all belief, whether it be in Christianity or gravity or evolution.
So, it is easy to see then Holy Spirit could produce belief, and how someone’s heart could be hardened against it.
The problem then becomes, if I don’t believe, but want to, how can I get there from here?
Questions About Faith and Evidence
What is the basis for faith, and what is the role of evidence?
The scientific view supposes that everything in the universe functions according to fixed natural laws. If this is true, then the theist is left with the IPO problem: there is no unique evidence for God or his activity. His activity cannot be discerned from natural processes and histories.
Alternative scientific views propose that evrything in the universe is determined by random events interacting with natural laws. In addition to the problems that the previous view leaves for the theist, this view leaves no place at all for God, except perhaps the God of the deists.
Therefore, if there is a “theistic” God, one who ineteracts with his creation, then both of the above views of the universe must be false. It must not be true that all things function according to laws, though some randomness may be permissible.
This may not seem revelatory to most readers, but it is to me. For years now I have been moving closer to the view that God may act only through natural processes. I expressed such views in previous entries. I suppose I have been sneaking in this direction as a defensive move, trying to protect myself from the encroachment of science upon my faith, but now I realize that it is no defense.
I guess I had been moving away from this view earlier this month, as evidenced by my “Evidence” post. But after writing that post, I was still hanging like the character in the story. I had seen the need for evidence, but was wondering if it could ever really suffice.
Last Sunday, as I looked across the spines of the books in my church’s library one title lept at me from the shelf: The Silence of God. In the book, Sir Robert Anderson asserts that miracles were never the basis for faith. He says that they were always meant to confirm Jesus messiahship to the Jews, who were familiar with the messianic prophesies attributing such signs to that chosen one. He argues that people are never really convinced by miracles alone. For example, the same Jews that crucified Jesus also saw his miracles. Miracles can always be attributed to other sources and or factors, a point I made also in that post.
So what is it? How does one believe? Is it true that it is a subjective inclination? Is faith a mysterious ability or confidence imparted to some people?
I remembered today that that is what William Lane Craig seems to suggest when he says that we must distinguish between how we can know Christianity to be true from how we can show it to be true. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, claims Craig, that makes us believe.
OK. That makes sense, and I suppose it is little different from the conclusion I came to in my “evidence” post, but then how do I get this “faith”?
Craig also believes that Christianity must be consistent with experience and with logic. What I said at the beginning of this post must be true, that is, science cannot truly explain everything. The problem is, of course we will never know for sure if it does or not.
According to Craig, it would seem, one has faith due to the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit, but one finds that his faith is consistent with experience and logic. I cannot prove Christianty with a syllogism, but it is rational.
So what is teh role of evidence? I am not prepared to say that evidence plays no role at all, because what if it was true that science explained everything? Could I still believe? I don’t think so.
I don’t think that faith can exist in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, but how much is necessary?
If evidence is not the basis for faith, then why is evidence necessary? Is it because though faith isn’t based on evidence, it must be consistent with experience and logic?
This makes sense: I believe because of the work of God within me, but my beliefs are rational.
Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.
A Student Philosopher, a Miracle
There are teenagers who care about more than video games and iPods. There are young people who think. There are young men who analyze the worldview they have been handed.
Today I was monitoring the detention hall after school. It is typically a place where one can observe the teen culture problem closely, but today was different. Today there was a young man in the hall who caught my eye first because he was reading a book with the word Nietzsche on the cover. Then, about half way through the period, he handed me a paper on which he had been writing and asked if I would read it. On it, he had written two paragraphs in which he stated that it was up to each individual to decide what was right or wrong. He wrote that each person should decide what he or she would believe, and then stick to it. Therefore, it is wrong, he explained, for one person to push his or her beliefs on another. I read it, and awkwardly handed it back to him, hesitant to comment in the enforced silence of the study hall.
I continued to grade papers. He continued to read and work on his handwritten essay. At the end of the detention, he handed the paper back to me. He had added some details about a hypthetical conversation between a Catholic and an atheist in which the two essentially cannot confront each other’s positions because the believe completely different things. I read it and then asked what he wanted me to do. He asked if I had any input. I was amazed. I took the paper back to my desk and sat down, eager to respond to his thoughts.
I wrote down some thoughts and questions related to the issue he had raised. He gratefully received it from me and asked if I would like to look at more of his writing. I was thrilled to say yes, I would love to. He explained that he had become interested in philosophy when his grandfather made him read a book by Soren Kierkegaard as a punishment. At first he recoiled at the thought of reading anything. It had been so long since he had read anything not required in by his classes. But by the end of his punishment, he was captured by philosophy. He began to read Nietzsche and other philosophers.
I told him I enjoy these things as well and he was welcome to come by my room anytime.
Here is living proof that my generalizations in my Extended Childhoodpost are just that, generalizations. Here is living proof that that teens have greater potential than we give them credit for. Here is proof that some teens, at least, struggle with the world we have made for them. And of course, here is evidence of what kind of world we have made for them.
At Heaven’s Gate: But You Didn’t Give Me Enough Evidence.
“But God,” I said “You didn’t give me enough evidence.”
“No?,” asked that solemn deity, “What do you mean by ‘evidence’?”
“You know, like proof, data, observations. I need hard evidence… things I can see, feel, smell.”
“I see,” said God, thoughtfully, “you needed to see me?”
“Not necessarily,” I replied, “I believe in atoms, though I cannot see them. There is evidence for gravity: every time I drop something it falls. There is evidence for the existence of black holes, at least I suppose there is. And of course I believe in evolution. After all, there are all of those fossils in the rocks, with teh simpler ones below the more complicated ones. But I need evidence that I can see. Like with evolution, I can see the fossils, and the explanation makes sense.”
“OK, so it can be indirect evidence?”
“I guess so.”
“And you are saying that there is no indirect evidence for Me? What about the Bible?”
“Yes, but that could all just be made up, contrivances of ancient deluded men or something.”
“Could scientists be wrong about evolution?”, He asked.
“I suppose so, though I can’t imagine it,” I answered.
God said, “So you don’t need absolute proof. There is evidence for Me, it is just not good enough for you.”
“I guess you could say that, or else there is just not enough.”
“OK so what would be good enough?”
“Well, If you appeared to me, or had spoken to me, that would have been helpful.”
“Oh, and you are sure you wouldn’t have questioned your sanity, or blamed it on some fluke of brain chemistry?”
“Maybe I would have. I don’t know, just make it obvious. For example, get rid of all of those fossils, they obscure you, and why couldn’t you have made it clear that the earth was only 5,000 years old. How about fossils tracing back to Adam and Eve in Mesopotamia, or a fossil Noah’s Ark? Or maybe … Egyptian records of the Exodus and the destruction of the army at the Red Sea, or maybe, oh, I don’t know…”, I faltered.
“It’s rather difficult, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Coming up with evidences that you couldn’t explain away. Thinking of arguments that would not be ‘God-of-the-Gaps’ arguments, for instance.”
“I suppose so, I guess that is impossible, but I guess I didn’t need absolute proof. I just needed more.”
“How much more?” He asked.
“I don’t know,” I winced, “I can’t say.”
“Well then how can you say I didn’t give you enough? What is the standard for ‘enough’? It seems that the only standard is you and your own mind, or judgement, or perhaps your preconceptions, inclinations, whims, desires, or whatever it is that controls what you believe and don’t believe. In other words, the belief we are speaking of is subjective.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So, what you mean to say is that I should’ve given you enough evidence to convince you, however much that was, but you cannot say if this would be possible.”
“I suppose so.”
“Who made you the standard, the judge of fairness and evidence?” inquired God.
“No one, but is it fair to require something of me that I cannot provide, or that I have not been equipped to produce?” I argued.
“No,” replied the Almighty, “but what if the fault is in you? What if you have hardened your own heart against Me, and against My Evidence? What if you are not convinced because your heart and mind have been distorted by your own rebellion against Me? What if, seeing that belief is subjective and based on intuitive judgement calls, your own decisions have so affected your mind and heart that you are unable to subjectively arrive at the appropriate conclusion, given the evidence.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed.
A Rude Awakening to a Cruel World
Listening to Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities today, I was struck by this line from the scene of Lucy and her father on the night before her wedding:
In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face upon his breast, in the moonlight, which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is, as the light of human life is at its coming and its going.
It reminded me of something I said on the event of the birth of my son, my first child.
My wife’s labor was long and difficult, and with only a narcotic to dull the pain. I did not deal well with my helplessness in the situation, my inability to help her. When my son emerged into the doctors arms, he placed him immediately on my wife’s chest. The crying baby, just after the cries of my laboring sweetheart, made a profound impression upon me, and I said “A rude awakening into a cruel world.”
The respected doctor quickly retorted, “A wonderful awakening into a wonderful world.”
I was a bit ashamed of myself after this correction, but I suppose that the mouth speaks what is in the heart. I think this illustrates two strongly contrasting worldviews: one sees the world as full of pain and trouble, the other, as rosy and wonderful. I suppose that I have always been of the former persuasion, and perhaps I am in good company.
Dickens may be taking my pesssimistic platitude even a bit further by pointing out that human life is “bookended” by pain. What more should we expect, he may be implying, from the middle parts?
“Man is born to trouble,” said Eliphaz to Job, “as surely as sparks fly upward.”
Of course, there is joy in life, and wonder, at times filling life and crowding out the pain. But it is certain that pain is woven pervasively and intimately into the fabric of life.
But there is also joy in the midst of pain.
And why did Solomon say, “Sorrow is better than laughter…”?
Nehemia’s Wall, 2,451 Years Later
An ancient wall found in Jerusalem has messianic significance.
According to a Yahoo News Report:
A wall mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Nehemiah and long sought by archaeologists apparently has been found, an Israeli archaeologist says…
The findings suggest that the structure was actually part of the same city wall the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt, Mazar said. The Book of Nehemiah gives a detailed description of construction of the walls, destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.
We were amazed,” she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist.
The significance of this wall may be greater even than these archaeologists suppose… because of its place in prophecy. The book of Daniel, 9:24-26, lays out a timeframe from the rebuilding of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time to the death of the Messiah: 483 years. This lines up well with the facts. Scholars believe King Artaxerxes decree to rebuild Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8)ocurred around 444 BC. 483 years later would be 39 AD, right about the time when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
