Furthermore, for anyone interested, the facts, many of which I only referenced in my previous article, are dealt with more fully and further information about the secrets evolutionists do not want the public to know are shown and cited.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
More on Why no Rational Person Should Believe in Fairytales...
For my staunch atheistic naturalist friends, especially the couple who responded to my previous article on science and theism, here are some sad facts for you of the current day mentality towards evolution that show the opposite of atheistic claims of the popularity of evolution today. It should be properly basic and thus intuitive that when an individual has to lie to defend an ideology, that ideology has either not withstood the test of truth or that person hasn't fully apprehended the depth of his worldview.
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So, query. 2/3rds of human beings on the planet do not believe in Christianity, and of those who do, only a small portion believe in your specific interpretation thereof. Do you feel that this invalidates your viewpoint?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your query, anonymous. There are a few thoughts I’d like to leave you with concerning your query. First, there is no way I could have ever received a BA in Philosophy if I believed that majority opinion determined truth. That is definitely one of the most basic freshman logical fallacies that no rational person should believe, though I also sadly recognize that common sense isn’t as common as it used to be and that most people are persuaded in the political and ethical arena by their favorite actors, comics, and musicians. Furthermore, as a Christian I believe in the biblical teaching of the genuine redeemed as few in comparison with the amount of people in existence. Consider Jesus’ statement: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Mat 7:13 ESV)
ReplyDeleteA second point that I would ask you to consider is your 2/3 comment. You are certainly correct that even less are what I would define as true Christians. The 6 billion people and 2-billion-being-Christians pole you’re referencing is essentially inaccurate as it very broadly defines Christianity to include what is biblically defined as heretical movements. Consider the source:
“David B. Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia (1994 update) gives an oft-cited figure of 1.9 billion Christians (or about 33% of the world population), and projected that by the year 2000 there will be 2.1 billion Christians in the world. The 2001 edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia stated there were 2.1 billion Christians in the world, or 33% of the total population. Regardless of the degree of accuracy of this figure, Christianity, if taken as a whole, is unarguably the largest world religion - the largest religion in the world. (Keep in mind that although Christianity is the world's largest religion, it is an umbrella term that comprises many different branches and denominations.)”
(http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html#Christianity)
Notice the last section – your assessment is correct. So my point here is that there are far less actual Christians then 2 billion – I would consider the term Christendom to be preferable to the term Christian as I would prefer to preserve the integrity of the Gospel rather than prostitute it out to everyone who puts on a red coat and claims that as sufficient evidence of his being a member of King George’s Army. If I had a dollar for every person/belief/ideology/theory that was described as “Christian” today and couldn’t be further from the Gospel defined truth I could pay off the national deficit.
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ReplyDeleteSo what am I doing here then? Context is the key, Sir/Ma’am. As you’ll notice in my post explanation I say the following: “For my staunch atheistic naturalist friends, especially the couple who responded to my previous article on science and theism, here are some sad facts for you of the current day mentality towards evolution that show the opposite of atheistic claims of the popularity of evolution today.” Thus you’ll see I’m not trying to make a positive case for popular opinion, I’m responding to the inaccuracies of those who have attempted to do so. You and I are actually on the same page in denying popular opinion being a determinative factor for truth. Who are those I’m immediately addressing? Listen to the quotes from past interlocutors from my previous blog entry on this issue:
ReplyDeleteHuman Ape: “Scientists don't debate intelligent design (also known as THE-MAGIC-MAN-DID-IT). They all agree it's childish nonsense. Even the most religious scientists agree that 'intelligent design supernatural magic' is a religious idea that does not belong in science.”
Anonymous: “…you do realize that it's not just the atheists who have a problem with intelligent design - it's the theistic scientists as well.”
These two individuals, who disappeared as quickly as they came once responses were given, were never able to substantiate their claims. That does, sadly, seem to be the case with many on the blogosphere (Christians, too – I’m not denying that there are many Christians out there who need to let their minds do the thinking rather than their hearts, but such is also very true of most atheists as well). I’ve also run into many village level atheists in personal interactions who make such broad and inaccurate generalizations that I felt a post like this was necessary to critique such simplistic errors.
The fact of the matter is that naturalistic evolutionary thinking is becoming as primitive and patently false as the Santa Claus story. It’s truly a fairytale and many today are recognizing it to be such. The problem for the desperate atheists trying so hard to suppress the truth of God in the unrighteousness of their own hearts is that, as I mentioned in my pervious entry, naturalistic evolution is the only game in town for the atheist. It’s all he/she has. Their emotional and moral striving towards personal autonomy is why they reject God’s existence, not for rational or intellectual reasons; but to admit such is to expose themselves as fraudulent and they are not willing to do so. Hence I have to make posts like this showing that they are just wrong in their “we all believe in naturalistic evolution today!” statements. I don’t know for certain who said it, but my actions are in line with the famous adage, “All that’s required for evil to win is for good people to do nothing” (my paraphrase). Deception is evil, hence I, trying in my own personal sanctification to strive towards goodness, am morally compelled to correct such falsehoods in the hopes that decent human beings are not taken in any longer by the shadowy figures of Plato’s Cave.
Thank you for your question, Sir/Ma’am – it allows me to clarify my intentions here for the benefit of anyone reading this. Have a good week and please feel free to ask for any further clarification – when writing these things I’m not always able to consider all the perspectives others have in reading my posts, so clarification questions are always appreciated, especially when they're asked respectfully as yours was.
Cheers,
Beau McKinley Boyd
Gotcha. I apologize if any of what I'm saying is something you've already addressed in your previous post; I plan to read it and the comments following at some point, the two together are just significantly longer than this and I tend to usually only have 15-20 minutes at the computer at a time.
ReplyDeleteWould you disagree, then, with the last part of Human Ape's statement that "Even the most religious scientists agree that 'intelligent design supernatural magic' is a religious idea that does not belong in science"? While his/her assertion that they all agree it's childish nonsense is obviously baseless, it would seem to me that it's equally obvious that their latter assertion is correct, and that Intelligent Design does not "belong" in science, since Science is not a body of knowledge or a system of beliefs (though it is often misrepresented as such) but a process by which one asks questions and then works, perpetually, to discover answers. Intelligent Design is a valid belief, but it is an answer rather than a question, and is inherently untestable, and can thereby not be approached via the scientific method. It would seem to me then that while Human Ape seems to have mucked up whatever points he or she may have been making with baseless assertions, that he or she is right at least in that respect.
My name's Benjamin, by the way.
Hey Benjamin, thank you again for your question. And yes, you are correct, I am more verbose than I should be sometimes! lol. I think it's because I'm a novel junkie and love to read good fiction. I am a huge Robert Jordan fan and a fan of fantasy in general, and sometimes my prose prevents me from being a legitimate concise analytician! I don't think anyone will ever invite me to participate in a four views book. =)
ReplyDeleteAnd as to the question about Intelligent Design, Human Ape has missed the point of the ID movement as it is an attempt, and a pretty powerful one at that, to argue that insofar as evolutionary theory has a place in the scientific classroom, so then does intelligent design. The ID movement has been pretty successful, even recently convincing the late Anthony Flew, once leading atheist philosopher, to abandon atheism for a deist worldview as he could no longer hold to a purely naturalistic theory. As is mentioned in the article linked in this post, many doctors who deal with the incredible complexities of the human body just cannot believe that this is all purposeless random chance.
The thing I think we need to see is that any argument labeled against intelligent design is a double edged sword against evolution. Neither is testable or repeatable. Even the great Karl Popper, who revolutionized scientific theory with his emphasis on falsifiability, didn’t think that Darwinian evolution was a proper scientific theory given its inability to be repeated and/or falsified. Evolution itself is a conclusion – a contention that all things share a common ancestry from decent based on natural selection and mutation. As I stated in my previous post, the incredible majority of the founders of science were people, from Aristotle to Isaac Newton, who believed in a Creator and it was only this belief that they thought allowed science to be a successful endeavor. I made a list of non-empirically provable assumptions the scientist needed to grant in order for science to even get off the ground and then argued that only on a theistic worldview were these assumptions grounded. I contend that atheism can’t even get off the ground in science given the nature of its core beliefs. Thus if it’s permissible to offer a conclusion that cannot be repeated that, I argue, is philosophically and scientifically untenable, then a different conclusion that is logically consistent and much more compatible with what we know today than a theory that non-sentient matter in some way developed the ability to reproduce and become self aware, is to be preferred. Crick’s life experiment, as well as many newer ones since then (even the collider experiment intended to recreate a singularity) are not only failures in general but what do they actually prove: as trained scientists create stable environments, use precisely measured and calculated equipment, use pristine laboratory rooms, and create intricate systems for experimentation to hopefully develop certain protein strands that are the beginning of life, we have to ask ourselves what just happened – and the answer is that intelligence was used to create life – the very point we are arguing. The atheist will never be able to reproduce how matter randomized into complexity without aid or assistance, became self-aware and able to introspect, able to apprehend a realm of moral values, or reproduce – and all on the basis of mutations, which are mainly harmful and often fatal and have never produced any new information into the genetic code. Thus my contention is that if science isn’t able to give non-empirical answers, evolution is out the window as well. And as most of what we have today is, again, the work of those who believed in a creator, I don’t agree that science is unable to flourish in a theistic framework.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). I believe that and cannot, brother, in good conscience adhere to a theory that has no support in the scientific realm other than arguments that are not only compatible with theism but also better explained by it.
ReplyDeletePlease feel free to comment on my other post when you have a chance to read it (and hopefully it doesn’t put you to sleep!). =)
Thanks again, Benjamin!
While I'm not sure I agree with you that evolution, at least as a process if not as an origin, cannot be verified (I think that we can do so by simply looking at two generations' worth of photographs of a biracial family, or within a matter of weeks breeding drosophila flies) it seems that I'm making you repeat yourself, and really must read your longer article before wasting your time further in the comments section of this one. I shall endeavor to do so when I have time. Thanks!
ReplyDelete