Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Lotuseaters Dot Com"
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Don't be obtuse! All but psychopaths know that they don't live up to their own standards, that is to say the standards they can't help but hold others to. Guilt is not a state of mind, it is the objective human condition. Christians are by no means the only, nor even the first, to say the quiet part out loud but Christianity is the only thing you can do about it. That sort of thing will never be popular, any more than the folk who urge us to eat and drink in moderation, etc. Your absurd attempt to make us feel guilty about warning you of the cliff you're approaching leaves us unmoved.
Oppressors have never liked it when we snatched their victims from their clutches. Protestantism created the modern libertarian west. We (Protestants) ended slavery; implemented religious freedom, political freedom, academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press FIRST, and thus caused the academic, scientific, technological, and material progress that followed; and most of the rest of the world hasn't caught up with it yet. John 8:32 "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
And what do you propose as an alternative? Atheism? It's obvious where this is going. In order to rid yourself of an external voice of conscience awakening the inner, you would rather have propagandists haranguing you in service of the nomenclatura and the despot, and arresting you or murdering you if you dissent. From the Jacobin Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, through the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Communist China, and the Pol Pot regime; the result of a society based on atheism has invariably been bloodbath after bloodbath. The USSR alone murdered more of its own civilians than have ever been killed in all the inquisitions, pogroms, and purely religious wars in recorded history, and they only lasted: what? 80 or so years?
If you don't oppose this attack on YOUR freedom of thought and expression, you have no MORAL STANDING to, and may soon enough have no POWER to, complain about anything whatsoever.
First They Came For The Jews / Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
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He got his ideas from Nietzsche. He was interested in using religion as a control device, but he was an atheist. And what do you propose as an alternative? Atheism? As an antidote to ideological murder, that has a singularly abysmal track record. From the Jacobin Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, through the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Communist China, and the Pol Pot regime; the result of a society based on atheism has invariably been bloodbath after bloodbath. The USSR alone murdered more of its own civilians than have ever been killed in all the inquisitions, pogroms, and purely religious wars in recorded history, and they only lasted: what? 80 or so years?
Protestantism created the modern libertarian west. We (Protestants) ended slavery; implemented religious freedom, political freedom, academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press FIRST, and thus caused the academic, scientific, technological, and material progress that followed; and most of the rest of the world hasn't caught up with it yet. John 8:32 "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
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@Madonnalitta1 " There was no 'woke' in Tolkiens time."
Two levels of answer:
1. Of course not, that was the point of the joke.
2. Not fully metastasized, but more than nascent. Tolkien's contemporary Lewis says in the voice of his demon character Screwtape advising a junior tempter:
Meanwhile, as a delightful byproduct, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal and Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly tend to become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be. For suspicion often creates what it suspects. ("Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.") As a result, we now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.
That, however, is a mere byproduct. What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence — moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how "democracy" (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them "tyrants" then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he sniped off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practice, in a sense, "democracy." But now "democracy" can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.
My own experience, as I have said, was mainly on the English sector, and I still get more news from it than from any other. It may be that what I am now going to say will not apply so fully to the sectors in which some of you may be operating. But you can make the necessary adjustments when you get there. Some application it will almost certainly have. If it has too little, you must labor to make the country you are dealing with more like what England already is.
In that promising land the spirit of "I'm as good as you" has already become something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system. How far its operations there have gone at the present moment, I should not like to say with certainty. Nor does it matter. Once you have grasped the tendency, you can easily predict its future developments; especially as we ourselves will play our part in the developing. The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be "undemocratic." These differences between the pupils — for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences — must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modeling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have — I believe the English already use the phrase — parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma — Beelzebub, what a useful word! — by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.
In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when "I'm as good as you" has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to over-top their fellows? And anyway the teachers — or should I say, nurses? — will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. That is part of the same movement. Penal taxes, designed for that purpose, are liquidating the Middle Class, the class who were prepared to save and spend and make sacrifices in order to have their children privately educated. The removal of this class, besides linking up with the abolition of education, is, fortunately, an inevitable effect of the spirit that says "I'm as good as you". This was, after all, the social group which gave to the humans the overwhelming majority of their scientists, physicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, composers, architects, jurists, and administrators. If ever there was a bunch of tall stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, "A democracy does not want great men."
It would be idle to ask of such a creature whether by want it meant "need" or, "like." But you had better be clear. For here Aristotle's question comes up again.
We, in Hell, would welcome the disappearance of democracy in the strict sense of that word, the political arrangement so called. Like all forms of government, it often works to our advantage, but on the whole less often than other forms. What we must realize is that "democracy" in the diabolical sense ("I'm as good as you", Being like Folks, Togetherness) is the finest instrument we could possibly have for extirpating political democracies from the face of the earth.
For "democracy" or the "democratic spirit" (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of sub-literates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first hint of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible.
The democracies were surprised lately when they found that Russia had got ahead of them in science. What a delicious specimen of human blindness! If the whole tendency of their society is opposed to every sort of excellence, why did they expect their scientists to excel?
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@ollocollo "non believers, don't believe"
That's a play on words that in this context amounts to equivocation over the meaning of the word "believe". In a Christian context "believer" is often shorthand for "believer in Christ". Making an assumption whose content can be referred to as "nothing" is not the same as making no assumption. A polemic trick atheists have been playing recently is blurring the important distinction between atheists and agnostics. Arguably, agnostics make no assumptions, atheists definitely do.
"nothing in the world that proves"
If you are unfamiliar with the evidence for God and Christianity, it's because you haven't looked. You claim that there is no evidence for God, and that those who believe in these ideas do so irrationally. That was never a rational claim, and certainly is not so today. In the past hundred years, science has not been kind to the notions of atheism and philosophical materialism, rather science has consistently and systematically undercut those claims. Whenever an aspect of science or archaeology can be brought to bear on the questions of origins, it has favored the creationist position.
Atheism became a moderately popular alternate view of origins in the Victorian Era. Science was just getting started, and since one of the aspects which science addressed was how things worked, a hope began to be fostered among those hostile to faith that explanations of science might serve to displace the revealed truth of the Bible.
It is common sense that anything that began must have been begun by something else. Jews and Christians had long taught that physics/space/time/matter (from now on we will just call it matter) was a created thing, created by God. God's origins did not have to be explained because he did not begin. He was either eternally pre-existant, or outside time altogether. In either case he was GROUND OF BEING, the prime mover or central fact of which all other facts were derivative.
No explanation can be offered for why something exists rather than nothing. Yet, this should not give us pause because SOMETHING DOES EXIST. If in the link of causality there was ever a node where NOTHING EXISTED, then of course, nothing would exist forever thereafter. Anything which begins to exist must be caused by something else. It follows that any account of origin must either have an infinite regression, or a closed loop, or a ground of being.
Christians claimed that God was outside of time, and ground of being. The Atheists of the Victorian era countered Matter was eternally pre-existant, thus did not begin, thus required no agent of origin. They claimed Matter was Ground of Being. In the area of the origin of species they resorted to the notion of evolution, as lame as "it just happened" might seem to first order as an explanation. At first, this was not presented as a theory of the origin of life itself, because it was not yet known that life was not eternally pre-existant. This body of belief will be referred to as "materialism" in the remainder of this treatise (not to be confused with a preoccupation with the trappings of wealth, which is "materialism" in a completely unrelated sense). Though atheism and materialism almost always go together, the terms have different definitions. Atheism is the belief that no God exists. Materialism is the belief that matter is ground of being; that everything that exists is physics/space/time/matter simply, or a derivative epiphenomenon of it. It is generally recognized that atheism, in the strictest sense, stands or falls on the strength of materialism. Evolution is generally understood to be necessary for atheism/materialism, but not the reverse.
But starting in 1924, Edwin Hubble painstakingly developed a series of distance indicators to galaxies. This allowed him to estimate distances to galaxies whose red shifts had already been measured, mostly by Slipher. In 1929 Hubble discovered a correlation between distance and recession velocity—now known as Hubble's law. Lemaître had already shown that this was expected, given the cosmological principle. In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the competing steady state theory. The rub is that Big Bang means that matter had a beginning, and thus cannot be ground of being. This undercuts the logical underpinnings of atheism/materialism
<This exposition will continue in my next post, to see the rest of my posts you must change the "sort by" order just under the video window to "newest first">
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@ollocollo
<continued from previous post>
Also, from:
< Note: I had to delete my sources and references because apparently the channel administrator has set the channel to autodelete posts with links. Some lazy admins do this to curb linkbait spam. This really sucks because it looks like the post was posted, and it even shows like it did, but when I reload the page, my comment is gone. Because of crap like this, I have to check every time to see that my post took, then sometimes edit the links out of my post and repost. Surely having the posters able to cite and readers able to confirm my data is more important than eliminating some spam links that few people are going to click on anyway, at least if we're going to improve the "He said, she said" nature of Internet discourse.>
Almost everything about the basic structure of the universe--for example, the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial distribution of matter and energy--is balanced on a razor's edge for life to occur. As the eminent Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson notes, "There are many . . . lucky accidents in physics. Without such accidents, water could not exist as liquid, chains of carbon atoms could not form complex organic molecules, and hydrogen atoms could not form breakable bridges between molecules" (p. 251)--in short, life as we know it would be impossible.
Scientists call this extraordinary balancing of the parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe the "fine-tuning of the cosmos." It has been extensively discussed by philosophers, theologians, and scientists, especially since the early 1970s, with hundreds of articles and dozens of books written on the topic. Today, it is widely regarded as offering by far the most persuasive current argument for the existence of God. For example, theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies--whose early writings were not particularly sympathetic to theism--claims that with regard to basic structure of the universe, "the impression of design is overwhelming" (Davies, 1988, p. 203). Similarly, in response to the life-permitting fine-tuning of the nuclear resonances responsible for the oxygen and carbon synthesis in stars, the famous astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle declares that
I do not believe that any scientists who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. If this is so, then my apparently random quirks have become part of a deep-laid scheme. If not then we are back again at a monstrous sequence of accidents. [Fred Hoyle, in Religion and the Scientists, 1959; quoted in Barrow and Tipler, p. 22]
A few examples of this fine-tuning are listed below:
1. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. [See Davies, 1982, pp. 90-91. (As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.)
2. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322.)
3. Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)
4. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 )
5. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.)
Imaginatively, one could think of each instance of fine-tuning as a radio dial: unless all the dials are set exactly right, life would be impossible. Or, one could think of the initial conditions of the universe and the fundamental parameters of physics as a dart board that fills the whole galaxy, and the conditions necessary for life to exist as a small one-foot wide target: unless the dart hits the target, life would be impossible. The fact that the dials are perfectly set, or the dart has hit the target, strongly suggests that someone set the dials or aimed the dart, for it seems enormously improbable that such a coincidence could have happened by chance.
References
Barrow, John and Tipler, Frank. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Davies, Paul. The Accidental Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
____________. Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
____________. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Davis, John Jefferson. "The Design Argument, Cosmic "Fine-tuning," and the Anthropic Principle." The International Journal of Philosophy of Religion.
Dirac, P. A. M. "The evolution of the physicist's picture of nature." Scientific American, May 1963.
Hacking, Ian. The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas About Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Leslie, John. "How to Draw Conclusions From a Fine-Tuned Cosmos." In Robert Russell, et. al., eds., Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Press, pp. 297-312, 1988.
____________. Universes. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Sklar, Lawrence. Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Smart, J. J. C. "Laws of Nature and Cosmic Coincidence", The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 140.
Smith, George. "Atheism: The Case Against God." Reprinted in An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, edited by Gordon Stein, Prometheus Press, 1980.
Smith, Quentin. "World Ensemble Explanations." Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 67, 1986.
Swinburne, Richard. An Introduction to Confirmation Theory. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1973.
Van Fraassen, Bas. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Weatherford, Roy. Foundations of Probability Theory. Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.
/end citation
<more about fine tuning in next post>
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@ollocollo
<cont'd>
Another list of cosmic fine tuning dials from:
<link deleted, see previous note>
N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 1036. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[12]
Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[13] If ε were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%.[10][12]
Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[12][14]
Lambda (λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10−122.[15] This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant were not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[12]
Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[12]
D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 dimensions of spacetime nor if any other than 1 time dimension existed in spacetime.[12]
An older example is the Hoyle state, the third-lowest energy state of the carbon-12 nucleus, with an energy of 7.656 MeV above the ground level. According to one calculation, if the state's energy were lower than 7.3 or greater than 7.9 MeV, insufficient carbon would exist to support life; furthermore, to explain the universe's abundance of carbon, the Hoyle state must be further tuned to a value between 7.596 and 7.716 MeV. A similar calculation, focusing on the underlying fundamental constants that give rise to various energy levels, concludes that the strong force must be tuned to a precision of at least 0.5%, and the electromagnetic force to a precision of at least 4%, to prevent either carbon production or oxygen production from dropping significantly.[16]
REFERENCES:
1. Rees, Martin (May 3, 2001). Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe. New York, NY: Basic Books; First American edition. p. 4.
2. Gribbin. J and Rees. M, Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology p. 7, 269, 1989, ISBN 0-553-34740-3
3. Davis, Paul (2007). Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life. New York, NY: Orion Publications. p. 2. ISBN 0618592261.
4. Stephen Hawking, 1988. A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-05340-X, p. 7, 125.
5. Lawrence Joseph Henderson, The fitness of the environment: an inquiry into the biological significance of the properties of matter The Macmillan Company, 1913
6. R. H. Dicke (1961). "Dirac's Cosmology and Mach's Principle". Nature. 192 (4801): 440–441. Bibcode:1961Natur.192..440D. doi:10.1038/192440a0.
7. Heilbron, J. L. The Oxford guide to the history of physics and astronomy, Volume 10 2005, p. 8
8. Profile of Fred Hoyle at OPT. Optcorp.com. Retrieved on 2013-03-11.
9. Paul Davies, 1993. The Accidental Universe, Cambridge University Press, p70-71
10. MacDonald, J., and D. J. Mullan. "Big bang nucleosynthesis: The strong nuclear force meets the weak anthropic principle." Physical Review D 80.4 (2009): 043507. "Contrary to a common argument that a small increase in the strength of the strong force would lead to destruction of all hydrogen in the big bang due to binding of the diproton and the dineutron with a catastrophic impact on life as we know it, we show that provided the increase in strong force coupling constant is less than about 50% substantial amounts of hydrogen remain."
11. Abbott, Larry (1991). "The Mystery of the Cosmological Constant". Scientific American. 3 (1): 78.
12. Lemley, Brad. "Why is There Life?". Discover magazine. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
13. Morison, Ian (2013). "9.14: A universe fit for intelligent life". Introduction to astronomy and cosmology. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. ISBN 9781118681527.
14. Sean Carroll and Michio Kaku (2014). How the Universe Works 3. End of the Universe. Discovery Channel.
15. John D. Barrow The Value of the Cosmological Constant
16. Livio, M.; Hollowell, D.; Weiss, A.; Truran, J. W. (27 July 1989). "The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C". Nature. 340 (6231): 281–284. Bibcode:1989Natur.340..281L. doi:10.1038/340281a0.
Creationists argue that the tuning of all these "dials" in favor of life implies a tuner that favors life. This position is called the "strong anthropic principle". Critics of the strong anthropic principle propose the "weak anthropic principle". They posit that many universes exist, enough that one just happens to exist with the dials set right by chance, and therefore this is the universe in which the discussion is taking place. The problem is that those alternate universes cannot in principle be observed from this one (thus they are not empirical, but a fudge invented without evidence to avoid a conclusion the fudger doesn't like), and it is trimmed by Occam's razor, the principle of favoring the simpler answer.
The tendentiousness of the opposition to this idea is illustrated by the title and first paragraph of this article in Evolution News & Science Today :
"TO AVOID THE IMPLICATIONS OF COSMIC FINE-TUNING, A CONTINUING QUEST" "Remember, the multiverse is the currently favored prophylactic against the theistic implications of cosmic fine-tuning. So if the following sounds a bit abstruse, remember what’s at stake."
<problems with evolution follow in next post>
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@ollocollo
<cont'd>
In 1859, Charles Darwin published "The Origin of the Species" propounding a theory that complex organisms arose gradually over eaons from simpler forms of life by the operation of natural selection on small random mutations. This was not a theory of the origin of life itself, but a theory of the generation of the vast variety of species observed today given life's original existence. He studied fossils and noted that forms existed in the past which were different from forms present. There were problems with the theory from the start. First, it is implausible on the face of it. "It just happened" is not the sort of thing one usually would classify as a "scientific explanation". The second law of thermodynamics was still new, and its implications not well understood, but complex systems creating, or greatly improving themselves was well outside the range of empirical observation, then as now. While seeming improbable, the improbability was difficult to quantify because the workings of life were an almost complete mystery; a huge "black box" into which the problems of the theory could be swept. This is an "evolution of the gaps", the confidence that future discoveries would explain the problems away.
One problem recognized from the start even by Darwin himself is the discontinuous nature of the fossil record. While gradual transitions could be documented from about the "family" level downward, above that level the types seemed to all appear suddenly, without transitional forms from previous families. One would expect a continuous line of each species back to the earliest macroscopic antecedents, if the theory were true. Darwin notes the problem in his book:
"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species, p. 280.
"Evolution of the gaps", pesky evidence! But he was confident that the gaps would be filled by more transitional forms as the fossil record became more complete. (Update 2024-It hasn't)
Another aspect of the fossil record which was found rather early and does not fit well with Darwin's theory is the Cambrian Explosion.
<link deleted>
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively short span event, occurring approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period, during which most major animal phyla appeared, as indicated by the fossil record. Lasting for about the next 20–25 million years, it resulted in the divergence of most modern metazoan phyla. Additionally, the event was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms. Prior to the Cambrian explosion, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 to 80 million years, the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today. Almost all present animal phyla appeared during this period.
It is difficult to see, with a supposed random distribution of mutations, why such a great variety of phyla would appear in such a short period, in sharp contrast to previous and subsequent periods. This has still not been adequately explained.
More and more thru the decades has been discovered about the workings of life, and at each turn the many problems in detail were swept into the black box of the yet unknown. But at long last we are opening the last box, molecular biology, and instead of explanations for old problems we are discovering new and apparently intractable problems with the problem theory. We find not just staggering absolute complexity, but indeed many examples of "irreducible complexity": complex systems with many interrelated components which are not amenable to explanation by gradual change plus natural selection, because the system needs ALL the components to convey any benefit at all, and thus be selected for. In order to provide any survival benefit, the whole system must appear in one swell foop AT THE SAME TIME and integrated. The improbability of this is far worse than the mere product of the improbabilities of the component subsystems.
<link deleted>
For other biochemical problems with the evolutionary view of the origins of life, see:
Stephen Mayer - Signature in the Cell
<continued>
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@ollocollo
This by no means exhausts the evidence for Theism and Christianity. I haven't completed writing up a summary of such evidence. I have taken a chronological approach to writing it up, starting with cosmology and biology (I am not done with biology), and I plan to continue through archeology, history, and sociology, ethics, etc. This is what I've written up so far. In the meanwhile, if you are interested in pursuing the evidence further, I can suggest a few resources:
C S Lewis - Mere Christianity - An introduction to the actual claims of Christianity (most non-Christians today have a distorted view)
Criticism of Scientism by Agnostics:
David Berlinski - The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays
- The Devil's Delusion - From the cover blurb:
Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close.
Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close.
Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close.
Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough.
Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough.
Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good? Not even close to being close.
Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences? Close enough.
Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even ballpark.
Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.
Atheists or agnostics who have converted to theism and/or Christianity by examining the evidence:
Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ
C. S. Lewis - Surprised by Joy
Hugh Ross - (many titles)
Anthony Flew - There is a God
Dr. Ed Feser - The Road from Atheism
Justin Brooke
David Wood - (seen on Bit Chute formerly YT Acts 17 Apologetics)
Dr. Michael Guillen
Dr. Michael Egnor
Jordan Monge
Peter Byrom
Abraham Lincoln – - "Abraham Lincoln’s Journey From Atheism To Christianity"
Bill Hayden – Australia’s second longest-serving Governor-General and was a renowned atheist for all of his life. Bill Received Jesus At 85
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield: Former Lesbian, Feminist, Atheist Professor. In what she describes as a train wreck, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, shares the incredible story of her journey to Christ, laying aside lesbianism, feminism and Atheism.
Michael McIntyre – Multi-Millionaire Atheist Who Hated God But Now, He Radically Accepts Jesus
Jennifer Fulwiler, Leah Libresco and Holly Ordway – Three Powerful women whose intellectual journey led to their conversion from atheism to Christianity.
Dr. Wayne Rossiter – Former atheist biologist who once described himself as a “staunch and cantankerous atheist” who sought every opportunity to destroy Christianity where it stood.
Jim Warner Wallace – Was a Smart Cold-Case homicide atheist detective who worked for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
Dr. Greg Lehman – One day, he finished a medical consultation with his usual “Do you have any questions?” The walk-in patient stared at him and asked: “Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as you personal Savior?”
Philosopher Edward Feser: The Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. Feser speaks on how Studying Philosophy Led him To God.
Prof. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker – Professor Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Western Sydney University in Australia.
In her article,“How Oxford and Peter Singer drove me from atheism to Jesus,” Sarah shares the incredible story that led her to Jesus Christ. Dr. Peter Singer is a fervent atheist and a champion of the idea that some human lives have little or no value. I am sure that if he learned he helped “drive” a fellow atheist to Jesus, he would be more than a little annoyed.
See Also: Christianity Is Spreading In My Country: Iran’s Intelligence Minister Laments
Howard Storm – Atheist Professor whose Near-death Experience drew him to Jesus Christ.
Ronald Dabdoub – As an atheist, Ronald wanted to know the truth about God. For 30 days he asked God to prove his existence with more than words. Days later, he had a vision of Jesus Christ, and that was the start of a new life for him.
Barak Lurie – Former Jewish atheist and profitable real estate/ business lawyer who found Jesus as he searched for truth. Author of Atheism Kills.
Caleb Kaltenbach: Former Atheist Raised By Gay Parents, but he embraced Jesus and today he’s a preacher of Jesus Christ.
Paul Ernest – Former Atheist Scholar, Paul Ernest has always been a deep thinker. Whether it was science or philosophy, he was the one constantly asking “Why” and “How?”.
Alexis Mason – A former Militant Atheist
Steve Tillman – Former atheist leader who did everything to suppress the idea of God.
Dezmond Boudreaux – “The whole time I was searching for peace and truth, but could never find it.” “When I found Christ, that’s when I truly found what I was looking for.” – Dezmond.
Guillaume Bignon – A Staunch Atheist Who Hated God, Visited Church “As One Visits A Zoo To See Exotic Animals” But Then God Caught Him.
Jessica Jenkins – Was a devout atheist who believed in science and the theory of evolution.
Miracles:
C. S Lewis - Miracles
Craig Keenor - Miracles
Eric Metaxas - Miracles
David Brooks - Neural Buddhist
Apologists:
C. S. Lewis
John Lennox
Josh McDowell
Hugh Ross
YouTube
Red Pen Logic
Inspiring Philosophy
I would stay away from Ken Hamm of Answers From Genesis, and Dr. Duane Gish and the Institute for Creation research. They seem to me to be supporting good conclusions by bad arguments. Sort of the way you atheists must think of Richard Carrier. Whether you choose to examine the evidence or not, the notion that Theists have no evidence and aren't interested in evidence had better be dropped.
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Yea, the pieces are all in place, the ubiquitous surveillance, the Newspeak, the censorship, "refs nonpersons", "mutability of the past", TVs that watch you, the "two minutes hate" at our workplaces (only longer), the Big Lie gaslighting: ‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.’
But they haven't nailed us down yet. In the final stage, they can't depend on deception alone. One can't ultimately be a total despot in secret. They aren't really trying to fool us anymore. They are trying to DEMORALIZE us. They want a situation where all of us betray everybody else. Totalitarianism requires a state of affairs where almost everybody KNOWS they're being oppressed and lied to, but nobody dares SAY it.
Galadriel:
The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.
Aragorn:
By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!
G, K. Chesterton -
“Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the skepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.”
Puddlegum:
"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
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