Today the term atheist denotes commitment to a concept of the universe (nature) that is open to anything but the God of the Bible. Modern atheists are naturalists. Therefore, whatever oddities nature brings before us, i.e., meaning, laws, demons, voices speaking into minds, mind itself, it must always be nature alone that has somehow produced them.
Only the natural dimension is allowed, thus evolutionary materialist Dr. Scott Todd wrote in the science journal 'Nature:'
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." (Naturalism in the Light of Reality, Robert Gurney, creation.com, June 14, 2012)
Early conservative intellectual Richard Weaver foresaw this eventuality. In his book, "Ideas Have Consequences," (1945) Weaver writes that 14th century Western man had made an "evil decision" to abandon his belief in the transcendent God and universals and thus the position that "there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man..." The consequences of the rejection of "higher things" were catastrophic:
"The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably...the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of 'man is the measure of all things." (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 32-33)
The brilliant visionary, Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), an English Catholic priest saw through the scientific pretenses of one-dimensional natural science and its' primary doctrine, evolutionary theory. Benson predicted that naturalism and evolutionary thinking would prepare Westerners and Americans not only to embrace but to worship and adore Antichrist, for this human-god (Mr. Felsenburgh) is the first perfected product of nature and evolutionary forces. Mr. Felsenburgh has arisen and he is,
"....the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has labored throughout its history..." (p 85)
He transfixes men, and they excitedly declare they have seen,
"...the Son of Man,' the 'Savior of the world,' we knew Him in our hearts as soon as we saw Him, as soon as He stood there. It was like a glory around his head (and now we) understand it all... It was He for whom we have waited so long; and He has come, bringing Peace and Goodwill in His hands." (pp. 85, 89)
Christianity failed, it divided people. It made men feel guilty. But now Jehovah is gone. He never existed at all except as a hideous nightmare. Now at long last man's natural Savior has arisen:
"The reign of God has really begun (and) we are all partakers of God" because God is in everything, including all men...."Jehovah has fallen. He is in His grave." In His place is the evolved Son of Man, a god indeed and a man as well..."a god because human and a man because so divine." (ibid, pp. 93, 95)
Here Robert Gurney is echoing statements made by Richard Lewontin, an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, formerly Professor of Biology and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.That is, such "scientists" make themselves the measure of the Reality they investigate. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! Talk about the relentless solipsistic circularity of their reasoning.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
… When faced with questions that they really don’t know how to answer — like “How does a single cell turn into a mouse?” or “How did the structure and activity of Beethoven’s brain result in Opus 131?” — the only thing that natural scientists know how to do is turn them into other questions that they do know how to answer. That is, scientists do what they already know how to do.
Evidently science is no longer regarded as the pursuit of the truth of Reality, by these people at least. But if it is not, then why should we listen to what they have to say? Their minds are closed to truth. Evidently, they consider it "optional," and they have opted out.
Thank you, dear spirited, for your illuminating essay/post!
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear spirited irish!