Posted on 09/18/2007 10:23:38 AM PDT by spirited irish
The worldview of Evolutionary Humanism (or scientific naturalism) has two central components. The first is metaphysical; the second epistemological. Metaphysically, Evolutionary Humanism infers that the natural or material realm either self-created or has existed eternally. This doctrine is known as scientism. In addition, this worldview teaches us to believe that everything---including life and intelligence---came about through unseen (immaterial) processes of motion called evolution. Epistemologically, it demands that sensory knowledge (empiricism) be the only authoritative source of knowledge.
In the words of the Humanist Manifesto II: “Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis…science is the best method for determining this knowledge…” This principle is a universal limitation on knowledge requiring that knowledge be restricted to only that which can be empirically determined (sensed). In short, if it can’t be touched, seen under a microscope, measured, counted, weighed, or otherwise sensed, then it doesn’t exist, meaning that the immaterial or metaphysical realm does not exist.
This worldview’s two-part metaphysical creation story revolves around the atomic theory of matter and evolutionary theory. According to the former, all chemical change is the result of the rearrangement of unseen (immaterial) tiny parts---protons, neutrons, and electrons. By authority of the latter (evolutionary theory), we are expected to believe that random mutations or incremental changes (rearrangement of tiny unseen parts) over time are mostly responsible for causing macro-changes. In other words, this unseen process of change miraculously caused bacteria to change into fish which in turn changed into lizards which then changed into proto-apes which then changed into man. Through this same process, dinosaurs changed into hummingbirds, chickadees, flamingos, and such. Because all life forms emerged out of the same primordial bacterial stew, bacteria are the common ancestors of all life forms. By extension, all life forms share the same genetic material; therefore the idea of species distinctions is a fiction. This makes man a Heinz 57 mutt whose material brain possesses genetic material from bacteria, lizards, fish, and apes. In the words of John Darnton in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005:
“We are all of us, dogs and barnacles, pigeons and crabgrass…equally remarkable and equally dispensable.” (Quote from, “Human Beings Deserve the Right to Life Because They Are Human,” Wesley J. Smith, Life News, 8/27/07)
With profound faith in the humanist worldview, evolutionists and fellow travelers view themselves as thoroughly ‘modern’ ‘progressive’ and ‘intellectually enlightened.’ From their lofty perches they look down their noses in utter contempt and disdain upon the unwashed masses (defenders of God and America’s founding Judao-Christian worldview) for continuing to believe the unenlightened view that man is created in God’s image rather than accepting the ‘enlightened’ superstition that mans’ common ancestor is mindless bacteria. Believing they have arisen to spectacular intellectual heights, in reality the so-called ‘enlightened ones’ have fallen into the abyss of the most absurdly stupid and dangerously delusional belief system the world has yet witnessed. How can this be? Briefly, the entirety of their worldview (including its evolutionary creation story) is not itself scientifically testable. By failing to meet its own empirical requirements, it refutes itself. Yes, here we come to now understand why the emperor has no clothes.
This embarrassingly insurmountable intellectual problem occurs precisely because of humanism’s anti-God and metaphysical bias. Rejecting God and metaphysics is destructive of reason and science. In short, it’s not just anti-intellectual it’s also an insanity inducing deception.
Metaphysics
The word metaphysics is based on the compound of two Greek words meta (after, beyond) and physika (physics, nature). It literally means beyond the physical or knowledge that exists beyond the physical world of sensory perception. Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate nature of reality, that is to say, it encompasses both natural and supernatural realms in its investigation of the origin, structure, and nature of what is real.
Greg L. Bahnsen tells us that worldviews are networks of metaphysical presuppositions and principles “regarding reality (metaphysics), knowing (epistemology), and conduct (ethics) in terms of which every element of human experience is related and interpreted.”(Pushing the Antithesis, p. 280)
Presuppositions provide both foundation and framework for worldviews. Crucial to the process of reason, presuppositions provide starting points and standards of authority by which truth and error are evaluated, the real and unreal can be identified, and the possible and impossible are determined. For instance, “In the beginning, Nothing---then a spark--- then Matter…” (spontaneous generation or something from nothing) is the foundational metaphysical presupposition by which evolutionary humanists determined through a peculiar reasoning process that only the sensory realm exists.
Universals are truths of an immaterial or non-sensory nature and are crucial to the understanding, organizing, and interpreting of particular truths within the context of the material world. Universals are metaphysical constructs such as concepts (i.e., inalienable rights), standards, principles (i.e., our founding principles), moral values, laws, and categorical statements. The Laws of Logic, so vitally important to the practice of science, reason, and coherent communication, are universals.
Metaphysical presuppositions and universals can’t be seen under a microscope, held in the hand, measured, weighed, or otherwise detected by the five senses yet they do exist. They exist within the supernatural or immaterial realm and are absolutely essential to the process of reason and the practice of science.
Additionally, scientists constantly deal with the unseen or immaterial realm in the form of subatomic particles, gravity, numbers, natural laws, laws of thought, causation, and memory (vital to scientific experimentation).
The whole theory of evolution, which drives and authenticates modern materialist presuppositions and assumptions, is a non-sensory (metaphysical) theoretical projection back into time. Yet despite that no scientist was there to witness it nor has anyone ever observed the creation of other universes or witnessed one kind of life change into a different kind, the theory of evolution is nevertheless proclaimed by many to be an empirically determined fact.
In principle, evolutionary humanists cannot even count, weigh, or measure (all of which are essential to the practice of science) because these acts involve an immaterial concept of law (a universal). Additionally, the postulation of universal order, a view necessary to making counting, weighing, and measuring intelligible, contradicts the materialist (metaphysical) proposition that the universe is a random or chance material realm. Furthermore, counting, weighing, and measuring call for immaterial entities which are uniform, orderly, and predictable. This once again contradicts the materialist proposition of continuous and random change over time.
Within the anti-intellectual straitjacket of the sensory realm, reason and science are destroyed. Empirical learning, reason, and intellectual inquiry are impossible without metaphysical presuppositions, universals, and assumptions.
As it is, evolutionary humanists do in fact reason, theorize, propose, presuppose, assume, hypothesize, count, weigh, measure, and practice science. They simply cannot give a philosophically principled account of how they “know” to do these things. All of which highlights the glaring dialectical tensions (i.e., hypocrisy, revisionism, deceptions, self-delusions, outright lying, mysticism) which of necessity are endemic to the humanist worldview.
Yet despite its colossal intellectual and moral failings, Evolutionary Humanism is now the dominant worldview in our secularized schools, colleges, universities, and government at every level. Additionally, it has made inroads into Christian schools, seminaries, and churches.
Regarding education in America, its’ direction can be seen as a downward spiral from Jonathan Edwards (1750) and the Christian influence, down to Horace Mann (1842) and the Unitarian influence, and yet further down to John Dewey (1933) and the evolutionary humanist take-over of our education institutions.
In the words of Charles F. Potter, signatory of the first Humanist Manifesto, 1933,
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teachings?”
Today, our classrooms are but transmission belts for the weird moral fetishes of humanist indoctrination; a mind-befogging and immorality-inducing process that leads to the adoption of atheism, materialism, politically correct ‘new morality,’ inhumanity, evolutionism, Cultural Marxism, New World Orderism, multiculturalism, sexual egalitarianism (hedonism/androgyny), cruelty, and other destructive anti-traditional views. As a consequence, Americans (and Christians) are walking away from America’s founding worldview---as well as God and their inalienable rights---due to the teaching of Evolutionary Humanism. After being befuddled, filled with unreasoning hatred and paranoid fear of God, Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, and traditional-values America, Americans’ become their own worst enemies. For as they mindlessly destroy traditional-values America in pursuit of universal peace, tolerance, diversity, and inclusion, they are unknowingly setting the stage for their own eventual enslavement and perhaps even death, as Evolutionary Humanism has a proven track-record of mass murder (genocide).
A brief comparison of our founding worldview versus Evolutionary Humanism’s three major permutations---Secular Humanism, Leninism-Marxism, and Post Modernism, will show us why this is occurring.
America’s Founding Judao-Christian Worldview 1. Theology: biblical theism 2. Philosophy: God/supernaturalism/metaphysics 3. Ethics: moral absolutes/Ten Commandments/sanctity of life 4. Biology: Creation 5. Psychology: mind/body dualism 6. Sociology: traditional family, church, state 7. Law: Divine/Natural Law 8. Politics: inalienable rights, individual freedom, justice, order 9. Economics: stewardship of property (private property), free markets
Secular Humanism, Marxism-Leninism, Post Modernism 1. Theology: atheism, atheism, atheism 2. Philosophy: naturalism, dialectical materialism, anti-realism 3. Ethics: moral relativism, proletariat morality, moral and cultural relativism 4. Biology: neo-Darwinism, punctuated evolution, punctuated evolution 5. Psychology: monism (self-actualization), monism (behaviorism), monism (socially constructed selves) 6. Sociology: alternative lifestyles and State control of children, classless society and State control of children, sexual egalitarianism and State control of children 7. Law: positive law, proletariat law, critical legal studies 8. Politics: secular world government, communist world government, secular world government 9. Economics: state control of resources, scientific socialism, state control of resources
As can be seen by this brief comparison, Evolutionary Humanism is not just the antithesis of our founding worldview it is completely destructive of it as well.
Observes William F. Buckley on the disintegration of traditional-values America,
“The most influential educators of our time---John Dewey, William Kilpatrick, George Counts, Harold Rugg, and the lot---are out to build a New Social Order. There is not enough room…for…religion (Christianity). It clearly won’t do…to foster within some schools a respect for an absolute, intractable God, a divine intelligence who is utterly unconcerned with other people’s versions of truth…It won’t do to tolerate a competitor for the allegiance of man. The State prefers a secure monopoly for itself…Religion (Christianity), then, must go…The fight is being won. Academic freedom is entrenched. Religion (Christianity) is outlawed in public schools. The New Social Order is larruping along.” (“Let Us Talk of Many Things,” p. 9-10)
Copyright Linda Kimball 2007 PatriotsandLiberty http://patriotsandliberty.com/
Linda is the author of numerous published articles and essays on culture, politics, and worldview. Her writings are published both nationally and internationally. Linda is a member of MoveOff.net/
Sources: Pushing the Antithesis, Greg L. Bahnsen Understanding the Times, David Noebel What is Scientific Naturalism? J.P. Moreland
Related Articles Can America Survive Evolutionary Humanism? Cultural Marxism
js..Give me an example of a dreamer not associated with a physical body.
Irish...The issue is not whether dreams occur in the material brain, because of course they do. You dream, so does everyone else. The insurrmountable intellectual problem for evolutionary materialists is epistemological: “How do we ‘know’ we dream?” (or think, imagine, are conscious, etc.) Now either ‘what we can know” is strictly defined by materialistic empiricism (which is monism)or it is not because there are in fact two realms-—the natural or immaterial and the supernatural or immaterial. This last view is dualism. By the strict limitations enacted by empiricist monism dreams, imagination, etc., cannot exist because being immaterial or supernatural, they cannot be seen, heard, measured, weighed, etc. In other words,for dreams, etc., to exist as defined by empiricism, researchers should be able to see words and pictures scrolling through the brain accompanied by auditory sounds. But because the only things which can be seen are brain waves, etc., then by definition, your dreams js, do not exist even though you and everyone else,know they do.
Thus is evidenced the necessary mysticism, contradictions, self-delusion, etc. of this worldview.
The architects of evolutionary humanism were, and still are,power-hungry narcissists ready and willing to deceive and betray their adherents in order to empower, glorify, and enrich themselves at the expense of the deceived. Their power is wholly dependant upon supernatural belief and faith. The belief and faith of you, js, and many others. Once you stop believing and having faith in them, their power and the hold they have over your immaterial mind and will, will disappear.
I’m not going to paper over the problem of consciousness. It’s an unsolved problem at both the experimental and conceptual level. Not having answers is rather common in science, even if the popular press sometimes forgets.
We can “see” dreams via NMRI. We know, for example, that most, if not all mammals dream. We do not see pictures when we observe the brain working. Neither are there pictures inside a working computer. I don’t know what you are getting at with this line of argument.
My point is that we are making progress understanding how brains work, and the pace of progress is accelerating with better instrumentation and better computer models. It’s only the single most complex system that we know of. Not an easy nut to crack.
AG -- LOLOL!
So far the American judicial system has not completely bought into the atheist view that the mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain, a secondary phenomenon that cannot cause anything to happen.
I'm sorry, AG, but I'm not following. You say "So far . . . " and "not completely . . . ." Are you contending that there exists some hoary tradition of supernaturalism in western law that is being undermined by materialist atheists? Do you have any examples of this?
Therefore, mitigating the death sentence for the mentally ill - or an insanity plea - isn't troubling in spite of attempts to separate culpability/punishment between a diseased mind and a healthy body.
What does this mean? Some further explanation seems to be in order. Specifically, what do you mean by "in spite of . . . ?" Shouldn't that be "because of . . . ?"
Legal rules and principles regarding mitigation for mental defect, error, or preservationist impulse have existed in western jurisprudence for centuries. Intent, duty, causation, rules of evidence, and even burdens of proof have embedded within them the concept that punishment, liability, and evidentiary weight are subject to adjustment where mental defect or error is evident, probable, or persuasively present.
These rules and principles aren't the result of some nefarious atheist conspiracy (after all, western jurisprudence has long eschewed the supernatural and strived for the neutrality of a purely materialist evidentiary inquiry as the basis for the passing of judgment). These rules and principles are simply a recognition of the reality that a healthy body can act in error in response to mental misfiring. Hence my comment that I think you are over-extending the notion of metaphysical materialism (an over-extension that, I think, is demonstrated by the phantasmagoria in your next comment).
A few decades down the road, if the atheists have their way with the non-causal epiphenomenal mind - that might morph into a splitting between brain and body. And that could be quite troubling indeed - how to punish a physical brain for a crime "it" committed without punishing the innocent body.
This is just bizarre to me. I frankly have no idea what you are imagining here. How about an example?
Even more interesting should the courts buy into the notion of strong determinism, i.e. the brain couldn't do other than what it did.
I think your love of philosophical "isms" is clouding your perceptions of reality. That "the brain couldn't do other than what it did" is already a concept that the courts have "bought into" under certain circumstances. For example, innocent errors of perception and memory in eyewitness testimony or recollection, compulsive behavior that results in a crime of passion, uncontrollable behavior as a result of hallucinatory influence (think Andrea Yates), etc.
In your quest to demonize atheists, you seem to be bent on demonstrating in some way that there will be absurd, dangerous, or evil consequences if we permit materialism to infiltrate western law. But of course, western law has long relied on materialist methodology, and would not be the system it is without it.
js..We can “see” dreams via NMRI
Irish...No you can’t. If it were possible to ‘see’ dreams, EO “the emperor has no clothes’ Wilson wouldn’t be foolishly asserting that dreams, etc., are ‘illusions.’
Sorry js, but your worldview is a failure. You are ‘free’ to choose another though.
We can see illusions even when we are awake. We can see optical illusions, mirages, hallucinations. We can experience synesthesia. We can misinterpret ambiguous stimuli. We can have false memories.
All of these events are associated with neural events. None of them occur in the absence of neural activity.
“Give me an example of an intelligence that does not require a body.” Um, the Intelligence Who created the universe in which bodies come into existence. I guess that was too obvious ...
“All of these events are associated with neural events. None of them occur in the absence of neural activity.” Sorry, you cannot yet make that secure an assertion, js. What is the substance of that which you imagine? As a writer, I know that I imagine things that have not happened and likely never will. As a researcher in languages at times, I know that the word ‘pistis’ in Greek is interpreted ‘faith’ in English. The meaning of ‘faith’ and/or ‘pistis’ is however decidedly non-physical, in fact it is decidedly metaphysical even though enjoying some degree of agreement among humans for the meaning. Concepts like ‘market value’ are based in an abstract which has no physical status unless applied to physical things in trade/purchase. When contemplating an abstraqct, does the organ called brain (and even the body at times) evidence biochemical activity? Yes, it is measurable. But in the measuring, are the measurers dealing with the thing thought of or the reaction result of the abstracting? And finally, aside from lust, what is the meaning of love, longing, hate, ignorance ... ah, yes, ignorance, the state of as yet unknown abstracts which can be applied to physical things, or not, as a writer may choose to do in telling a story. You have a degree of ignorance that will not be completely resolved during your life in the physical body. Interesting enigma don’tchaknow!
Not very intelligent to go to the trouble of creating material bodies that are clunky and unnecessary.
I suggest you show me an example of a mind that is not associated with a body and which can be demonstrated to anyone.
You have not trouble with words like “magnificance,” but you tink I should be marginalized because I point out the obvious — that if bodies are unnecessary, having them is something of a nuisance.
Consider for a moment what percentage 70 years is of eternity.
To a Christian, the seventy (or however many years, before the flood humans lived hundreds of years) years in this body are but a blink of the span we will spend in the new body following His return. And from all indications those new bodies will be amazing! ... Travel through solid walls, disappear from amongst friends, even be able to reach from some where/when unseen by us now into our now (see Daniel 5, OT). There’s an interesting scene in the NT of Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch then disappearing and appearing miles away amongst brethren! We also believe in Angels, and they reside in some where/when not now accessible to you or me. Having a good belly laugh yet????
Who do you mean by "we"? Only scientists studying neurology? Or do you mean everybody -- including those with different philosophies? Or do you mean an enlightened class of materialist skeptics who presumably include all the neurologists (at least the competent ones) and will inevitably find that their philosophy vindicated by science.
I was reading in the later, but I hope I'm wrong.
I would say the problems are being studied from several directions. If you had any actual evidence of an extra-material location for the mind, I suspect you would have presented by now.
By "actual evidence" do you mean something the scientific method can test? I'm sorry, but I can't think of how it might do this. Matter of fact, I have never yet conceived of any material evidence that might be found to fit the experience of consciousness into the material world at all. Have you?
As it stands, reason demands consciousness be viewed as extra-material. And it seems most people do view it as such.
I will grant there are many that place faith that science will inevitably overturn this view, but I don't. Rather I suspect this minority are betraying the objectivity science is based on, while at the same time demanding we view this faith as part of science.
Certainly. The research on the subject is vast and growing. The reports of consciousness are always associated with brain activity. The fact that the brain is complex and the problems difficult does not mean that neurons are being pushed around by magic.
Hi js1138! So to be so tardy replying -- I was necessarily off-line yesterday.
RE: The above italics -- you've turned my question around! Why did you do that?
Perhaps you think these questions may be soluable by the tools and techniques of methodological naturalism. Only on that basis would you consider the answers legitimate. In other words, if science can't address them, then the questions refer to things that are unreal.
You referred to "AN" intelligence, as in a discrete entity or substance. I didn't use the article "an" in my question. I was simply referring to intelligence, for there is a mounting mass of data strongly indicating that information is critical in biological processes and evolution. Information is generally considered to be a product of intelligence, in contradistinction to a summation of a piling up of past accidents.
Your use of the article "AN" seems to point to a soul or spiritual entity. Is that what you wanted to talk about? William James has empirical evidences that such an entity actually exists, and that it can be evaluated by science because it is a phenomenal and temporal process. But this great American psychologist -- a pragmatic methodological naturalist -- well understood that he cannot call this entity a "soul," because "soul" is a religiously loaded term. So he just calls it: Thought. And Thought is not identical with "brain," nor is it an epiphenomenon of "brain." (But notwithstanding that he cannot use the word "soul," he gives one of the best definitions of it that I have seen in the scientific literature.)
Or did you really want to argue the pre- and/or post-existence of the soul? If you do, I'm not aware of a scientific method by which such considerations can be undertaken. Which is evidently why William James eschewed dealing with such aspects of the soul, confining himself -- as a good methodological naturalist should -- to the directly-observable phenomenal and temporal aspects, "in the here and now," so to speak.
Ultimately, the not-directly-observable aspects are a problem for philosophy -- and theology -- not science.
I think we may be "talking past each other" at this point. I'm not sure where you want to go with this...please advise!
Not exactly. If they aren't confirmable by the methods of science they aren't confirmable in any way that is convincing. All kinds of things are asserted by charlatans -- ESP, precognition, remote viewing -- you name it. If the phenomenon vanishes under scrutiny, it might as well be rubbish, because no one who is not motivated by wishful thinking will allow it to affect the major decisions in life.
And yet no conceivable way to explain the consciousness that we all experience in the frame work of a material world has been forth coming.
We are not just talking about the evidence being found or not. We are talking about no one even being able to conceive of how it could be.
The reports of consciousness are always associated with brain activity.
I don't doubt there is a relation in the case of humans.
The fact that the brain is complex and the problems difficult does not mean that neurons are being pushed around by magic.
More to the point, the fact that the brain is complex does not mean it can magically generate consciousness.
Oh, come on.
It is human reason that confirms that the scientific method is reliable. If nothing were convincing to a reasonable mind before science, no reasonable mind would have ever accepted science.
The magic is assuming that the word consciousness has special magical properties.
If a phenomenon exists, it exists. If it can be precisely correlated with event in the physical world, then the phenomenon is part of the physical world, regardless of our ability to understand it.
History is littered with abandoned arguments from incredulity. Complex systems are hard. We do not fully understand the weather, nor the economy, nor quantum gravity. Not being able to conceive of an understanding is no different than saying we don't understand.
But the remarkable thing is that we understand a lot about how the brain works, and the understanding is growing.
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