betty to OldNavy, “If we think something occurring in nature, as it appears to us as human “observers,” is “an extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurrence,” could this possibly mean that we don’t understand the natural system — the context in which all phenomena occur — as well as we need to, if the truth of reality is our main concern?”
Spirited: By way of osmosis, trusting contemporary Americans have-—without question-— absorbed the counterintuitive teachings of naturalism. The inability to logically answer the questions posed by betty and Alamo-Girl for example, is the direct outcome of trust misplaced in babbling fools and charlatons like Dawkins, Lewontin, Haeckel, et al.
When I say they cannot answer logically, I mean that their responses cannot and in fact never do come wholly from within the edifice of naturalism for the reason that:
“Naturalism effectively nihilizes man’s spiritual endowments by making him a part of something else in the way that grains of sand are merely parts of a beach (materialism) or drops of water are merely parts of a cosmic ocean (pantheism). Because we are parts of the system, we cannnot logically “know what the system “is” anymore than a drop of water can know about the ocean of which it is a fractional part.”
In short, if naturalism is true, then why bother heeding anything naturalists say, for by their own admission their “thoughts” (theories and all else) are the emergent product of unseen irrational forces of nature.
Insider-naturalists like Lewontin, Dawkins, etc. resolve their embarrassing problem of “mindlessness” by being worldview fence-straddlers. One leg is in naturalism while one leg is in the mind-body dualism of the Biblical worldview.
However, either man is both material (body/brain) and spirit (mind/soul/spirit) or he is not, as naturalism teaches. It cannot be both.
If he is, then his spiritual endowments from God the Father allow him to reason, imagine, remember, will, and feel guilty (conscience) and by extension, the supernatural Creator is not dead but very much alive.
However, if God is dead as naturalists wish Him to be, and by extension, man is a part of nature, ie. a grain of sand or a drop of water, he does not...further cannot... possess an individual mind/soul/spirit for the reason that he is “one-with” (a part of) nature and there is No Source within irrational, unconscious nature for mind,free will, conscience, etc.
When Aristotle famously quipped: “What do rocks dream?... nothing” he was commenting on the conundrum posed by naturalism, which can be phrased thus: “How and why do we know, will, and dream? (but rocks cannot?)”
Ideas have consequences, and what is desperately needed in our time are people willing to take on the difficult work of “unpacking” and critically analyzing the underlying presuppositions, assumptions, etc. of naturalism. During the discovery process, the analyst will always find the tiny grains of truth that leaven the whole lump. Truth must be separated out before the deceptions can be exposed.
Well put.
Indeed, dear spirited — you really nail the internal logical contradiction laid at the very base of scientific naturalism/materialism here.
Thank you so very much for this splendid essay/post!