Posted on 03/19/2010 4:56:11 PM PDT by chessplayer
What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants?
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
[In the immediately preceding post, I gave examples of such experiences and their sources.]
If so, how is this "testimony" in the sense you seem to indicate — as mainly involving the passive, obedient reception, from an authority, of a doctrine?
Testimony is statement, or story. Acceptance of and belief in the content of the testimony does not require, or imply that any particular method, type or quality of action take place.
"Might I just humbly note that 'witness testimony' is testimony of direct human experience?"
No, it is not. No experience is necessary, because the testimony can and often is just made up, or otherwise conjured up out of confusion and error.
"Did you mean this?: "Might I just humbly note that 'witness testimony' is testimony of direct human experience From the most 'up-close and personal' aspect?" "
No, this: " You wanted "evidence" for my "claim" that: If God did not exist, neither would the world. All I have is witness testimony — and the fact that I can see and appreciate that this world in which we live is not a "garbage heap strewn at random." But to say as much is still "only" witness testimony."
Yes, as you said it's 100% witness testimony, notwithstanding the testimonial of what the world would be if your claim were not true. That in itself is illogical, because nothing at all would exist according to your story. According to your story, a garbage heap must come from some prime mover. That prime mover story's always given as a pure claim w/o any evidence with the accompanying demand that nothing can exist unless it's caused to exist-except your prime mover of course.
The need for God exists because there is a vast range of human problems that the scientific method cannot even begin to address. Here's some "evidence" I've drawn on in support of this statement.
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”So wrote Albert Einstein in 1941 to explain his personal creed: “A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation.” Einstein recognized himself as a deeply religious person in this sense. For Einstein, faith and reason were not separable, let alone mutually exclusive.
That doesn't mean that he injected God or a specifically religious view into his work as a scientist. Rather, his entire working presupposition was that "There had to be something behind objects that lay deeply hidden ... the development of [our] world of thought is in a certain sense a flight away from the miraculous." That is, he recognized that the universe, though seemingly incomprehensively vast and unfathomably complex, has the property of intelligibility, which presupposes Mind. (Which, by the way, it wouldn't have, if it were a random development out of chaos.)
His great biographer Abraham Pais, a distinguished physicist in his own right, [Subtle Is the Lord] wrote of Einstein:
... already as a young man, nothing could dissuade him from his destiny, which with poetic precision he put in focus at the age of eighteen: "Strenuous labor and the contemplation of God's nature are the angels which, reconciling, fortifying, and yet mercilessly severe, will guide me through the tumult of life."Anyhoot, that would be the view from the standpoint of one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He doesn't speak for all scientists, of course. Jacques Monod, for example, would very likely not agree. But Newton would very likely have agreed with Einstein.
There's a more "common sense" level where the need for God is evident (to me at least):
At the level of common sense, it is evident that human beings have experiences other than sensory perceptions, and it is equally evident that philosophers like Plato and Aristotle explored reality on the basis of experiences far removed from perception. The Socratic "Look and see if this is not the case" does not invite one to survey public opinion but asks one to descend into the psyche, that is, to search the reflective consciousness. Moreover, it is evident that the primarily nonsensory modes of experience address dimensions of human existence superior in rank and worth to those sensory perception does: experiences of the good, beautiful, and just, of love, friendship, and truth, of all human virtue and vice, and of divine reality. Apperceptive experience is distinguishable from sensory perception and a philosophical science of substance from a natural science of phenomena. Experience of "things" is modeled on the subject-object dichotomy of perception in which the consciousness intends the object of cognition. But such a model of experience and knowing is ultimately insufficient to explain the operations of consciousness with respect to the nonphenomenal reality men approach in moral, aesthetic, and religious experiences. Inasmuch as such nonsensory experiences are constitutive of what is distinctive about human existence itself — and of what is most precious to mankind — a purported science of man unable to take account of them is egregiously defective. — Ellis SandozA hundred years after Einstein’s pioneering work, his sense of the inseparability of faith and reason has been almost entirely lost, supplanted by materialist, positivist, and rationalist dogmas that together comprise a doctrine of philosophic materialism that has penetrated to the very heart of modern-day science (and thus of so much else). The essential complementarity of faith and reason that Einstein recognized has been recast as the triumph of the rational (reason) over the irrational (faith).
Yet if Einstein is right, there really are superpersonal objects and goals “which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation." There really are nonsensory experiences. Any attentive student of history can tell you that such objects and goals and experiences have informed the conduct and progress of human life from time immemorial.
Such nonsensory modes of experience lie entirely outside the reach of the scientific method as presently constituted: methodological naturalism. But the fact that science cannot reach them does not mean they do not exist in Reality.
Which is not to say that I want to inject God or religion into science. He's already in it; for human reason itself utterly depends on the divine Logos. I just think it would be nice if scientists did not blindly rule Him out of the "initial conditions" of the universe; and I sure do wish they'd stop "politicizing" science in service of atheist presuppositions.
Politicized science is not any longer science.
The Bible doesn't state that ALL diseases or conditions are a result of demonic activity, so you're working from a flawed set of presumptions.
Medical science can do OK with certain situations. But if you don't have something that can be easily fixed by surgery or Lipitor, or insulin, medical science is useless.
Doctors are NOT interested in really helping people and getting to the root of what is causing your problems, especially if you have some problem that doesn't fit into one of their nice, neat little diagnosis compartments.
That's a strange followup question on my post #551, don't you think? This is a religion nor politics forum, after all.
But since you asked: I have been a registered Republican since I could vote. I am against big government, I am against tax-and-spend policies, I am against the Obamination Health Law, I am against illegal immigration (which actually flourished under the Bush administration to our shame), I am pro gun lobby, I believe voters should pass a qualification test and get a voting license, I am for English as the official language, I support the draft.
I oppose gay and lesbian "marriage," I oppose school busing, abortion, etc. I hope the Demsm are voted out of office in Senate and House elections in November, I hope Obama's Health Care Law is repealed or amended.
I hope Obama will become a lame duck, one-term president come November, and that Republicans will have enough votes in Congress to override every one of his vetoes.
As far as I am concerned, liberals do nothing about the poor except make them feel good about being poor and thereby perpetuate their poverty. I think Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy changed immigration laws to alter American demographics and give the Democrats an advantage. Bill Clinton came as close as possible to admitting of this plan.
Did you vote for Obama?
No, Did you? But I didn't vote for the clown pair the Republican Party offered either. I think the Republican party has more talent than McCain and Palin, but I haven't seen any yet. I do realize that Palin may be popular with the Tea Party people, but I am worried that the Tea Party will split the conservative block the way Ross Perot did in the early 1990s. That helped elect Bill Clinton. She may be popular among some Republicans, but she is not my cup of tea.
I can certainly attest to that, metmom. Medical science has saved my life twice.
And other methods have saved my life and my health as well. I am walking because of non-western therapies including herbs.
And besides, the best medical care in the world, whether modern or traditional, can only work with God’s will; His will is the ultimate rule.
Medical science has saved my life a couple times, but has done NOTHING to improve the quality of my life concerning some conditions I am struggling with. The doctors don’t want to be bothered. It doesn’t fit in their nice, neat little easy to diagnose and treat with a pill category, so they send me on to the next one, and the next one, etc.
God has easily done as much for me in the way of healing as medical science can lay claim to.
But kosta is missing the larger point. One and the same underlying apperceptive experience is here being articulated in different languages, according to the particular cultural and historical context from which the respective languages could be expressed.
For example, a person living in the fifteenth century could hardly have known anything about relativity or quantum theory. But does this "ignorance" mean he's stupid? Or that what he does know is in any way false?
Or to put it even more crudely, in "olden times" what we today call "microorganisms" were called "demons." So if you have pneumonia, does it really make any difference what you call its putative cause, then or now? The point is you have to treat the disease, whatever you call its cause.
To which you replied, dearest sister in Christ: Actually, I believe a theory would lose its status as a "law" if it were ever shown to not be universal to the system. Note that all physical systems are finite.
What on earth is kosta talking about? On what basis would we be "observing and measuring" anything in the first place, if we didn't already presuppose a universal criterion by which such activities could be evaluated and judged in the first place? The existence of which kosta (and others) want us "to prove" to his satisfaction — notwithstanding that he himself has been standing on it all the time?
Self-contradictions just continue to pile up....
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your most perceptive essay/post!
Maybe.
It's just that most of the people I have known in my life that have a similar view of religion that you do are dyed in the wool socialists. I know when I was going through a period of atheism/skepticism I was also going through my socialist phase at the same time.
Broad brushes don't do justice to who I am. I hate socialism.
Contrary to what you may think, I am not against God or religion. I never said I was. Even though I am a skeptic, I do not claim to know the truth. My only objection are those who claim they do but will not or can not provide evidence other than their own personal testimony, yet insist they are right. In all honesty, I can't accept that or else I might as well accept everyone else's testimony to the contrary.
I don't particularly like atheists either. I don't like their arrogant matter-of-fact claim that there is no God. I ask them the same question I ask of believers: "how do you know that?!" I would rather accept my ignorance and admit to it then jump to conclusions because it may be more comfortable to do so.
Since we are on an off topic, I am a social and political conservative, and always have been. I served this country with honor. I am a retired US Naval officer.
I don't believe the government should have to save idiots, although I do believe the government, community and neighborhoods ought to try to advise them correctly.
If a pond has a sign "NO swimming allowed" and someone decides to swim and drowns, oh well...I believe people ought to take responsibility for their actions, I believe everyone owes respect and consideration to a fellow human; we are all citizens of this world, by birthright. It's everyone's world.
Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. You have the right to drive but you also have the responsibility to drive safely. I believe the minimum driving age ought to be 18. I think the lower age has been pushed as a means to sell more cars without regard to all the lives lost by such a decision. It's unethical. Kids don't need cars.
I believe voters should pass an information test to make sure they know what they are doing and understand the issues they are voting for. I believe in educated voters and educated consumers as checks and balances against corrupt government and fraudulent business practices.
I believe white collar criminals ought to serve in maximum security prisons as a deterrant to others who are contemplating mail and credit card fraud.
I believe free poeple have the right to live where they wnat and with whom they want. I believe they have the right to hire and fire as they see fit, and for their children to go to the school of their choice. I believe the government should stay the heck out of busing children to and from school (that's parents' repsonsiblity) or engage in any social or demographic engineering.
I don't believe God should be in the Pledge or on dollar bills. That is an innovation this country did without until the 1950's, althouhg God was on a dime way back in the 19th century for some reason. The Government should stay out of religion, period. Yet, people in the government should be afforded an opporutnity to pray in desingated areas and shools, but not in public.
I don't believe the government has the right to force citizens what to buy, what to eat, etc. I believe the government is a servant and should act as a servant, within the jurisdictions the people gave it.
I am a strong supporter of referenda. I think most important issues should be decided by a referendum because our representatives in Congress sometimes show more loyalty to their parties then to the people who elected them. Minorities deserve protection but democracy is about majority, and majority should carry the day.
I believe parents are fully responibile for their children and their children's misbehavior. Children need to be supervised 24/7. I think irrepsonible parents need to be held accountable proportionally to the degree of damage their negligence caused others.
I even believe the society needs to agree on minimum requirements for someone to be a parent, for the common good and children's sake. Everyone sould be afforded an opporutnity to be a responsible parent as an obligation, the way citizens are held to the obligation to be loyal to the country. Children deserve protection and care by the parents and the society. That may include restrictions until they can make their own decisions.
I don't think children and prisoners have the same rights as law-abiding adults. I don't believe human rights come without corresponding responsibility.
So, there you have it. You asked.
Which diseases are caused by "demons?"
Medical science can do OK with certain situations. But if you don't have something that can be easily fixed by surgery or Lipitor, or insulin, medical science is useless.
Medicine is limited in its reach. If you think you have a better, more reliable method you are always free to refuse medical science.
You are also free to test gravity from an airplane without a parachute.
There is only so much they know and there are legal restrictions to what they can do.
Some are unethical, but then so are people in every occupation, including pastors.
Why am i not surprised?!
For example, a person living in the fifteenth century could hardly have known anything about relativity or quantum theory. But does this "ignorance" mean he's stupid?
No, but you think God could have revealed them the truth?
Or to put it even more crudely, in "olden times" what we today call "microorganisms" were called "demons."
Oh, yeah, more rationalizations. Except that instead of telling them to eat moldy bread, the Bible says they were cured by shadows of holy people passing over them, or by 'telling" the "demons" (talking to microorganisms?!) to get the heck out! And then they "jump" out of one person and into a herd of pigs who then jump off the cliff and drown.
I suppose the cure has evolved over the centuries...we can no "convince" the little "demons" to jump out, but have to kill them. LOL!
Maybe, then, following your own rationalizations, the Bible really didn't mean it when it says that some people were raised from the dead because they weren't really dead but only in a coma...right?
And maybe Jonah wasn't in the stomach of a large fish, deprived of oxygen and surrounded by digestive corrosive juices, and crushed by powerful smooth muscle movements but was only telling a tall tale, or maybe the donkey really wasn't talking...but it sounded like it was...etc.
Why would God be telling people such stories?
Absent a trademark filing, anyone who believes that Creation happened whether Christian, Jew, Muslim or whatever has just as much right to call themselves Creationist.
Sure. But none of them do. I've never heard anyone who accepted the theory of evolution call themselves a creationist, and despite asking several times, no one has shown me such an example (from somewhere other than these discussions). I'm talking about what the word means as it is used, not what it could hypothetically mean.
And my point is that this definition of "creationist" isn't something evos came up with to disparage people who believe in creation. You said, in the post I was responding to,
Some want the term narrowly construed to match their seemingly favorite target, the Young Earth Creationists.More recently, metmom referred to "the *creationist* box of the evos making." Your insistence that it's evos who made up the anti-evolution aspect of the term "creationism" is just wrong, historically and according to common usage. You can't change that just by asserting that anyone who believes in Creation is a Creationist.
If you want to start a movement to redefine the word, that's fine with me. Get a bunch of people who believe in an old earth, God as the creator, and evolution to start calling themselves creationists, and maybe your redefinition will eventually become accepted. But in the meantime, don't act like it's just the mean ol' evos who made up this definition you don't like--we're just using the term the YECs asked us to use.
I'll ask again: since many people, as you acknowledge, accept both God the Creator and evolution, and by your standards should be called creationists, what term would you suggest for those who are anti-evolution because it conflicts with their beliefs about Creation?
I am sorry you don't understand what I am talking about. It seems pretty self-evident, but I guess not to all. We did not come up with logic out of the clear blue, betty boop, just as we did not "presuppose" a circle and then proceeded to establish universal geometrical "laws" that apply to circles no matter what universe they are in.
I believe you have the whole thing backwards. Rather man first discovered a circle, a physical shape, whether a rock, or a drawing, and then proceeded to see how many times can one fit a diameter around it and discovered a physical fact that there was always an amount left over, which the Greeks called a π.
That is the property of circles. Circle is a two-dimensional shape. It didn't exist before the material world was created.
Not that I take personal offense from this. It's just been my experience that people whose argument mainly consists of ad hominum attack are mainly people trying to avoid an argument that they are demonstrably ill-prepared (not to mention ill-willed) to answer. :^)
God has revealed the truth to us, but in cases like yourself, it's still being rejected. Your mockery and derision of what has been revealed in Scripture demonstrates that beyond any doubt. It's not that Scripture isn't true, it's that you don't believe that it's true.
Apparently, you'd only consider that God revealed the truth in the Bible if it lined up with what you already believe about the world and how it works. Since it doesn't, you therefore label it as not true.
So folks need a problem solver that can work w/o evidence? Why is it that they need an invisible one?
"Here's some "evidence" I've drawn on in support of this statement."
...
From Einstein. "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
That's testimony and it stands w/o evidence, or elaboration. It is a simple statement followed by his claim that there are things that can exist w/o rational foundation. He's correct. For instance his passivism was not rational, but it existed. His passivism continued to exist, only because the US was not passivist and provided him a place to escape to.
What are "superpersonal objects and goals"? What is the purpose for the creation of such a class of things?
"he recognized that the universe, though seemingly incomprehensively vast and unfathomably complex, has the property of intelligibility, which presupposes Mind. (Which, by the way, it wouldn't have, if it were a random development out of chaos.)"
The statement contained in the first part, which says that the universe is intelligible is fine. The second part of the sentence, which is a statement of conclusion given w/o evidence, is not. I don't believe the unsubstantiated claim that intelligibility presupposes mind. Anything real is intelligible by a sentient rational being and man is a sentient rational being. Both are logical and the sentience allows observation.
"Which, by the way, it wouldn't have, if it were a random development out of chaos."
The universe is perfectly logical system. Chaos is logical, otherwise the mechanics of 3, or more bodies would never be consistent. Also, the inherent properties of the stuff the universe is composed of determines behavior, not randomness. Note that randomness is not a property and it does not give rise to any force. Behavior must be determined by the properties of objects that give rise to, or otherwise effect forces. Naturally by ignoring the real forces involved in any phenomena and instead pointing to ficticious driving forces such as randomness, or chaos, one will never be able to know any real process.
"Strenuous labor and the contemplation of God's nature are the angels which, reconciling, fortifying, and yet mercilessly severe, will guide me through the tumult of life"
Testimony. He was simply interested in the grand reverse engineering task, not knowing the engineer. His testimony would never be noted, or repeated if it had no value as bandwagon propaganda from an authority figure. It's remarkable that those who utilize the great authority figure's quotes for propaganda purposes deny that anyone can know the mind of God at all.
"Ellis Sandoz "
General testimony. W/o the specifics, his superior experiences could be similar to Carlos Castenada's, or T. Leary's. One might prefer a Central American Shaman's superior experiences. Oh, but on the other hand some may prefer more rational seasoning and less of the irrational.
"if Einstein is right, there really are superpersonal objects and goals “which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation.""
If it's not rational, it's irrational and the irrational is most often fundamentally arbitrary, which severely limits the things possibility for existence. Such irrational objects, or things with irrational foundations can't be stamped by their manufacturer with such notices as "permanent mystery" to hide their true nature.
"Such nonsensory modes of experience lie entirely outside the reach of the scientific method as presently constituted: methodological naturalism."
Logic works.
"the fact that science cannot reach them does not mean they do not exist in Reality."
Pink elephants, or Mohamed's allah character?
"I just think it would be nice if scientists did not blindly rule Him out of the "initial conditions" of the universe.
Scientists don't rule stuff out. If it's there, they'll note it. Meditate on the following quote from the only Person to ever show up on the planet, in person, to claim He was God and to teach who He was. Matt 12:38-39 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."
Consider the choices one must make. Who is a member of a wicked and adulterous generation? Is the sign of Jonah the Holy Spirit, or is it the testimony of men that God rose from the dead?
"Which is not to say that I want to inject God or religion into science. He's already in it; for human reason itself utterly depends on the divine Logos. I just think it would be nice if scientists did not blindly rule Him out of the "initial conditions" of the universe; and I sure do wish they'd stop "politicizing" science in service of atheist presuppositions."
God took Himself out and was pleased. Matt 11:25 "At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." If one isn't happy with Logic, the testimony of the only person to show up and claim He is God and Epicurus' principle, all they can do is present the testimony of men as equivalent members of the pink elephant, bagwan vita and allah crowd. Note that Einstein never promoted engineer guy. He wasn't even happy with some of His work, like a nature that's understood using QM. Einstein's biggest mistake occurred when he ignored engineer guy's book.
"Politicized science is not any longer science."
Politics is not a logical operation, it's a sociological operation. You are correct, there's no sociiological/political operations contained in the scientific method. Political operations do occur in religeous, acedemic and government organizations though.
Thanks for all the pings.
I’m unable to keep up with all of it but I appreciate the pings and read what I can manage.
My #573 is an ad hominem? LOL! After all your unsolicited analysis and character judgments about me, what drives me, etc? LOL!
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