Tag Archive for: science

Sexually Transmitted Unease_ How Casual Sex Works Bad Chemistry From Good

Sexually Transmitted Unease: How Casual Sex Works Bad Chemistry From Good

,

By Terrell Clemmons

“Want a Capri Sun?”

Those were the first words he said to her afterward. Rachel White, age fifteen, had been anticipating this moment for at least a year. She’d sneaked out on a snowy school night, shoes in hand. Then, wearing nothing but her wet socks,  Ginuwine playing in the background, it was finally happening! Oh my god, she told herself, this is sex! Just move your hips to Ginuwine. When it was over, he locked eyes with her, opened his mouth … and offered her a kiddie drink in a disposable bag.

Nevertheless, delirious in the afterglow, Rachel shared all the details with her friends the following day at school. Soon though, her delirium morphed into a strange agitation. ‘He’ wasn’t her boyfriend or anyone particularly special. They had been “just talking” – her lingo for “just friends” – and since he was cool and good-looking, Rachel had picked him to be the one to whom she would lose her virginity. Once the deed was done, “I wanted something from him. I thought about him every five minutes.” She called him repeatedly, several times a day until finally, his weary mother asked her to please stop calling. Then depression set in. “I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to eat. And if Ginuwine came on the radio—forget it.”

Rachel later blogged about her experience and found she wasn’t alone in suffering a post-sex funk. Kate responded, describing her first time this way, “He just sort of rolled off me, he was drunk and probably also high, and I just sat there for awhile and stared at the ceiling while he snored. I remember I got up … thinking, ‘That’s it? What the hell just happened?’” Others recounted stories of writing long embarrassing love letters or drunken explosions at parties. Clearly, joining the sexually initiated doesn’t always pan out as expected.

The Neurology of Sex

Any Grandma or psychotherapist worth her salt could have told them that this was bound to happen. In Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children, OB-GYNs Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush explain, from a neurobiological perspective, why it happens and how. “Scientists are confirming that sex is more than a momentary physical act. It produces powerful, even lifelong, changes in our brains that direct and influence our future to a surprising degree,” they write. A single sexual encounter sets off a cascade of changes in a young brain, and modern imaging technology allows researchers to observe those changes more thoroughly than ever before. Hooked explains what they are discovering.

Three neurochemicals, in particular, are especially involved in sex:

Oxytocin. Oxytocin is the “bonding” chemical. While it is present in both sexes, it’s much more predominant in females. When a boy and girl touch in a meaningful way, even something as simple as a lingering hug, oxytocin is released in the girl’s brain, causing her to desire more of his touch and to feel an increasing bond to him. It also produces feelings of trust in him, whether or not he actually merits it. When sexual intercourse happens, her brain is flooded with oxytocin, causing her to feel connected to him and to continue to need this connection with him, as Rachel discovered. Oxytocin is also released when a mother nurses her newborn, causing similar, though non-sexual, feelings of deep attachment. “The important thing to recognize,” the doctor’s stress, “is that the desire to connect is not just an emotional feeling. Bonding is real… a powerful connection that cannot be undone without great emotional pain.”

Vasopressin. Vasopressin is the bonding chemical for males. Often referred to as “the monogamy molecule,” it hasn’t been as thoroughly studied as oxytocin but is known to play a role in bonding, both to the female sexually and to the children that result. In an article titled, The Two Become One: The Role of Oxytocin and Vasopressin, Dianne S. Vadney explained it this way,”Essentially, vasopressin released after intercourse is significant in that it creates a desire in the male to stay with his mate, inspires a protective sense (in humans, perhaps this is what creates almost a jealous tendency) about his mate, and drives him to protect his territory and his offspring.”

Dopamine. Dopamine is the “feel-good” or “reward” chemical. When we do something exciting, dopamine floods our brain and produces feelings of exhilaration and well-being. Not surprisingly, it also makes us want to repeat the behavior that produced it. Active in both males and females, dopamine is values-neutral, meaning it rewards pleasurable or exciting behaviors without distinguishing between those that are beneficial and those that may be harmful.

Hooked by Sex

“Sex is one of the strongest generators of the dopamine reward,” the Hooked authors point out. This is not inherently bad, but overstimulation can cause the brain to become relatively resistant to it, leading the indiscriminate to engage in more and more of the same behavior to regain the high, not unlike the spiral of addictive drug use. “For this reason, young people particularly are vulnerable to falling into a cycle of dopamine reward for unwise sexual behavior – they can get hooked on it.” But when the relationships are short-lived, the losses due to breakup are felt in the brain centers that feel physical pain and can actually be seen on a brain scan. It’s not hard to see how multiple relationships, each with its own cycle of bonding and breaking, can lead to profound pain, anxiety, and confusion, especially among teens still far from emotional maturity.

The results can be devastating. A series of studies published between 2002-2007 showed that sexually initiated youth are three times more likely to be depressed than their abstaining peers. The girls were three times as likely to have attempted suicide, and the boys were a whopping seven more likely to have done so. The studies accounted for other mitigating factors in their lives, ensuring an accurate comparison with their peers.

Natural Chemistry

Rachel White, who now writes for Cosmopolitan, Jezebel, and other sex-focused outlets, offers this suggestion for avoiding the pain of disappointment after first-time sex: “Maybe we need to throw out the idea of virginity altogether. Maybe we need to toss away the idea that you ‘lose’ something from a single act… Perhaps teaching this would help with those depression stats.” In other words, devalue the sex act altogether, starting with the very first one. Lower your expectations; the dismal thinking goes so that you won’t suffer the pain of disappointment.

Rachel can promote disposable sex until the cows come home, but it will never improve the depression or suicide stats. In fact, it will probably make them worse. It’s impossible for the neurochemical aspects of sex to be turned off. Here’s a better idea: Ponder deeply the remarkable work of oxytocin and vasopressin. Consider how the biochemistry of sex appears to be marvelously fashioned for the purpose of forging marriage and family bonds. See sex that way. And then act accordingly. Go with instead of against your natural chemistry.

And finally, lest the cheap sex authors convince you that sexual restraint equals sexual repression, reflect on the serendipitous, dual sex ministrations of dopamine. Only regular, monogamous sex keeps the dopamine rushes coming, strengthening the marital bond, infusing feelings of personal well-being, and smoothing the inescapable bumps that come with living together and, if fortune smiles, raising children. All that without the pain and fear of breakup.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2KJOeWT

/by
Theistic Foundation of Science, parte 3

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 3

, , ,

By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 3

We have been considering five presuppositions of science and how they can be explained by Christian theism. In the previous post we considered first three, here we will address the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.

An Understandable World

We now turn to the significant mystery of why the world is understandable. From the perspective of naturalism, how or why this is the case usually boils down to a story describing how the evolutionary process increased brain capacity which led to a greater ability to survive. The purely physical view says the size and complexity of our brain is the reason we can understand the world.

However, there is a flaw in this argument as described by Alvin Plantinga in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. In short, there is an important distinction between survival and truth. Evolution is a process that favors the capacity to survive, but that does not guarantee that our reasoning processes or our senses can be trusted, merely that they have facilitated our ability to survive. Patricia Churchland, a philosopher who embraces naturalism, made the following observation: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive… Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”[1] In other words, what governs survival is behavior, not beliefs. Beliefs do directly cause behaviors. In fact, a combination of beliefs, desires, and other factors lead to behavior. So it is more than conceivable that false beliefs about the world can lend themselves to survival just as well as true ones.

The evolutionary story is in stark contrast to how Christian theism not only explains why

creation is understandable but also the motivated observation as a part of science. Let’s consider three aspects of the intelligibility of creation: the nature of man, the nature of creation, and the transition from reason to observation.

The Nature of Man. The most foundational and misunderstood aspect of the nature of man, as described in the Bible, is that humanity was created in the image of God. I would like to offer three observations about this theologically deep topic.

First, the naturalist’s wooden interpretation of this phrase leads to the idea that God is physical being like us. In truth, God is an immaterial and transcendent being. Therefore whatever “image of God” means it cannot mean something merely physical.

Second, it is helpful to see this phrase in terms of the attributes of God that have been shared with humanity. God is a personal being, meaning He has mind, will, and emotions. In this way, human persons are finite examples of God. We have a mind that allows us to think, to reason.

We have a will that allows us to make decisions, to have intentions and purposes. We have emotions that allow us to experience relationships.

Third, there are attributes of God that cannot be shared with humanity. For example, God is infinite versus humanity being finite. In terms of knowledge, God is omniscient. In terms of time, God is eternal, without beginning or end. God is self-existent while humanity is contingent.

We exist because God created us, but God’s existence is not dependent on anything else.

We have a finite version of God’s rational capacities to reason and have intentions. Humanity and creation are the products of the same rational mind. Therefore, it makes sense we would have the capacity to understand creation.

An Object of Study not Worship. Christianity stands apart from other religions in its perspective toward creation. In contrast to many cultures and religions that believed creation was populated by gods, the Bible de-deifies the world. This allowed humanity to study rather than worship creation. As Nancy Pearcey explains: “The monotheism of the Bible exorcised the gods of nature, freeing humanity to enjoy and investigate it without fear. When the world was no longer an object of worship, then-and only then-could it becomes an object of study.”[2]

From reason to observation. A final observation about how Christian theism explains why creation is understandable can be found in the origins of the theological view know as voluntarism. During the Middle Ages, theologians such as Thomas Aquinas wrestled with reconciling with certain aspects of Aristotle’s views of nature with orthodox views of God and creation. For Aristotle, nature was understood to the extent that the purpose of any object or creature could be discerned. Once the purpose was understood nothing else needed to be known.

Regarding God and the nature of the universe Aristotle believed “that the ultimate rational causes of things in God’s mind could be discovered by the human reason; and that he had in fact discovered those causes, so that the universe must necessarily be constituted as he had described it, and could not be otherwise.”[3]

As various thinkers started proposing views that directly undermined the nature of God, based on an application of Aristotle’s views, the Church reacted. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris published a list of 219 statements condemning any statement that limited God’s freedom of action regarding creation. Some specific examples of physical concepts Aristotle believed clarify the intention of the Bishop’s condemnations. For example, Aristotle believed that a vacuum was physically impossible, heavenly objects can only move in circles, and ballistic motion (e.g. a baseball) was sustained by displaced air pushing the moving object.

The condemnations did not limit the work of natural philosophers (a term that referred to theologians who studied nature). Instead, it freed them from continued adherence to Aristotle’s views on the natural world. A new form of theology, known as voluntarism, was inspired.

According to Pearcey, “Voluntarism insisted that the structure of the universe-indeed, its very existence-is not rationally necessary but is contingent upon the free and transcendent will of God.”[4]

Voluntarism inspired and justified what we would refer to today as an experimental methodology. It established that the nature of creation could not be found via reason alone. We must observe nature to understand what the creator did. The need for observation, a foundational concept within science, was discovered by 13th century Christians attempting to defend the nature of God while thinking about the study of nature.

An Expressible World

Finally, let’s consider the existence of mathematics. As was noted in a previous post, mathematics as a discipline is completely devoted to abstract concepts. These concepts are frequently applied to physical reality as tools of explanation, and description. They sometimes even guide future research in disciplines like physics. Not only is the naturalist viewpoint unable to explain the existence of mathematics, it cannot acknowledge the existence of the abstract objects that make it possible.

The laws of nature, as noted above, are written in the language of mathematics. The character Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, called mathematics the only universal language. According to Christianity, by virtue of sharing aspects of God’s nature, we are given access to that language. By describing nature via theories and mathematics, we are “thinking God’s thoughts.”

This points to an obvious and delightful concept that God created humanity to know Him directly through Jesus and indirectly through creation.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Day to day pours forth speech,

And night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

Their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their utterances to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

We have now completed looking at five presuppositions of science and how they are grounded within Christianity. As I bring this series on foundations of science to a close, I hope I have made it clear that Christianity, far from being hostile or impeding science actually played a significant role in the thinking that made science possible. No matter how many secularists today denigrate Christian theism or the historical role it played, they cannot escape the idea that the study of nature serves two important ends: glorifying God and serving man.

In the next part of this series, we will look at some of the models, which describe how Christianity and science interact.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo, Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Notes

[1] Journal of Philosophy 84 [October 87], p. 548

[2] Pearcey, The Soul of Science, Kindle Locations 191–193.

[3] Ibid., Kindle Locations 295–297.

[4] Ibid., Kindle Locations 289–290.

/by
Theistic Foundation of Science, part 2

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 2

, ,

By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 2

Five Explanations

In this post, we will begin to consider how the presuppositions of science described in the previous post can be explained or grounded. Recall that these presuppositions cannot be discovered or defended via any kind of scientific process. Rather they form a foundation that makes science possible.

In order to explore how to explain or ground the presuppositions of science, we necessarily turn to the question of worldviews. For the sake of space, I am going to contrast Christian theism with naturalism. By naturalism, I mean the view that everything that exists is physical. Immaterial things such as souls, consciousness or numbers do not exist. This would also exclude the existence of immaterial minds.

Let’s consider three of the presuppositions.

A Real World

In contrast to other religious systems (e.g., Hinduism or pantheism), Christianity teaches that the creation is real. Human beings were created as both physical and spiritual beings that must interact with the reality of their physical existence.

For the naturalist, this is not a strange idea, in fact, one definition of naturalism is simply that physical reality is the only reality.

An Orderly World

The Christian perspective as to why creation is orderly is based on three things. First, there is a single, transcendent creator. Creation is not filled with multiple, immanent, and competing gods.

Rather, all of reality is the unified and coherent product of a single mind. Second, the order of nature rests on the character of God. Since God is revealed to be reliable and unchanging, it is reasonable to expect creation to be the same. Third, God is the divine legislator. If God were the source and foundation of morality, why wouldn’t He also be the source for the “laws of nature.”

It is important to note that the very idea of “laws of nature” or even that creation should be orderly and predictable was unknown until the Middle Ages. Scholastic thinkers wrestling with how to integrate Aristotle’s views of creation with the Bible concluded that laws govern nature.

Further, they believed while God was the author of such laws, He was not constrained by them.

Nancy Pearcey makes the following observation: “The order of the reasoning here is important.

The early scientists did not argue that the world was lawfully ordered, and therefore there must be a rational God. Instead, they argued that there was a rational God, and therefore the world must be lawfully ordered. They had greater confidence in the existence and character of God than in the lawfulness of nature.”[1]

A Continuing World

The following passage by David Hume is a powerful description of the problem of induction, the process by which we infer that the future will be like the past.

For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.[2]

From the naturalist perspective, there is no answer to this issue other than the mere hope that the world will continue and that the “course of nature” will not change. However, the Christian theist turns to the doctrine that God sustains creation. Everything continues because God chooses for it to continue.

In the next post, we will consider the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Notes

[1] Nancy Pearcey, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994), Kindle Locations 221–223.

[2] David Hume, “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm, (accessed April 14, 2015).

/by
Creator Cosmos

The Creator & The Cosmos with Dr. Hugh Ross

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS

Whether you are skeptical of God’s existence or seeking scientific support for your faith, This interview with Astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross about his updated book will enable you to see how the heavens do declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1).

Dr. Ross explains recent scientific measurements of the universe that clearly point to its purposeful origin and development. An abundance of references to published research findings allows you to explore the evidence for yourself.

 

/by
Galileo and the Catholic Church

Galileo and the Catholic Church

,

By Ken Mann

The question is asked in different ways. Are science and religion compatible? Are science and faith in conflict? The answer, once one has properly defined what is meant by science and faith, is it depends. Critics of Christianity will assert, based on history, that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion and they use the trial of Galileo before the Inquisition as an “example” of the conflict. We’re told Galileo was tortured, forced to recant his belief in a heliocentric universe, and imprisoned for the remainder of his life for the heresy of advocating heliocentrism. This paper will address how aspects of this narrative are false, and others are misleading. Galileo’s conflict with the Church has been described as “… a clash of ideas⎯ between scientific claims fervently held by a small band of scientific reformers on the one hand and opposing theological doctrines supported by centuries of church tradition on the other.”[1] Galileo is described as a martyr of science because the Catholic Church was opposed to science.[2] In order to explain how Christianity and science are compatible today the Christian apologist must be able to explain how, for good or ill, they have interacted in the past. Over the course of this paper, we will see that the Galileo affair was not about science but about the authority of the Catholic Church over how to interpret the Bible. The nascent disciplines of astronomy and cosmology suffered at the hands of an entrenched and embattled institution, however, the conflict was not about truth per se, but control.

This paper addresses the myths, complexities, and lessons we can learn from Galileo’s trial. In terms of myths, there are two aspects accepted by history that are in fact false, specifically that during his trial Galileo was tortured and that he was imprisoned for the remainder of his life. In terms of complexity, there were many different factors at play that ultimately culminated in Galileo’s trial. It is simply a grotesque oversimplification to assert that this incident represents the collision between science and theological doctrines. Finally, we can learn a great deal about the conflicts in our own day between theological and scientific authorities.

In order to understand these 17th-century events, it is worthwhile to take a step back and understand the state of cosmology[3] at that time. The Church and much of Europe, since at least the 13th century, had adopted an Aristotelian cosmology. The works of Aristotle had been reintroduced into Europe, in Latin, and were eventually integrated into Church teaching.

Aristotle’s view of the cosmos was the source of the geocentric (earth-centered) view of the universe. The earth was immobile. The center of the earth is where all matter was drawn, to where things naturally moved. The sun, moon, planets, and stars all revolved around the earth on celestial spheres. The moon and beyond was a realm of eternal, changeless perfection, while the domain of matter was subject to change and decay.[4] Aristotle’s view of the cosmos was integrated into Christian theology finding concord with such passages that indicate the earth is stationary (Psalm 75:3; 93:1; 96:10; 119:90; 1Chronicles 16:30[5]) and that the sun moves (Joshua 10). In the second century, Ptolemy developed a model of the geocentric cosmos that would explain the observed motions of planets. The combination of an explanatory model for astronomical observations and the imprimatur of the Church made the geocentric view the only rational and acceptable view of the universe for over 300 years.

In 1543, Copernicus’ magnum opus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) was published with the encouragement and blessing of the

Catholic Church. It barely caused a whimper. It was, in fact, the writing and agitation of Galileo some 73 years later that resulted in Copernicus work being put on the Index of Prohibited Books, where it remained until 1835.[6] From its original publication until Galileo, heliocentrism did not draw the ire of Church officials for the simple reason that it was merely a theory. Copernicus offered an alternative mathematical model for the movements of the various heavenly bodies.

Neither Copernicus nor any other astronomers in the 16th century argued, at least strongly or publicly, that Aristotelian cosmology was false. In fact, prior to the invention of the telescope in the early 17th century, the only argument in favor of heliocentrism was theoretical elegance or simplicity. The predictions made by Copernicus’ model were no more accurate than those based on Ptolemy’s geocentric model.

Moving now to the early 17th century, Galileo started using the newly invented telescope to make astronomical observations. With an eight-power instrument, he started making observations of the moon, the sun, the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter. His publications Starry Messenger (1610) and Letters on Sunspots (1613) launch him into the public spotlight as an advocate of heliocentrism. As Galileo tried to argue (in conversation and in letters) for the truth of heliocentrism, he was confronted with what he thought was an exegetical problem. Simply put, he believed that the scientific content of the Bible needed to be discussed in light of the observations supporting heliocentrism. According to Galileo, the Bible communicated truths about salvation that are beyond human reason. However, he also argued (as summarized by David Lindberg) that, “When the Biblical text oversteps those limits, addressing matters that are within reach of sensory experience and rational knowledge, God does not expect these God-given capacities to be abandoned… It follows that theologians, before committing themselves to an interpretation of such passages, would be well advised to examine the demonstrative arguments of scientists and natural philosophers.”[7] Galileo’s ideas about exegesis in defense of heliocentrism were eventually brought to the attention of the Inquisition. In 1616 the Holy Office formally censured two key tenets of heliocentrism: the sun is at rest (labeled “formally heretical”) and that the earth moves around the sun (labeled “erroneous in faith”).[8]

Galileo was summoned by Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino and informed him that heliocentrism “had been declared false and heretical and was not to be held or defended.”[9] Galileo was not accused of any wrongdoing, but the decision of the Inquisition ended his campaign on behalf of heliocentrism.

In 1623, with the ascendency of Maffeo Barberini to the papacy as Urban VIII, the fate of heliocentrism seemed to have changed. Barberini was a close friend and admirer of Galileo and his work in astronomy. Over the course of six meetings with the new pontiff, Galileo came to believe that he was free to write a book on heliocentrism provided he treated it as a mere hypothesis. When Galileo completed Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems in 1629, he had in fact gone beyond merely debating competing hypotheses. Instead, what he had written was “… nothing less than a powerful argument on behalf of the indubitable truth of heliocentrism; no reader could have understood it otherwise. Nor did one have to read between the lines to perceive this as Galileo’s purpose, for in the Dialogue itself he repeatedly claimed to have demonstrated the ‘truth’ of his conclusions.”[10] Despite having gone through appropriate channels within the Church prior to publishing Dialogue, its reception within the Vatican was disastrous for Galileo. In addition to his overall treatment of heliocentrism, Simplicio, “… a slow-witted Aristotelian laughing stock of the dialogue,”[11] voiced the same arguments Galileo had heard during his audiences with Urban. A letter to Florence from the Florentine ambassador describes a meeting where the pontiff “… exploded into great anger…” at the mere mention of Galileo. The pope believed Galileo had deceived him, as he clearly did not treat heliocentrism as a hypothesis.

Further, in the character Simplicio, he made the pontiff an object of ridicule.

Alienating the pope with such obvious insubordination was possibly the least of Galileo’s problems. Since Dialogue clearly advocated for the truth of heliocentrism, it violated the Congregation of the Index decree from 1616 that condemned heliocentrism as “…false and completely contrary to the Scriptures.” The same decree not only prohibited Copernicus’ book from being printed, it went on to assert that “… all other books teaching the same thing are prohibited, as the present Decree prohibits, condemns and suspends them all respectively.”[12] The Inquisition appointed a Special Commission to investigate further. In the files of the Holy Office a memorandum was discovered[13] which claimed that Galileo had been given a specific injunction by the Commissary General of the Holy Office to “relinquish altogether” his acceptance of heliocentrism and to no longer “hold, teach, or defend it in any way, either verbally or in writing.”[14] Because of the weight of all this evidence Galileo was brought to trial in Rome in April of 1633.

Having set the stage in terms of the historical context, let’s begin to look at the myths, complexities, and lessons of Galileo’s trial. The myths, things that were at one time assumed to be true are now known to be false, are tied to the outcome of the trial, specifically that he was tortured and imprisoned. Galileo was found guilty of “vehement suspicion of heresy” for his advocacy of heliocentrism in Dialogue and for denying that the Bible is a scientific authority.[15]

In any trial, the activities of the Holy Office were kept under strict secrecy. The Cardinals and those who were prosecuted never discussed the proceedings in public. Very accurate and reliable records were kept including transcripts of interrogations and even details of how the accused responded to torture.[16] However, in the case of Galileo’s trial, under explicit orders from the Urban VIII, the sentence document and the abjuration recited by Galileo were widely distributed and printed in books and newspapers. The pope wanted Galileo to serve as an object lesson for all Catholics and to demonstrate his bona fides as a staunch defender of the faith.[17] Two items from the sentence document are significant. First, it says that Galileo was subjected to “rigorous examination” (a.k.a. torture).[18] Second, that Galileo was to be imprisoned at the discretion of the Holy Office. This was understood to mean imprisoned at the Inquisition palace in Rome for an indefinite period of time.

If the sentence and abjuration had remained the only known documents, prison and torture administered by the Catholic Church would have remained the historical record.

However, letters written by Galileo and the Tuscan ambassador to Rome that became public in the late 18th century and the release of Inquisition records on the Galileo trial in the late 19th century corrected both of these myths. The Holy Office records demonstrate fairly conclusively that Galileo did not experience any physical torture. From the records themselves, there is no indication that any physical torture took place. It seems clear that it was threatened as a possibility but never actually occurred. Further, Galileo’s advanced age (69) would have precluded the possibility of torture.[19] As to Galileo’s imprisonment, from his arrival in Rome on February 13, 1633, until he left Rome on June 30th, only three days in June are unaccounted for where Galileo might have been held in prison. The rest of his time in Rome was spent at either the Tuscan embassy (the ambassador’s residence) or the prosecutor’s 6-room apartment. After spending 5 months at the home of the archbishop in Siena, Galileo returned to his own villa in December of 1633. He lived there until his death in 1642.

Turning from the outright myths, we will now address the complexities of Galileo’s conflict with the Church. These can be broken down into two categories. First, there are four factors, not generally understood from a modern perspective, which prevented the acceptance of heliocentrism. Second, there is a fundamental misconception about the nature of Galileo’s confrontation with Church.

The first problem that prevented widespread acceptance of heliocentrism was that the evidence available at the time was not sufficient. The modern view of heliocentrism is in light of what we know from science rather than what was known or could be proven during Galileo’s time. The arguments Galileo marshaled at the time supported the heliocentric view, but they were also compatible with the model put forward by Tycho Brahe.[20] Galileo was convinced that the hypothesis of heliocentrism was true, but there was not enough evidence to overturn over 300 years of adherence to Aristotelian cosmology.

Second, if the task of overturning Aristotle’s long-established cosmology was not herculean enough, Galileo’s undertaking was seemingly made impossible by his arrogant and impulsive demeanor. He was typically far more effective at making enemies than converts. It is assumed by many experts on Galileo’s trial that his fate was in some sense made certain by the various enemies he had created in the years leading up to 1633. David Lindberg concludes, “Galileo’s personality was a consistent and important factor; indeed, it seems clear that had he played his cards differently, with more attention to diplomacy, Galileo might have carried out a significant campaign on behalf of heliocentrism without condemnation.”[21]

A third impediment Galileo faced was the issue of epistemological authority. Where does knowledge of the cosmos come from? Is it available via human capacities of sense and reason? Is it only found in the scriptures? Is it some combination of the two? The prevailing view of both Catholic and Protestant theologians was that knowledge of the heavens was, in principle, unavailable to the natural sciences. The nature of the celestial realm was a divine knowledge that was inaccessible to the human intellect. Thus, the work of Copernicus and Ptolemy were merely models used to predict the locations of the planets, they were mathematical instruments and not intended as descriptions of reality. Galileo’s argument regarding heliocentrism went far beyond a debate about which model was more accurate. He believed that the heliocentric model of the universe was a description of reality. Thus, he defied conventional wisdom not only about the inaccessibility of the heavens; he also claimed that scientific observation could attain knowledge not available from the Bible.

Fourth, the argument for another epistemic authority collided, rather violently, with the Catholic Church’s stance, after the Reformation, on the interpretation of scripture. One of the decrees issued by the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) on the interpretation of scripture said in part:

The Council decrees that, in matters of faith and morals… no one, relying on his own judgment and distorting the Sacred Scriptures according to his own conceptions, shall dare to interpret them contrary to that sense which Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge their sense and meaning, has held and does hold, or even contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.[22]

Galileo’s two-books inspired reasoning was not without support within the Church, however, the Decree issued in 1616 that heliocentrism was “contrary to Scripture” was a clear and convincing indication that the Church was going defend its authority on matters related to cosmology.

Besides the obstacles that prevented acceptance of heliocentrism, the Galileo affair is treated simplistically as a conflict between scientific rationalism and religious doctrine. In response to this assertion, consider the following: every one of the participants in this debate were Christians who accepted the authority of the Bible, were theologically informed, and could make rational arguments for their respective views on cosmology. Further, within the Church itself, there were various opinions on hermeneutics, some agreed with Galileo, others did not.

From the domain of science, among the experts in astronomy, heliocentrism was not a widely held view. In short, rather than a confrontation between science and religion, it might be more accurate to describe the Galileo affair as a conflict within science and religion.[23]

In light of all this, what really happened? Simply put, it was a confrontation over the authority of the Church, not a scientific debate. Considering the Church’s stance on who may interpret scripture and Galileo’s temperament arguing for heliocentrism, a collision was inevitable. David Lindberg offers the following one sentence summary, “The trial was about disobedience and flagrant insubordination: the issues dealt with in the decree of 1616 were not reexamined; its conclusions were merely reasserted.”[24] The merits of Galileo’s arguments were insignificant when contrasted against centuries of consensus. The authority of Aristotle’s geocentric cosmology was not going to be discarded simply because the heliocentric view was plausible. The Church chose to stake its authority on that consensus and science suffered as a result.

Finally, let us consider what lessons can be drawn from the Galileo affair. When studying history, one must always be careful not to fall into the trap of anachronism, judging events in the past through the lens of the knowledge and sensibilities of the present. When considering the heliocentric debate in context, the evidence available, and the consensus of the time, it was reasonable to support the geocentric view. Another form of temporal snobbery we should avoid is condemning the Church for how it exercised its authority. Lindberg makes the following observation about that period:

“The early seventeenth century was a time of growing absolutism in Europe, in both religious and political terms. The freedom to express dangerous ideas was as unlikely to be defended in Protestant Geneva as in Catholic Rome. The idea that a stable society could be built on general principles of free speech was defended by nobody at the time, and police and judicial constraints were therefore inevitable realities.”[25]

Another important lesson is to eschew stark, simplistic contrasts regarding such broad categories “science” and “religion.” Such conflicts are rarely as simple as the contrast between truth and error; rather they are proxies for more subtle discussions. In this case, the issue of epistemological authority was at work. It was not merely a question of how things are known (mere epistemology) but what would be considered as a source of knowledge (authority). The Church sought to defend its interpretation of the Bible as true and correct in all “matters of faith and morals.” The mistake we perceive looking back is extending such control over matters of cosmology.

In our modern era, it is widely believed that we have developed to a stage where what is actually true or false dictates what is considered knowledge. We believe we are no longer at the mercy of any bureaucracy or human institution to gain knowledge. In the 17th century, the Bible was the dominant source of knowledge about reality. What we have seen in this paper is that Galileo was tried not for rejecting the Bible but for challenging the Church’s sole authority to interpret the Bible. Today, the Church (Protestant and Catholic) has been eclipsed by science as the preeminent (or perhaps only) source of knowledge for mankind. In reality, however, the Church and institutional science have merely switched roles over the last 350 years. Today, the fields of science that attempt to explain the origins and development of life are trapped in a dogmatic devotion to an idea imagined over 150 years ago. Despite an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary, neo-Darwinism is adhered to dogmatically as the only explanation for the development of life. As discussed in the film Expelled and numerous intelligent design blogs, advocating dangerous ideas that contradict the reigning consensus is punished, not with torture or imprisonment, rather the destruction of academic careers. Perhaps that is the strongest lesson we can learn from history; it always repeats itself.

Bibliography

Blackwell, Richard J. Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial: including the first English translation of Melchior Inchofer’s Tractatus syllepticus. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

Ferngren, Gary B., ed. Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. When Science and Christianity Meet. 1st ed. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Notes

[1] David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., When Science and Christianity Meet, 1st ed. (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2003), 33.

[2] Gary B. Ferngren, ed., Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 105. Galileo and the Catholic Church Ken Mann.

[3] Cosmology being the study of the nature or composition of the universe, the attempt to understand how the universe works.

[4] It is outside of the scope of this paper to address the “Copernican Principle” that supposedly demoted humanity from the center of the universe. In short, it would be accurate to say that in ancient Greek cosmology the Earth was the sump of the universe. This is amply, and metaphysically, expressed in Dante’s Inferno.

[5] Richard J Blackwell, Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial: including the first English translation of Melchior Inchofer’s Tractatus syllepticus (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 115.

[6] Lindberg and Numbers, When Science and Christianity Meet, 47.

[7] Ibid., 46.

[8] Ibid., 47.

[9] Ibid., 49.

[10] Ibid., 51.

[11] Ibid., 52.

[12] Blackwell, Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial, 4.

[13] It is contended by Blackwell (Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial, page 6) that the specific memo was fraudulent in some fashion. That it was derived from a letter Galileo received from Cardinal Bellarmini, but altered to make writing Dialogue a clear example of insubordination.

[14] Blackwell, Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial, 5.

[15] Ronald L. Numbers, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, 1st ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), Kindle Location 757–760.

[16] Blackwell, Behind the scenes at Galileo’s trial, 7.

[17] Numbers, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, Kindle Location 766.

[18] Ibid., Kindle Location 768–775.

[19] Ibid., Kindle Location 795–843.

[20] In Brahe’s model of the solar system, the earth was still at rest with the sun in motion around the earth, however, all the planets orbited the sun.

[21] Lindberg and Numbers, When Science and Christianity Meet, 57.

[22] Ibid., 45.

[23] Ibid., 58.

[24] Ibid., 54.

[25] Ibid., 59.

/by
Theistic Foundation of Science, part 1

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 1

, ,

By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 1

What are the foundations of science? This series of posts will look at five presuppositions of science. These presuppositions cannot be established by science: Rather, they must be in place before science can even begin. There are others, but this series will be confined to those firmly rooted in Christianity. After describing the presuppositions, we will look at the explanations or grounding that can be found in the worldviews of Christianity and naturalism.

Five Presuppositions

A Real World

First, we must assume the physical world is in fact real. It exists independent of our perceptions or theories about it. This is in contrast to any worldview or religion that denies the existence of reality. If you believed everything you experienced as physical reality was merely an illusion, or a dream in the mind of God, or the product of a malevolent artificial intelligence, why would you bother to study it?

An Orderly World

Supposing there exists a real world that exists outside of our mental lives, why should we expect it to be reliable? This assumption is thoroughly ingrained into science. Science discovers “laws of nature” that are fixed descriptions of reality that cannot change or be violated. Further, any science that looks at the past (e.g., astronomy, cosmology or geology) requires whatever principles or laws of nature we discover today must have been the same in the past.

A Continuing World

“The sun will come out tomorrow…” or so goes that optimistic song from the musical Annie.

Really? Why are we so certain that is the case? The inferences everyone makes about the future being like the past are sometimes referred to as the uniformity of nature. Science, perhaps more than any other discipline relies on the truth of such inferences. If an experiment that confirms some law or principle worked yesterday, it will also work in the future.

An Understandable World

Given all of the assumptions above, there are still a few pieces missing. Is it possible to understand the world? This actually entails two assumptions that work together to make science possible. First, do our senses and minds accurately perceive reality? How do we know that is the case? One could argue we can trust our senses because everyone seems to perceive the same phenomena. However, that would only demonstrate the uniformity of human experience, not the accuracy of our perceptions. A further and related assumption is whatever order or structure we assume exists in nature is accessible and comprehensible to the human mind.

An Expressible World

The fifth and final presupposition we will consider relates to the capacity of mathematics to

describe the world. The laws of nature were written in the language of mathematics. This sentiment is attributed to Galileo but is far more mysterious today than Galileo could have imagined. While this topic alone could encompass an entire paper, allow me to make an observation and offer an example to explain this assumption.

The type of mathematics in view here is not the geometry of Euclid or the algebra refined by the ancient Muslim world. Rather, we are referring to a rigorous system of thought, which is completely abstract. For example, we exist in a world with three physical dimensions. In contrast, mathematics can describe and manipulate conceptual systems that have almost innumerable dimensions. It is simultaneous beautiful to the practitioner and impenetrably complex to the uninitiated.

An example of applied mathematics, really an entire class of examples, is the numerous times that abstract mathematical concepts like symmetry have not only described experimental results but have even guided experimental research.

Why is such a correspondence possible? Arguably, the history of science is built upon the success and coherence of mathematics describing aspects of physical reality. This was an assumption from the beginning of science that continues to be foundational to the nature of science.

In the next post, we will consider how these presuppositions are explained or grounded within Christianity and the worldview of naturalism.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

/by
Scientists Like Stephen Hawking Believe in God?

Why Don’t Brilliant Scientists Like Stephen Hawking Believe in God?

,

by Natasha Crain

The famous physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking died this week. He was widely known as one of the most brilliant scientists of our time.

He was also widely known as an atheist.

In fact, many of the most famous scientists today are atheists.

This point has not escaped the attention of skeptics who often promote the idea that science and God are in conflict. As supporting evidence of that supposed conflict, skeptics often claim that virtually no scientists believe in God. More specifically, they back up their claim by citing a 1998 research study that showed 93 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences (an elite scientific organization in the United States) don’t believe in God. That finding caught the media’s attention, and it’s been continually quoted ever since as a known fact about the relationship of religious belief and scientific professions.

For example, atheist neuroscientist and popular author Sam Harris has written:

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God, yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

My purpose in this post isn’t to dissect Stephen Hawking’s personal religious beliefs. I only refer to him here because his death has once again raised this subject in popular discussion. My purpose is also not to dissect whether God and science conflict (I address this in multiple chapters of Talking with Your Kids about God). My purpose instead is to look at the question of whether it’s true that scientists don’t believe in God and the implications of the answer.

While we know that truth isn’t determined by vote, statistics get people’s attention—and young people especially trust “expert opinion”—so it’s well worth our time as parents to explore this question. When your kids ask why scientists don’t believe in God (because they’ve heard that’s a foregone conclusion), this is the discussion you need to have.

What Do Scientists Believe about God?

This is the subject of Chapter 12 in Talking with Your Kids about God. In that chapter, I explain in detail the five major research studies that have been conducted on this question (with all corresponding references). I’ll briefly summarize the findings here:

  • James Leuba Study (1914) with Edward Larson and Larry Whitham Follow-Up (1996-98): In 1914, it was found that 42 percent of scientists believed in a personal God. Among the scientists Leuba identified as “greater” (leading scientists), the number dropped to 28 percent. In 1996, Larson and Whitham attempted to replicate the study to see how the scientific developments of the twentieth century may have changed religious views amongst scientists. Their results were almost identical: 40 percent said they believed in a personal God. To replicate Leuba’s attempt to survey a subset of elite scientists, Larson and Whitham surveyed the National Academy of Sciences. In that group, belief in a personal God dropped to 7 percent. This is the specific study so often referenced to demonstrate that scientists don’t believe in God.
  • Religion among Academic Scientists Study (2005-8): Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund surveyed nearly 1700 scientists at 21 elite universities on their views of religion and science. She found that nearly 50 percent identified with a religious label. Importantly, Ecklund conducted statistical analyses to identify which factors were the most significant predictors of religious beliefs and behaviors. She found the strongest predictor of religious adherence to be childhood religiosity.In other words, those scientists raised with a religious affiliation were more likely to be religious as adults, and those raised without religious affiliation were more likely to be irreligious as adults. Ecklund concludes:

It is an assumption of much scholarly work that the religious beliefs of scientists are a function of their commitment to science. The findings presented here show that indeed academics in the natural and social sciences at elite research universities are less religious than many of those in the general public, at least according to traditional indicators of religiosity. Assuming, however, that becoming a scientist necessarily leads to loss of religious commitments is untenable when we take into account the differential selection of scientists from certain religious backgrounds. Our results indicate that people from certain backgrounds (the non-religious, for example) disproportionately self-select into scientific professions.

  • Pew Research Center Study (2009): Findings suggest that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power.
  • Religious Understandings of Science Study (2012-15): Ecklund conducted another study which included 574 scientists. In this survey, 36 percent of scientists said, “I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it,” versus 56 percent of the overall sample.

Let’s now consider the implications of these studies.

  1. It’s not true that 93 percent of scientists don’t believe in God.

This frequently quoted statistic refers to just one of several available studies, and there are two good reasons we shouldn’t consider it to be the representative statistic. First, it’s clear from the other research that this finding was an outlier—the other major studies on this subject suggest that 33 to 50 percent of scientists believe in a personal God, with the numbers even greater if we include those who believe more broadly in a higher power. Second, this study was conducted with a unique group—members of the National Academy of Sciences, an organization of about twenty-three hundred scientists who were elected to membership by other members. We could speculate all day about why these particular scientists are less likely to believe in a personal God, but the bottom line is that this organization is not representative of the broader scientific community. The most that can be said from this study is that 93 percent of scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences and responded to the survey don’t believe in a personal God. It’s highly inaccurate to suggest that 93 percent of all scientists are atheists because this is not a representative sample.

  1. Correlation does not equal causation.

In statistics, correlation simply means that two variables tend to move in the same direction—in this case, those who are scientists do tend to be less likely to believe in God. This doesn’t mean, however, that being a scientist necessarily causes someone not to believe in God. (Think of it this way: in some parts of the world, it rains almost every Easter, but that doesn’t mean Easter causes it to rain.) If we determined that becoming a scientist did cause people to drop their belief in God, we might have reason to think there is some inherent conflict between the practice of science and theism. But to the contrary, Ecklund’s Religion among Academic Scientists study showed that the irreligious are simply more likely to become scientists in the first place. The available research does not suggest that scientists become irreligious as a consequence of their occupation, though this is what skeptics typically assume. And if becoming irreligious is not a consequence of their occupation, then the whole topic of what scientists believe about God quickly becomes less relevant.

  1. What scientists believe about God ultimately has no bearing on whether God exists.

While we should explore this subject because it’s often raised as a challenge to the truth of Christianity, we must remember that, ultimately, beliefs aren’t true depending on who holds them. They are true because they correspond to reality. Scientists don’t have any more expertise on the reality of God’s existence than anyone else. 

For more background on these studies and a full conversation guide to use with your kids in discussing this subject, see Talking with Your Kids about God pages 125-132.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2DQI3M6

/by
Debating Atheists Biological Information

Can Science Explain Morality? No!

,

By Sean McDowell 

Human beings have a universal belief in right and wrong. As C.S. Lewis has observed, moral codes from cultures throughout world history vary over what specific behavior they consider moral, but there is an underlying agreement that objective moral values and duties exists.

As my father and I state in the introduction of the updated Evidence that Demands a Verdict, any adequate worldview must be able to explain this feature of reality.

Science and Morality

In his book The Moral Landscape, atheist Sam Harris claims science can provide a basis for objective morality. But in his recent book Stealing from God, my friend Frank Turek has written a piercing response:

“Science might be able to tell you if an action may hurt someone—like giving a man cyanide will kill him—but science can’t tell you whether or not you ought to hurt someone. Who said it’s wrong to hurt people? Sam Harris? Is his nature the standard of good?”[1]

In other words, science is a descriptive discipline, but morality is a prescriptive discipline. Science can describe how things work, but it can never tell us how we ought to behave.

Another popular explanation for morality is evolution.

Evolution and Morality

A few years ago, I participated in a public debate on the question of God and morality. My opponent argued that evolution explains morality better than God. But this explanation also fails too. Frank Beckwith and Greg Koukl offer two reasons:

First, evolution doesn’t explain what it’s meant to explain. It can only account for preprogrammed behavior, not moral choices. Moral choices, by their nature, are made by free agents. They are not determined by internal mechanics. Second, the Darwinist explanation reduces morality to mere descriptions of behavior. The morality that evolution needs to account for, however, entails much more than conduct. Minimally, it involves motive and intent as well. Both are nonphysical elements that can’t, even in principle, evolve in a Darwinian sense. Further, this assessment of morality, being descriptive only, ignores the most important moral question of all: Why should I be moral tomorrow? Evolution cannot answer that question. Morality dictates what future behavior ought to be. Darwinism can only attempt to describe why humans acted in a certain way in the past.[2]

Science and evolution simply cannot adequately explain the origin of right and wrong. They are both incapable of offering a robust account for why humans have moral obligations.

And yet theism offers a much more natural explanation. Think about it: Valuable human beings don’t come from purposeless, random processes in nature. Rather, they come from a personal, good God. God Himself is the source for right and wrong, and we ought to follow His guidance because He is the one who created us.

Even those who don’t believe in God, still believe in objective morality, because the moral law is written on their hearts (See Romans 2:14-16). Belief in objective morality is ultimately inescapable.

Science can explain many things. But it will never be able to adequately account for morality. To explain real right and wrong we need a source beyond human efforts – namely, God.

Reference:

[1] Frank Turek, Stealing from God (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2014), 100.

[2] Greg Koukl and Francis Beckwith, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 164.

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.

/by
Evolution True Happen Adam Eve

If Evolution Were True, What Would Happen To Adam And Eve?

,

By Evan Minton

If evolution were true, what would we Christians do about the Bible’s teachings on Adam and Eve, their relationship with sin’s entrance into the world, and the doctrine of original sin? As I’ve argued in several blog posts on this website, I believe Christianity and Evolution are compatible, and many of the objections lodged at Theistic Evolution simply don’t work. For example, when scientists talk about “random” mutations, they don’t mean the mutations are purposeless or chance events. They just mean that they’re unpredictable from a scientific point of view[1], and in any case even if they did mean they occurred by chance, this would at most, only be from a human perspective. Proverbs 16:33 says “The lot is cast, but it’s every decision is from the Lord.” So the argument that evolutionary creationism is incoherent because “it posts that God had a purpose in a random process” commits the fallacy of equivocation. God is sovereign even over what appears to be a chance event from our human point of view. Also, just because an event can be explained naturally by no means entails that God wasn’t involved. We believe (and The Bible teaches) that God orchestrated the crucifixion of Jesus, but He clearly worked through natural processes (i.e human free choices) to bring that about. Moreover, as Kirk MacGregor has argued, Molinism would provide a plausible mechanism for how God could guide evolution without intervening all the time.[2]

All that said, I think the trickiest area that Theistic Evolution a.k.a Evolutionary Creationism has to deal with is the biblical teachings on Adam and Eve. For those who reject macroevolution entirely, such as young earth and old earth creationists, Adam isn’t a problem. But what about those convinced of Evolutionary Creationism? What if you become convinced that the scientific evidence firmly establishes macro evolution? Some say that evolution doesn’t allow for a historical Adam at all, and therefore, would adopt an allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1-11 and say that biblical history starts in Genesis 12 (e.g Peter Enns). As I’ve written elsewhere, I think an allegorical view of Genesis is exegetically untenable. If nothing else, it makes Romans 5 unintelligible, and it renders the Genealogies in Luke and 1 Chronicles errant.[3]

While it’s true that an evolutionary process wouldn’t result in the genesis of one man and one woman, it doesn’t follow that Genesis 2-11 need to be entirely jettisoned as historical narrative. I’m convinced that there are least two biblically faithful options we could adopt if we thought the theory of Darwinian macro evolution were true. These would harmonize evolutionary biology with the biblical text. There are more than Christian evolutionists have proposed, but in this blog post, I’ll only survey the ones I think are the most tenable and have the least amount of problems.

1: The Strattonian Model 
In his blog post “Should Christians Oppose Evolution?” apologist and blogger Tim Stratton offers the following evolutionary creation model.

“1. God exists and possesses omniscient middle knowledge.

2. Big Bang (God chooses and actualizes this world and all that will happen in it)!

3.The universe unfolds…

4. Our solar system and earth come into existence.

5. Life evolves exactly the way God knew it would via his design in the finely-tuned initial conditions of the Big Bang.

6. Homo sapiens evolve as planned (not by accident).

7. God “breathes his image” (soul) into the Homo sapien making the first human in another act of special creation.

8. God does the same thing with a female Homo sapien and then “breathes his image” into her making the first female human.

9. God separates Adam and Eve from the other “soul-less” Homo sapiens (who are physically identical, but not spiritually), and places them in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life (as long as they eat of this tree they will never experience a physical death).

10- After the fall, Adam and Eve are expelled from the paradise of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life (now they will eventually die).

11. After Adam and Eve’s son, Cain, kills their other son, Abel, Cain is expelled from the world’s only “human tribe.” Cain is scared of other soul-less Homo sapiens who may kill him (Genesis 4:13-14).

12. Cain finds a physically identical but soul-less Homo sapien female as a wife (Genesis 4:17). The human soul is always passed on to offspring (avoids “bottle-necking” problems).

13. The human soul is a trait preferred via natural selection (as it allows for rationality).

14. Soon, all Homo sapiens have souls created in the “image of God.” Therefore, now all Homo sapiens are human (All humans are Homo sapiens, but not all Homo sapiens have been human).

15. This is exactly the way God planned and designed life to unfold. It all started with the Big Bang!” [4]

The most controversial and most important part of the model is 8-14. This is because it deals with the origin of humanity and the historicity of Adam and Eve. Stratton proposes that a few thousand homo sapiens evolved in the “March Of Progress” (step 6), and God elected to supernaturally intervene to endow one specific homo sapien with a spirit (i.e His image, entailing rationality, free will, and the knowledge of objective morality) (step 7). This homo sapien, He named Adam. Then God did the same thing with a female Homosapien (step 8), whom Adam named Eve when he first met her. Step 9 of Stratton’s model posits that the other homo sapiens were not supernaturally endowed with His image, and therefore remained spiritless like all of the other animals in the world. If you’re having a hard time imagining this, think of the unintelligent, mute humans in the movie “The Planet Of The Apes” (the original one with Charlton Heston). While George Taylor was an intelligent, rational being endowed with free will and a knowledge of right and wrong, the other homo sapiens he encountered had devolved into unintelligent animals, and the apes in the movie (who had now gained intelligence and rationality) treated them as such.

Steps 10-12 of Stratton’s model posits that once exiled from the Garden of Eden because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve had other children, and once Cain fled the scene of the crime, the wife he found was one of these spiritless homo sapiens, whom he was able to reproduce with since they were physically identical. Over time, the divine image bearing homo sapiens replaced the non-divine-image bearing once because natural selection preferred the former because greater intelligence provided for better survival.

Step 12 of Tim Stratton’s model is helpful since it posits that Adam’s offspring reproduced with spiritless homo sapiens. This would provide enough genetic diversity by the time of the Genesis flood (chapters 6-9) so that, although all people are inherited from Noah and his sons (who, in turn, were descended from Adam and Eve), we don’t run into the “But much population genetics!” objection. All people are descended from two humans, Adam and Eve, despite evolution bringing about a large number of homo sapiens.

When I first read about this model many months ago, I really liked it. One thing that bothered me about it is that it posits that Adam’s descendants mated with non-human (i.e non-imageo dei) homo sapiens. This seems to get dangerously close to saying beastiality occurred, because although they were biologically identical to the image bearing homo sapiens (Adam, Eve, Cain, Able,) they were animals on a spiritual level. But as I reflected on it, I became more comfortable with it. First, even if this was technically beastiality, is that really any worse than the traditional explanation that Adam’s children all had sex with each other? Also, many Christians are trichotomous in their view of the human soul. So, to say that God could have created a human body with a soul but not a spirit (i.e the divine image) shouldn’t bother them. Since the spirit is a separate faculty altogether, I don’t see why God couldn’t withhold this faculty from all except Adam and Eve and the children they bore. And even on dichotomism (the view I gravitate towards), the Spirit is a faculty of the soul even though it isn’t a separate faculty altogether. To be a truly human person, one is biologically homo sapiens and is endowed with a spirit-soul. Why couldn’t there homo sapiens endowed with souls that lacked the property? Creatures, that are human in biology only?

Tim Stratton, after presenting this model, went on to stress that he isn’t saying this model of creation is true. In fact, he wasn’t even arguing that evolution is true. Rather, he’s presenting this model as a possibility to show that macro evolution and Genesis 1-11 being historical accounts are not mutually exclusive affirmations. There is a logically possible way that both can be true. Therefore, if one is convinced of The Bible, one does not have to throw out evolution. If one is convinced of evolution, that is no cause to throw out The Bible. This model shows it’s logically possible for both Darwinian macro evolution to be true and for the historical accounts in Genesis to be true.

Evolution does nothing to undermine the inerrancy of The Bible and Christians have nothing to fear if they start thinking that Darwin’s theory has something to it.

In order to show evolution refutes Genesis (or vice versa), one would have to show that Tim Stratton’s model cannot even be possibly true.

2: The Evolutionary Ancestral Pair Model 
Some have argued that even presupposing the truth of Darwinian Macro Evolution, it is defensible to suppose that by the time homo sapiens evolved, something happened to render us a bottleneck of only two individuals. Individuals who evolved but are nevertheless the only remaining members of their kind. They would rebut geneticists who say that genetic evidence forces us to say that the bottleneck of ancient homo sapiens was no larger than 10,000, citing studies showing genetic diversity coming from one male animal and one female animal that exceeded the expectation of the scientists who put the two animals together.

Biochemist Fasale Rana writes of one study involving two sheep that were left together on a deserted island. He wrote:

“In 2007 a research team reported on the genetic diversity of wild mouflon sheep on one of the islands that are part of the Kerguelen sub-Antarctic archipelago. This group of sheep provided researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to study the effects of population dynamics on genetic diversity in small populations.

In 1957 a male and female yearling were placed on Haute Island (an island in the Kerguelen Archipelago). . . . By the beginning of the 1970s, the number had grown to 100 individuals and peaked at 700 sheep in 1977. Since that time the population has fluctuated in a cyclical manner between 250 and 700 members.

Given that the population began with only two individuals, . . .has experienced cyclical changes in the population size, and was isolated on an island, the researchers expected very low genetic diversity (measured as heterozygosity).” [5]

However, when the scientists measured this quantity directly for the sheep on Haute Island, they discovered that it exceeded the predictions made by the models by up to a factor of 4. The genetic diversity exceeded the expectations of the model four times over! They greatly underestimated what the genetic diversity of the actual population was going to be.

It’s important to point out that Fasale Rana accepts De Novo Creation rather than Evolutionary Creation. It’s also important to point out that these findings don’t disprove macroevolution nor do they prove all humanity actually came from one man and one woman. The findings do, however, make defensible the doctrine that all humanity descended from one man and one woman.

Perhaps we all descended from Adam because he was the only homo sapiens left by the time of homo sapiens’ evolution. Perhaps some catastrophe wiped out the other homo sapiens by this time. That would make it necessary for God to miraculously fashion another human from Adam’s side. Upon seeing Eve, Adam was relieved to find that there was another human being, whom he could mate with to restore the species (Genesis 2:20-23).

Or, perhaps Adam and Eve were one pair among several thousand at the dawn of humanity, and the reason why we’re all descendants of him is that we’re all descendants of Noah, and only Adam’s lineage survived the flood through Noah. If the population genetics argument is as faulty as Rana says, no objection could be raised at a bottlenecking during the time of Noah’s Ark.

However, if population genetics are reliable after all, there still wouldn’t be a problem. We could merely adopt Tim Stratton’s model, which, as I said, would entail that Noah and his sons had much genetic diversity within them, given that Adam’s children mated with spiritless homo sapiens. The flood could very well explain why these spiritless homo sapiens vanished from the Earth and only the imageo dei baring ones lived on.

Objection: But Genesis 2 says Adam was made from Dirt, and Eve from his side!

Some special creationists would object that although these models would keep Adam and Eve as historical individuals within an evolutionary framework, nevertheless, the biblical description of their creation precludes them being evolved from lower hominids. Genesis 2:7 says that God made Adam from the dust of the ground and Genesis 2:21-22 says Eve was fashioned from Adam’s side. If that doesn’t sound like de novo creation, I don’t know what does. Doesn’t this rule out human evolution entirely?

I don’t think so. First, while I’m open to these descriptions being literal, I’m also just as open-minded toward a non-literal reading of these passages. Just because a text is a historical narrative doesn’t mean every word within the narrative has to be taken literally. If that were the case, then when Jesus said “I am the gate” (John 10:9), we’d have to conclude he’s literally a gate with hinges. The gospels are clearly Greco-Roman biographies (a specific kind of the historical genre), yet Jesus frequently spoke in metaphorical language.

Old Testament Scholar John Walton proposes a metaphorical reading of the “dust from the ground” and “from Adam’s side” language in his book The Lost World Of Adam and Eve.

John Walton makes a strong case that the reference to dust is implying Adam’s mortality, given other places in Scripture where it speaks of humans being dust, with the context making it clear that the “dust” language is speaking of our mortality. Psalm 103:13-16 says “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” 

We are dust. We are mortal. Just like the grass and flowers.

The “teacher” of Ecclesiastes asserts the same thing, comparing us to animals:

“The fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.” – Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

It’s very plausible that the Genesis text is just saying God created Adam mortal, rather than literally scooping up a handful of dirt and miraculously transforming it into a person. It’s also possible that the language of Eve being created from His side is to convey the fact that women are ontologically equal to men.

“But wait!” you’ll object. “Doesn’t The Bible make it clear that Adam was created immortal? Romans 5 says death came into the world through his sin.” — For one thing, I think it’s plausible that Romans 5 is speaking of spiritual death, not physical (see my blog post “Why Pre-Fall Death Isn’t A Problem For Old Earth Creationism” to see why). But besides that, if Adam was created mortal, then the tree of life becomes superfluous. For if Adam was an inherently immortal being until he sinned, then why does there need to be a tree of life for him to eat from? And why did God feel the need to bar access from the tree of life? In Genesis 3:22, God told us the reason for barring access to the tree of life. “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”God barred access to the tree of life to prevent Adam and Eve from living forever. But if they were inherently immortal, such a tree wouldn’t be needed. It’s implied that unless Adam and Eve could have regular access to the tree of life, they would die, which entails they didn’t have immortality in and of themselves.

Moreover, we should also keep the principle of accommodation in mind. As I’ve argued in Part 3 of my series on biblical hermeneutics and in “Why Did God Write A Book?”, I don’t believe it was God’s intention to teach the original recipients of scripture scientific truths. God used the faulty science of their day to convey spiritual and theological truths. If that’s the case, then Genesis 2-3 shouldn’t even be treated as a text on anthropological origins even in principle.

Objection: Genesis Doesn’t Say Anything About Other Humans Coming Into Existence Simultaneously with Adam and Eve.
Some may object that any evolutionary creationist view that takes Genesis 1-11 as historical is untenable because Genesis 2-3 is silent on the creation of other humans. Since The Bible doesn’t say anything about these other thousands of humans at the dawn of our species, it is eisegesis to say that Adam and Eve were only one couple among thousands.

The problem with this objection is that it commits the Argument From Silence fallacy. True, The Bible doesn’t mention any other humans at the dawn of our species except for Adam and Eve, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. It’s possible that The Bible simply omits any omission of them because they aren’t important in the narrative. This is especially the case if Tim Stratton’s model is true. On Stratton’s model, these would be homo sapiens of an animalistic nature. They would be human in biology only, not baring the imago dei, which is the direct focus of Genesis 2; this image-bearing creature getting to know his Creator and getting the privilege to name all the animals (a privilege we still enjoy today when scientists discover a new species or star). Hugh Ross, who does not affirm evolutionary creationism, agrees that Genesis 2 is concerned with the spiritual origins of humanity whereas Genesis 1 is concerned about the physical origins.

It would also make sense of scripture to zero in on Adam if he is truly the man whom all humanity is descended from. On Stratton’s model, natural selection got rid of the non-spiritual humans since the intelligence associated with the imago dei contributed to survival value. Also, it could be the case that even if all homo sapiens had the imago dei, we could all still share Adam as our first parent since only his lineage survived the flood (i.e through Noah and his sons). This would also make Adam and Eve of special significance, and therefore it would make sence why the Genesis narrative focuses on them and ignores everyone else.

Moreover, if one affirms a “Federal Headship” view of Adam, it makes, even more, sense why Genesis would be silent about these other humans. Adam is their tribe leader and Eve is his wife. He’s the one responsible, on this view, for getting humanity into this sin situation, to begin with. Just as nations were held responsible for the sins of their kings, the rest of the human race were held accountable for what their chief leader (Adam) did. This is not a view I’ve examined in this post, partly because of length concerns, but also because I find problems with the inherited accountability brand of original sin, but this view is talked about in Loren Haarsma’s article linked below. I only bring it up because this model would also make sense of why Genesis only mentions one couple.

My philosophy has always been that when The Bible is silent on the matter, we’re free to speculate and/or look to other sources of knowledge to come to a conclusion. Genesis doesn’t really say that Adam and Eve were the only people God created at that time. This conclusion was inferred from (A) the lack of mention of other persons in the account and (B) the fact that Paul says every nation was built from one man (Acts 17:26), and (C) it has typically been held that the sinful nature was inherited from Adam a la Romans 5. But as we’ve seen, B is accounted for if only Adam’s lineage survived; either through natural selection or the Noah’s Ark flood. Thus Paul’s statement in Acts 17 would be true. As for C, it’s never explicitly stated that the sinful nature is inherited. This was an inference made by St. Augustine.

It could be that Adam spread sin to the entire human race in two ways; one through inheritance, and the other through bad influence. The latter would only apply to Adam’s contemporaries.

I would also like to point out that positing other humans created alongside Adam and Eve is not without historical or exegetical precedent. I remember reading a BioLogos post which mentioned that even before Darwin’s theory was even published, some theologians has speculated that perhaps God created other people alongside Adam and Eve. Their reason? To explain how human civilization sprung up so rapidly in Genesis 4 and to explain how Cain got his wife without having to invoke the incestuous explanation. I think this is significant, as these theologians weren’t trying to reconcile The Bible’s account of human origins with the evolutionary account (there wasn’t even an evolutionary account yet). They were trying to explain some anomalies that immediately followed the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Conclusion 
There are many more models of evolutionary creationism that preserve a historical Adam that I could have surveyed, but I find these two to be the most faithful to the biblical text and have the least amount of exegetical and scientific difficulties. For other EC views on the historical Adam, check out this blog post written by Loren Haarsma.

In conclusion: Evolution is not a threat to Christianity. It is not only is compatible with theism, it’s compatible with The Bible. True, evolution would alter the way we read the accounts of Adam and Eve’s formation, but it wouldn’t force us to deny their existence altogether. Therefore, even if evolution is true, we’re not forced to deny the historicity of The Bible’s opening chapters. If we are convinced the biblical authors intended for us to take Adam and Eve’s story as history and if we’re also convinced of macro evolution, these models are welcome alternatives to the allegorical approach.

Also, keep in mind that these two models are only put forth as possibilities, to try to show compatibility between the biblical account and evolution. As Tim Stratton recently said in a Facebook comment, it’s good to “have a model of Theistic Evolution in your ‘back pocket'” so you can immediately stop Darwin from being a roadblock to people coming to the cross, whether you personally think TE is true or not.

One thing is certain: God inspired two books: the book of The Bible and the book of nature. Since He is the author of both, neither can contradict one another. If there appears to be conflict, it’s because we human interpreters got it wrong somewhere. We either misread The Bible, or we misread the universe. Either the theologian got it wrong, or the scientists did. We must be careful to consider which.

Notes 
[1] Scientists and Christians Deborah and Loren Haarsma explain in their book Origins: Christian Perspectives On Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. They write:

 “When scientists say that something is random, they mean that the outcome is unpredictable. Consider the roll of a pair of dice. Scientists can calculate the probability that the roll will yield a five or an eleven, but they can’t predict what any particular roll will turn out to be. It’s not that some mysterious force is at work making the dice roll differently each time. Rather, each time the dice are rolled they follow exactly the same well-understood natural laws of gravity and motion. The dice land differently each time because of how they bounce and spin. If the dice are tossed even slightly differently from one time to the next, that slight difference is magnified by each bounce, and after several bounces the final outcome is completely changed. The system is scientifically random because the outcome is unpredictable.” 

[2] See Kirk MacGregor’s paper “The Impossibility Of Evolution Apart From A God With Middle Knowledge”. I also talk about this in my own words in my blog post “Could God Not Use Evolution Because It’s A Random Process” and “5 Reasons Why I’m Open To Theistic Evolution”. 

[3] See my blog post “Why I Don’t Accept The Allegorical View Of Genesis”. 

[4] Tim Stratton, “Should Christians Oppose Evolution?”, Free Thinking Ministries, October 18th, 2016, http://freethinkingministries.com/should-christians-oppose-evolution/

[5] Fazale Rana, “Were They Real? The Scientific Case for Adam and Eve,” Reasons To Believe, October 1, 2010. See http://www.reasons.org/articles/were-they-real-the-scientific-case-for-adam-and-eve  

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2EEZArA

/by
Hardware Lige Argument God

The “Hardware” of Life Argument

,
Play

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS

By Steve Williams 

“I can see the fingerprints of God when I look at you I can see the fingerprints of God and I know its true you’re a masterpiece that all creation quietly applauds and you’re covered with the fingerprints of God”

~from Fingerprints of God, by Stephen Curtis Chapman

The common scientific view of the “hardware of life” (that is, the physical components of living systems) is, as Biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986).

Unfortunately, Dawkins (like many others in his field) has succumbed to a logically fallacious assumption that a supernatural explanation is not within the “pool of live options” to explain this appearance of design. Why not? Well, to summarize the common opinions of materialists like Dawkins, it’s “not science”. But what is “Science”?

Louis Pasteur once said “Religions, philosophies, atheism, materialism, or its opposite–none of these is relevant to the matter…I might even add that, scientifically speaking, I am indifferent to them all. The question is purely one of fact”. In other words, science should be “the un-biased search for truth” without philosophical preconceptions. That definition was always the ancient understanding of the term.

Since the so-called “Enlightenment” that swept through Europe in the 1700’s, and especially since the proposal of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in 1859, however, intellectual activists have been trying to add the qualifying concept of “within naturalistic explanations” to the definition. What that means, in effect, is the addition of a bias to the search for truth.

This bias first “got its legs” from the writings of an apparently bitter atheistic Scottish philosopher named David Hume in the 1700’s. Hume proposed a set of reasons why the supernatural should be ruled be ruled out of consideration as an explanatory mechanism. Not long afterwards, these reasons were shown to be fallacious (we’ll examine this in a later chapter), but at the time, it was as if Europe was eager to unfetter itself from religion, and atheism blossomed somewhat throughout the continent.

Most modern philosophers (even agnostic ones) find Hume’s arguments to be almost laughably illogical, but many atheists unknowingly cite him today as if he was “the Christ” of their belief system. For a full-length treatment of this subject, see John Earman’s book Hume’s Abject Failure, but suffice it to say for the moment that modern humankind has nowhere near a broad enough scope of reality to eliminate the possibility of the supernatural. To the contrary, there are many things in our experience that defy naturalistic explanations.

The philosophical name of the most common scientific form of atheism is “Materialism”, and it claims that not only is there no God, but that there is nothing even like God in the universe. Although it has taken root within the Biological sciences, it has done so to a much lesser extent within Astronomy, Philosophy, and Physics. Many Americans would probably be surprised to know that polls show that the percentage of PhD’ed scientists overall who identify themselves as Christians and who go to church is roughly the same as the percentage in the population at large. Unfortunately, the small minority who identify themselves as atheists is much louder and more aggressive though, so they exert a disproportionate influence on the media, academic standards committees and the like.

Luckily for all who respect unbiased inquiry, many Philosophers who are experts in logic by definition (logic being a subset of Philosophy), have objected vociferously, especially in the past 40 years, to this effort, and have recognized that the scientific method is at stake. As I wrote before, it seems that the key element that catalyzed this mindset since the late 1800’s is Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Biologists became so enamored with it over the years that they invested heavily in deepening and entrenching their paradigms based on that assumption, and are not willing to consider that major problems have developed within it. Pride in Biology, and a reluctance to admit being wrong might be a factor. One has to wonder if there are spiritual and carnal reasons that admitting the mere possibility of the existence of the metaphysical is so daunting to some. Since Darwinian Evolution seems to be the lynchpin of this type of thinking, let’s take a hard look at it.

The concept of life arising from non-life by random chance is called “abiogenesis”. This concept is the “creation story” of Darwinian Evolution. But what are the odds of the building blocks of life coming together by random chance in a way to provide even the possibility of life? Harold Morowitz, an agnostic Yale University physicist, created mathematical models by imagining broths of living bacteria that were superheated until all the complex chemicals were broken down into basic building blocks. After cooling the mixtures, Morowitz used physics calculations to conclude that the odds of a single bacterium reassembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. (1) Wow! How can we grasp such a large statistic? Well, it’s more likely that one would win the state lottery every week for a million years by purchasing just one ticket each week!

In response to the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro, author of Origins – A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:

The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle. (2)

Sir Frederick Hoyle compared the probability of life arising by chance to lining up 1050 (ten with fifty zeros after it) blind people, giving each one a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, and finding that they all solve the cube at the same moment!

Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument

  1. According to a leading Darwinist, the odds of component parts in close proximity assembling into a single-celled creature are 1 in 10100,000,000,000.
  2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
  3. Therefore, the spontaneous generation of life is mathematically impossible.

Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated in 1982:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. (3)

Crick’s assessment of the hopelessness of the spontaneous generation of life on earth led him to subsequently postulate a theory called “Directed Panspermia”, which held that space aliens “seeded” life on earth. As Philip Johnson observed, “When a scientist of Crick’s caliber feels he has to invoke undetectable spaceman, it is time to consider whether the field of prebiological evolution has come to a dead end.” (4)

Ever since the discovery of DNA in 1953, the Darwinian Theory of Evolution has faced increasing challenges yearly as more and more evidence for the complexity of the cell has been discovered. In 1996, Dr. Michael Behe (professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University) released a book entitled “Darwins’ Black Box”, which detailed an argument against Darwinian Evolution known as the “irreducible complexity” of biological structures and systems. In the 11 years since the publication of the book, it has been attacked from every angle by atheistic scientists, yet its central thesis has only gained strength, as the debate has exposed the weakness of Darwinian counter-arguments, and the naturalistic (atheistic) philosophical biases that lurk behind them.

Have you ever wondered if Charles Darwin himself would still believe in Darwinian Evolution (or macro-evolution) if he knew all of the evidence that has accumulated for and against it up to this time? Well, there is an interesting quote in which Darwin stated his own minimum standard for assessing whether or not his theory would withstand the tests of time:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. (5)

In Darwin’s day, it was assumed that cells were very simple. In the last half of the 20th century, however, it has come to light that inside each living cell are vastly complex molecular machines made up of various protein parts. Organs, which are made up of these complex cells, have also been shown to be much more complex than previously believed.

The blueprints for assembling the protein parts for cells and organs in correct timing and order are encoded into our DNA, which is similar to binary computer code, although it is quaternary (having 4 letters instead of 2). The density of the information encoded into DNA staggers the imagination; there is enough information-storing space in a half-teaspoon of DNA to store all of the assembly instructions for every creature ever made, and room left over to include every book ever written!

In addition to the incredible information-storing capacity in DNA, there are machines and systems in biology which vastly exceed mankind’s creative capacity in terms of their complexity. For example, the blood-clotting mechanism requires a sequence of 20 different proteins (each of which has an average chance of 1 in 8.03 x 10 to the 59th power of forming by random chance!) triggering one another like dominoes falling in order, until a fibrin mesh scaffolding is formed for the clot itself.

If you subtract any one single protein (regardless of where in the sequence of 20), this scaffolding fails to form, and no blood clot is possible. Without clotting, any creature with a circulatory system would bleed to death from a tiny wound, similarly to what happens to hemophiliacs.

Now think about how this compares to Darwin’s criterion for his own theory. Macro-evolution requires a mutation for every step, each of which needs to confer an advantage in surviving or creating offspring to be retained by natural selection. Even if we grant the creation of proteins by random chance (which is extremely unlikely), at steps 1, 2 ,3, 4, etc. on up to and through step 19, there is no advantage conferred toward the production of a blood clot until step 20 is completed! If you reduce the complexity by any single component (regardless of where in the sequence the single component is), the system doesn’t work, and has no reason to be retained by natural selection. This is Irreducible Complexity.

Let’s look at another example. The Bacterial Flagellum is a tail-like protein propeller attached to one end of a bacterium that propels the organism through its environment via rapid rotations (like a miniature outboard motor driving a whip in circular motion). It has components that are remarkably similar to a man-made outboard motor, such as a rotor, a U-joint, a stator, a driveshaft, a propeller, bushings, and O-rings.

There are at least 40 different protein parts required for the assembly of a flagellum. Many of the flagellar proteins control the construction process, switching the building phases on and off with chemical triggers at just the right times, and setting up construction in the proper sequence. It is an engineering marvel. If you deduct 1% of the parts, you don’t have a 99% functional bacterial flagellum; it becomes completely dysfunctional, and you have nothing but a hindrance (probably fatal) to any organism attached to it. The following picture hints at its complexity…

http://freethinkingministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/

Consider the fact that it is conservatively calculated that the odds of this incredible structure forming by random chance is 1 in 10 to the 1170th power. (6)  According to probability theorists, anything with a chance lower than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible, so it doesn’t matter how much time you give it—it simply won’t occur by chance alone.

Just recently, a vastly more complex gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle was discovered. Here is an piece on it from www.evolutionnews.org:

Souped-Up Hyperdrive Flagellum Discovered

Evolution News & Views December 3, 2012 5:05 AM

Get a load of this — a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli.

If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1, a marine bacterium described by Japanese researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Howard Berg, Harvard’s mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella.

Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath…. the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.

To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action.

Electron micrographs included in the paper show that the model is not unrealistic. These flagella really are tightly packed in a sheath, suggesting that the bundle acts like a gear-driven hyperdrive.

Here we have used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the sheathed flagella. The seven filaments are enveloped with 24 fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an intertwined hexagonal array similar to the thick and thin filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite architecture strongly suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of high-speed rotation of individual flagella in the tight bundle within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s. (Emphasis added.)

At microbial level, that’s more than 10 body lengths per second. The authors were clearly excited by this engine, sounding like young men checking out high-performance cars, talking thrust, gear ratios and torque.

MO-1 is a magnetotactic bacterium capable of orienting its cell body along the geomagnetic field lines by using magnetosomes. The MO-1 cell has a flagellar apparatus with two lophotrichous [containing numerous flagella in] bundles. In contrast to peritrichously [flagella all over the cell] flagellated bacteria, MO-1 cells swim constantly in a helical trajectory toward magnetic north, and the trajectory changes from right-handed to left-handed without changes in velocity or direction. The cells are able to swim as fast as 300 μm/s, which is nearly 10-fold faster than E. coli and Salmonella. Although the flagella of the other types of bacteria usually work individually or by forming a loose bundle to produce thrust, the flagellar apparatus of MO-1 is a tight bundle of seven flagella enveloped in a sheath made of glycoproteins. This unique architecture appears to be essential for the smooth and high-speed swimming of MO-1.

They can’t see actual gears, of course, but physics demands that the mechanism of rotation must have something like it:

We hypothesize that, whereas each of the seven flagella has its torque-generating motor, the 24 fibrils counter rotate between the flagellar filaments to minimize the friction that would be generated if the flagella were directly packed together in a tight bundle. A schematic diagram representing our hypothesis is presented in Fig. 6. The flagella are represented as large brown gears and the fibrils are represented as small blue-green gears. The flagella and fibrils rotate counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively, as indicated by the arrows, to minimize friction (Movie S1). Although there is no direct evidence that the fibrils can rotate freely in the opposite direction as the flagellar filaments with which they are in direct contact, we think this is the simplest interpretation to explain the superior function afforded by the complex architecture of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus.

Considering the very tight packing of the 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that are in direct physical contact within the sheath, there appears to be no other way for the flagella to rotate at high speed without the counter rotation of the intervening fibrils. Although the fibrils and the surrounding sheath are in direct contact, the friction between them would be small because of the stocking-like flexibility of the sheath. This design must be playing an essential role in the fast, smooth rotation of the flagellar apparatus that allows the rapid swimming of MO-1.

With powerful evidence of design like this, did the researchers become converts to intelligent design? We can’t know, but would PNAS have printed such a paper without an obligatory tribute to unguided materialistic evolution? Evolution is not mentioned until the last paragraph:

Taken together, these features of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus represent an advanced level of evolution of a motility apparatus. It is also intriguing that the same pattern of an intertwined hexagonal array in two evolutionary distant systems: the basal bodies of flagella and fibrils of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus, and the thick and thin filaments in vertebrate skeletal muscle. Similar architectures of filamentous structures presumably evolved independently in prokaryotes and eukaryotes to fulfill the requirements for two very distinct mechanisms to generate motion: counter rotation and axial sliding.

OK, so the Darwinists got their offering, but it leaves a bad aftertaste: now, they have to believe that advanced mechanisms for generating motion evolved not just once, but twice — completely independent of each other. Thanks a lot, guys. Wait till the intelligent-design movement hears about this.

Oops, too late.

(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html).

Going back to our previous subject, what if we just ignored the previously mentioned problems of forming the first cell, and assume that we’re starting the Darwinian process from the bacterial level and advancing to the human level? On page 153 of the book Who Was Adam?, Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross cite one of the world’s most prominent evolutionists, Dr. Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine, as calculating the minimal odds of human beings evolving from the bacterial level  to be 1 in 10 to the 1 millionth power. Three physicists, John Barrow, Brandon Carter and Frank Tipler, did roughly the same calculation but included some important factors that Ayala overlooked, and came up with the number 1 in 10 to the 24 millionth power. Again, according to probability theorists, any event with lower odds than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible. Therefore unguided Darwinian evolution is mathematically impossible!

Reduced to a propositional argument, it might go like this:

Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument

  1. According to leading Darwinists, odds of humans evolving from a single-celled creature are 1 in 1024,000,000.
  2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
  3. Therefore, Darwinian evolution of human beings is mathematically impossible.

Now, these two sets of odds (totaling to 1 in 10100,024,000,000) seem overwhelming to say the least; why would scientists insist that creations like these could have come about by evolution? To re-iterate, it seems that biological science has become dominated by atheistic philosophers. Science is “a search for truth”, but the oligarchy in control in this day and age is trying to change that to “a search for truth by naturalistic (atheistic) means”. To them, the idea of God is unacceptable, so science cannot consider even the possibility that God created this universe and all that is in it.

Take a look at the following quote by prominent Darwinist Richard Lewontin, and consider whether his viewpoint is logically sound. Unfortunately, this quote seems to be representative of how many Darwinists think, and how they want everyone else to think:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. 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. 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 absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (7)

One wonders why such a concerted effort is made to deny the metaphysical into the pool of live options. Perhaps the following quote by another prominent Darwinist named Aldous Huxley provides some insight:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption … For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.  The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (8)

Now, just for fun, look at the following Bible passage, and think about how it relates to the quotes above:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. –Romans 1:20-22.

Perhaps this is a good place to ponder a quote from Nobel-Prize winning organic chemist Christian de Duve:

If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one… Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe. (9)

God has indeed left His signature in nature in its irreducible complexity and fine-tuning. Darwinism has failed repeatedly when tested as an explanation for the existence of life. Hundreds of scientists have recognized this and have signed a document called the “Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/) to express their disagreement with philosophical naturalism dominating science through Darwinism. We simply need to “have eyes to see, and ears to hear”, and stop listening to atheistic philosophers disguised as scientists, who try to insist that the supernatural or metaphysical is off-limits for science. “Reasonable faith” is going in the same direction to which the evidence is pointing. The teachings of the Bible, understood properly, merge perfectly with science.

 

This article is chapter 3 From What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t know (But Should), by Steve Williams

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Ch6MsY

/by