Some may recognise my comment reply (above) is based on dialogue from a Hollywood movie about Men who went to Mars.
Now If the Earth looked *like Mars*… just a bleak desert with rocks strewn all over … a world like that I could believe could be explicable by the blind forces of Physics and the process of Time… *Yet Look at our Earth!!!* You have to be ideologically brainwashed to think *Our Earth* is explicable in those terms!
There’s a glaring fundamental difference between Earth and all the other bodies we see in Space!
Earth in fact is proof enough of the existence of God Almighty. It stands as a refutation of Atheist Materialism.
There are no Values on Mars… no meaning… no purpose… no truth… no love…. how different is Earth!
Yet Atheists try to sterilize Earth of all these and render our lives as empty and meaningless as Mars.
Like the miracle of life Atheists have to say Truth, Love and Justice are just illusory constructs that have no objective validity… because that is what is at the heart of atheism… a black emptiness… a void.
Further thoughts that continue on from Part 1 here.
Science is no escape from the human condition… that gospel purported by many…is false.
Though we may increase in mastery over nature…certainty will always escape us… thus science is a pragmatic pursuit, not a source of absolute knowledge.
With every new answer comes new questions.
We will always rely on axioms and presuppositions… we cannot escape the need for faith… which underpins what we think we know… even the things we are most sure about….
I guess my original post could have been called… ‘Beware of Scientism’.
History shows you can ‘prove’ almost anything by fiddling with numbers.
It must be understood that not even math escapes the human condition… I know many people will be loosing their lunch over my impertinence… yet with time I hope to explain the many ways math can be corrupted.
When reading about various types of weird ‘inferred postulates’ like Dark Matter, The Big Bang, etc we always find two camps of thought.
Simpletons who think the said phenomena are rock solid facts and proceed to treat them as such in all their forthcoming activities… and others who have the intellectual depth and integrity to admit these cherished theories are full of holes… and proceed with caution in any further speculations that could follow.
It depends on which article you read as to whether or not you are encouraged to accept such phenomena are real … or to remain skeptical.
It is particularly scary when the political class pick up on certain theories… because they suit their political agendas… and begin to compel whole populations into accepting them as indisputable… and then using usurpatious powers proceed to embed them in Laws and institutions… Pouring Tax billions into the pockets of scientists who just so happen to produce politically correct ‘findings’… while critics are deplatformed and thrown out of Seats of learning… and making it nearly a crime to question ‘the official line’.
Science has died.
The Balance has been skewed.
What we are left with is Pure Pseudo science… very much like the Social Darwinism of the Nazis which Sub-humanised the Jews.
What is funny is that so many people naively assume such shocking corruption is not going on today!
The truth is there are many factors that can corrupt science… Money and political agendas being two biggies… and anywhere the State is pouring money into ‘research’… it becomes highly dubious.
Another funny yet erroneous stereotype that was born of the Materialist religion of ‘Scientism’ is the image of Doctors and scientists in white lab coats with thick reading glasses… and expressionless demeanor.
The psychological impact of this upon gullible minds is the impression that scientists are not only way smarter than other mortals… but esp that they embody a ‘Spock-like’ power of Objectivity… that all their utterances are devoid of personal prejudices… all this is designed to get the gullible to trust them.
Their white overcoats serve the very same purpose as the priestly gab of any religious cult!
The truth is the exact opposite.
You would struggle to find in any other area of life a more opinionated, conceited, biased, Vain, Greedy, unprincipled, and obstinate bunch of human beings than you find in science departments!
Pseudo-science are myths dressed up in Scientific Gab/ jargon.
Is it any wonder why there are so many pseudo-scientific ideas that hold sway among the masses???
When false postulates and theories are accepted as fact whole magnificent edifices are constructed upon these corrupt foundations.
Entire lifetimes, and reputations, and industries can be wasted building ‘White Elephants’… and strong vested interests assemble to carry on the lies… because the longer the sham continues… the bigger the mess when it topples… and people fear facing the ugly truth… and paying the price of correction.
The lies become so embedded that it seems like madness to question them…. Cognitive dissonance becomes the norm… an incapacity to acknowledge uncomfortable novel truths.
Progress has always had to battle with entrenched Mass-held delusions. What is funny/sad is so many Moderns only apply this precept in their warped conception that Science has always struggled against religion… a very inaccurate and simplistic apprehension of history… utterly failing to guard themselves against all the other personal bents that can prevent them from grasping new and challenging evidences.
esp their own modern post-Christian quazi-religious bents.
I ask people if they dare to entertain any controversial propositions that are at variance with the mainstream?
For it is a signal of an independent mind to walk it’s own path and have the courage to diverge at certain points from the herd.
The herd has been trained to pour derision and hate upon anyone who steps out of line and does not submit to the ‘orthodoxy’ of their times.
It may amaze people that I am talking about *The scientific community*… not some religious sect.
Understand that the scientific community is as prone to Backwards, erroneous dogma as any other Human endeavor is.
What is essential then is to write a code of ethics of which the scientific method is just one aspect of what entails the correct mental processes that are conducive to the scientific enterprise.
. to guard ourselves from slipping into a mire of our own subjectivity… eg with the interpretation of evidence.
Ultimately all we can do is acknowledge the human factor will always be lurking about… like a madman.
Some people may live this way… yet I don’t agree with it.
It is a Machiavellian tenet that say’s because other people are prone to breaking promises, that this absolves you from keeping yours.
The question is what sort of person do you wish to be?
I believe we should keep our word even to people who are not trustworthy… So we should watch what we agree to do and with whom.
This is because the sort of person we chose to be, and how we conduct ourselves ought not to be dependent on the character and conduct of others… but on our own integrity… we ought to walk the higher path even when most others are taking the lower road.
This way we remain masters of ourselves… consciously and purposefully acting according to our values… not living sympathetically in reaction to the rest of the world… and it’s lack of values.
In this way when you look in the mirror you will see a good man staring back at you… a champion of what is right.
Not living like a victim excusing yourself for being a person of Bad faith.
.. and your reputation as a Solid Guy (or Gal) … a person of integrity will precede you… and doors will open for you because of your own conduct…
This is the Old School virtue that ‘a mans word is his bond’
Thus it ought to be only in extreme circumstances that we should ever even consider breaking an agreement or betraying trust might possibly be an acceptable proposition, and the righteous path.
The Bible warns against making ‘oaths to God’ because most of us being pathetically weak mortals who have so little command of our own passions let alone any control of exterior happenstances we will too often break our vows.
Better not to have sworn to anything in the first place!
Knowing our own weaknesses therefore also ought to make us wary of making promises to people when there is any likelihood we may not be able to honor them.
Take care what you commit yourself to undertake and be sure to make any conditional caveats understood before any deal is shaken upon.
Note: The following commentary is not written to attack the Transgender Community but to discuss matters of Freedom and rights. I am critical about how the Liberal left movement is behaving and how they have corrupted the government, and Learning institutions, this is not an attack on the trans people themselves and their right to exist in Liberty…
I seek to define the limit to which everyone’s free choices and beliefs must be catered for by others… and the same rules apply to all… there can be no contravention of the principle of Adult volitional consent in matters of a sexual nature.
This person is Unhinged….. They seriously thinks that straight people must go along with their personal fantasy… yet we all know from where all these corrupt ideas emanate.
The Liberal delusional philosophy is the very destruction of freedom and rights!
They seek to abdicate other peoples Volitional Consent and *force themselves upon others *!
This is how twisted this Liberal Rubbish has become!
Their Ideas turn out to be a Rape Culture in Drag!
*Freedom* and rights proper on the other hand would say you can be Trans if you like, and you can engage in *consensual sexual activities* with willing others without threat of legal persecution… but you cant *force* others into any sort of sexual activity… you have no more right to *Demand* sex than anyone else!
Rights *dont* impose obligations on others to abdicate their own volition.
Socialist politics of Course is all about *legal force* and that is why it is Totalitarian and anti individual liberty.
If only Trans people were not under the spell of Whacko Liberalism but instead understood true freedom and Rights!
The WOKE SJW delusions are in fact working to sow malice towards them from everyone else… including many feminists because of the militancy with which they have been programmed to impose themselves upon others by *unreasonable demands* like this… I mean *no other sexual demographic* Demands… porno companies give them work… eg One legged old men dont say “Its a hate crime that porno companies wont employ us”…. etc etc… because thats not how freedom or rights work!
Western societies ought to be *very concerned* alarmed that this sort of Anti-freedom rubbish is now being investigated as a possible ‘hate crime’ by the Police!
This is how far the liberal cancer has embedded itself in the Engines of the State… soon It will become a hate crime to even criticize this political madness.
We have already reached a point whereby anyone who wants to do a political analysis or commentary (like mine) that dares to critisise the Woke Trans Agenda risks being Banned from Social Media so that this ‘Threat’ in itself works to suppress free speech and open dialogue… the accusation of ‘Transphobia’ being the operative character assassination, when in reality Libertarians like myself are *not at all* hateful of Transgender people or seeking to ‘oppress them’ in any way… we are simply showing how the Liberal left has overstepped the mark and are now oppressing *heterosexuals*, and Christians, and Feminists, and even Lesbian feminists (who dont believe Transgender Men should be allowed to compete against Natural woman in sports!)
When will this madness end????
The Woke Civil War.
A Kiwi example of how the Transgender movement is now Savaging the feminists who helped them get established is seen in the saga of Ex NZ Herald writer Rachel Stewart who quit the herald after they spineless declined to publish an article she wrote about how the transgender movement was now turning against feminism….
Excerpt:
It seems far-fetched that the mere hiring of a Massey University venue by a feminist organisation could cause so much indignation and rage, but these are not typical times.
A bunch of females getting together within a public space to discuss the issues currently affecting them is far from new, and very far from radical.
Yet, the idea that ‘Feminism 2020’ would dare to congregate at a venue on Massey’s Wellington campus saw a number of students stage a sit-in, which culminated in the handing over of a petition calling on the university to cancel the event.
What is so threatening about women coming together and talking? According to the protestors and petitioners, the organisers of the event – Speak Up for Women – are essentially devil incarnates.
Petition organiser Charlie Myer said the university shouldn’t be “facilitating this kind of discussion”. Feminism 2020 “could have [the event] anywhere” but it wasn’t appropriate for them to hold it at a university, which was supposed to support transgender students.”
Last time I looked universities were required to respect and uphold the quaint, old-fashioned tenet of free speech too. And Massey has, thus far, held out against the pressure of every thrown guilt trip known to mankind. You know, we don’t feel “safe”.
Myer also disputed the group was feminist and simply meeting to discuss women’s issues. “If your feminism isn’t intersectional, it isn’t feminism.”
My advice to parents is to beware Massey University!
There are warped Academics there and any vulnerable young people will be exposed to heavy Transgender indoctrination…. Be warned.
It is in such places that vulnerable youth are conditioned to become transgender under the sway of such movements… only later to regret having transitioned… now it is being reported that *thousands* of Trans Youth now are full of regret and are seeking help to *transition back* to the sex of their nativity…. and we can be certian that a great deal of these youths were indoctrinated and conditioned into becoming transgender by ideologically twisted academics in Universities where these contemptible SJW Liberals congregate… spreading their Toxic and perverse ideas about sexuality.
The Bible says that all human beings have an innate knowledge of ‘Good and Evil’… ie an innate sense of right and wrong… ie a sense of morality… and this atheist is validating this Biblical claim.
Yet everything he has to say about this innate moral knowledge is just his own rationalisation that he is forced to extrapolate from his atheist premises… yet to achieve his end he must deceive the gullible that *all things of value* can be ‘conjured up’… or ‘synthesized from’… (to use ‘science-y terms’ more acceptable to his audience)… from valueless meaningless materials… that is what he claims he can do…
He *must frame his argument in naturalistic terms… not because they are a valid basis for morals and values… but because they are the only materials he is permitted to use because of his presuppositions about Godlessness.
He cannot speak of ‘ultimate higher truths. but must reduce morality to pragmatic ‘here and now’ goals.
He automatically assumes *well being* is something morally good, and that *causing pain* is morally wrong… and give no foundation for this than our own abhorrence at gratuitous cruelty (he plays upon our feelings).
He peddles Ayn Rand’s ‘pragmatism’ about ‘human flourishing’ as being ‘Ideal’… and assumes that whatever tends towards ‘human flourishing’ … progressing along his imaginary ‘continuum away from poverty and death’… must be ‘moral’…. yet all this cherry picking is no more valid than Lenin’s claims that the Party state is the highest authority in the Universe and that pragmatically speaking whatever tends to the benefit of the Party States domination of the world… those actions are deemed to be ‘moral’ (which includes justification for pogroms, assignations, terrorism, etc )… and of course the Communist too appeals to pragmatism, as justifiable because it aims at the liberation of humanity … ie it’s ideal is ‘human flourishing’ too!
Who would argue against such high ideals???
He thinks that by making out that some ‘religion’ is patently abhorrent
(the example of the Father who chooses to kill his daughter because she was raped) that this is evidence that religion is *immoral*… yet in truth he simply validates the scriptures yet again… that false religion is evil.
As for talking about ‘Pandora’s box’ …technology… and about the dire need for ethics to keep it from Evil… he fails yet again, as Einstein himself said for this very reason that *moral teachers* like Jesus Christ are more important than physicists…
He Dishonestly omits most of his deepest opinions and evaluations.
What he keeps hidden is the truth!
He *really* believes humanity is nothing more than a purposeless accident, and that our lives have zero ultimate value… and that the universe will end in Death… and all Good will and evil intent will die along with it and prove to be equally pointless distinctions.
He doesn’t confess that he does not even believe we are freewill moral agents!
He actually believes we are slaves of materialist determinism chained to physical causation leading right back to the first milliseconds of the Big bang!
He utterly fails to fulfill his original claim that he would demonstrate that Science has something to say about morality.
P.S Ted Bundy was an atheist when he did his crimes and said that his atheism was a primary factor in his actions as he chose to ‘liberate himself’ by abandon all morality.
Somehow he grew a conscience and changed his views…
He would convert to Christianity before he was executed.
“Has anyone provided proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.”
David Berlinski
“If somebody says something to me particularly stupid, yet they say it with Proper Grammar… Then I immediately assume the following…What Graduate school did you attend?…”
Dennis Prager.
“The Chaotic forces have taken over education…”
Watch this great video (below)
Idiot hippies are calling this “Environmental art…
No!
You superstitious fools!
Atheist *Scientists* argue… and they would know… because they are so much smarter than idiots who believe in ‘Intelligent design’… and…. you are not *qualified enough* to have any contrary opinion of weight…. they say this is ‘simply’ a natural occurrence… no design… fully explicable via the laws of gravity, mass, motion, etc.
Pay Homage to Multiverse theory!
We just so happen to live in a universe where this happened…. randomly… without a creator…
Dont argue… you are ‘Anti-science’… (and probably a terrorist)
Just believe….
Today I want to make my rebuttal of a friends defense for Larkin Rose’s expressed position on God/ Deism.
Larken Rose Recognizes the fingerprint of Intelligence within the incredible design of living things yet appears ambivalent towards any further thought or discussion about the ramifications of this Revelation.
He reminds me of the late A Flew… the once High priest of Atheism who in the face of the discoveries of Modern science esp the complexity of living things abandoned his Atheism for belief in Intelligent design… yet never made the full traverse to Bible believing Faith in THE LORD.
Flew was an honest thinker yet ran out of Time…whereas Larken Rose still has time to discover the truth… yet his attitude appears to me to be that of a Man who does not really want to go down that road…and I question his motives.
I argue why Deism may once have been forgivable/ understandable in the distant past, yet is inexcusable today, and that now Reason and Logic are on the side of the Theist.
While both entail the belief in a Creator God, what distinguishes Deism from Theism is that Deism rejects Divine interventions in the affairs of Men… No Miracles to circumvent the laws of Nature… and esp No Divine special Revelations to mankind.
It will be necessary for me to skip over large portions of history and related material for the sake of brevity such as the Deism of the 18th century.
(I will have to do a separate Blog post on these important aspects of this topic at some later date, and insert a link to it here)
Watch Larken Rose Here…
*********
Ten or more years ago I was asked to debate Hamilton based Atheists for the existence of the Christian God.
One of my opponents was Garry Mallett from Act.
Now The only reason I have mentioned this debate is because the 2nd part of my argument was the logical assumption that *If there is in fact a God (in the Full context of the word) and that he made us human beings…as Rational, conscious beings… that it would be a reasonable assumption to think that surely he would communicate with us some how… who he is… why he made us…etc rather than just leaving us Ignorant about such things.
That was my premise for why it is rational to at least consider the possibility that the Bible’s claim to be the Divine Revelation from the Creator of the Universe to be a plausible possibility at least… and that the honest thinking person having first concluded that the Universe and Living things are best understood as the products of intelligent design… that following upon that, that The Bible answers the questions that naturally flow on…. The *Who* is this Great designer of the Universe… and what message does he have for us… his Conscious Rational Moral Free Agent Creations… and most importantly… that such a Revelation is precisely what the rational mind would expect from the God who is there… rather than silence.
This is an argument that places Theism as superior to mere Deism and in fact renders belief in Deism today to be a cop out…poor reasoning at best… mostly willful ignorance.
Deism and Theism both draw upon what has been described as ‘Natural religion’… Ideas about God derived from looking at Nature… looking at what has been described as ‘The Book of God’s works’.
Yet Theism makes an additional claim that we have a second Book that we may also gain direct and infallible knowledge about God.. The Book of his actual words.
Deism/ Natural Religion is great up to certain point, yet severely limited as it can never tell us Human beings *who God is*… only that he is there… and that he is super intelligent and super powerful, and that there is some sort of Objective moral law which We Human beings ought to at least try and live by… that gives our Moral sence some legitimate foundation and purpose… rather than simply being some sort of illusion… mere sentiment… mere feelings.
An Idea such as ‘Kharma’, or ‘Reaping what you sow’… These are the sorts of ideas human beings have arrived at via contemplating nature… ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ … ‘Be Good’… we know that’Theft is evil’…because we hate it when someone steals from us… so dont steal from others… yet still none of this has anything higher than our own opinion to rest upon… or the opinion of ‘wise others’… and is therefore not impervious to arguments of evil men that assert that all such moralizations are vacuous.
Dark minds may posit the question… Maybe the Deity is Malevolent?
Do not Floods and Earthquakes signal that our creator is far from a caring God! ????
Is the only Moral Rule …contrary to what the wowzers would have us believe…that the Strong may subject the weak?
Are they trying to subject the strong to whiles of the weak?
What the heck is really going on?
Deism cant definitively answer this… yet it gives those whom cling to it a certain self-justification for not being Nihilistic… for claiming they are Moral and good. (something that is necessary because of what the bible describes as our innate knowledge/ consciousness of Good and evil)
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:…”
St Paul. Romans 1:20.
Yet Deism says *Nobody can claim to really know*.
Now I love many of the Great heathen thinkers of classical times, whom both believed a God exists, and that Humanity should be moral, and because of the times and places in which *they lived* I accept that they really had taken ‘Natural religion’ to its highest forms and that they had no ‘Rungs upon which they could possibly ascend higher and closer to God’, and that they were Good, wise, Moral men…In the context of how good any man might be under such circumstances. (Separated/ aliens from Israel, mostly living before the advent of Christ)
It is at this plateau that many of the Great Heathen moral thinkers had arrived.
The Stoic Marcus Aurelius is supposed to have said…
Though Aurelius lived post-Christ and had ‘herd’ about the Christians and held negative opinions about them, I am not sure to what degree he had any real first hand communications with them, or any familiarity with the Old testament/ Book of Genesis, thus I tend to consider his situation as very similar to that of the *Pre-Christ* Gentile thinkers… Aliens from the Divine revelation.
He was a very interesting thinker…God will judge him. Here is an interesting link to this Topic
Now As a Christian Theist who believes the Bible, I know there are Mountains of the most vital truths missing from this Natural/Deistic Faith position because I have the Divine Revelation… The Holy inspired and preserved words of God Almighty himself esp the Facts That Humanity is under a curse because of our Sin, and that our Sin separates us from God and puts us in danger of His Judgement and Damnation.
*It is possible*… because it is so obvious… without the aid of scripture to apprehend by the power of reason alone Humanities fallen/ sinful condition… our wickedness… our depravity… our Cruelty…. and perhaps from this a rationale may be conceived of the need to somehow appease the anger of the God(s)… for justice sake… all sorts of weird Ideas have been proposed… *Yet via reason it would be impossible to conceive of the doctrine of Christs virgin birth, and substitutional atonement for our sins, and resurrection*…from nature alone.
Indeed many Naturally minded people find these Doctrines repugnant… which leads to my main contentions for this blog about Deists living today in western civilization… and their willful ignorance/ rejection of the Divine Revelation… the Bible in which all these doctrines are laid out in the most Logical fashion from the very beginning in Genesis.
As I have said Deism is severely handicapped to what degree it can reveal the nature of God to us… limited in its certainty of moral precepts, etc, none the less *Today*…far from these limits as being considered by trendy thinkers as pitfalls… these people actually *enjoy* them!
Most of these are people *Today* … follow a trend that became fashionable from the end of the Great reformation who… for various reasons…good or bad… *hate organised religion* (which tends to be where Theistic claims of having ‘Divine revelation’ are most prevalent) … they also enjoy what they see as ‘the Freedom to do as they please… the only moral restraints being their own conscience… and esp that Deism can make no emphatic claims of Divine Judgement for moral failures… it cant even emphatically state the validity of any Human Judgement derived from Nature.
They will say that ‘Reason’ is the only Authority they will subject themselves to, and as they have reached to limits of Reason… they cannot be subject to any higher Moral authority or law.
Philosophers love to quote Hume … “you cant get an ‘Ought from an Is”.
Its Funny though that ordinary people seem to be able to do just that without much trouble appealing to sentiment… they are not moved by arguments that say we can have no confidence in these… in fact to my thinking …the rational approach to this mystery of consciousness to the ideas of Good and evil is not to say ‘We cant ever know’… but instead to set out *in faith* on a Pilgrimage to discover some means by which our sentiments can find Objective validation… It is a quest of discovery for the Divine revelation from the Intelligent Creator whose existence is testified to by his Natural handiwork.
And It is an Irony that in a work by the great skeptic himself David Hume called ‘Dialogues concerning Natural religion’ in which there is a debate about the existence of God, in which Hume deploys his skeptical arguments in the person of ‘Philo’, yet stunningly… in the final analysis his Book ends by giving the victory to the Theist ‘Cleanthes’!
My contention at the Debate was that not only did the Deity Communicate his existence and expectations of Humanity via Prophets and the written word… He intervened into Human affairs in the Most personal manor…. He visited us… and Walked among us… God was manifest in the flesh.
“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:…”
Now when you add up all the components I have briefly discussed above you ought to be able to grasp why it is that I myself am a Theist… a Bible believer… That the fact that we westerners have easy access to the King James Bible and the book of Genesis therein, that willfully seeking to remain ignorant of the Divine revelation is inexcusable… and why it is that I have a pet dislike for modern Deism… esp its corruption/heresy of what I call Christian Deism which I see as a pathetic retreat from true Christian Theistic faith…caused by a weakness in faith and Bad reasoning… in the face of Atheist sophistry. (Topic for another Post)
I actually struggle to contain my contempt!
I need to take 5… and chill… and remember that it is only by Gods grace that I myself am a Christian at all.
I need to remember *How alien* I once was… How utterly incapable of apprehending the existence of God let alone the truthfulness of the Bible!
It is with all this in mind that I decided to keep calm and write this post..
Recently A friend of mine tried to justify the Deism of one of his Favorite thinkers Larkin Rose, which I had critisised as being pathetic… because he refused to make the most basic inference that Intelligent design demands *GOD* and that from this obvious conclusion… if he was an honest thinker… would demand he then begin a personal pilgrimage to discover *Who* this Grand designer is.
My friend began to repair to the arguments *of Classical Deism* and the limits that Logic faced in that direction… as if that excuse… which of course appears quite valid when looking back to heathen lands… and times before Christ… aliens to the Divine Revelation, Yet This blogpost is my express rebuttal to that argument when applied to modern thinkers like Larkin.
It is invalid for Thinkers today to simply rest on that ancient Plateau… because they live post Christ and have access to the Bible and history.
This makes them fully culpable for rejecting Jesus Christ.
Socrates on the other hand was not privy to the Bible… and I even conjecture that he would have become a Christian had he been given the opportunity… so many of his conclusions about Divine things being in perfect harmony with the scriptures… that he never had opportunity to read.
I say that If Socrates would have considered the Gargantuan explanatory power for the first chapters in the book of Genesis…plus all the rest… the Biblical explanation for the existence of Evil…The explanation of why God has separated himself from mankind… why we die… why there are Natural disasters, etc etc that it is very possible that he would have realised that this divine revelation gives a great logical basis for Biblical theistic faith when one applies it to the world about him.
That in fact the Bible *Is the Revelation* of the Intelligent designer of everything…his message to us his creatures… esp telling us *Who he is*… and what is *Really* going on.
So I question why it is that though Larken Rose sees through the delusion of atheistic evolution, he still is apathetic towards discovering *Who God is* and challenge him to Read the King James Bible… to really contemplate it’s message… and that in doing so he would no longer be in a position to argue that Logic ends at the plateau of Natural religion.
The Bible is a logical extension from the Plateau at the top of the Mountain… upwards out of the stratosphere all the way… a direct line of communication to the Deity… a logical vindication of Bible believing christian Theism.
Of course Satan and his minions have been attacking the Bible, and via sophistry undermining faith in its veracity as The Bible is the Ultimate Fortress of God for the believer. It is the Ultimate Lighthouse in the storm of life Shining its beams upon the treacherous Rocks of peril, and a Guide of Safe passage… salvation to every soul who sees its light and navigates into the Harbour of God’s love and Grace.
Satan is the enemy Of God and Men’s souls…The Father of Lies… it was by cunning craftiness that he was able to deceive Eve, and get her to disbelieve Gods word and to Eat of the forbidden fruit, and he has been at this game the whole time… Deceiving… yet the word of God remains like a Rock
Happy Resurrection Day!
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Protestant, 1611 King James Bible believer, Dispensationalist, Christian Libertarian.
The last paragraphs of Humes Dialouges concerning Natural religion…
If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence; and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind: If this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs; and believe that the arguments, on which it is established, exceed the objections, which lie against it? Some astonishment indeed will naturally arise from the greatness of the object: Some melancholy from its obscurity: Some contempt of human reason, that it can give no solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and magnificent a question. But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation, that heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate this profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes, and operations of the divine object of our faith. A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: While the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded, that he can erect a complete system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy,
KS 228
disdains any farther aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; a proposition, which I would willingly recommend to the attention of Pamphilus: And I hope Cleanthes will forgive me for interposing so far in the education and instruction of his pupil.
D 12.34
Cleanthes and Philo pursued not this conversation much farther; and as nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of that day; so, I confess, that, upon a serious review of the whole, I cannot but think, that Philo’s principles are more probable than Demea’s; but that those of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth.
Hand of the alarm clock strikes the hour … nek minnit roll the credits!
The red ute is OK Go … nekminnit … band members splattered with paintballs of many colours!
Pull the lever … nek minnit rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous flowers!
Let there be light … nek minnit Pee-wee Herman eats his daily breakfast!
Rube Goldberg machines are AWESOME!! 🙂
The essence of a Rube Goldberg machine is that there is a simple starting event … then follows a series of events that happen entirely automatically in a complex causal chain leading inexorably to … breakfast is served, the flowers are watered, there’s lots of pretty colours and the credits roll. No intervention required. AWESOME!!! 🙂
So are you ready for the AWESOMEST Rube Goldberg machine of them all? 🙂
You’re living in it.
Big Bang … nek minnit you’re reading this blog post!
Approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a singular starting event. An unimaginably small speck containing the mass of the entire known universe and the space-time continuum itself expanded. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies. Later, on a small rock circling an unremarkable star near the edge of a galaxy’s spiral arm, primitive life spontaneously appeared in a primordial ocean. This first cell divided and divided and biological evolution happened. Our species evolved from ape-like mammalian ancestors and human history unfolded. And here we all are.
In brief, the history of everything is no different in principle from a line of falling dominoes. From the moment of the Big Bang, the complex causal chain of events that lead to us happened by itself. Even the Big Bang happened by itself, like the alarm clock going off in the Rube Goldberg machine at the top of this post. While familiar flora and fauna may appear to be intelligently designed, and intelligent design needs an intelligent designer, it is really no more than appearance. A new study hints at spontaneous appearance of primordial DNA. All things bright and beautiful? Abiogenesis and the blind mechanical process of natural selection of chance mutations made them all. Over the epochs the ball bearings of genetic transmission rolled down the available pre-existing causal channels, and the evolutionary tree of life branched and blossomed, in the manner of drought-ending flood waters flowing to the sea down the already etched out causeways of a dry river delta.
So what’s the take-home message?
Evolutionism is true and our world is just a Rube Goldberg machine on a grand cosmic scale. It’s all ball bearings and clockwork writ large.
Checkmate Creationists! Where is your Rube Goldberg God now?
