Tag: religion

Takes one to know one

It’s a bit ironic and more than a little morbidly amusing to see the descendents of the secular activists that successfully infiltrated and overturned Christian education across the West wringing their hands over Islamic activists doing precisely the same thing:

Headteachers are warning that schools across Britain have been targeted in an alleged Islamist plot to take over classrooms. The National Association of Head Teachers said it had ‘serious concerns’ about attempts to ‘alter the character’ of at least six schools.

It also warned that efforts to infiltrate classrooms were not limited to Birmingham and were likely to be affecting other major towns and cities. The union said ‘concerted efforts’ had been made to infiltrate state schools and run them according to strict Islamic principles. While the body did not name the additional areas affected, there are concerns over schools in Bradford, Manchester and parts of East London, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Russell Hobby, NAHT general secretary, said some teachers were being appointed because of their Muslim faith rather than their skills. There was also evidence of ‘pressure’ being brought to bear on heads to adopt ‘certain philosophies and approaches’…. Meanwhile, it has been claimed that dozens of teachers pushed out of schools by an alleged Islamist takeover plot are too afraid to speak out because of gagging orders.

Meanwhile, in the USA, people are being pushed out of their public and private sector jobs by politically correct equalitarians for a failure to obediently submit to the currently dictated goodthink.

Perhaps it the time is approaching for Christians to adopt the same strategy. After all, we can do inquisitions and crusades a damn sight better than they can.

The ignorance of Cosmos

As expected, the science fetishists are cooing happily over the latest media foray into demonstrable ignorance of religious history:

Here’s the thing: Even “Cosmos” points out that Bruno had no scientific basis for his theories. “His vision of the cosmos was a lucky guess,” says Tyson. So why is the long-dead philosopher important enough to rate hero status? That would be because “Cosmos” takes his case as one of “martyrdom.”

What “Cosmos” does not point out to its audiences that the Catholic Church didn’t really care about Bruno’s views on the Earth moving around the Sun. His crimes — the ones for which he was executed — were theological. Several actual scientists in this period happily investigated the ideas of Copernicus’ theories without running into trouble. Even Galileo only got in trouble when he published books that directly mocked the Church’s adherence to the Earth being at the center.

Why does this matter?

So what if Giordano Bruno wasn’t a scientist and wasn’t executed for science? There are three big reasons why this does, in fact, matter and why it hurts “Cosmos” to get it wrong.

1. To borrow one of Tyson’s famous quotes, the good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. The same goes for history. Getting the history of science wrong hurts science itself. Why believe the science if other parts of the show are inaccurate?

2. Making Bruno into a martyr for science basically makes 100 years of historical research useless. The idea of Giordano Bruno as a scientific hero only originated in the 19th century, when he was championed by several historians. Since then, most have classified him as a philosopher sharing dangerous ideas in a dangerous time.

3. It’s an unstated goal of “Cosmos” to champion science and scientific reasoning over superstition and religious dogmatism. But you’re not going to win over anyone by vilifying religion in the face of science. Add in Bruno flying into space in an overtly crucifixion stance almost seems like giving religion the finger. You don’t win arguments that way, “Cosmos.”

The strange thing is that the science fetishists are always talking about a hypothetical religious ignorance of science while openly demonstrating their own ignorance of history, in particular, the history of the very religion they denigrate on false bases. At least one atheist is aware of the historical illiteracy of his co-irreligionists:

One of the occupational hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who has the lack of common sense to hang around on atheist discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy. I like to console myself that many of the people on such boards have come to their atheism via the study of science and so, even if they are quite learned in things like geology and biology, usually have a grasp of history stunted at about high school level. I generally do this because the alternative is to admit that the average person’s grasp of history and how history is studied is so utterly feeble as to be totally depressing….

It’s not hard to kick this nonsense to pieces, especially since the
people presenting it know next to nothing about history and have simply
picked this [bullsh–] up from other websites and popular books and
collapse as soon as you hit them with some hard evidence. I love to
totally stump them by asking them to present me with the name of one –
just one – scientist burned, persecuted or oppressed for their science
in the Middle Ages. They always fail to come up with any. They usually
try to crowbar Galileo back into the Middle Ages, which is amusing
considering he was a contemporary of Descartes. When asked why they have
failed to produce any such scientists given the Church was apparently
so busily oppressing them, they often resort to claiming that the Evil
Old Church did such a good job of oppression that everyone was too
scared to practice science. By the time I produce a laundry list of
Medieval scientists – like Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger
Bacon, John Peckham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, Walter Burley,
William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, John Dumbleton, Richard of
Wallingford, Nicholas Oresme, Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Cusa – and
ask why these men were happily pursuing science in the Middle Ages
without molestation from the Church, my opponents have usually run away
to hide and scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong….

Cosmos must have him groaning with despair.

The Nothing People

John C. Wright on the restless hearts of the empty souls, who are never content no matter what they achieve and regardless of what gains they make:

Being without a sense of the objective nature of reality, they are without a belief in objective morals. Being without a belief in objective morals, they lack honor, and, lacking honor, they lack courage, lack decency, lack courtesy.

Hence, their one, sole and only means of discussing their principles in debate is to accuse whomever dares question them of any and every thing they think evil: they call normal people stupid and evil and heartless, bigoted and racist and fascist and thisist and thatist.

The content of the accusation does not matter, only the relief of being able to accuse, and accuse, and accuse.

Their only consistent principle — a principle never admitted, of course, but obvious in their every manifesto — is the Unreality Principle, which holds that it is better and braver to believe in make-believe than in real reality. The more unreal the belief, the less based on fact, the more open the self contradiction, the greater the power of will and nobility of spirit needed to believe it, and hence the greatest applause from the modern mind is reserved to those of their number that believe the most unreal and unrealistic things. And yet, with typical unselfaware modern irony, they call themselves the reality-based community.

In sum, their philosophy consists of the single principle that no philosophy is valid. Their ethics consist of a single precept that making ethical judgments is ‘judgmental’ that is, ethically wrong. Their economic theory, socialism, consists of an arrogant denial that the laws of economics apply to economic phenomena. Their theory of psychology says that men do not have free will, because cause and effect is absolute; their theory of metaphysics is that subatomic particles do have free will, because cause and effect is statistical, approximate, uncertain, incomplete, and illusory. And on and on. All their thought is one self-refuting statement after another.

Philosophically, theologically and morally, the modern mindset is an end-state. Once a man has utterly rejected reason, he cannot reason himself to another conclusion. Once he has rejected morality, he has no sense of honor to compel him to live up to a philosophy more demanding than narrow selfishness.

Again, once he had rejected the authority of tradition, so that his one precept is to ignore all precepts of his teachers, he has no motive and no way to pass along to the next generation this selfsame precept, for he then is himself a teacher teaching them to ignore all teachers. And so on.

No compromise is possible with these people. I use the term loosely, for they are not morally accountable Men and Women in the full sense of the term. They are intellectual nomads, always on the move, always parasitical, always acting to destroy, always needing an accusational high that is more powerful than the one before.

This is why attempts to appease them are always fruitless, why they always devour their own. You might as rationally attempt to reason with the weather as attempt to reason with them. They eat their own as readily as they devour those they overcome, and their bitterest hatred is reserved for those who stand up to them and tell them, with all the contempt that they merit, “you are nothing and you will never be anything”. Never ever back down to them.

If there is one thing they hate to hear, it is that they are fallen. They cling furiously to their pride and to their pretense to superiority because that is all they have. They are de facto psychopaths; they have no ability to empathize for all that they claim to empathize with everything and everyone from the snail darter to a bullied homosexual teen. They have endless hypothetical love for humanity and nothing of the real thing for their neighbors or anyone but themselves.

The real and the decent people sense their emptiness. We tiptoe around them, trying not to trigger the endless minefield of their sensitivities. This is pointless. Like insects, they thrive in darkness; whenever exposed to the harsh light of truth they are desperate to conceal their words and their deeds, to hide their empty sickness. But this is wrong, because there is only one hope for them, and that is the crushing of their pride.

There is nothing that can fill up the vast abyss within them except God. Nothing. So do not spare them. Remind them that they are nothing. Remind them that they are evil. Tell them the truth because they already know it and the reason for their frenetic activity is that they are running from it. Remind them their only hope at the joy they envy and crave is to abandon their empty, narcissistic pride and allow the Way, the Truth, and the Life to fill up the void within.

One of my friends once asked me why I seem to run into so many of these people, both personally and professionally. The answer is simple. I see them, they know I see them, and their instinctive reaction is to immediately attack those who recognize them for what they are. You see, the Nothing People always lie and thereby sentence themselves to a lifetime of policing the perceptions of others. It’s not that I recognize their lies so much as I recognize the constant scanning of others perception of them in which they necessarily engage.

Science is more dangerous than religion

In TIA, I pointed out that if the New Atheists were consistent, they would be arguing for the elimination of science on the same basis that they argue for the end of religion. After all, it is science that presently poses the only serious dangers to Mankind and while it is science that is presently causing a tremendous number of casualties around the world.

Remember, the worst religious crime of the entire Middle Ages was the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in which King Charles IX of France ordered an estimated 10,000 Huegenots killed. Now Karl Denninger draws our attention to an article in Forbes concerning the estimated consequences of a single case of apparent “research misconduct”:

Last summer British researchers provoked concern when they published a paper raising the possibility that by following an established guideline UK doctors may have caused as many as 10,000 deaths each year. Now they have gone a step further and published an estimate that the same guideline may have led to the deaths of as many as 800,00 people in Europe over the last five years. The finding, they write, “is so large that the only context in the last 50 years comes from the largest scale professional failures in the political sphere.” The 800,000 deaths are comparable in size to the worst cases of genocide and mass murder in recent history. In their new article published in the European Heart Journal, Graham Cole and Darrel Francis continue to explore the extent and implications of the damage caused by the Don Poldermans research misconduct case.

This isn’t to say there are not benefits to science, of course, but the problem is that virtually no one ever pays any attention to its risks, which is precisely why this sort of human tragedy is possible. Moreover, the reason it can happen is because science as it is actually practiced falls very far short of the ideal Science that exists only in the minds of its fetishists.

Perhaps it would be wise for doctors to return to the pre-scientific concept of: First, Do No Harm.

It’s also worth noting that no priest or cleric has ever exploded a nuclear bomb in the name of Allah, Jesus Christ, or Damballah Wedo. There have been at least 2,084 nuclear explosions set off by scientists.

What happened to “never again”?

The Learned Elders of Wye had better speed up their exit plans if they’re going to continue to perpetrate materially traitorous idiocies such as this:

President Obama plans to nominate three people to the Federal Reserve’s
Board of Governors, including Stanley Fischer, former head of the Bank
of Israel, as the Fed’s next vice chairman, the White House said on
Friday…. Mr. Fischer, 70, would succeed Ms. Yellen in her current role. The
Senate confirmed Ms. Yellen as the Fed’s new chairwoman this week. She
will take over from the current chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, in February.
…

More importantly for Israel, Stanley Fischer won an appointment to the
Reagan administration’s U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Discussion Group that
dealt with Israel’s 1984-1985 economic crisis. … The U.S.-Israel
Joint Economic Discussion Group fundamentally transformed U.S. aid to
Israel forever.  Before the Reagan administration, most U.S. aid to
Israel took the form of loans that had to be repaid with interest.
 After the input of Fischer’s team, subsequent U.S. aid was delivered in
the form of outright grants paid directly from the U.S. Treasury—never
to be repaid or conditioned when Israel took actions the U.S. opposed.

Can you even imagine the widespread outrage if Haruhiko Kuroda of the Bank of Japan was appointed to the Fed and he promptly began sending billions of dollars to Japan? Or if Zhou Xiaochuan of the People’s Bank of China was named vice chairman and he subsequently began repaying US debt to China in gold and advanced weapons technology? Now keep in mind that Stanley Fischer is already guilty of literally giving billions to Israel!

It’s long past time for the USA to take two immediate measures. First, shut down all financial aid to Israel. The USA is bankrupt. So is the Federal Reserve, if its newly expanded balance sheet was marked properly to market. If Israeli citizens are convinced that inflation is good for the economy and they want to print money, well and good, but let them print shekels, not U.S. dollars.

Second, ban all dual citizenships. There is no such thing as a “dual loyalty”. It’s very clear that Stanley Fischer has no loyalty to the USA. His loyalty is to Israel. That’s perfectly clear. It’s even admirable. Would that his American counterparts felt so strongly about serving their own country. But it also means that he has no more place in a decision-making capacity for the US monetary system than Christine Lagard or Mario Draghi.

Now, let’s preemptively deal with the usual reaction. Are you tempted to call my position antisemitic? That’s not merely incorrect, that’s totally insane. Do you truly not see where this is leading? For the love of the God of Old Testament and New, the reason I’m speaking out against this is precisely because I don’t wish to see an American holocaust. I don’t want the children of my Jewish friends being made the scapegoat in reaction to the dreadful behavior of an insatiable, unconscionable elite. What is sickening, what is ominous, what is materially antisemitic is what the federal government has done by permitting Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and Fischer to financially rape the American people.

This is all astonishingly short-sighted on the part of the Elders of Wye. Setting aside whether they can reasonably hope to successfully transfer their traveling game of three-card monte to China or India, even a bankrupt, post-collapse America will be filled with hundreds of millions of the same people who conquered the world in the 20th century, more or less without trying. And they are going to be very, very angry. They are going to be even more full of hate than the 20th century Germans were, because they are going to feel deeply betrayed. If an unfair post-war peace settlement created a sense of national fury, how much more anger will the bankruptcy and collapse of the union provoke?

In fact, having grown up in an End Times-conscious church, I can recall the eschatological enthusiasts discussing whether the King of the North was the Soviet Union or a united Europe. They often cited this passage from Jeremiah:

Behold, a people shall come from the north,
And a great nation and many kings
Shall be raised up from the ends of the earth.
They shall hold the bow and the lance;
They are cruel and shall not show mercy.
Their voice shall roar like the sea;
They shall ride on horses,
Set in array, like a man for the battle,
Against you, O daughter of Babylon.
The king of Babylon has heard the report about them,
And his hands grow feeble;
Anguish has taken hold of him,
Pangs as of a woman in childbirth…”(Jeremiah 50:41-43)

And yet, when I look at the events of recent years, it increasingly looks as if the most powerful nation that is the most likely to bear a tremendous populist grudge against Israel in the 21st century will be the United States of America.

The closing of the scientific mind

David Gelernter has a very good article in Commentary on the descent of science into, if not quite religion, something that is at the very least a distinct and readily identifiable philosophy:

The modern “mind fields” encompass artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Researchers in these fields are profoundly split, and the chaos was on display in the ugliness occasioned by the publication of Thomas Nagel’s Mind & Cosmos in 2012. Nagel is an eminent philosopher and professor at NYU. In Mind & Cosmos, he shows with terse, meticulous thoroughness why mainstream thought on the workings of the mind is intellectually bankrupt. He explains why Darwinian evolution is insufficient to explain the emergence of consciousness—the capacity to feel or experience the world. He then offers his own ideas on consciousness, which are speculative, incomplete, tentative, and provocative—in the tradition of science and philosophy.

Nagel was immediately set on and (symbolically) beaten to death by all the leading punks, bullies, and hangers-on of the philosophical underworld. Attacking Darwin is the sin against the Holy Ghost that pious scientists are taught never to forgive. Even worse, Nagel is an atheist unwilling to express sufficient hatred of religion to satisfy other atheists. There is nothing religious about Nagel’s speculations; he believes that science has not come far enough to explain consciousness and that it must press on. He believes that Darwin is not sufficient.

The intelligentsia was so furious that it formed a lynch mob. In May 2013, the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece called “Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong.” One paragraph was notable:

“Whatever the validity of [Nagel’s] stance, its timing was certainly bad. The war between New Atheists and believers has become savage, with Richard Dawkins writing sentences like, “I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic, and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad….” In that climate, saying anything nice at all about religion is a tactical error.”

It’s the cowardice of the Chronicle’s statement that is alarming—as if the only conceivable response to a mass attack by killer hyenas were to run away. Nagel was assailed; almost everyone else ran.

Science is in desperate need of an intellectual cleansing, a return to the scientific fundamentals of its methodology. Indeed, both Science and Christianity are in much the same boat these days, as both Method and Faith have become corrupted by those who claim to speak in its name.

Annotating Bacon

In which an essay by Francis Bacon is contemplated.

OF ATHEISM

I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity. Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion; that is, the school of Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible, that four mutable elements, and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty, without a divine marshal.

The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.

Nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples,(1) as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?

Epicurus is charged, that he did but dissemble for his credit’s sake, when he affirmed there were blessed natures, but such as enjoyed themselves, without having respect to the government of the world. Wherein they say he did temporize; though in secret, he thought there was no God. But certainly he is traduced; for his words are noble and divine: Non deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opiniones diis applicare profanum.(2) Plato could have said no more.

And although he had the confidence, to deny the administration, he had not the power, to deny the nature. The Indians of the West, have names for their particular gods, though they have no name for God: as if the heathens should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, etc., but not the word Deus; which shows that even those barbarous people have the notion, though they have not the latitude and extent of it. So that against atheists, the very savages take part, with the very subtlest philosophers.

The contemplative atheist is rare: a Diagoras, a Bion, a Lucian perhaps, and some others; and yet they seem to be more than they are; for that all that impugn a received religion, or superstition, are by the adverse part branded with the name of atheists. But the great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.

The causes of atheism are: divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division, addeth zeal to both sides; but many divisions introduce atheism. Another is, scandal of priests; when it is come to that which St. Bernard saith, non est jam dicere, ut populus sic sacerdos; quia nec sic populus ut sacerdos. A third is, custom of profane scoffing in holy matters; which doth, by little and little, deface the reverence of religion. And lastly, learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men’s minds to religion.(3)

They that deny a God, destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts, by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God, by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magnanimity, and the raising of human nature; for take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a man; who to him is instead of a God, or melior natura; which courage is manifestly such, as that creature, without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain.

So man, when he resteth and assureth himself, upon divine protection and favor, gathered a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not obtain. Therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself, above human frailty.(4)

As it is in particular persons, so it is in nations. Never was there such a state for magnanimity as Rome. Of this state hear what Cicero saith: Quam volumus licet, patres conscripti, nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Poenos, nec artibus Graecos, nec denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terrae domestico nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed pietate, ac religione, atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum immortalium numine omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque superavimus.(5)

(1) Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. There was nothing new about “the New Atheists”.

(2) “Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who
affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly
impious.”
– Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 

Epicurus has a legitimate point, but I suspect this is usually read in the crude and superficial sense, which, contra Bacon, is neither noble nor divine.

(3) The fourth cause is the big one. It should be no surprise that atheism came into vogue at the end of the biggest economic bubble and longest period of international peace in history. But the pendulum is already swinging back.

(4) This is what renders atheism, rather than atheists per se, hateful. It intrinsically degrades Man. It is a literally soul-killing philosophy.

(5) “Let us, O conscript fathers, think as highly of ourselves as we
please; and yet it is not in numbers that we are superior to the Spaniards,
nor in personal strength to the Gauls, nor in cunning to the Carthaginians,
nor in arts to the Greeks, nor in the natural acuteness which seems to be
implanted in the people of this land and country, to the Italian and Latin
tribes; but it is in and by means of piety and religion, and this especial
wisdom of perceiving that all things are governed and managed by the divine
power of the immortal gods, that we have been and are superior to all other
countries and nations.”
– Cicero, On the Responses to the Haruspices

Mailvox: of God and games

Civilservant asks two questions:

Are man-made morals more arbitrary than god-made morals?  The original question involved “authority” as if that were
synonymous with “legitimate”. People typically view God’s laws (however
conceived) as being “authoritative” and therefore “legitimate”. But
are not God’s laws arbitrary in exactly the same way as Man’s laws may
be arbitrary? As I said earlier anyone may say “My Game, My Rules” with
equal legitimacy but the difficulty is in getting others to go along
with the Rules. Witness the war in heaven and Satan’s disobedience.

Man-made morals are no more arbitrary than God-made morals – and note that the capital G is necessary here – but they are considerably less-informed and they lack all legitimacy and authority.

And as for God’s laws being arbitrary in EXACTLY the same way as Man’s laws, that depends upon the specific sense of “arbitrary” being used.  Let’s consider the four definitions: 

1.subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one’s discretion: an arbitrary decision. 

God’s laws are clearly MORE arbitrary in this sense, because His will is less restricted than Man’s.

 
2. decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.

God’s laws are MORE arbitrary than Man’s in this sense; even though the USA, for example, has increasingly become a nation of case law rather than statutory law. God has laid down the laws of the Creation, but in relation to Man, He is more judge than legislator.

3.having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government. 

Again, God’s laws are MORE arbitrary than Man’s laws, since God’s power is less limited than Man’s. 

4.capricious; unreasonable; unsupported

In this sense, God’s laws are much LESS arbitrary than Man’s. Since we are told the wages of sin are death and that all men sin, the fact that all men die is empirical evidence that God’s laws are neither capricious or unsupported. Furthermore, God’s laws are scientifically falsifiable; all a man interested in testing the validity of God’s laws must do is not sin, then die, and they will be falsified.

So, the answer is obviously no, God’s laws are not arbitrary in exactly the same way as Man’s laws. Furthermore, it is totally incorrect to say “anyone may say “My Game, My Rules” with
equal legitimacy.”  God is the creator and owner of the game. The universe is His game, and no man has any more right to say that his rules take precedence over God’s than Adrian Peterson has the right to declare that the next touchdown he scores will be worth 100 points. Whereas, if the entity called NFL decides that a touchdown is henceforth to be worth 100 points, the next touchdown Mr. Peterson scores will, in fact, be worth 100 points.

Mailvox: the null hypothesis

CKK has a few questions about God:

I
read your blog and find that you make interesting points. I have a few
questions for you which revolve around the Null Hypothesis as it relates
to the evidence and knowledge of God.

First, do you
ground your faith in God based upon an evidentiary standpoint? I know
the trend (and often impasse) in discourse between atheists/agnostics
and Christians revolves around which side has the burden of proof and I
am wondering how God has satisfied any logical hiccups you may have come
across in your life.

Second, in regards to other
people who lack faith, how can God ask people to perform a logical leap
to believe in Him which they don’t do in every other part of their
lives? For example, a basic precept of just criminal courts is the idea
of being innocent until proven guilty; the burden of proof is always on
the accuser (in the form of the State) as they are the ones making the
claim of guilt. This is the same with every other arena of life and even
forms the basis of the scientific method. Yet this isn’t done for God.
We are given antidotes based on argument but not necessarily based on
evidence.

Third, and this relates to the first, is who
does the burden of proof regarding the evidence of God falls upon? Those
who claim His existence or those who deny Him?

I
would say my faith is more grounded in a logical standpoint than in one
based purely on evidence, although I am entirely content with the
evidence for God as it exists to date.  The inability of secular and
pagan philosophers to produce coherent moral systems, combined with the
logical absurdity of most non-Christian moral systems, leaves me
entirely satisfied with the Christian moral structure, even if I find
occasionally find the application of that structure to social policy to
be difficult, if not impossible.  Since a Creator God is a necessary
anchor for that moral structure, I conclude that not only must He exist,
but that it is necessary for Man to postulate His existence even if
there were no evidence for that existence to be found.

I
find it remarkable, and rather stupid, that individuals who don’t
hesitate to accept mathematical postulates in order to permit a
considerable quantity of mathematical equations to function effectively
are so terrified of accepting the existence of God as a moral
postulate.  It strikes me as even less intelligent than rejecting basic
math postulates and thereby refusing to utilize any of the math that
follows from them.

How can God ask people to perform a
leap of faith rather than logic?  Very easily, since obedience is
clearly more important to God than understanding.  I neither ask nor
care if my dog, my children, or my teammates understand my orders, I
simply want them to follow them.  If I yell “square” to a teammate with
the ball, it is of no concern to me whether he grasps all the relative
positions of the various players on the field, I just want him to react
by immediately passing the ball 90 degrees to one side.  If I can test
my teammate’s confidence in me by telling him to pass the ball based on
faith, God can certainly test our confidence in Him by telling us to
believe without proof.

It’s not as if both Jesus Christ
and Aristotle haven’t independently explained the reason anyhow.  Many
people saw Jesus perform miracles and didn’t believe. And as Aristotle
observed centuries before Jesus was performing those miracles, some
people cannot be instructed by knowledge.  I tend to doubt this
observation of basic human behavior would have escaped God.

The
burden of proof always falls upon the individual asserting something to
another individual.  If I ask you if you believe God exists and you
tell me that you do not, you have no burden of proof.  You were simply
asked about a simple fact and you have no need to justify that fact to
me or anyone else.  If, on the other hand, you tell me that God does not
exist, then you have made an assertion and the burden of proving the
truth of that assertion lies with you.

Projection and quid pro quo

It is fascinating to read how some criticisms of Christianity appear to be little more than psychological projection.  Take the common Jewish accusation that Christian evangelicals are helping Jews return to Israel because they wish to immanentize the eschaton and bring about the Second Coming.  Now, this obviously makes no sense because most of those Christian Zionist evangelicals are premillennials, who believe that the hour of the Second Coming is a) unknowable, and b) pre-appointed.

As one who grew up in a premillennial evangelical Baptist church, I always wondered where in the world various Jews and atheists derived that concept, because, despite hearing more speculation about “the Rapture” and “the Tribulation” than I want to recall, I never once heard anyone even suggest that it was even theoretically possible to influence the timing of Jesus’s return.  Quite to the contrary, the primary concern was that the Second Coming might take place next Tuesday, before you were ready, thereby sentencing you to seven years of tribulation in the absence of practically everyone you knew.

However, the concept does sound an awful lot like Lubavitcher theology, which requires the seeding of Chabad Institutions all over the world in order to “to hasten the Messianic Age by spreading Jewish observance”.  I read Chaim Potok’s excellent novel, My Name is Asher Lev, for the second time, and this passage, about the young artist’s father upon his return from a six-month missionary trip to Europe, struck me as not only deeply ironic, but intentionally so:

“He had seen the sketchbook filled with drawings of Jesus and nudes. He had spent half a year of his life creating yeshivos and teaching Torah and Hasidus all over Europe.  Then he had returned to America and had discovered that his own home was now inhabited by pagans. He was in an uncontrollable rage.”

So, the man is quite literally occupied with establishing invasion points all over Europe, then returns “home” to another land he personally invaded from Russia, and reacts furiously to the observation that his son is assimilating the values of that land.  But that’s merely an ironic observation.  The more troubling one is this passage from Chapter 7, as we’ve all heard of Nazi claims that Jews are sub-human, but we don’t often hear of the opposite.


“We studied the meaning of the verse in Proverbs ‘The candle of God is the soul of man.’  The souls of Jews are like the flame of a candle, the mashpia said.  The flame burns upwards; it seeks to be parted from the wick in order to unite with its source above, in the universal element of fire.  Similarly, the soul of the Jew yearns to separate itself and depart from the body in order to unite with the Master of the Universe, even though this means that nothing will remain of its former nature as a distinct and separate entity.  It is in the nature of the Jewish soul to desire this union with the Being Without End, unlike the souls of the Gentiles, which are derived from the Other Side and which strive to remain independent beings and entities.


“We studied about the sitra achra, the Other Side, the realm of darkness and evil given life by God not out of His true desire but in the manner of one who reluctantly throws something over his shoulder to an enemy, thereby making it possible for God to punish the wicked who help the sitra achra, and reward the righteous who subjugate it.”

Now, this is from a novel in which the Hasidic organization bears a fictional name, so I don’t know if the Ladover teachings accurately reflect the Lubavitcher concepts upon which they appear to be based or not.  I’ve asked Chelm Weisman to clarify this for us, but it would certainly be educational to learn how widespread this notion of all non-Jewish souls being derived from the realm of darkness and evil happens to be.  And it would certainly help explain the old political proverb concerning the way in which Jews live like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans.

Chelm notes: “I would say proceed with caution. Potok is a critic of chassidism, not an advocate (although a critic with great respect for and understanding of it).”  So, keep in mind that it may or may not be an accurate portrayal of Lubavitcher teachings, and even if it is, I suspect it is unlikely to be in line with other more conventional Jewish theologies.

The Seven Laws of Noah are a sound and proven basis for a sustainable society, even if the systemic corruption of the US court system appears to render Law number seven a little more questionable than the others.  But I am more than a little dubious about the prospects for long-term survival, let alone success, of any movement that posits more than 99 percent of the world’s population consists of demon souls from the dark side.