My father and I have had a few dialogues lately concerning our different faiths. I thought I would reproduce much of what was written just for different approaches in apologetics. So here is one such correspondence.
Bud; I sincerely appreciate your offer of dialogue and debate. Only problem is, old dogs don't learn new tricks easily. You see, I was born into the world of evolution. There was never any hint at any other alternative form of thinking until I was well into college years. And by then, I was finally, laughlingly, admitting that some quacks from the back woods . . . those unfortunate enough to be raised in the piney woods where formal education never quite reached, had derrived the opinion they called creationism.
It was like the early "priests" (those who called themselves priests for lack of any better title) started shouting that the thunder and lightening, earthquakes and wind storms were actually Gods. That everyone should fall down on their knees and worship. Don't stop to think that any of these were natural events, occurring as the earth turned. And, if you paid a few alms to one of these "priests" they would give you a name that you and you alone could use when praying to these Gods . . . getting you special favors, of course.
At some point I learned that my own son, whose education I had obviously ignored . . . taking for granted that he would receive the same well grounded education (in evolution) I had, had somehow become a "Creationist." He was one of those who when faced with the fact that the Universe we know, and the multi-universes we imagine denies their existence. Who, when confronted by stacks of dinosaur bones, denies their existence. And all for the sake of being able to go to a "priest" to give him the name to call his God, to obtain special favors. Unthinkable!
That's why I won't debate or discuss Creationism vs Evolution with you. It is unimagin-able to me that anyone with any intelligence at all could deny the reality of the world we live in. It's no wonder you won't send your kiddos to public school, where they could possibly learn the reality of Evolution. Rather than kindle the flames of intolerance (which my attitude toward Creationism is), I'd rather set any such discussion aside . . . I do hope you can understand this. Your father is intolerant of very few things in this world. Possibly the only thing is STUPIDITY. And Creationism is, in my estimation, STUPIDITY!!
Dad,
Thanks you so much for sharing both your journey and your belief with me. It helps me to much better know you and where you are coming from. I will share with you my journey and my beliefs so that you might know more about who and what I am, for I fear that many of the ideas you think creationists have do not reflect my beliefs. You may think more of me, you may think less of me, but at least you will know what I believe and how I came to believe it.
I, like yourself, grew up only knowing one belief, and that was evolution. From earliest grade school through college, the public school system achieved their goal, and that was that all of my schooling was purely evolutionary. Their indoctrination was complete. As you so well put it, "There was never any hint at any other alternative form of thinking." I grew up believing it not just because my teachers taught it but because you believed it and taught it to me also. It was all I knew and therefore what I believed.
Then in 1987 God saved me. To tell you the truth, when I became a Christian there wasn't a huge revolution in my thinking though. At that point I just believed that God was the cause of evolution, that there was a supernatural force behind the natural. In one sense this was a new thought, in another it wasn't, because you and I both believe in non-physical (aka supernatural) forces that direct nature such as the laws of nature and the laws of logic. These cannot be felt, touched, tasted, heard, or seen, yet we both know that they exist and govern the natural universe.
I held to theistic evolution well into college, yet in the college arena this was a bigger issue of discussion. I heard about it in several talks as well as radio programs, people challenging the theory of evolution. Somewhere in the midst of this I had a huge realization, and that was that the theory of evolution was not a scientific theory but a historical one. This was important because I had always thought that evolution was scientific and science has to do with the real world and it can be tested and proven. What my teachers in my younger years had failed to do was to point out the distinction between "evolution" as a theory of origins and "evolution" as adaptation. The latter is a scientifically observed phenomenon. This is what Darwin saw on his voyages. We see small changes within species, and can test and observe them. This is science and is fact. The former cannot be observed or tested scientifically and is therefore a historical theory. Evolution as a theory of the origin of different species is beyond the scope of the scientific method. It is in the same class as Creationism. Science is based on observation, on testing the natural phenomena around us. Well, since the theory of the origin of species is, by definition, something that happened a long time ago, it therefore cannot be tested in a laboratory and observed. It is not, therefore, a scientific theory but a historical one. All science can do, if we assume uniformitarianism, is show us whether evolution was possible, not whether or not it actually happened.
Now, being your son, I really got into all of the intellectual aspects of what I believed about science and religion. I always wanted to be like you in that way. And so I began to delve into all of the science books I could, books that gave the other side of the story. I still had all of my evolutionary things I was reading because I was in college Biology and Anthropology, my English class had it, as did my Sociology and Psychology classes. It was at this point that I came to realize that what the public schools were teaching was extremely biased information. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will give you one example in light of what you said in your letter. In public school I learned about scientists like Kepler, Francis and Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Robert Boyle, Pasteur, Maxwell, Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Joule, Mendel, Agassiz, Pascal, Linnaeus, and, of course, Isaac Newton. I am sure you also recognize most, if not all, of these names. All of them are considered some of the greatest scientists who ever lived and have given us science as we know it today. The problem? Well, my public school textbook (and obviously yours too) never mentioned that every one of these men were dogmatic Biblical Creationists, the ones you mentioned that were from the back woods. Biblical Creationism existed long before Darwin or Wallace ever posited their theory. It obviously existed long before you and I ever heard about it in our college years, but you and I never heard about it because of biased sources presenting what they wanted us to believe about science, not giving us the whole truth. And, by the way, lest we think that they were creationists simply because they were not yet acquainted with modern philosophies, many of them (Agassiz, Kelvin, Maxwell, Pasteur) were opponents of Darwinism. (This is one of the many reasons that we homeschool our children, they will learn a lot more information than the public schools will ever give them.)
Needless to say, I soon became a Creationist. I found the arguments and interpretations of evidence from the Creationists far more convincing, but I do suppose that this is because I was predisposed to that position (just like everyone else who has ever lived). Just as creationists believe in creationism because their beliefs predispose them to, so evolutionists believe in evolution because their religious beliefs predispose them to. Just as creationism is the story of origins for Christianity, so evolution is the story of origins for secular humanism/naturalism/atheism. So I do understand why you believe what you do and also why you despise creationism so much.
So I guess that is my story. There is, of course, much much more that could be said. A few more thoughts that I wanted to clarify before leaving you: 1)I do believe in the physical universe, I do not deny its existence.2)I do believe in Dinosaurs, and so does every creationist I know of. In fact the Bible taught about dinosaurs thousands of years before the first dinosaur fossil was ever discovered.
So again, I hope that no matter what your feelings are, that at least you understand a little more clearly what I believe and how I came to believe it. I hope you don't think this is me trying to teach you new tricks but just explaining to you more about me and my life.
Thanks again for sharing your story. I'm sorry mine was so much longer.
Showing posts with label Evolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evolution. Show all posts
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Another Display of Religious Scientists
Once again I was having a discussion with my evolutionary coworker, this time about the moon. I appealed to him about several different facts about the moon that would lead us to believe that the moon and earth are only about 6,000 years old.
The next day he told me he had looked up stuff on the moon the previous evening. He told me that there were six theories about how we got our moon and the age of the moon. So I asked him if any of the six theories was that God created the moon and that it was young. None of the six theories posited the possibility of divine intervention.
This once again demonstrates the religious bias of "scientists". They are able to form theories, taking this data to substantiate their theory, yet all of the theories are atheistic theories. There is one place they cannot go in the interpretation of the data, and that is to God and a creation. Why? Because their religious presuppositions rule out this possibility. They are obligated by their religious beliefs to not even acknowledge the possibility of one theory (creation) while not having enough data to substantiate any of their own theories. Yet if a creationist took all of the evidence I bet all of it would fit perfectly into a young creation model. But thats not allowed. Why? Is it science or religion that prevents it? Well, science would allow all theories and then the theory which best explains all of the evidence would be "the most scientific". Yet to disallow a theory because it is not a naturalistic theory, because it appeals to something beyond what your religious beliefs will allow, well that isn't science, its religious intolerance. And such intolerance is vibrantly displayed on "scintific" websites such as the one my coworker visited.
The next day he told me he had looked up stuff on the moon the previous evening. He told me that there were six theories about how we got our moon and the age of the moon. So I asked him if any of the six theories was that God created the moon and that it was young. None of the six theories posited the possibility of divine intervention.
This once again demonstrates the religious bias of "scientists". They are able to form theories, taking this data to substantiate their theory, yet all of the theories are atheistic theories. There is one place they cannot go in the interpretation of the data, and that is to God and a creation. Why? Because their religious presuppositions rule out this possibility. They are obligated by their religious beliefs to not even acknowledge the possibility of one theory (creation) while not having enough data to substantiate any of their own theories. Yet if a creationist took all of the evidence I bet all of it would fit perfectly into a young creation model. But thats not allowed. Why? Is it science or religion that prevents it? Well, science would allow all theories and then the theory which best explains all of the evidence would be "the most scientific". Yet to disallow a theory because it is not a naturalistic theory, because it appeals to something beyond what your religious beliefs will allow, well that isn't science, its religious intolerance. And such intolerance is vibrantly displayed on "scintific" websites such as the one my coworker visited.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Religious Rock Dating
I have much enjoyed a new found way of approaching the religious tenets of evolutionary thinking this week. The approach came from a simple chart that I saw last week. It simply showed that both evolutionists and creationists had a piece of data (fact), an unchanging assumption, and then a variable conclusion.
Now when I first looked at this it really didn’t impact me, but when I began to really think about its implications and how it could be used to illustrate presuppositions it was great. I have since used it several times in illustrating to evolutionists that their evolutionism is just as religious as creationism and Christianity. Let me explain.
First, we see that there is an observed fact, something both camps and scientists see. In this case it is a rock with an observed amount of an isotope in it. We agree about how mush of the isotope is in the rock. This is the fact. But it is at this point that we part ways, because now our religious presuppositions enter into the equation.
The next part of the chart is labeled the “unchanging assumption”. For creationists the unchanging assumption is the age of the earth. We believe the earth to be about 6,000 years old, based upon the Bible. This is an assumption that we bring to the table, and this is static, it doesn’t change. This is what we assume to be true, and therefore we examine the rock with the isotope in light of this assumption. Doing the math we then come to the conclusion about the rate of decay and starting isotope level within this rock.
Now the evolutionist uses exactly the same method but changes the assumption and conclusion. He believes that the rate of decay and the amount of isotopes that the rock began with are unchanging and then dates the rock according to the math.
What we need to see here is that both camps use unprovable assumptions. These are presuppositions that they believe to be true but cannot prove to be true. Take the evolutionists assumption about the unchanging rate of decay. Now lets say that he has found from scientific research that it takes 10 years to create .0001 milligrams of this particular isotope. This is then his rate of decay. So then he finds that the rock contains 100 milligrams of the isotope. Well, doing the math, this means that the rock is 1,000,000 years old. Pretty simple and straight forward. Or is it? Do you see all of the assumptions that have taken place? Here are a few.
1) The scientist has assumed that the rate of decay is the same now as it was a thousand years ago. Does he know it is the same? No! He wasn’t there and there weren’t scientists back then that studied the rate of decay. It is an assumption that he cannot prove.
2) The scientist has also assumed that there was none of this isotope existing in the rock when it was formed. He has assumed that there was 0 of this particular isotope and now there is 100 milligrams. How does he know there wasn’t 10 milligrams when it was created? 20? 99? He doesn’t. It is also an assumption.
3) He has also assumed that there was no contamination. This means that there was not some outer force that contributed some more of the isotope into the rock apart from the decay within the rock. Was he there a thousand years ago to know that there wasn’t something that contaminated this rock? Has he been able to observe the rock every moment the last thousand years to make sure there is no contamination? No. His belief that the rock has not been altered by contamination is also an assumption.
All of this is to say that both evolutionists and creationists base their interpretation of data upon assumptions, assumptions that are determined by their preexisting beliefs about the world (aka worldview).
Using this I simply ask my evolutionary friends how their assumption is scientific. Why is one set of assumptions scientific while another is not. There is, of course, no answer. And so once again we have another demonstration of the fact that evolutionists operate as much upon their religious assumptions as creationists do.
Now when I first looked at this it really didn’t impact me, but when I began to really think about its implications and how it could be used to illustrate presuppositions it was great. I have since used it several times in illustrating to evolutionists that their evolutionism is just as religious as creationism and Christianity. Let me explain.
First, we see that there is an observed fact, something both camps and scientists see. In this case it is a rock with an observed amount of an isotope in it. We agree about how mush of the isotope is in the rock. This is the fact. But it is at this point that we part ways, because now our religious presuppositions enter into the equation.
The next part of the chart is labeled the “unchanging assumption”. For creationists the unchanging assumption is the age of the earth. We believe the earth to be about 6,000 years old, based upon the Bible. This is an assumption that we bring to the table, and this is static, it doesn’t change. This is what we assume to be true, and therefore we examine the rock with the isotope in light of this assumption. Doing the math we then come to the conclusion about the rate of decay and starting isotope level within this rock.
Now the evolutionist uses exactly the same method but changes the assumption and conclusion. He believes that the rate of decay and the amount of isotopes that the rock began with are unchanging and then dates the rock according to the math.
What we need to see here is that both camps use unprovable assumptions. These are presuppositions that they believe to be true but cannot prove to be true. Take the evolutionists assumption about the unchanging rate of decay. Now lets say that he has found from scientific research that it takes 10 years to create .0001 milligrams of this particular isotope. This is then his rate of decay. So then he finds that the rock contains 100 milligrams of the isotope. Well, doing the math, this means that the rock is 1,000,000 years old. Pretty simple and straight forward. Or is it? Do you see all of the assumptions that have taken place? Here are a few.
1) The scientist has assumed that the rate of decay is the same now as it was a thousand years ago. Does he know it is the same? No! He wasn’t there and there weren’t scientists back then that studied the rate of decay. It is an assumption that he cannot prove.
2) The scientist has also assumed that there was none of this isotope existing in the rock when it was formed. He has assumed that there was 0 of this particular isotope and now there is 100 milligrams. How does he know there wasn’t 10 milligrams when it was created? 20? 99? He doesn’t. It is also an assumption.
3) He has also assumed that there was no contamination. This means that there was not some outer force that contributed some more of the isotope into the rock apart from the decay within the rock. Was he there a thousand years ago to know that there wasn’t something that contaminated this rock? Has he been able to observe the rock every moment the last thousand years to make sure there is no contamination? No. His belief that the rock has not been altered by contamination is also an assumption.
All of this is to say that both evolutionists and creationists base their interpretation of data upon assumptions, assumptions that are determined by their preexisting beliefs about the world (aka worldview).
Using this I simply ask my evolutionary friends how their assumption is scientific. Why is one set of assumptions scientific while another is not. There is, of course, no answer. And so once again we have another demonstration of the fact that evolutionists operate as much upon their religious assumptions as creationists do.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt1
Have you heard of the madman that stood at the busy street corner announcing through his bull-horn, “I have discovered the truth that no one can know truth!”? Or the professor that proclaimed in his philosophy class, “I have logically proven that there is no logic.” Or the university lecturer that said, “All words are meaningless.” What do these three have in common? None of them really believed what they were professing to believe. The one who believed that words have no meaning was using “meaningful words” to attempt to communicate his belief. The madman believed that he knew the “truth” that he was teaching. And the professor was dependent upon the logic which he was trying to destroy. Each of these men might have thought that what they were saying was true, but they really didn’t believe it. Like so many others across the face of this vast planet, these men suffered from a sort of “intellectual schizophrenia”. Though they professed to believe one thing, their deeds acted contrary to their profession.
We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Why??? See the next blog.
We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Why??? See the next blog.
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt2
First, a brief definition will be helpful to understand who and what we are talking about when we talk about evolution and evolutionists. There are a myriad of definitions for evolution, but what I am specifically addressing here is the belief of evolution “as a comprehensive model of origins”. In other words evolution is the belief that everything generally, and man specifically, have arisen by purely natural processes through millions or billions of years to become what we are today. As Carl Sagan says, “It is the universe that made us. We are creatures of the cosmos.” This is the evolution of which millions profess and yet none truly believe.
What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.
On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?
Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.
to be continued...
What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.
On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?
Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.
to be continued...
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt3
Now we all trust our minds and the thoughts that arise from them because we believe our minds to be logical, reasonable, rational, intelligent and coherent. Each of these traits is central to knowing anything, to positing any truth, to making any kind of a rational decision, to science, to math, and more specifically to thought itself. And yet if, as evolution maintains, the brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes, if it is merely the composition of matter plus energy, then where does reason, logic, rationality and intelligence arise from?
Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”
Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.
In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?
To be continued...
Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”
Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.
In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?
To be continued...
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt4
In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?
To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…
There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.
Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.
We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.
to be continued...
To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…
There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.
Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.
We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.
to be continued...
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution pt5
I remember the time that my essay “Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer” got posted on an atheist/evolutionist website, which prompted dozens of responses. Not surprisingly every one of these responses made appeal to laws of logic and reason and evidence, only further validating the argument presented in the essay. What these fellows failed to realize was that their attempt to make a distinction between what was logical and illogical, their attempt to make a distinction between right and wrong ideas and reasonable and unreasonable thoughts completely destroyed the foundation of their evolutionism. The more they appealed to such concepts the more they denied the reality of their belief. They cannot appeal to any standard of logic, reason, rationality or truth because evolution undermines the possibility of logic, reason, rationality and truth. If they really believed evolution they would realize there is no distinction between what is logical and what is not, but that their mind just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so.
And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.
And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.
And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.
And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Why No One Really Believes in Evolution (the whole thing and its long, believe me!)
Have you heard of the madman that stood at the busy street corner announcing through his bull-horn, “I have discovered the truth that no one can know truth!”? Or the professor that proclaimed in his philosophy class, “I have logically proven that there is no logic.” Or the university lecturer that said, “All words are meaningless.” What do these three have in common? None of them really believed what they were professing to believe. The one who believed that words have no meaning was using “meaningful words” to attempt to communicate his belief. The madman believed that he knew the “truth” that he was teaching. And the professor was dependent upon the logic which he was trying to destroy. Each of these men might have thought that what they were saying was true, but they really didn’t believe it. Like so many others across the face of this vast planet, these men suffered from a sort of “intellectual schizophrenia”. Though they professed to believe one thing, their deeds acted contrary to their profession.
We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Here is why…
First, a brief definition will be helpful to understand who and what we are talking about when we talk about evolution and evolutionists. There are a myriad of definitions for evolution, but what I am specifically addressing here is the belief of evolution “as a comprehensive model of origins”. In other words evolution is the belief that everything generally, and man specifically, have arisen by purely natural processes through millions or billions of years to become what we are today. As Carl Sagan says, “It is the universe that made us. We are creatures of the cosmos.” This is the evolution of which millions profess and yet none truly believe.
What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.
On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?
Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.
Now we all trust our minds and the thoughts that arise from them because we believe our minds to be logical, reasonable, rational, intelligent and coherent. Each of these traits is central to knowing anything, to positing any truth, to making any kind of a rational decision, to science, to math, and more specifically to thought itself. And yet if, as evolution maintains, the brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes, if it is merely the composition of matter plus energy, then where does reason, logic, rationality and intelligence arise from?
Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”
Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.
In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?
To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…
There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.
Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.
We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.
I remember the time that my essay “Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer” got posted on an atheist/evolutionist website, which prompted dozens of responses. Not surprisingly every one of these responses made appeal to laws of logic and reason and evidence, only further validating the argument presented in the essay. What these fellows failed to realize was that their attempt to make a distinction between what was logical and illogical, their attempt to make a distinction between right and wrong ideas and reasonable and unreasonable thoughts completely destroyed the foundation of their evolutionism. The more they appealed to such concepts the more they denied the reality of their belief. They cannot appeal to any standard of logic, reason, rationality or truth because evolution undermines the possibility of logic, reason, rationality and truth. If they really believed evolution they would realize there is no distinction between what is logical and what is not, but that their mind just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so.
And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.
And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.
We are no strangers to this idea. One of the favorite mudslingers of our day is to call someone a “hypocrite”. When this charge is leveled, it is because people are seen acting contrary to their professed belief. We yearn for peoples actions to be consistent with their words. Now you may have noticed the usage of the term “words” and “professed beliefs”. This is intentional, because there is often a vast difference between a profession of belief and true belief. The profession is what someone thinks they believe, but true belief is in how they act. In others words, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. The professors words said, “There is no logic!” while his actions proclaimed “I believe in logic!” This disparity between profession and belief is also found in modern evolutionary thought, for though evolutionists proclaim one belief they deny that very belief in the way they think. Here is why…
First, a brief definition will be helpful to understand who and what we are talking about when we talk about evolution and evolutionists. There are a myriad of definitions for evolution, but what I am specifically addressing here is the belief of evolution “as a comprehensive model of origins”. In other words evolution is the belief that everything generally, and man specifically, have arisen by purely natural processes through millions or billions of years to become what we are today. As Carl Sagan says, “It is the universe that made us. We are creatures of the cosmos.” This is the evolution of which millions profess and yet none truly believe.
What evolutionists are claiming by “purely natural processes” is that there was no supernatural intervention in the creation of man. This means that there is no design to the human being, no purpose to any of his organs, and no intent behind his existence. Christians often claim that what evolutionists are saying is that we, the human race, are a mistake. This is not true, for “mistake” assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter, energy and chemical combustion. You do not exist to survive, to thrive, to think or to do anything else. There is no “meaning” or purpose behind you, your senses, or your brain. It is at this very point that the problem arises for evolutionists. Let me explain.
On the one hand the evolutionists are asserting that their minds are the product of random, meaningless, non-logical, purposeless forces and yet, on the other hand, are trying to reason, think and use logic. Therein lays the contradiction. If you believe that your mind is the product of random, purposeless forces, that it was not meant to think or to reason, that intelligence and logic are mere concoctions of this hodgepodge of chemicals, and that your senses are not designed to sense, then why would you attempt to use reason, to understand data, and to use the laws of logic? How could any evolutionists think that they can think coherently and that their minds can rationally understand reality?
Lets picture this another way. According to evolution our minds are just the random happenstance of time plus energy plus matter. They were not designed to think or to reason, to know or to interpret data. In fact they came about for no reason whatsoever. This being the case there is no difference between a brain and a rock in their design to reason. Or for that matter milk bubbles, Franks Hot Sauce (that’s good stuff!!), intestinal gas or grass. Each of these was designed to think in the same way, it wasn’t. They are all just random non-intelligent chemicals that happened to have come together through time.
Now we all trust our minds and the thoughts that arise from them because we believe our minds to be logical, reasonable, rational, intelligent and coherent. Each of these traits is central to knowing anything, to positing any truth, to making any kind of a rational decision, to science, to math, and more specifically to thought itself. And yet if, as evolution maintains, the brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes, if it is merely the composition of matter plus energy, then where does reason, logic, rationality and intelligence arise from?
Just the other day I was conversing with an evolutionist about his beliefs. I asked him why he believed in evolution, to which he responded, “Logic.” I found the answer quite interesting. I then asked him, “Is matter intelligent?”
He answered, “No.”
“Is energy intelligent?”
Again, “No.”
“Hmmm...” I continued. “Did you ever take math in school?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me then, what is 0+0?”
“Zero.”, he replied.
“All the time?”
“Yes, all the time”.
I then queried, “So if I take zero intelligence and add zero intelligence to it, how much intelligence do we get?”
“Ummm, zero.”
“And if we add zero plus zero for a thousand years? A million? A billion? How much intelligence do we get by adding another factor without intelligence?”
Silence.
I then pressed the dialogue, “The same is true of logic, of reason, of rationality, of knowledge. If you add a zillion non-logical chemicals together how much logic do you get? Zero. Where then did intelligence, logic and reason come from?”
Zero intelligence plus zero intelligence equals zero intelligence. Zero logic plus zero logic equals zero logic. Where, then, does intelligence arise from (in the human brain or anywhere else for that matter) when there is no intelligent source or origin? Is “intelligence” just a combination of certain chemicals? Is logic a different chemical combination? And reason a third? And if so, how does any combination of non-intelligent chemicals make intelligence? And Logic? And Reason? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. Zero plus zero still equals zero.
In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. These excretions are no different from any other excretions from any other part of your body, or any other “living” thing. They are all just chemicals interacting and combusting. So what makes the gaseous excretions in a skull intelligent or meaningful while the random gaseous excretions from intestines are not? So what in the world would cause an evolutionist to think that his mind is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? If he really believed evolution how could he possibly believe that this mass of random chemical goo called his “brain” is intelligent or rational? How is his conglomeration of random chemicals (brain), or anyone else’s, any different from any other conglomeration of random chemicals such as Alka-Seltzer, soda-pop or dirt?
To this problem a friend of mine answered, “Some day they may find the difference between thought and non-thought and give us an answer, it’s just not known yet.” To which I responded, “Don’t you see that their “answers” are just the gaseous excretions of the goo in their heads?” In other words, we can postulate an “answer”, but the “answer” is just the unorganized haphazard excretions of yet another unorganized haphazard mass of chemicals that we call a human being. How then can we trust their “answer”? We may postulate all we want that someday someone might find some quantitative difference between cognition, flatulation, and what rocks dream about, but the point is that they are all still non-rational matter. It is just nature taking its course. Any combination of any number of non-rational chemicals does not and cannot create rationality or intelligence. No matter how many chemicals we add or what combinations we use, they are still non-intelligent non-rational chemicals, and nothing plus nothing equals…
There is, therefore, no reason to believe that our minds and thoughts correspond to reality, or, for that matter, our senses. (In fact, we can’t even know if we have senses, for though the random chemicals in our skulls are “telling” us this through their random combustions, how can we truly trust that those random combustions are in any way reflecting reality?) How can an unordered chaotic mass of goo create or find order in an unordered chaotic universe? We must remember that our minds are not trying to decide truth or discern truth, they are not attempting to make sense out of the world, they are not endeavoring to gather data, but our minds are merely chemicals purposelessly doing what they do. It’s simply nature doing what nature does.
Have you ever been asked the question, “What were you thinking??” Well, in an evolutionary world the basic answer is, “I wasn’t. It was just nature taking its course in my head!” There is no thinking “intelligently”, “logically” or “rationally” but only naturally, and that kind of thought we have no control over . The evolutionist often fails to realize this truth. There is therefore no distinction between rationality and irrationality in an evolutionary world, because it is just nature taking its course. There is neither logical thinking nor illogical thinking, for all thinking is not thinking at all but nature simply doing what it does. Therefore any reference to “being logical” or “being intelligent” is nonsense.
We therefore see that the evolutionary worldview, by its very definition, destroys all possibility of objective knowledge, logic, reason and intelligence. It undermines all academic study and subverts the possibility of coherent thought. Yet I have yet to meet or ever hear of any evolutionist who rejects his own reason or the laws of logic. They all continue to uphold their intelligence though they know that evolution cannot explain or produce it.
I remember the time that my essay “Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer” got posted on an atheist/evolutionist website, which prompted dozens of responses. Not surprisingly every one of these responses made appeal to laws of logic and reason and evidence, only further validating the argument presented in the essay. What these fellows failed to realize was that their attempt to make a distinction between what was logical and illogical, their attempt to make a distinction between right and wrong ideas and reasonable and unreasonable thoughts completely destroyed the foundation of their evolutionism. The more they appealed to such concepts the more they denied the reality of their belief. They cannot appeal to any standard of logic, reason, rationality or truth because evolution undermines the possibility of logic, reason, rationality and truth. If they really believed evolution they would realize there is no distinction between what is logical and what is not, but that their mind just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so.
And yet they continue to believe that they are capable of making choices. They continue to believe that there are objective standards of logic and rationality. They continue to believe that they have meaningful thoughts, that their ideas correspond to reality, that they are capable of intelligence and are themselves intelligent beings. They believe that they do have senses, and that what those senses intake correspond to reality, and that the transfer of the data from those senses to their brains is an accurate transmission, and that the brains interpretation of the data is accurate, and that they make reasonable choices in accordance with all of that data. In so doing they fail treat their minds as products of evolution.
And so, just like the madmen mentioned at the beginning, there stands the evolutionist declaring, “With my reason, logic, intellect, knowledge and rationality I believe in evolution.” In other words, “Logically, there is no logic! With my rational mind I have determined that there are no rational minds! With my reason I have ascertained that there is no reason! From all of the knowledge that I have obtained I have determined that there is no knowledge! From the depths of my intelligence I have concluded that there is no intelligence in the universe!” Why? Because they really believe that they are far more than just random, impersonal, unintelligent, non-rational, non-logical combinations of matter and energy. In the end, they do not really believe in evolution. They might shout it from the rooftops and write it in their books and live it in their moral choices, but they flatly deny it in the way they think.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Of Evolution and Alka-Seltzer
Imagine you are watching a debate between an evolutionist and a creationist. The evolutionist stands and gives his 15-minute opening argument on why you should believe that mankind evolved over millions of years from primordial goo through the zoo and finally to you. He presents a rather extensive array of facts that he says point to the obvious truth of evolution. He talks about fossils and science and energy and the rest, hoping to persuade you, the listener, that it is more reasonable, indeed, more intelligent to believe that you have evolved than that you were somehow created by supernatural fiat. He rests his case, gets a round of applause from the audience and sits down. The moderator presents the creationist to you and the creationist opens with the following argument…
“ Thank you Mr. Moderator. Thank you to all who have come here tonight to weigh this subject, for it is not just a subject, it is the subject that will decide everything else about how we think about ourselves and how we live out our lives. And thank you to my opponent tonight, for agreeing to this debate and for spending the last fifteen minutes illustrating the truth of special creation by arguing for the belief of evolution. Now how can I say this? He just stood up here and presented all kinds of evidence that he believes to be in favor of evolution and against the idea of special creation, so how can I say that he, in so doing, has proven special creation? Simply, because my opponent has attempted to persuade us of something. In attempting to do so he has appealed to many different aspects of man, aspects that cannot be explained by evolution. He has made appeal to your mind. He has assumed, as I have, that those of you sitting out there, listening to this debate are rational, intelligent, cogent beings that are capable of making decisions about what is true and what is not. He has assumed that you all are capable of drawing rational conclusions based upon the arguments presented. He has also made appeal to your senses to accurately intake and communicate to your minds the pictures, sounds, and other data that comprised his case. And he has made an appeal to your ability to choose. He has assumed that you and I are capable of choosing to believe in one of these two ideas, of changing our minds based upon his abilities to persuade you or at least based upon the evidence’s force to compel you into believing one of these ideas while rejecting the other. In making these appeals, in assuming these truths, he has proven beyond any doubt that 1) evolution cannot be true and 2) that special creation must be true. Let me elaborate by addressing the first area I mentioned.”“To do this I want to introduce you to someone named Al. Now I might be stretching the rules of debate a little bit by bringing up someone else, but I needed him to illustrate this point for you. So would everyone give Al Kaseltzer their undivided attention.”
At this point he pulls out of his pocket two Alka-Seltzer tablets and drops them into a glass of water, puts a microphone up to the glass and sits down. 10 seconds pass, twenty, thirty, forty-five, a minute, and then two. Finally he stands and continues…
“Thank you Al. I want to ask those of you in the audience, ‘As we watched Al plop and listened to him fizz, did you come out with a better understanding of our origins from that fizzing? No? As you listened to the sounds emanating from the container did you think that they were insightful, intelligent, meaningful sounds that were communicating valid ideas that correspond to your origins?’”
“At this point you might be thinking that I’ve totally lost it, but before you dismiss me as completely whacked let me ask you this. From an evolutionary scheme what is the difference between Al, myself and my opponent tonight?”
“Evolutionary theory would have you believe that the human race evolved over many millions of years from random chemical interactions combining to finally form you. In other words, you are just a mistake. Actually, we can’t even say a mistake, for mistake assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter and chemical combustion. Hence, so is your mind. Your brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes. If this is the case then what in the world makes you think that my opponents mind, or yours for that matter, is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? How is his brain, or mine, or yours, any different from the Alka-Seltzer? The Alka-Seltzer is purely a set of chemicals combusting; excreting gas. So, too, your brain is just random set of chemicals combusting, excreting “brain gas”. In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. So what makes these gaseous excretions intelligent or meaningful? If our brains are just random conglomerations of electro-chemical reactions, how is it any different from any other electro-chemical reactions? What makes one chemical reaction “intelligible thought” while another “unintelligible”? One chemical reaction “logical” while another is “illogical”? One personal and meaningful while another impersonal and meaningless? Whether they come from a container made of glass or of skin and bone, they are all just gaseous excretions.”
“Lets change the metaphor slightly. How is the bodily excretion we call thought any different from any other chemical excretion from your body? They are both just chemicals doing what chemicals do and chemicals reacting the way chemicals react. What makes one more logical than another? In evolution how is cognition any different from flatulation? According to evolution your intestines are the accumulation of millions of years of random chemical reactions, just as your brain is. So what, per se, is the difference between the gaseous excretions of the two? What is the difference between brain gas and intestinal gas? I ask my opponent to explain the qualitative difference between the two excretions from the evolutionary point of view. When did the brain go from just another set of chemicals that excretes what it does to a thinking, reasoning machine where the gas is now intelligent? Are our intestines the same intelligent machine? They came about in the same way as the brain did! Just multiple chemical reactions accumulating over time to make it what it is. So why trust the one for rationality and not the other? Actually, the real question is why trust either of them? They are, after all, unintended, unguided, meaningless happenstances of time. Your brain was designed to think the same way your intestines were designed to think and the Alka-Seltzer was designed to think. They weren’t. They all are just chemicals passing gas. “
“So from the standpoint of evolution, what is intelligence and how does it differ from non-intelligence, one random chemical reaction versus another? How does anyone make that distinction in an evolutionary world? When does the gas become intelligent or rational? How does this occur? What transpires for something to all of a sudden, one Friday afternoon at 3 pm, transform from just another gas to an intelligent, meaningful thought? Was that a chemical reaction? If it was then how is it any different from any other? What made that one intelligent? You end up in the same boat. In the evolutionary worldview there is no basis for intelligence, logic, or rationality. Thought is not meaningful but random. It is neither controlled nor categorized. So too all the concepts interpreted in thought like logic, rationality, sense perception and knowledge of the external world and history. In evolution rational thought and irrational thought are the same. They are both gaseous excretions. Gases doing what gases do. There is no difference between the two. How, then, can we compare thoughts? How can we have this debate? If all thoughts are merely gaseous excretions then all thoughts are equally valid. How can we say that one excretion is true while another is false? Right as opposed to wrong? Logical versus illogical? They are, after all, merely gaseous excretions. Would we say that it’s right for copper to expand when it is heated or wrong for oil and water to separate? It would be like me shaking up a bottle of Pepsi and then asking all of you to determine whether it was right or wrong for the Pepsi to fizz the way it did. That would be nonsense, because the Pepsi just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so. So how can my opponent assert that one belief is true while another is false or make the claim that it is right or wrong for a particular gas (thought or belief) to excrete from the brain when it is natural for it to do so? In evolution there can be no right or wrong thoughts, ideas, or beliefs, just chemicals doing what chemicals do.”
“Yet my opponent has assumed that those listening here tonight are rational. He has assumed that some beliefs are truer than others, some thoughts more valid than other thoughts. He holds that there is a distinction between rational and irrational thought and that one view of the origin of man is more rational than another. He believes that his argument is somehow more valid than Al Kaseltzer’s argument, but please explain to me how this is possible when they are both just chemicals passing gas? He thinks that the excretions from the random chemicals in his head are superior to the excretions of the chemicals in the glass of Alka-Seltzer, but how can this be true in evolution? He believes that the laws of logic and standards of rationality extend beyond individuals. He believes that you, in the audience, are capable of making meaningful decisions based upon his arguments, or he wouldn’t have come. But from an evolutionary standpoint how are the random chemical combinations of your brains any better suited to think and to reason than the chemical combinations of the Alka-Seltzer? Yet, if my opponent had been asked to come and attempt to persuade 200 glasses of Alka-Seltzer that they evolved over millions of years do you really think he would have shown up? Obviously he believes himself and all of you to be much more than random impersonal non-rational masses of matter.”
“ In short, he has assumed special creation in order to persuade you of evolution. By his doing so, he has demonstrated for all of us that evolution cannot be true as well as demonstrating the self-evident truth of special creation. Not only has he assumed this great truth, but so have all of you. Everyone who came tonight to weigh these issues has assumed the specially created intellect of their minds, even if they, up to this point, have believed in evolution. None of those who came tonight thought that you would just be watching soda fizz. You came expecting a meaningful dialogue and transferal of information from intelligent beings. You assumed that my opponent and I were more than just random impersonal chemicals passing gas, as testified to by the immediate distinction you made between the noise coming from the Alka-Seltzer and the noise emanating from the debaters. You have presupposed truths particular only to special creation in order to weigh the subject of evolution.
You have also assumed yourself to be far more than random impersonal non-rational masses of matter, or you would never have shown up nor would you bother to attempt to think anymore. Had you been truly convinced of evolution and followed it to its inevitable conclusion then you would have long ago decided that the pursuit of truth and rationality was an exercise in futility. Yet you are all still here! You are all still trying to come to reasonable conclusions about our origins. You are still attempting to use your intellect as well as your senses because somehow you know that you are far more than just chemicals, that your thoughts are far more than just brain gas.
This is why special creation is self-evident, because it must be assumed for us to think that we are thinking or trust that we are trusting or reason that we are reasoning. You must assume your minds rationality in order to do any other thought, and therefore must assume special creation. It is also self-evident because, as we all now realize, that if it were not for special creation we would never be able to think about evolution or our origins. There would never be theories to analyze, thoughts to ponder, or ideas to believe because without the special creation of your mind there would be no theorizing, thinking or believing at all; just chemicals passing gas.You have heard of the famous proverb of Rene Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum.” “I think therefore I am.” Actually it ought to be, “I think therefore I was specially created”. That is the necessary conclusion, because if you were not specially created, if your mind is nothing more than chemicals passing gas, then there is no reason to think that you are thinking nor to trust that your thoughts have any correspondence to reality. But since your mind is specially created to make rational decisions and intelligent choices you can reasonably believe that you are able to make rational decisions and intelligent choices.
In summation, evolution undermines rational, meaningful thought. Evolution is therefore self-refuting because it eliminates any possibility of knowing anything, including knowing whether or not evolution is true.Special creation is the only system that can uphold rational, meaningful thought. Therefore, special creation is self-evidently true. It must be assumed in order to think about anything, including thinking about our origins and evolution.So once again I would like to thank my opponent for proving my point by making distinctions in thoughts and beliefs and by believing himself and everyone listening to be intelligent, rational thinkers thus disproving evolution and proving special creation. And I would like to further thank him for any rebuttal he may offer, for it too will prove my argument by once again appealing to your specially created intellects.”
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.
“ Thank you Mr. Moderator. Thank you to all who have come here tonight to weigh this subject, for it is not just a subject, it is the subject that will decide everything else about how we think about ourselves and how we live out our lives. And thank you to my opponent tonight, for agreeing to this debate and for spending the last fifteen minutes illustrating the truth of special creation by arguing for the belief of evolution. Now how can I say this? He just stood up here and presented all kinds of evidence that he believes to be in favor of evolution and against the idea of special creation, so how can I say that he, in so doing, has proven special creation? Simply, because my opponent has attempted to persuade us of something. In attempting to do so he has appealed to many different aspects of man, aspects that cannot be explained by evolution. He has made appeal to your mind. He has assumed, as I have, that those of you sitting out there, listening to this debate are rational, intelligent, cogent beings that are capable of making decisions about what is true and what is not. He has assumed that you all are capable of drawing rational conclusions based upon the arguments presented. He has also made appeal to your senses to accurately intake and communicate to your minds the pictures, sounds, and other data that comprised his case. And he has made an appeal to your ability to choose. He has assumed that you and I are capable of choosing to believe in one of these two ideas, of changing our minds based upon his abilities to persuade you or at least based upon the evidence’s force to compel you into believing one of these ideas while rejecting the other. In making these appeals, in assuming these truths, he has proven beyond any doubt that 1) evolution cannot be true and 2) that special creation must be true. Let me elaborate by addressing the first area I mentioned.”“To do this I want to introduce you to someone named Al. Now I might be stretching the rules of debate a little bit by bringing up someone else, but I needed him to illustrate this point for you. So would everyone give Al Kaseltzer their undivided attention.”
At this point he pulls out of his pocket two Alka-Seltzer tablets and drops them into a glass of water, puts a microphone up to the glass and sits down. 10 seconds pass, twenty, thirty, forty-five, a minute, and then two. Finally he stands and continues…
“Thank you Al. I want to ask those of you in the audience, ‘As we watched Al plop and listened to him fizz, did you come out with a better understanding of our origins from that fizzing? No? As you listened to the sounds emanating from the container did you think that they were insightful, intelligent, meaningful sounds that were communicating valid ideas that correspond to your origins?’”
“At this point you might be thinking that I’ve totally lost it, but before you dismiss me as completely whacked let me ask you this. From an evolutionary scheme what is the difference between Al, myself and my opponent tonight?”
“Evolutionary theory would have you believe that the human race evolved over many millions of years from random chemical interactions combining to finally form you. In other words, you are just a mistake. Actually, we can’t even say a mistake, for mistake assumes original intent. There is no intent, no purpose, or thought, or meaning or plan. According to evolutionary theory you are just a random conglomeration of time, chance, matter and chemical combustion. Hence, so is your mind. Your brain is the accumulation of millions of years of unguided, unintended chemical processes. If this is the case then what in the world makes you think that my opponents mind, or yours for that matter, is a reliable guide that gives meaningful insights and has accurate interpretations of laws of logic and physical phenomena? How is his brain, or mine, or yours, any different from the Alka-Seltzer? The Alka-Seltzer is purely a set of chemicals combusting; excreting gas. So, too, your brain is just random set of chemicals combusting, excreting “brain gas”. In evolution thought is simply the gaseous excretions of the chemical combustions of the goo in your head. So what makes these gaseous excretions intelligent or meaningful? If our brains are just random conglomerations of electro-chemical reactions, how is it any different from any other electro-chemical reactions? What makes one chemical reaction “intelligible thought” while another “unintelligible”? One chemical reaction “logical” while another is “illogical”? One personal and meaningful while another impersonal and meaningless? Whether they come from a container made of glass or of skin and bone, they are all just gaseous excretions.”
“Lets change the metaphor slightly. How is the bodily excretion we call thought any different from any other chemical excretion from your body? They are both just chemicals doing what chemicals do and chemicals reacting the way chemicals react. What makes one more logical than another? In evolution how is cognition any different from flatulation? According to evolution your intestines are the accumulation of millions of years of random chemical reactions, just as your brain is. So what, per se, is the difference between the gaseous excretions of the two? What is the difference between brain gas and intestinal gas? I ask my opponent to explain the qualitative difference between the two excretions from the evolutionary point of view. When did the brain go from just another set of chemicals that excretes what it does to a thinking, reasoning machine where the gas is now intelligent? Are our intestines the same intelligent machine? They came about in the same way as the brain did! Just multiple chemical reactions accumulating over time to make it what it is. So why trust the one for rationality and not the other? Actually, the real question is why trust either of them? They are, after all, unintended, unguided, meaningless happenstances of time. Your brain was designed to think the same way your intestines were designed to think and the Alka-Seltzer was designed to think. They weren’t. They all are just chemicals passing gas. “
“So from the standpoint of evolution, what is intelligence and how does it differ from non-intelligence, one random chemical reaction versus another? How does anyone make that distinction in an evolutionary world? When does the gas become intelligent or rational? How does this occur? What transpires for something to all of a sudden, one Friday afternoon at 3 pm, transform from just another gas to an intelligent, meaningful thought? Was that a chemical reaction? If it was then how is it any different from any other? What made that one intelligent? You end up in the same boat. In the evolutionary worldview there is no basis for intelligence, logic, or rationality. Thought is not meaningful but random. It is neither controlled nor categorized. So too all the concepts interpreted in thought like logic, rationality, sense perception and knowledge of the external world and history. In evolution rational thought and irrational thought are the same. They are both gaseous excretions. Gases doing what gases do. There is no difference between the two. How, then, can we compare thoughts? How can we have this debate? If all thoughts are merely gaseous excretions then all thoughts are equally valid. How can we say that one excretion is true while another is false? Right as opposed to wrong? Logical versus illogical? They are, after all, merely gaseous excretions. Would we say that it’s right for copper to expand when it is heated or wrong for oil and water to separate? It would be like me shaking up a bottle of Pepsi and then asking all of you to determine whether it was right or wrong for the Pepsi to fizz the way it did. That would be nonsense, because the Pepsi just does what it does because it is natural for it to do so. So how can my opponent assert that one belief is true while another is false or make the claim that it is right or wrong for a particular gas (thought or belief) to excrete from the brain when it is natural for it to do so? In evolution there can be no right or wrong thoughts, ideas, or beliefs, just chemicals doing what chemicals do.”
“Yet my opponent has assumed that those listening here tonight are rational. He has assumed that some beliefs are truer than others, some thoughts more valid than other thoughts. He holds that there is a distinction between rational and irrational thought and that one view of the origin of man is more rational than another. He believes that his argument is somehow more valid than Al Kaseltzer’s argument, but please explain to me how this is possible when they are both just chemicals passing gas? He thinks that the excretions from the random chemicals in his head are superior to the excretions of the chemicals in the glass of Alka-Seltzer, but how can this be true in evolution? He believes that the laws of logic and standards of rationality extend beyond individuals. He believes that you, in the audience, are capable of making meaningful decisions based upon his arguments, or he wouldn’t have come. But from an evolutionary standpoint how are the random chemical combinations of your brains any better suited to think and to reason than the chemical combinations of the Alka-Seltzer? Yet, if my opponent had been asked to come and attempt to persuade 200 glasses of Alka-Seltzer that they evolved over millions of years do you really think he would have shown up? Obviously he believes himself and all of you to be much more than random impersonal non-rational masses of matter.”
“ In short, he has assumed special creation in order to persuade you of evolution. By his doing so, he has demonstrated for all of us that evolution cannot be true as well as demonstrating the self-evident truth of special creation. Not only has he assumed this great truth, but so have all of you. Everyone who came tonight to weigh these issues has assumed the specially created intellect of their minds, even if they, up to this point, have believed in evolution. None of those who came tonight thought that you would just be watching soda fizz. You came expecting a meaningful dialogue and transferal of information from intelligent beings. You assumed that my opponent and I were more than just random impersonal chemicals passing gas, as testified to by the immediate distinction you made between the noise coming from the Alka-Seltzer and the noise emanating from the debaters. You have presupposed truths particular only to special creation in order to weigh the subject of evolution.
You have also assumed yourself to be far more than random impersonal non-rational masses of matter, or you would never have shown up nor would you bother to attempt to think anymore. Had you been truly convinced of evolution and followed it to its inevitable conclusion then you would have long ago decided that the pursuit of truth and rationality was an exercise in futility. Yet you are all still here! You are all still trying to come to reasonable conclusions about our origins. You are still attempting to use your intellect as well as your senses because somehow you know that you are far more than just chemicals, that your thoughts are far more than just brain gas.
This is why special creation is self-evident, because it must be assumed for us to think that we are thinking or trust that we are trusting or reason that we are reasoning. You must assume your minds rationality in order to do any other thought, and therefore must assume special creation. It is also self-evident because, as we all now realize, that if it were not for special creation we would never be able to think about evolution or our origins. There would never be theories to analyze, thoughts to ponder, or ideas to believe because without the special creation of your mind there would be no theorizing, thinking or believing at all; just chemicals passing gas.You have heard of the famous proverb of Rene Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum.” “I think therefore I am.” Actually it ought to be, “I think therefore I was specially created”. That is the necessary conclusion, because if you were not specially created, if your mind is nothing more than chemicals passing gas, then there is no reason to think that you are thinking nor to trust that your thoughts have any correspondence to reality. But since your mind is specially created to make rational decisions and intelligent choices you can reasonably believe that you are able to make rational decisions and intelligent choices.
In summation, evolution undermines rational, meaningful thought. Evolution is therefore self-refuting because it eliminates any possibility of knowing anything, including knowing whether or not evolution is true.Special creation is the only system that can uphold rational, meaningful thought. Therefore, special creation is self-evidently true. It must be assumed in order to think about anything, including thinking about our origins and evolution.So once again I would like to thank my opponent for proving my point by making distinctions in thoughts and beliefs and by believing himself and everyone listening to be intelligent, rational thinkers thus disproving evolution and proving special creation. And I would like to further thank him for any rebuttal he may offer, for it too will prove my argument by once again appealing to your specially created intellects.”
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
