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Thursday, February 12, 2015

Thor's Day: The dinosaurs are coming! The dinosaurs are coming!

Among the Creationists

By Bob Boldt

[Editor’s note: In June 2010, the author attended a sermon and two talks by a Dr. G. Thomas Sharp given as part of the Summer Vacation Bible School at the First Assembly of God Church in Jefferson City, Missouri.
    In submitting this account, the author reminded us that today is Charles Darwin's birthday. Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, 50 years before the publication of his landmark book, 
On the Origin of Species, which plays no small role in the following account.]


I pulled into the Assembly of God parking lot at seven forty-five Sunday morning with plenty of time to attend the eight o’clock worship service. I couldn’t help but notice the five-foot by twenty-foot banner stretched across the wall of the church to the left of the main door that read, “Our Lost World – The Truth about Dinosaurs.” Beneath this imposing headline was a full-sized graphic of a Tyrannosaurus Rex-looking creature, with ferocious serrated teeth-filled mouth agape, apparently in full pursuit of some off-banner prey.
    With my abundantly yellow-post-it-marked Bible in hand and a tape recorder in my pocket, I donned my best evangelic smile, passed through the equally beatific congregants in the lobby, and took my place down front at a seat in the first row. Spread out across the front of the sanctuary was an abundant assemblage of all manner of beautifully reproduced fossil artifacts ranging from a respectably sized skeleton of “Pebbles,” eight-foot tall, a Jurassic adolescent Albertosaur, to the skull of a Piltdown man. It was a collection that would have done any Museum of Natural History anywhere in the country proud.

    I was there as a result of an email from a friend alerting me to a series of lectures to be given by Dr. G. Thomas Sharp, founder of the Creation Truth Foundation in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This event was scheduled to take place as part of the Vacation Bible School at the First Assembly of God megachurch in Jefferson City, Missouri. The Assembly of God’s most famous member was John Ashcroft, former Missouri governor and infamous former Attorney General to George W. Bush.
    Dr. Sharp, whose doctorate was in the philosophy of religion and science, was awarded his degree by a Florida seminary. As I was to find out, his observations were no mere watered down Intelligent Design (ID) academic dissertation, but a full-blown, old-timey, fire and brimstone Creationist diatribe.
    The worship service, prior to Dr. Sharp’s sermon, consisted of a series of inspiring hymns and musical numbers that were really quite moving. I had resolved to participate in the activities with a full and open heart. I did not go there to stand aloof, but to give myself fully to the moment. This was not difficult, as my early religious experience included services not unlike those at the Assembly of God. I had no intention of imposing a critical attitude on the proceedings, in either thought or expression. I had my tape recorder, which would allow me to later analyze the proceedings in detail.
    This subterfuge served me in two ways. First, it allowed me to give myself up wholly to the spirit of the proceedings without the necessity of breaking the mood with assiduous note-taking. My tape recorder also allowed me to quote Dr. Sharp with absolute confidence as to the accuracy of my reporting. I apologize in advance to the good doctor if I have taken some liberties with his material in the interests of clarity and brevity. I firmly believe in allowing my opponents to make the strongest possible arguments for their position.
    Almost immediately, I realized the wisdom of my decision to do my reporting undercover, disguised as a mild-mannered, Bible-toting evangelical. I was seated in the front row-center, fully visible to the entire congregation and featuring in almost every camera angle projected on the giant video screens to the left and right of the sanctuary.
    In fact, I was the only one in the front row. This sort of put the spotlight on me. For a while I wondered if this was because the congregation might know something that I didn’t, like veterans of a Gallagher performance. There were no surprises however, although I did put on quite a show of vehement singing, “a-men”-praising, and Bible-thumping. I actually had a lot of fun and found that, by the time Dr. Sharp was introduced, I was as filled with the Holy Spirit as the most zealous congregant.


Dr. Sharp took the podium. He looked to be a lean, fashionably attired gentleman with a penetrating gaze and a grey, well-trimmed, professorial goatee. He immediately took charge with a familiar, authoritative air that would have served him equally well in church or classroom.
    His message would not be unfamiliar to any viewer of the countless Christian broadcasting television and radio stations across the country:

We in America need to get back to the Christian roots upon which this country was founded. Essentially we must either become a Christian theocracy where fundamentalist Biblical literalism governs, or the people will perish.
    I did have a nervous moment or two when problems developed with the wireless mic Dr. Sharp was wearing. Fundamentalists, it seems, live in a world full of literal magic where Satin is constantly placing obstacles in the path of the faithful. Problems of this sort are never viewed metaphorically, but literally. When an annoying hum began to plague the PA system, Dr. Sharp’s piercing eyes darted suspiciously around the congregation and he said, only half in jest, “It looks as if Satin is doing his work here this morning. He’s always looking to trip us up.” All laughed – I a little nervously. I sent a rapid, fervent little prayer to the god Mercury that no one would spot my ruse and unmask my true agency as “Satan’s emissary.” Finally, Dr. Sharp was given a hand mic and proceeded.
    As I said, the material that morning was no real surprise. What did emerge from the sermon was a series of strange tales of magic and supernatural agency surrounding the founding of the United States. This was a surprising litany of superstitions that would probably make even a member of the Illuminati cringe.
    “What they teach your children in American History classes is watered down, untrue, and positively un-Christian,” intoned the good Doctor.

The United States of America is blessed among all others because it was founded on Christ and could not have existed without His direct intervention. That is something you will never hear in a history classroom anywhere in the public schools of this country.” He went on. “Did you know, for example, that George Washington, while an officer in the British army under General Braddock during the French and Indian war, was regarded by the Indians as being under the protection of the Great Spirit because none of the American Indian sharpshooters were able to bring him down? In fact, their chief told Washington, when they met years later, that he ordered his riflemen to cease firing on him because he was literally under the protection of God.
    I could go on and on with the stories Dr. Sharp used to enthrall his audience concerning the supernatural providence that is our sustaining heritage – a heritage Dr. Sharp asserts we have turned our back on.
    The bullet-proof George and the Indian chief story has been debunked as being mostly apocryphal. It is unlikely that any Indians in the battles referenced could tell one British soldier from another. There is no credible account of any chief reporting the supernatural protection for Washington. The man himself, however, did say the following in a letter to his brother:

By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!
Of course, history teaches us that George Washington never told a lie.

Later that evening, at the Sunday lecture, I was in my chosen seat for a dissertation on the headline topic: “The Truth about Dinosaurs.” Before the 7 p.m. lecture, a warm-up talk was given to the children in the Vacation Bible School who had been assembled in the sanctuary before being herded off to their Sunday school classrooms for later indoctrination.
    Matt Meyers, one of Dr. Sharp’s non-degreed associates, was an enthusiastic witness for the Lord and Creationism. His zeal in presenting his message was enthusiastically received by his young audience. The horde of at least 50 children looked to range in age from three to ten years. He was trying, in the simplest language possible, to convey to them the concept of Special Creation, why Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent, how they got all those animals into Noah’s ark, why they were all terrible sinners, and how, presumably, only Jesus could save them from the fires of Hell. This was no small order.

    I didn’t mind all the charming fairy-tales about the Garden and the Ark, but I was a little disturbed by the talk about sin and such. I think Matt was trying to relate it to the only sins the children might be familiar with – the worst of which was the proverbial cookie-jar theft or breaking older brother’s Game Boy.
    Trying to get a bunch of innocent pre-teens to feel bad about themselves by the harsh rules of Mosaic Law seemed bizarre, to say the least. I wondered whether Mark would like to have a large stone hung about his neck and find himself cast into the uttermost parts of the sea as his reward for attempting to make these little ones feel Adam’s guilt. I shuddered to think what course of instruction would be delivered in the longer indoctrination session that would take place after the children left the sanctuary. I found myself wishing I could follow the children to their next session, where the real message of the evening was to be delivered. After all, they are the real prospect for Christianity, the ones who must finally carry Christ’s’ message into the future.
    As soon as the children were cleared, the rest of the congregation moved forward to fill the seats at the front of the sanctuary. Dr. Sharp was introduced and assumed the podium, this time to do battle against the ungodly forces of Darwinism and materialistic science.

In 1997, in the earlier part of my ministry, when it was just my son and myself, we were bouncing down the road in an old 1991 Ford, going to a program at a Christian school somewhere. And I said to him that it just dawned on me that one of the biggest deterrents to Biblical reality today is dinosaurs. I told my son that when we get back to Oklahoma, I want to take a day and go visit our friend, Joe Taylor, the Christian paleontologist, about renting his dinosaurs. And so, when we got back, I told Joe about my idea and he agreed to rent me his dinosaurs for $1,500 a month. Next, I got on the phone and called from Miami to Phoenix and set up programs at Christian schools and churches. In that three-month period from November to December we saw over 22,000 people.


    The congregation was settling back in a state of relaxed attention, waiting eagerly for the really good stuff. Dr. Sharp went on. Pressing a key on his laptop, a slide of Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared on the two large projection screens on either side of the sanctuary.
For the last 30-40 years, dinosaur-mania has just eaten up the Western world. Particularly in the United States, there has been billions and billions spent on dinosaur exhibits and museums. It’s an absolute phenomenon! Kids between 3 and 10 years of age just get absolutely mesmerized by dinosaurs. These kids can name nearly every dinosaur on display up here, and their parents can’t. You know what that said to me? Somebody’s teaching them. And mom and dad’s not doing the teaching. It also says to me that there’s a huge amount of bondage going along with this information – a huge amount of bondage that is directly a crippling, stumbling reality with regards to the Gospel.
    You say, “How could dinosaurs be a deterrent to the preaching of the gospel?” I’ll tell you: They tell these kids that these dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago and became extinct. Now they don’t know why they became extinct but they became extinct. The reason that we see in the textbooks, that is no longer even agreed upon by the scientific community, is the asteroid theory. In the same rock layers where we find dinosaurs we also find turtles and lizards and snakes and crocodiles.
    Well, we still have turtles and lizards and snakes and crocodiles, but these big reptiles are gone from the earth. So they didn’t know how a catastrophe could be so selectively used to just take out the big guys and take out the big marine creatures and leave all the little ones alone to reproduce up to today. As a matter of fact, Edwin Colbert from the American Museum [of Natural History], who was the curator of the big dinosaur hall there, he said, “We’ll never know why the dinosaurs became extinct because it’s a mystery.”
    The congregation was warming to the topic. A few “a-mens” tentatively broke their silence. There was open laughter at these scientists who had always been held up to them as so smart and couldn’t even explain something as important to our understanding of the past as extinction.
So I went to the university – I’m writing a new book called “Rocks, Fossils & Dinosaurs”; it’ll be out in about six weeks – to see if I could find anything about dinosaur extinction theory and I found fifty – all the way from a meteor strike to methane poisoning. I won’t bother to tell you where these so-called reputable scientists came up with as the source of the methane. (laughter). It’s amazing what unbelievers have to believe in order to be unbelievers.
    This last one nearly brought the house down. Even the most skeptical Bible-thumper now realized that Dr. Sharp was one of their own. When the laughter finally subsided, he went on.
They don’t know where the dinosaurs went. And the reason they don’t is because the Apostle Peter said they willfully ignore the flood. Willfully ignore the flood! OK! Scientists say dinosaurs predate humans. But the Apostle Paul says, No, no, no! That’s not possible. You don’t have gigantic lizards that are meat-crushing, bone-consuming – you know monsters – spilling blood. You don’t have them on earth millions of years before man got here. There’s no death on earth before Adam’s sin.
    Paul said in Romans 5:12, “Therefore through one man’s sin, sin entered the world and through sin death entered the world.” Where do you think death came from? That’s the bottom line in this controversy. If death came from dinosaurs, then death didn’t come from sin. But if there’s no death on the earth ’till Adam’s sin, then dinosaurs couldn’t exist before Adam got here. Paul said in First Corinthians 15:12, “By man came death. By man came resurrection from the dead. Man brought death.”
    His paraphrase may actually be a little off here. The passage seems to deal more with the raising of the dead than man bringing death to the world. But who am I to argue with so august a Biblical scholar as Dr. Sharp? I quickly checked my handy Bible. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 reads:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ – whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
(While we are on the subject, I might note that this is one of my favorite New Testament passages, being as how it deals with the imperative that one accept patently absurd, supernatural occurrences without question as fact – solely on faith. This places all Christians who accept such nonsense as people willing to live without rational merit. I suppose I should take Paul’s advice and pity them. I would find it easier to do if they did not seem to cling so tenaciously to their ignorance.)
    Dr. Sharp went on.

Charles Darwin said in the last paragraph of this book, “Through death and suffering the most phenomenal development and possibilities that we can conceive are possible.”
As much as I appreciate Dr. Sharp’s attempt to accurately, if crudely, paraphrase Darwin, I cannot bear to let this characterization stand without offering the eloquent words of Charles Darwin himself. Although technically correct as to the meaning of Darwin’s words, Dr. Sharp willfully ignores the beauty, elegance, and, yes, the reverence of Darwin’s text. I would describe these words as nothing less than poetry, an eloquent hymn to life! If you can read these words without a tear forming in your eye or a lump in your throat, you have no heart:
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. [On the Origin of Species, Chapter 14, “Recapitulation and Conclusion”]
    A few of the parishioners looked a little confused by the Darwin quote and seemed to be wondering exactly what he was saying. Dr. Sharp went on to clarify:
In other words, the evolutionists think death is a developmental mechanism that brings advancement and change. With the death of one inferior species it gives rise to a more fit species for survival. So death is a developmental mechanism.
    But the Bible says: No! Death is not a developmental mechanism. Death is a judgment against sin. So as a result, the dinosaur story subtly militates against the authority of the Gospel right under our nose and is taking thousands and thousands and thousands of young people right out of our church because nobody walked up and answered the question.
    How can you have a scientific model that claims – that absolutely denies the Biblical point of view about all these issues? How can that be? And nobody in the Bible-reading church says anything about it except, “God did it some way, only we’re not sure how.” That just doesn’t cut the mustard! So this becomes a super important tool of the social/liberal engineers in the dumbing-down process of your children to take them away from the Bible and their faith in Jesus Christ.
    That’s why we got in the dinosaur business.
So on he went for four more nights, expounding these ideas. I really had patience only for one more lecture. After a while, the material did begin to repeat itself. Armed with the belief system Dr. Sharp would have us buy – the unquestioned assumption of literal Biblical infallibility – we can and must do battle with the ungodly forces of evolution.
    Using that assumption and a pretty good imagination honed on a lot of reading of the Bible, sci-fi, and fantasy fiction in my childhood, I found that I could actually make this stuff up faster than the good doctor. Had I stayed for the whole series, I would certainly have found out: How the pre-fall world worked – with no death and with each species being fruitful and bringing forth after its own kind; how that would not have left old Adam waist-deep in toothless, vegetarian alligators in a couple of generations; how man was a special creature whose similarity to the DNA of other primates represented not an evolutionary derivation but a coincidence of common intelligently designed elements complete with some distinctly unintelligently designed features that could most likely only have been inherited from some pre-human ancestor; how carbon-14 dating is fraudulent because it contradicts a literal reading of Genesis; and where to look on the electron microscope photos of the flagellum for the “all rights reserved” registered trademark inscription from the YHWH Better Mousetrap Corporation.


What I found most interesting of all in reviewing the transcript of my recording, in addition to how absolutely barking mad all this is, was a point of agreement I was able to find with Dr. Sharp.
    I totally agreed with his statement that Biblical Science (BS) is based solely on the supposition that the Bible, every word of it, is literally true. I don’t agree that the Bible is true. I only agree with Dr. Sharp that Biblical Science has been posited solely to justify Biblical reality. The only function of this BS is to explain how the Bible has been made manifest throughout Earth history.
    Where I most seriously disagreed with him was on his understanding of the methods and philosophy of actual science. He said that the two systems, science and Biblical Science, are basically dueling paradigms that can be characterized as two totally different, totally incompatible systems of values. He said that science, as modern civilization has come to know it, is wholly of Satan (I kid you not). It celebrates two great “mysteries of iniquity”: the heresy of the Big Bang (“In the beginning was matter,” or something can arise out of nothing) and the heresy of the origin of life (that life can come out of non-life). For Dr. Sharp, the capper of this Satanic belief system is that science would have us believe that there is no such thing as human destiny, individual or collective.


Now, before continuing, I am going to have to clarify exactly what I mean by a Christian. It is my belief that the fundamentalists are really the only true Christians. So-called mainstream Christians, or secular Christians, who preach the Social Gospel and revere the ethical teachings of Jesus, are not real Christians, or at least people aren’t who do not take seriously the literal commands attributed to Jesus and the other Old and New Testament contributors. Those who hold that the miracles, the myths, and the other supernatural aspects of the Old Testament and Jesus’s life are to be taken metaphorically are not real Christians. For me the only real Christians are those who can actually say the Apostles’ Creed with a straight face:
  1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;
  2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord;
  3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;
  4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell;
  5. The third day he rose again from the dead;
  6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
  7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead;
  8. I believe in the Holy Ghost;
  9. I believe in the holy catholic church (small c): the communion of saints;
  10. The forgiveness of sins;
  11. The resurrection of the body;
  12. And the life everlasting. Amen.
    Again, I am not referring to those nominal Christians who routinely repeat this absurd credo in a pro-forma manner as one half-heartedly reciting a fraternity pledge or a Masonic oath, offering their bodies to be drawn and quartered or subjected to other horrific torments for disobedience. In my mind, the Apostles’ Creed must be believed literally, and wholeheartedly, without exception or doubt. Only such a person can be considered a true Christian. Most of my friends who call themselves Christian could not seriously assert such a fantastic set of 12 absurdities, and hence, for the purpose of this definition, are not “true” Christians.

Is there any hope for Christianity then? Certainly not for the Creed-believers or the Biblical literalists or the evolution-deniers. It is my hope that Secular Christianity and perhaps even the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches may one day completely eschew the cult of the Magical Jesus and embrace the ethical and spiritual aspects of Christian teachings as a contemplative and practical set of values not unlike the way most Buddhists accept the teachings and the spiritual practice of The Buddha. I have no plans to hold my breath until this occurs, however.
    In contrast to these nominal Christians, there are the true-believers who hold a faith in Biblical Science (BS), the self-evident truism revealed through the ineffable authority of the Bible: The Mystery of God is revealed in his only son, Jesus, who, like the Hindu trinity (Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva) before him, is creator, preserver. and destroyer of souls and worlds. In the beginning was God = Jesus. Life can only come from life. Death is a punishment for sin. And of course, my favorite: the assurance that all are enclosed in the magnificent Divine plan for human destiny, no matter how crappy life may seem to you at the present moment.
    I would like to set aside my critique of these BS assumptions and the psychological needs that drive them with such fanatical force for a moment, in order to examine the exact nature of the indictment Dr. Sharp levels at science.
    In my admittedly incomplete experience of his ideas, it did seem that he spent an inordinate amount of time expounding on science’s inability to come up with definitive explanations for certain phenomena. He especially seemed to take delight when they developed conflicting or contradictory hypotheses, or better yet, reversed themselves completely on an established, supposedly well-tested theory. For him, this was an example of scientists’ ungodly reliance on the vagaries of human experience and the errors that our sin has made us heir to.
    Dr Sharp said, after a discussion of the changing theories concerning T-Rex – predator or carnivore,

…so (should) we change our belief system on the basis of secular science that doesn’t know for sure? I don’t. I’m not gonna let secular science change my point of view about scripture. The word of God is the word of God.
    For Dr. Sharp, his Biblical Science (BS) is based on the unchanging, absolute word of God as revealed through Scripture and is not subject to error – even when it prognosticates about material that ought to be subject to the domain of the purely physical sciences.
    What those full of the BS fervor fail to realize is that science is driven by error – unlike Biblical Science, which seeks absolute certainty.


Where I think I have the most serious disagreement with Biblical Science (BS) is over the motivation they attribute to the scientists themselves. In the dualistic worldview of BS, there is only the battle between Good and Evil, Jesus and Satan. As a result, they contend that the only agency that has created and sustained science is Satan. This is supposed to explain scientists’ resolute adherence to non-supernatural agencies in explaining phenomena, science’s positing a universe based solely on material forces, and its insistence on measuring and recording only objectively observable evidence, especially in the life and earth sciences.
    I am going to leave subatomic physics entirely out of this discussion. I have noticed that the fundamentalists are usually wise enough to do the same. Dr. Sharp seems to regard the materialistic objectivity that characterizes science as scientists’ personal position – as if somehow they know better, that they somehow realize the incontrovertible evidence for the flood and the Divine agency in the creation of the universe and life, but willfully ignore it. He dismisses their refutations of Intelligent Design’s concept of irreducible complexity as motivated solely by their pride and a stiff-necked unwillingness to bow to God’s irrefutable authority. He seems to take special umbrage at scientists’ refusal to either affirm or deny the existence of God – not realizing that, according to the rules, such an acceptance or denial would violate all the hard-won principles of the scientific method that have been universally agreed upon by the best minds of humanity for at least a hundred years.


Finally, unlike Dr. Sharp, I have no desire to convert him to my position if he is not inclined to respect the reasoned arguments of his critics. It is ironic that after more than eight decades since Scopes and over three centuries after the death of Galileo, we are still plagued by attempts to use the tyranny of theological absolutism to enslave the minds of our children.
    Apparently it is of great concern that many young people are falling away from the faith of their parents due to their exposure to the larger secular society. Prior to Dr. Sharp’s Sunday sermon, a member of the First Assembly of God’s Youth Ministry got up and revealed some disturbing news: it seems that Fundamentalism has been losing as many as 70% of its children to some form of secular, non-Christian world view by the time they are 15 years old. The number was even higher for those who went on to college. Of course, it is axiomatic within the Christian fundamentalist community that all the woes of our world are perceived as solely the fruit of the noxious weed of secular humanism, whose roots are nourished from the poisoned soil of Paganism, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment.
    Now, I personally couldn’t care less what a small, fanatical, intellectually bankrupt cult within the larger, largely secularized Christian community wants, believes, or espouses to their children. What I am primarily concerned with here is that this small group has influence far beyond their numbers, not just within the Bible Belt, but within many of our institutions of higher learning and even within state and federal governments.
    Years ago we thought that the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision had pretty well put an end to their influence in the public schools. Judge Jones’s reasoned decision had definitively exposed Intelligent Design as nothing more than Creationism’s Trojan horse and summarily characterized it as a “brilliant inanity.” The decision cost the already financially strapped Dover, Pennsylvania school board more than a million dollars in fines, court costs, and legal fees. Since then it has appeared that no subsequent advocate of BS has had the temerity or foolishness to risk a similar assault on the minds and souls of the children in our public schools. Undaunted by this disaster, the forces of Creationism have regrouped and begun assaults on a number of new fronts.
    Here in Missouri we have been graced by the dower countenance of Mr. Ben Stein hawking his film Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed. He had been invited to screen his film under the capitol dome in an attempt to drum up enthusiasm for a languishing bill the Republicans were trying to force through the legislature under the euphemistic title, “The Intellectual Diversity Act.” Critics claimed its goal would have exactly the opposite effect on intellectual diversity on college and university campuses in Missouri. I have heard that the film advocated, among other things, that the proponents of Intelligent Design be protected from “unfair” persecution and sanctions.


Outside the First Assembly of God's sanctuary, where the bones of the ancient dinosaurs were piled up around the altar of God like some sort of sacrifice, was a lobby full of books expounding the concepts of Creationism and advocating, among other things, a literal reading of the Genesis time line.
    Along with the lineup of adult books such as Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe; Evolution, by Michael Denton; Icons of Evolution – Science or Myth?, by Jonathan Wells; etc., were two full tables containing children’s books presenting Biblical literalism, Divine cosmology, Creationism, and other BS concepts lavishly illustrated and simply elucidated for small minds. Most of the books for children and young adults were somewhere in the attractive price range between two dollars for the Creationist Coloring book and fifteen dollars for more elaborate texts for high school students.
    I wondered at the kind of cognitive dissonance these youngsters would undergo trying to reconcile this BS with the material being taught in their biology classes. I cannot imagine their church’s teachings holding their own against the far more compelling, persuasive, and rational material being presented by the secular world.


The most troubling aspect of this whole conflict is the struggle of a small but powerful Christian cult for dominance, not only over other competing theological belief systems, but over science itself. Now, I couldn’t care less as to the contents of their belief system. What frightens me most is the apathy of mainstream Christians and the science community itself toward these fanatics. Rational people tend to laugh off these Creationists and ID advocates. After attending Dr Sharp’s lectures, I am in no laughing mood.
    This BS, the theology upon which it is based, and the growing militancy of its supporters are well-organized, well-financed, and supported by a media network that extends their message and influence in a powerful and insidious way. You may call the members of this cult mad, but you will seriously underestimate their influence if you think they are stupid. I have stated that my purpose in this essay is not to rebut fundamentalist positions, but to try to alert those in the mainstream as to the real danger here.
    I have a confession to make: I am a believer in Intelligent Design. Even though I would never stand in the ranks of Michael Behe or others, I have a tendency to believe that, at the heart of Being, there is an intelligence, perhaps even a compassionate, intelligent consciousness. The big difference between my position and the position of Dr. Sharp is that I realize that my conjecture has no place in a science discussion. Anyone who understands the principles of the scientific method knows that the subject of cosmic origins and the origins of life may never be definitively answered. Science indeed has a cognitive bias. This bias is not the result of any Satanic motivations, but is central to its whole authority. Science can only look at materialistic causation and empirical, measurable data, and, according to its own rules, cannot take into account supernatural agents or causations.
    Biblical Science, on the other hand, tells us that the only compelling account of the origin of the universe, of the creation of life, and indeed of the whole mystery of nature is the Biblical narrative, i.e. the God = Jesus hypotheses. They assert that the Jesus hypothesis is the only possible explanation in the face of science’s lack of an immutable theory for these and other phenomena. Not only is an Intelligent Designer the only solution to this mystery, but specifically Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, is the only acceptable candidate. No other myths need apply.
    Without getting into a debate as to the reliability of a myriad of contradictory Middle Eastern texts here, I think we can find a host of other possible explanations for the origins of life in the universe – from Australian aboriginal creation myths to the speculations of scientists attempting to explain the concept of mutli-verses to flying-saucer researchers positing that we were seeded by aliens.
    I am awed by the mystery of not only the universe, but of my own consciousness itself. Is this consciousness perhaps just a subjective contradiction to the chaos of the material process? What can explain all this to a mind that has evolved its survival strategy by looking for meaning in a sea of non-meaning? Can I ever warm my heart to Camus’s “benign indifference of the Universe” or Beckett’s absent Godot? In the face of the wholly hidden mystery of creation I must use science as a guide, a starting point, a yardstick. This austere knowledge is only a starting point because life is not answered wholly by science alone, and may never be. There isn’t a scientist worth his salt or tenure who would ever assert the contrary.
    I don’t know whether I will ever understand these things, whether I will ever introspect enough, meditate enough, take enough ethnogens, or, yes, even pray to the gods enough so that someday I will have the grace to see Blake’s “…universe in a grain of sand or eternity in an hour.” One personal conclusion I have been able to ascertain for myself is that my answer does not lie in any cult of Jesus salvation. I do not rule out the possibility of events that might appear miraculous to those who claim belief in Him. I must, however, always severely question the overthrowing of the laws of nature by the dark forces of superstition.


Quite frankly, I view exoteric Christianity in general and Biblical literalism, as preached from countless pulpits around the world, as being infantile – infantile, in that it holds to a simpleminded set of beliefs that are driven primarily by a fear of the death of the ego and a tenacious holding on to an ever increasingly fragile and threatened certainty in the presence of a rapidly changing and chaotic world.
    At a certain point Dr. Sharp asked each member of the congregation to place his or her finger on their breast bone and say, “I’m terminal.” Not even Christians are dumb enough to take Article 12 of the Apostles’ Creed literally. Even the most benighted parishioner may have noticed that the body, particularly an old, decrepit body, will hopefully not be materially resurrected. Praise the Lord for that! What Christians are promised are brand new spirit bodies made in the image of a young, vital Kim Kardashian or Kanye West (oops, he’s black!), with all our earthly attachments and the “good” addictions intact.
    Now, Christianity is not the first religion to promise a form of personal immortality and I’m sure it won’t be the last. The lecture by Dr. Sharp gave me few new arguments for Creationism or Intelligent Design. But what it did do was give me, for the first time, a clear idea of how so many of these concepts in fundamentalist Christianity are intimately linked, how they possess a kind of internal logic that the believers find so compelling, and how these concepts feed the very human need to believe in a personal immortality and have an absolute unshakable faith.


The field of Terror Management Theory deals with the study of the suppressed fear of death and the compensations connected with the strategies people have used to obviate these repressed concerns. One of the reactions is the development of a religious set of beliefs that guarantee a personal immortality. An interesting byproduct of this study is the observed violence that arises when these strategies are threatened or when subjects are reminded, in various subtle ways, of their own mortality.
    Dr. Sharp said that the primary element of focus in the two worldviews of Creationism and Evolution is death. If, according to the fundamentalists, “the wages of sin are death,” then the only hope for salvation is in the expiation that Jesus made for all humanity by his death on the cross. It then follows that since all humans are afraid of death and the Bible states that death came into the world through the sin (The Fall) of the first man and woman, and before Christ there was no redemption from the inevitability of sin and death, then finally it must follow that the only hope for remedy from this universal fear of death and the inevitability of imperfection, sin, suffering, and injustice in the world is the acceptance of Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior.
    Jesus’s benefits can only be activated by a perceived personal relationship with and commitment to this first-century Palestinian terrorist whose alleged teachings, except for an accident of history, would have been as lost to us as his true historical identity is lost to scholars. Now, what’s wrong with that? Nothing that a little faith and a lot of credulity cannot accomplish.


Now why should I care what happens to this small cult, who by their own admission, cannot even keep their own children within their belief system? As I said before, they are attempting to influence by lies, intimidation, and force a dominance over our secular culture here at home and abroad.
    The very means they attempted to employ to get Intelligent Design introduced into the public schools of this nation are symptomatic. Rather than presenting their bizarre hypotheses to the science establishment through the peer review process, they attempted to make an end run around science by introducing ID directly into the nation’s public school classrooms. Fortunately this was recognized by the law as nothing more than a ploy by the religious right in this country to introduce BS into the science curriculum.
    In watching the historic spread of Christianity, I have reached the conclusion that these people have no shame and no morals whatsoever. When you possess absolute certainty that God is on your side, any action, any atrocity is permissible – forgivable. God’s ends justify any means.
    From its inception, the early Church and Christianity, in its exoteric manifestations, have always appealed to the most spiritually bankrupt appetites in the human psyche. The only way they have ever been able to achieve dominance over human consciousness is by force and intimidation. This is evidenced from the earliest destruction of the Gnostics and other heresies to the modern demonizing of science, all other religions, and secular humanism.
    These are extremely dangerous people, and we who oppose them should never underestimate their intelligence, or their guile. I am not for denying them their belief system, the right to raise their children in their faith, and their right to legally enter the level playing field of the public arena. The only reason they have been able to achieve the inordinate amount of influence for their pernicious ideas is because good people in the mainstream religious community, journalists, politicians, educators, scientists, and other academics have kept silent in the face of their influence.
    I am not advocating suppression here. Perhaps the most extreme thing I am advocating is a kind of intellectual quarantine. These people should be kept, insofar as it is legally possible, wholly within their own sphere of influence. This has already been taking place in the science community and, to a less successful extent, on our college and university campuses. They have been unable to make headway in having their ideas accepted as possessing any scientific testability or fostering any fruitful area of investigation.
    All I am advocating here is that a similar attitude be accepted by the culture at large. In spite of the disastrous verdict of the Scopes trial, Creationism used to be, up to now, something of a laughing stock in the popular culture. It is our duty today, if we value the triumph of reason over irrationality, to return this archaic belief system to the dustbin.


One area where we do need to critically examine the influence of fundamentalist Christianity is in its world mission program. In spite of real aid and comfort that many missionaries provide to the third world, there is an understanding that this aid is only the “carrot” aspect of their mission. The second, and most important, “stick” aspect of Christianity’s stated world mission outreach was, is, and always will be cultural genocide. This clash of theologies is also a source of potentially violent political and cultural disruption in already volatile areas of the world such as the Middle East and Muslim countries, where the presence of Christian missionaries is tantamount to pouring gasoline on a fire. In addition to a cultural and intellectual quarantine at home, I believe steps must be taken to at least encourage a cutback on Christian foreign mission programs abroad – if not a total ban altogether.
    The evil of absolute power was aptly demonstrated for the modern world by the rise of the Third Reich. Am I asserting here that Christianity can become as evil an entity as National Socialism? The historical record has born out that the atrocities committed by people as assured of redemption, salvation, and faith as the good Dr. Sharp is have been proven every bit as heinous as Hitler’s.

    I have heard that many a Christian warrior during the Vietnam conflict had inscribed on his helmet (only half in jest) the inscription: “Kill them all. Let God sort them out.” I didn’t realize that the actual theological rationale for this dictum had its origin in the conflict to purge the Church of the Albigensian Heresy in the victorious 13th Century Cathar Crusade: “Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset,” or “Kill them all. God will know His own,” has been a dictum of conquest throughout Christian history and is probably of greater relevance to contemporary militant Christians than the Beatitudes. I am sure it allows many a Christian soldier in Afghanistan to sleep soundly in light of the dreadful number of civilian casualties we continue to inflict on those poor people.
    I know with as close to an absolute certainty as I am capable of possessing, that if Christianity once again is ascendant, their horrific history will repeat itself.
    As we move into a world that is increasingly co-dependent, there is little room for religions like Christianity, which make claims for exclusive validity and beliefs that would attempt, by force or intimidation, to convert others to their views. Intolerant, exclusivist religions like Christianity, Islam, and even Orthodox Judaism should be tolerated only insofar as their beliefs remain isolated and restricted to the population of believers. But in no way should their intolerance be encouraged or tolerated by the world community. They should languish in their own self-imposed isolation from the rest of humanity whose sins they so condemn.
    It is my belief that, left to its own devices, Christianity is destined to wither and become a quaint anachronism. Would that someday the homoerotic, sadomasochistic crucifixion image of Jesus Christ might become just another obscure myth, perhaps celebrated as a “Crown of Thorns Suffering Jesus” Halloween mask – a reminder of a belief system whose only remembered significant historical accomplishment was to frighten little children and the credulous.


Copyright © 2015 by Bob Boldt

62 comments:

  1. Bob Boldt ventures among the Creationists to hear firsthand from a champion of Bible Science, and returns unshaken on Charles Darwin's 206th birthday to render a deep and comprehensive reflection on the significance of BS and its place in the mosaic scheme of the truly Christian world view.

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  2. Je Suis Charlie!

    Happy Birthday Dear Charlie.
    Happy Birthday Dear Charlie.
    Happy Birthday Charles Darwin.
    We're so happy you were born.
    (Except all the good Fundie Christians out there)

    When Fundamentalist Christians take the gloves off when literally preaching to their own choirs. No lie is too extreme and no story to far-fetched for the followers of this most absurd of religions.

    BTW, my references to BS in the essay are to Biblical Science not the usual connotation, although the intention of the reference is more than just a coincidence.

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  3. One of the signs of a well educated person is that they think about whether or not what they are thinking about is worth thinking about
    (a paraphrased quote).

    Some humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty and can't get a grip on their self flagellating importance, thus wander aimlessly among the masses of the arrogant ignorant, of which there are always too many. Thus the world of Dr. Sharp...

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  4. Robert Regallie responded to my Creationist critique in the following way:

    February 12 at 4:42pm
    Robert Writes,

    Reading the blog it seems that atheism is in itself a religion following the book of Darwin. The bible is not a science book and should not be used as such. both sides would be better served looking at what would be the book of nature. the true question would be do you or do you not believe in a creator, most people call god. religion attempts to identify the creator. that would be a discussion initself. I think the Cambrian explosion has uprooted Darwin's tree of life. all kinds reproduce after its own kind. believing that nothing created everything and that nothing created morals I think takes more faith than believing that God (the creator) eternally existed and created all things. DNA is information, information infers design. If you look at a lamp you instictavly believe some one made it.Why would you look at a tree and believe it came from nothing. when it comes to religion I would be in agreement with you. We are in the most biblical illiterate time in our history.

    Dear Robert,

    While others on the site may have discussed atheism as a religion or as an alternate to religion, I don’t recall discussing atheism as such in my essay. I guess Robert regards my argument against a fundamentalist Christian explanation of the creation, evolution and history an attack on all religious traditions. It is unfortunate that many fundamentalists of any tradition tend toward this “my way or the highway” approach.

    An acceptance of the evidence for Evolution should not include either a belief in God or a disbelief in Him. The topic is irrelevant being as how science itself cannot entertain any metaphysical assertion. God is a metaphysical construct, in that He, She, or It cannot be materially experienced directly in any way. Any action or event attributable to a God cannot be proven or disproven by science. As to the canard perennially put forth by fundamentalists that Evolution, or Darwinism is a religion that meets all the required definitions, I can only refer Robert to any number of quite adequate refutations by persons more qualified than myself. Perhaps the one explanation that would tread most gently on Robert’s assertion would be found here.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ruse/is-darwinism-a-religion_b_904828.html"

    [continued below]

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  5. Bob, as I told you after I first read your submission, after we had broached the possibility of running it in two or three parts because of its length (over 7,000 words): "There's no way I want to break it into pieces. It's solid and unitary and deserves (and readers deserve for it) to be published whole, which I propose to do, if you are willing."
        I am delighted and encouraged by the response so far, including mostly comments on several Facebook pages where "The dinosaurs are coming!" was advertised (including Robert Regallie's comment, above, which he posted on my wife's Facebook page). Good indication that length isn't necessarily a turn-off – at least, not for an article with as much appeal and reward as yours has. GOOD ON YOU!
        And I'm still hoping for some comments from other members of the staff. I like to think that everyone listed in the sidebar reads the blog and at least occasionally comments to support and encourage fellow contributors. I encourage everyone to do that, at any rate. And I'm deeply grateful.

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  6. I guess I'm always late to the party but ready for a good time. Loved the whole damn thing. Great writing---long article but like a good book I couldn't put it down. With all that writing I should be able to pick at something, but you hit my feelings, on the subject, square on the head. Morris was right, this was too good to be broken into parts.

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  7. I agree with Morris and Ed - excellent article and I couldn't stop reading it during my lunch break. : )

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  8. Bob, We would agree on macro evolution. Changes among kind. I believe to this date no transitional forms have been discovered, the ape to man icon, Lucy and others, all turned out to be false. A hippo does not turn into a whale and develop sonar or a birthing system that can withstand the depth of the sea by mutation. The Biblical view answers the mystery: In the beginning God created. How many theories has the belief in evolution put forth. All eventually fall short. If we agree the universe had a beginning, prior to that beginning there was nothing. If there was a Big Bang, there had to be a Big Banger. In order for something to exist without being the result of a prior cause, that something must be eternal. As such, the universe could not emerge out of nothing, but it can exist as an effect of an uncaused eternal First Cause—which is precisely what God is: the First Cause Uncaused. You can have a self-organizing principle, but what started it?

    We should seek truth, science should follow the truth where it leads. The difference you and I would have is that I am willing to accept the possibility of a supernatural explanation. If we are only acting on genetics and brain chemistry, we would have no free will. It would not be your opinion, it would be the synapses of your brain firing, randomly programmed by genetics and chemistry. How did Chaos give humankind the ability to compose a symphony? Evolution cannot bridge the gap between man and animals.

    I will believe the teaching of Jesus Christ before I would follow the teachings of Darwin. I would ask you to consider that you have a belief, and I have a belief mine, and mine does not have to be denigrated to make yours more plausible. That's the beauty of America—the free right to believe. Our founding fathers put into the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from our Creator. They where able to agree on that.

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  9. The paradox of the gap,the missing link, transitional forms, etc. is that, as soon as that gap is filled by just such a missing link, it immediately creates two gaps in place of one—and so on and so on and so on. You can’t win at this game! Can you? The simplest answer to your question is. “Yes” there have been countless transitional, intermediate species discovered in the fossil record. Name me one reputable evolutionary biologist who has denied this. I need also mention to Robert that there is a Nobel Prize in Science awaiting him upon the publication of his peer reviewed paper demonstrating that “Lucy and others, all turned out to be false.”

    Robert is discussing two entirely different kinds of “Truth” here. I, unlike some confirmed atheists, do not deny the possibility of supernatural causation, either in the creation of the universe or as an explanation for more mundane unexplained phenomenon in the material world. I do not affirm it either. All I am trying to say is that supernatural causality by definition is outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Just because something cannot be explained does not automatically require introducing a miraculous agent. Once thunder and lightning were thought to be the actions of Zeus and mental illness the result of demons. I think it was said by Neil de Grasse Tyson that it is a sad God indeed who finds the only reason for His existence residing at the ever-receding boundaries of human ignorance.

    To compare the teachings of Jesus against the evidence of evolution in the writings of Charles Darwin is to create a false comparison. They contain information about two entirely different areas of human concern. Jesus said that all who never heard of his teachings will meet certain spiritual and physical death. Darwin said that death is the creative mechanism through which we achieve wondrous, evolved creatures. The mechanisms used to investigate the first assertion are, faith, revelation, dogma, and Biblical exegeses. The instruments used to critique Darwin are evidence, inference, logic/reason, falsifiability, and testing. To attempt to use one set of tools intended for one pursuit of “Truth” in pursuit of the other would be disaster in either case.

    PS
    I don’t think Robert would be very comfortable with the Deist Creator mentioned in the Declaration—He who wound up the clockwork universe and then went on permanent holiday, sans subsequent miracles, with a deaf ear to prayer and no mention of an afterlife for saved souls.
    Our beloved Founders wisely left all mention of Him out of the real document intended to govern our lives—the Constitution. The First Amendment arguably does defend the right to be stupid and wrong; science does not.

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  10. Exceptionally well written! Well done! I was right there and brought back memories of what used to be a practice many years ago. And that is to have 24-48 hr. long preaching. One pastor after another with some singing in between. Being a mid teenager, I thought it to be about the stupidest thing ever to do. As sleep deprivation kicked in the total dribble got worse. It amazed me how much like sheep people are accepting without thinking for themselves. Again very well done!

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  11. Thanks, Bob, for your well-written and engaging article. I'm glad Moristotle and Co. decided to publish it as a single post.

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  12. [Made February 12, at 1:50 p.m. (Eastern) on Kyle's Facebook page. –Editor]

    A fantastically pathos-driven post! I really like Bob's writing; it reminds me of the gusto that the late Christopher Hitchens brought to the Great Conversation. I think he would enjoy John Lennox's Seven Days That Divide the World[: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science]. It might help him grow less worried about the "threat" of Christianity and people like Sharp.

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    1. You say pathos; I say bathos. Let's call the whole thing off.

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  13. You enter straw man arguments. Point me to the science that indisputably proves Lucy is the missing link. What I read is that it is no longer used as an example of such. My point is you can't even get scientists to agree. Science has become like Hollywood; they produce their theories, write their papers, make their money, hand out their rewards, then in the following years new theories are proposed and another cycle. There is an upcoming trial for an American hero Chris Kyle, in which each side will introduce their experts on PTSD. How can experts have two different opinions and call it science? The same happens with organized religion: an individual comes to the text with a predetermined idea that is imposed on the text rather than inferred from the text, and a new denomination might appear. The following is a list of our early scientists who believed in a creator or higher power. I think they made great discoveries. I do not know for sure, but I believe most of their discoveries are still in use today and have passed the test of time:
        Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
        Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627)
        Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
        Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
        Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
        Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
        Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
        Robert Boyle (1791-1867)
        Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
        Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
        William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
        Max Planck (1858-1947)
        Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

    Tell me if a scientist who believes in Intelligent Design gets a fair shake in the academic world. He or she can get papers published. Fundamentalists on the left do not accept opposing views. If you oppose their view you are denigrated.

    As stated earlier, I believe in macro evolutionary changes within kinds. Show me the science that explains how scales turn into feathers. I don't believe random processes and mutation can explain this. No matter what theories are here today, for evolution they would not be able to explain the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The process of the chrysalis requires the caterpillar to die, melt into ooze, and emerge into a new organizational life form. This could go on forever. Greater minds that mine have debated this for centuries. I respect your belief's and I believe I could learn a lot from you both. I am asking for the same respect. We have come to a point that good, honest discussion is going away, being replaced by ideologically driven debates, with both sides thinking they have something to loose. Look at the global warming debate. Just think of the discoveries that could be made. I come from the point of view that good, honest science would just show how the creator did things. I just don't believe that chance or nothing provides the answers. Their is a reason that the earth is located in the perfect spot in our galaxy for exploring it.

    Respectfully, Bob Regallie

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  14. Robert,

    Unlike you, I am writing this from a distant, insignificant arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, an impossible journey many, many light years away from all the really marvelous galactic action.

    I would desperately not like to go over the same ground here. I thought we had pretty well established the principles of materialistic science. You didn't directly question my assumptions when I asserted the historically tested, hard fought for, means and methods that are part of the broadly accepted MO of science. As a result I assumed you understood how materialistic science works. You listed a roster of ancient (19the century) scientists who, except for Plank and Einstein who did most of their best work wholly in the context of an unquestioningly theistic culture. While Plank was a devout believer in God, Einstein was most certainly an agnostic, whose use of “God” as in “God does not play dice with the universe” is most certainly metaphorical or allegorical. Einstein certainly did not believe in a personal deity or in Jesus. I can make a far longer list going all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers as evidence that there is NO supreme being. So what? God did not feature in any of the discoveries or reasoning that produced the groundbreaking work of Galileo, et al. A belief in some profound ordering or the universe by an Intelligent Designer didn’t factor in any way into Galileo’s observations of the moons of Jupiter or Friar Mendel’s genetic pairing of pea plants. For the last and final time: SCIENCE NEITHER PROOVES GOD OR DENIES HER! It is outside the realm of the discipline. I had hoped I had made that abundantly clear.

    If you have ever read anything about the culture of science, you will know it thrives on controversy, diversity of opinion, and disputation. Unlike organized religions, that tend to suppress challenges to the faith, scientists thrive on it. Of course there are disagreements concerning Lucy’s missing link status. That is the way science is supposed to operate. But even the harshest Lucy denier would be loath to deny the validity of intermediate, transitional species. As I said before, Lucy or not, the fossil record is replete with lots of intermediate species. Just for laughs, check out a photo of Archaeopteryx some time.

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  15. A believer in Intelligent Design will not be discriminated against unless he tries to mix it in with his science. I’ve never heard of a practicing Roman Catholic academic being discriminated against because of his belief. Of course Catholic biology researchers don’t try to write dissertations on the chemical properties of Jesus’ DNA found in a fully sanctified Host. ID “scientists” do. Hence their papers and their science pronouncements are rightfully regarded as pseudo science.

    I think you might find the transcript of the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District Board of Education of interest. This was a bench trial that pretty definitively determined, by evidence the Discovery Institute themselves provided, that Intelligent Design was nothing more than the old creationist doctrines from the Book of Genesis dressed up in a white lab coat. In a thirty-eight-day, exhaustive and exhausting, event that called forth the most reputable and reliable spokesmen for both the ID movement and the science community, it was determined by Judge Jones that Intelligent Design was, in his words, a “brilliant inanity.” It is hard to imagine any belief system that does as much damage to either science or religion as Intelligent Design. Believe ID or not. Just don’t ever try to teach it in the public school science classes. The already financially strapped Dover Dist. Board of Education had to pay over two million dollars in attorney fees and court costs in what Richard Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United, called “a lawsuit that should never be fought." Dover, to my knowledge, didn’t even get an apology or offer to help from those bastards at the Discovery Institute who started the whole charade.

    Also, I prefer not to comment on your characterization of Chris Kyle as an Amerikan Hero. That’s a debate for another time. I will be posting my comments on director (Clint He-Who-Speaks-To-Empty-Chairs) Eastwood’s film “Amerikan Sniper” presently. Stay tuned. You know Chris is dead, and can’t actually be tried—unlike dead Popes.

    PS
    Did you even bother to watch “The Secret Life of Chaos”? Your butterfly comments makes me think you didn’t. You know I don’t post these helpful hints for you just for my health.

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  16. The point of the reference to the Chris Kyle trial is 2 experts will testify under oath on the same subject with 2 different opinions driven not by truth but a pre determined outcome for their side.
    I would be in agreement with the dysfunction of organized religion. That's what's great about America, freedom to believe
    The Book of Genesis is not a science book , it only gives a hierarchy of creation culminating with the crowning jewel of creation humankind.
    What is the best example of a transitional form from one specie's to another. not within kind. how scales turn into feathers.
    what is the best theory for the creation of the universe.
    Lets have honest science. If you and I where assigned to examine the evidence for a transitional form I would not see a conflict we would examine the best evidence available and come to the best conclusion with the evidence available, my belief would not keep me from following the evidence. we should not skew the evidence to fit a predetermined conclusion.

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  17. Come on Robert. I gave you a perfectly good example of one transitional species of many that demonstrates a creature evolving feathers. Feathers on a dinosaur? You bet.

    Trying to find the origin of the universe in many ways reminds me of trying to observe the back of your head by spinning around really fast. The methodologies are ontologically problematic. Hypotheses abound. The latest theory is that the Universe has always existed “as a kind of quantum potential before ‘collapsing’ into the hot dense state we call the Big Bang.” (Whatever that means.)

    http://earthsky.org/space/what-if-the-universe-had-no-beginning

    Check out the article.

    I find it interesting that Genesis, and the writers thereof, had a world view and worshiped a God who seemed to have no clue of the actual laws that seemed to govern His own creation. Being a poet, I see the value of creating metaphors and myths to try to explain things seemingly unexplainable, like love, death and creation. I use the word “myth” to describe a story which may not be literally true, but which points to a truth. I find the creation myths, created by men of various insights and various degrees of talent, extremely interesting. We should use our own intellect and intuition to examine our myths and the myths of other belief systems for signs of personal resonance and verisimilitude. Of all the Creation myths I have read, the Genesis story is among one of the most (dare I say it?) retarded. It comes off quite poorly compared with, for example, the Hindu creation myth both in time frame and the beauty and complexity of its metaphors. It describes pretty eloquently and accurately the scientific idea of an oscillating universe, something Carl Sagan said was an “amazing coincidence.” Ha ha--good on you Carl!




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  18. Its a lot of words that answer nothing, it seems to be science fiction I do not see in your post the name of the species that a transition from one kind to another micro evolution.
    None of the arguments forwarded by philosophical naturalism satisfactorily account for the existence of the universe:
    1. The universe is merely an illusion.
    2. The universe sprang from nothing.
    3. The universe eternally existed.
    So there had to be a first cause, God, can logically be demonstrated to be the uncaused first cause, he eternally existed.
    If their was a big bang their had to be a big banger.
    If you just stand look around sun, moon, stars, trees everything so fine tuned for life to exist, DNA full of information (our blueprint) That's a result from nothing using undirected processes. I think I will go with Creation. I believe I am more than genetics and brain chemistry. What is it about someone believing in creation scares you so much ? your understanding of the book of Genesis is as good as your science. I believe the man Moses lived to be 120 years I would trust his knowledge of our origin over yours. Most people tend to mock what they don't understand, All you have for the beginning of the universe

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  19. Should have been macroevolution above
    Microevolution: evolutionary change involving the gradual accumulation of mutations leading to new varieties within a species.
    minor evolutionary change observed over a short period of time.

    Macroevolution: major evolutionary transition from one type of organism to another occurring at the level of the species and higher taxa.

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  20. I think we've covered the territory. You can stick with your Bronze Age mythic god of miracles and I will stick with modern materialist science--and never the twain shall meet.

    I also get tired of repeating myself and doing your homework work for you:
    "I do not see in your post the name of the species that a transition from one kind to another micro evolution."
    "As I said before, Lucy or not, the fossil record is replete with lots of intermediate species. Just for laughs, check out a photo of Archaeopteryx some time."

    I think we are through here. I'd like to end on a lighter note with a probing discussion on the subject of science, techmologee, evolution and the responsibility for a small, brown green-room floater, by one of the most influential commentators on the contemporary scene since Ed Murrow: Baron Sacha Cohen AKA Mr. Ali G.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWcTfUDsfBE

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  21. Its been fun I have not had good science fiction since their has been no more Star Trek on TV . I did get laughs even the experts don't agree whether Archaeopteryx is a bird or a dinosaur. Lucy must have been named after I Love Lucy.I believe you have proven that it takes more faith to be an atheist and their no room or respect for those who have a differing opinions.
    Respectfully Bob

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  22. You got a lot of 'splainin to do Bob.
    Of course I have been pretty clear from the get-go this discussion has nothing to do with atheism. I so hate repeating myself -- as in -- the Theory of Evolution says nothing about the existence or non-existence of any God or gods.

    Actually the decision to name Lucy (Australopithecus) did have its origin in another popular culture reference.

    "In the afternoon, everyone on the expedition returned to the gully, sectioning off the site and preparing for careful collection, which eventually took three weeks. That first evening they celebrated at the camp. At some stage during the evening, they nicknamed the fossil AL 288-1 as Lucy, after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which was being played loudly and repeatedly on a tape recorder in the camp."

    I find this naming, coincidental as it might have been, quite moving, meaningful and apt. It is reminiscent of Darwin's great concluding words in his The Origin of Species which I quoted in my article.

    "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

    I hope it is not too great a stretch to believe that Lucy of Africa also looked at those ancient diamonds in the sky with the same awe and wonder as we more evolved primates still do.

    "Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me."
    Immanuel Kant

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    1. Bob, I had forgotten that "Lucy" came from the Beatles song, but I do remember now having read that. You waxed on it well! Lucy, by whatever name, was our kin, and we by whatever our names, are hers.

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  23. Bob (Boldt),

    I have to confess that I think I often don't understand well enough the biological sciences that lead to disputes in scientists' positions on whether or not certain fossils should be interpreted as transitional forms.

    In all matters where scientists disagree on the interpretation of the evidence they find (be it physicists, chemists, or biologists), and the science is "over our heads" as laymen, how do you come to a resting position on the subject, or do you perhaps just remain "agnostic" in situations like that?

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  24. A valuable point made in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea": strictly speaking, there are no "transitional forms". Each creature born is slightly different from all the others, and it is impossible to know at that time whether a difference will turn out to matter. Probably the differences will vanish into the sea of variation that characterizes all life. Possibly one variation will breed true, confer an advantage on its possessors, and found a new species. Probably the new variation will be found in the fossil record early on, but probably not unless it becomes far more common.
    As Dennett put it, the beginning of a new branch in the tree of life can be recognized only long after the fact. So this "transitional forms" question is pretty much a red herring.

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  25. Sorry, a misprint. New variations will probably NOT be noticed in the fossil record until much later, when and if it has become much more common. As those of you who have studied taphonomy know, preservation in fossils is a chancy business; fossils are by no means a statistically valid sample of the originating population.

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  26. Yes. Trying to visualize the overall picture of the "Tree of Life" from the fossil record is like trying to visualize an unfamiliar crossword puzzle where 90% of the pieces are missing. Many species live and die under conditions extremely inhospitable for the development of fossilization. Certain anatomical structures cannot fossilize. No one has found a fossil jellyfish. No?
    The big argument with fundamentalist Christians is not over variation but whether that variation can ever come to be defined as a new species. God can allow for pomeranians and mastiffs but not man and chimps ultimately evolving from random variant naturally selected from a common ancestor.

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    1. Bob (Boldt),

      I think the issue of "whence did humans emerge?" circumvents the "fundamentalist Christian" interpretation as you put it. Granted, the average Christian will read Genesis 2:7 (the whole "dust from the earth" verse) and say, "See, God's creation of humans was a stand-alone event, not a gradual evolving from ape to human."

      Still, the question we have to answer seems partially scientific and partially "religious" in nature. How would an ape-like mammalian ancestor evolve through an unguided "process" like natural selection? (which I've written about in the past here) How would it gradually grow a sense of human axiology--of ethics and values? How would it evolve a semiotic language system?

      Currently, I think this argument is at a stand-still because of where we stand on either side of the debate: atheists don't have an answer; scientists like Richard Dawkins will say, essentially, "Well it did happen at some point in time in the brain, so there.") Christians have an answer; essentially, natural selection can't account for those differences between the ape and the human, so some greater Mind/Designer (just to make things easy) must have made them unique.

      So essentially, neither one likes the other's answer. Both positions are currently "unknowable," and I use that word very loosely in the sense that we can't argue one or the other with 100% certainty (but then, only Math can really give us a few 100% certainty answers) because I can't even fathom how we would come to know the full and complete most True answer to the question.

      Would you agree and thus be agnostic at that point?

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    2. Kyle, one point about all this. I was raised, and partly educated, by devout Christians. As far as I know, not one of them thought that the account of the Creation in Genesis was literally true. So you need to keep in mind that by no means all Christians are Biblical literalists. Literalists are a somewhat small subset of Christians. And, I think, not a terribly rational group, given the number of well-known historical inconsistencies in the Bible. That's another subject, though...

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    3. I agree with you, Chuck. John Lennox, professor of mathematics and philosophy of science at Oxford, thinks that the literalists' numbers are diminishing because intelligent, thinking Christians will naturally adjust their interpretations of scripture (which are fallible as anything else that requires interpretation) to fit what we know about the world, just as any scientist would adjust his interpretation of evidence upon finding new evidence that contradicts his old theory. Of course, we are mid-process in our understanding of science. Given the broad scope of time itself, the "science" that we know is still very young! In the meantime, I think it is important to find the appropriate balance between theology and natural science.

      And yes, "historical inconsistencies" would be quite another subject, one that I wouldn't necessarily call "well-known" but rather "loudly talked about."

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  27. Kyle:
    You raise an interesting point on: how can a layman possibly understand complex scientific evidence and the reasoning that frames the interpretation of that evidence? When we get into really complex fields like sub-atomic physics, molecular biology and neuroscience for example, it can inspire feelings of extreme confusion and insecurity. I have trouble even programming my computer most of the time. Unfortunately we are sort of at the mercy of experts, some of whom may have hidden agendas. I love folks like Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson David Attenborough and even those who have gone on before like Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Jacob Bronowski. Not only have they been able to explain extremely complex topics with a stunning lucidity but their writings and film are among some of the most inspiring documents in human history. Yet, even among those we must maintain a critical vigilance and a skeptical attitude. That is why a Liberal Education is of vital importance to every citizen who would aspire to live in an enlightened, egalitarian society. A broad yet intensive survey of the whole panoply of human understanding of all fields of art and knowledge must be studied in order to properly evaluate our experts and commentators.

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  28. Bob (Boldt),

    Likewise, we have experts who are scientists and Christians, and they tend to disagree with scientists who are atheists about some of the hardest questions to ask in the sciences (how did the universe begin and did it? How did humans come about? etc.). They interpret evidence in particle physics, molecular biology, and neuroscience, and often the “science” they conduct has very little to do with their worldviews (whether there is a God or not).

    So both sides utilize science to make meaning of the universe. Since you brought up archaeopteryx already, let's use that as an example. Two scientists, one Christian and one atheist, disagree about whether or not it's a transitional form that proves favorable evidence that macroevolution is possible. (I'm actually confused on whether you think that is true; you seemed to believe transitional forms were good evidence for macroevolution in your dialogue with the other Bob, but after Chuck's comment you seem to be ceding that "we can't really know if they are or not.").

    At what point do you say, “I think the Christian is correct” or “I think the atheist is correct”?

    Two minutes of Googling will help me find two Christian websites that say archaeopteryx isn’t transitional for this, this, and that reason, all of which I can vaguely understand:

    http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ117.html

    http://www.icr.org/article/321/

    Yet if you read the mainstream source of information anyone would turn to just by typing in “archaeopteryx,” Wikipedia (and the sources it cites), says it’s a transitional form that provides evidence for macroevolution based on this, this, and that reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx

    So you seem to agree with the latter here. Why is that?

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  29. I want to say that I appreciate the quality of your questions, Kyle. Even if they seem to require a repetition of material I have already covered, they often require a more nuanced answer. Also I admire your admission of genuine confusion in addressing some of these issues. Too many today feel a need to present an appearance of false certainty and an unwillingness to question the answers they receive from both science and theology.

    Science is based on ignorance and doubt. No one really sees all that clearly through the dark glass. Ignorance is inevitable; stupidity is optional.

    Let’s try to lay this whole theist/atheist thing to rest once and for all. Science is a system of knowledge (one among many) that uniquely seeks to understand the material world based upon observations of empirical sense perceptions. Accumulation of these observed, perceivable phenomenon and repeatable tests of processes and behaviors are then analyzed to generate hypotheses. Proven, reliable hypotheses then become theories. Some call these theories laws. Evolution has so withstood both its challengers and the discovery of new evidence so successfully that it probably should be called “The Law of Evolution.” Life sciences historically have been reluctant to imitate their Newtonian colleagues in physics and chemistry in calling their assertions laws, as in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    Even though there are those like Dawkins who believe science seems to imply the complete lack of God in the universe, science strictly speaking, must remain neutral on the subject of the existence or non existence of supernatural entities and metaphysical causation.

    In the original, Aristotelian sense, Metaphysics means beyond physics. Science must, by its own rules, confine itself to a strictly materialistic view of the world. If people of faith want to do science, they have to leave their theistic biases outside the lab door.

    The argument over transitional species like archaeopteryx is often a heated one. But ideally it is an evidence-based not a theologically based one. For the longest time the fossil record failed to demonstrate the existence of any finds that might demonstrate a transitional form between birds and dinosaurs. For the longest time the prevailing belief was that dinosaurs were the ancestors of reptiles. The discovery of feathers on dinosaurs took the contention of the scientist’s hypothesis and relegated it into a theory.

    (You have to forgive me here as I am reporting all this off the top of my head without presenting the normally requisite citations. The hour is late.)

    In short, as I reported, the argument over transitional species between scientists is concentrated on the details of whether a particular fossil is transitional or not, not over the fact of the existence of transitional species. The argument between scientists and (some) theologians is whether there is any such thing as a transitional species in the first place. Note I called them theologians because I refuse to dignify folks like Ken Ham and the Intelligent Design theorists at the Discovery Institute with the name scientist. The reason Biblical Science and Intelligent Design are not scientific is they begin with a premise like Genesis or the existence of a supernatural creator and cherrypick evidence to try to support their already arrived at conclusions. (big logical fallacy here!) This is just the opposite of the scientific method. If you want pretty conclusive evidence of the hypocrisy and intellectual illegitimacy of Intelligent Design, try slogging thorough the transcript of the Dover trial I referenced in my article above. The very idea of Creation Science or Biblical Science (BS) is oxymoronic, or more scientifically stated, moronic.


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    1. And one very brief philological and historical correction:

      Aristotle's works were categorized into four categories. His idea of a "higher" form of nature was, like Plato's, still a pretty new concept to the Greeks, one that needed a new word to describe it. Aristotle's writings on that subject were categorized into his third "genre" of writings. The second genre of his writings were his Physics. Hence, today, we read the "metaphysics," literally "after physics" because it was the body of works that came after Physics. Over time, it grew into our understanding of "beyond physics."

      Aristotle didn't think a higher reality was entirely beyond our comprehension though. After all, he criticized thinkers like Permenides since they never conceived of anything other than the substance of things perceptible by the senses. It just existed in a different domain of knowledge. Science studies mechanism, and in so doing, it can, to some extent, get us to understand the Mechanizer. We ought to abandon the scientistic snobbery that assumes empirical, testable data is the "highest" form of "knowing" something.

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  30. Bob,

    In a separate thread (the religious freedom post of Morris's), I provided Thomas Paine's opinion on the subject of the interaction of the sciences and theology. I think I incline towards Paine's thinking, which is quite dissident from your own.

    I will grant that it can potentially be tenuous to start with Genesis and then try to do science based on that. I don't see the need for that though. The creative order in Genesis actually fits quite well even with most atheist scientists' account of the origin of life (there's a quotation I could provide for this, but it's in a book I don't have with me at school).

    I think C.S. Lewis claims the best expression of the relationship between theology and science:

    "Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared—the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age."

    Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

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  31. The beliefs that a natural law implies a law giver and the appearance of design implies a designer-- deserved to have died their natural deaths in the dustbin of science history long ago.

    Chaos theory has demonstrated precisely this designerless design formation in closed-system, self organizing, randomized environments.

    What C.S. Lewis mistakenly saw was not the end of the Scientific Age but the death of the old Newtonian Age of anthropomorphic causality. God is dead and so is Newton. C.S. saw a sunset. I see a sunrise.

    Since you didn't have the courtesy to cite the Tom Paine reference, or even detail how we might disagree, I will have to go search for it myself. (I hate it when that happens!) I sincerely look forward to finding something in Paine that I might take issue with. So far I have pretty much agreed with everything I have read by the man.

    Check out this amazing BBC film. I think it actually arouses more questions than answers. Let me know what you think of it.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv1j0n_the-secret-life-of-chaos-2010_shortfilms

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    1. I'm curious why you assert those sensible, logical conclusions should have died. Any particular reason? I just don't see what about the grand scale of the cosmos removes it from the possible field of "things designed."

      I don't pretend that I understand chaos theory very well myself, but I do understand how its "research" is conducted. Chaos theory (and mind you, it's theory) has yielded some observations where organization seems to happen in closed systems. But who is closing those systems? The designers of the experiments; that's who. So unavoidably, there is agency involved in the process. We've been seeing that same problem in the field of biochemistry for years: scientists trying to create cells that will evolve into what they theorize to be the earliest life forms on earth. Of course, even if they were able to do so (which they haven't yet), it would just prove that when agency is involved in creating something, life can happen.

      The point is that an Agent explanation of the universe is likely because it fits in with what we know about organization in our world, and every deist agrees. Once you arrive at deism, it's not difficult nowadays to walk next door to theism, just as the case was with C.S. Lewis.

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  32. I did look up the Paine quote, as well as a whole lot of the rest of your comments that I would have liked to have responded to as well.

    I don't know how the blog omitted them on my link.

    Of course Paine was a Deist. Deism proposed a prime mover, a big banger if you will, who wound the clock, posted the rules, and left on holiday--permanently. To my knowledge none of the Deist Founders believed in a personal deity, only in Jesus as a moral teacher, not some magic Christian.

    Of course now science and most educated folks feel no need even for the ghost of a God in the cosmological machine or in their personal lives. Science has moved on and so, might I add, has modern atheist-dominated philosophy and theology.

    As many devout Jews who survived the Holocaust concluded, "God is dead."

    So it goes.

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    1. I think you misunderstand the word "personal" to the deist's mind. As Paine's words clearly explain (I'm not sure how carefully you read it), the mind of educated, Enlightenment deists proposed that the Being (or "person" or "agent") that designed the universe was knowable through reason. Granted, Paine didn't believe the person of Jesus was the Person behind "the whole show," but that does not assert that the Person responsible for existence is unknowable.

      To say there is no need for God in the "cosmological machine" or in personal life is to contradict Paine almost verbatim. You're getting at the mechanism explanation good and well with science like that, but you're not getting the causal explanation, and that is the explanation that actually brings meaning into human life. Without it, you have no cause--just mechanism--and life is meaningless.

      Here we are dialoguing over the meaning of all this, and it is because at the core of our humanity, we understand that there is meaning to life. True atheistic nihilism denies that very core of what makes us human.

      Does your thinking rest in that camp since "God is dead" as you say?

      Side note: I loved reading Kurt Vonnegut in college. I always appreciate allusions to him. Sometimes I wish I too could get unstuck in time and go back to read his work in my teens.

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  33. “a closed system is a physical system which doesn't exchange any matter with its surroundings, and isn't subject to any force whose source is external to the system.”
    Wikipedia

    I don’t understand your remark, “But who is closing those systems?” By that question you seem to indicate that the scientist conducting the experiment or demonstration is somehow acting on the system whereas he is doing exactly the opposite: assuring that there is no outside influence on the subject.

    I just can’t seem to get anyone to look at that damn film. What is it with you and Robert Regallie?

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv1j0n_the-secret-life-of-chaos-2010_shortfilms

    The premise demonstrated in the film is that certain random subjects operating in a CLOSED SYSTEM have been shown to exhibit self organizing properties. It is the biochemical equivalent of a watch spontaneously designing and building itself–all by itself. No designer need apply. Matter seems to have in-built, self-organizing properties and propensities.

    That, to my mind, takes God pretty definitively out of the machine and destroys any hope for the assertion that there is a possible divine causation implied in any designed enterprise. Of course that assertion always was absurd on its face, at least scientifically.

    I mentioned the extent to which I agreed with Thomas Paine in my previous post. He railed against organized religion and political tyranny. Having the benefit of historical hindsight and of discoveries that have now rendered Deism scientifically, theologically and socially obsolete, I of course temper my critique of Paine and his belief in the Author of Natural Law. His thought was not informed by Darwin, Freud, or Einstein. It is always a bit presumptuous to assert what cause or belief system this or that Founder might favor, but all things considered, if Paine were alive today, and culturally updated, he would probably be an atheist.

    I mean no ill intent or insult to you, but I find all the nearly hundred year old arguments for divine agency and causality almost humorously quaint and out of date. While I still believe in rhetorical techniques I find your argument for sensible, logical conclusions as to the nature of the universe contrary to nearly all the contemporary observations of the micro and macro universe. All the old bets about the nature of matter and the origin of the universe are off. In the prophetic words of Sir Arthur Eddington “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.” Astrophysicist, Fred C. Adams even contends in his latest book (which I have not read) “Origins of Existence: How Life Emerged in the Universe”

    http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Existence-Life-Emerged-Universe/dp/1501100084

    that the universe may create life as spontaneously and as frequently as it does other physical/chemical reactions. No prime mover need apply.

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  34. If I could step outside the topic slightly and quickly paraphrase my own personal bias: I do not believe the universe and life has any meaning(s) other than those we create, personally, culturally and subjectively. I do not believe in a personal god. I cannot say what takes place after death. I have seen how totally everything we consider human, soulful, and sentient can totally disappear under the terrible tyranny of brain disease. If a soul exists it can have nothing to do with the fragile biochemical balance in our brains. Even the religious traditions teach us that the ego does not survive death. For most people ego-death is the same thing as death itself—nothingness. We are a part of what appears, from our limited perspective, to be a blind, but magnificent, biological flow of life governed by the same impersonal laws that move jellyfish and stars. As our profligate species continues to live like carbon junkies we have become irrevocably wedded to our own imminent destruction. When we do become extinct (according to some climate scientists—thirty years from now) Nature will fold us, the proud, self-appointed Crown of Creation, under her blanket of obscurity with as much disregard as She did the dinosaurs. After the last human breathes his last fetid breath, will the idea of God live on? Where?






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    1. Thank you, Bob, for the aside, though I don't think it's outside the discussion at all. The view you represent, and to which I subscribe, had already been introduced in a comment stating that "True atheistic nihilism denies that very core of what makes us human," which statement seems to imply that what truly makes us human is to have been specially created by God and endowed with some meaning transcending whatever meaning we may ourselves create.
          As I have found, and I know you had already found even before posting about the dinosaurs coming, it is virtually impossible to make any rational progress in a "conversation" between such opposing basic assumptions.

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    2. I wholeheartedly agree about the impasse in the conversation, Morris. This is something Morris and I have come to understand through previous discussions, Bob: ultimately, our axioms (first-truth assumptions) conflict regarding the possibility of the existence of a "supernature."

      I'm beginning to think that there is still hope for either of us though from either's perspective. Bob's personification of Nature is, to my mind, yet another example of how inescapable our human nature is to assume that there is a higher power; we just disagree whether or not there is "something to that." Most atheists speak of natural selection quite anthropomorphically as well. I've written about that here as well.

      Likewise, for all I know, I might end up a true nihilist one day, and then, in the spirit of meaningless life, I might become capable of what Dostoevsky feared: "If God does not exist, all things are permissible."

      I assume you would agree, Bob, but do you? Is our sense of justice illusory, and we ultimately have no right to fault anyone for anything he or she does?

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    3. In my wife's presence, I have often referred to our dog (Siegfried) as a person, and I like to think (and do think) of him in that way. I treat him as kindly as I would a human person. My wife objects, however. "He isn't a person, he's a dog." Or, "He's just a dog."
          I guess I'm personifying Siegfried. I tend to personify other individual animals as well. A songbird whose foot I freed from one of our feeders - it had gotten caught. I don't believe that I personify nature (or Nature) itself, however, whatever that even means – except, I guess, in some way projecting a Superior Person beyond, below, behind, or somehow immanent in it. Superior person I don't need, miss, or want. I'm even repelled by the idea – as much as some others, apparently, utterly do need, do want, and would miss having such an idea in which to place their faith.
          But obviously nature (or Nature), with or without a person anywhere about, is a "higher power." One "vision" I had (when I was about Kyle's age, or a couple of years younger – I was twenty-two, I think) was as veridical as any of the handful I've had have been – utterly true-seeming, undeniable. In fact, I just found my description of this incident, one of the blog's earliest posts, "Creatures," dated June 24, 2006: "The year I was twenty-two, while taking a nap on a delightful, rainy Spring afternoon in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, I experienced what I have always thought of as a 'mystical vision.' It had that special feeling. In my vision I beheld a Universe filled with golden light, pervaded by an eloquent silence so profound it could have been composed by Bach, if not by an angel. In this light danced the most beautiful specks of dust, and I understood, with that special self-validating sense of knowing, that I was utterly dependent upon the Creator of this Universe for my existence. I had not created myself. I could not even ensure that I would take another breath. I had not created any of those specks of dust. And I could not create one. Yet, viewing that wondrous field of golden light, listening to that profound silence, utterly sure of my creaturehood, I felt at peace, full of calm."
          Note that the "Creator of this Universe" was, for me, dated 1965. By 2006, when I posted that reminiscence, I was discovering that that part of my vision had expired; it was after the "use by" date. But it was still true, and is still true today, that I did not create myself, cannot guarantee another breath, and could not create a speck of dust. And I am still utterly sure of my creaturehood and feel at peace, full of calm. I can't credit – I mean, can't really understand – the apparent horror I detect in Kyle's admitting the possibility that he, too, might someday become a "nihilist" – as though that would prevent him from loving life and respecting fellow creatures, whether persons or not.

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  35. I am enjoying the discussion. Kyle is intelligent, civil, and wrong. Well, delete that last one. He gives as good as he gets. I get so weary of arguing God with fundamentalist Christians all the time that it is challenging to duke it out with the last remaining C.S. Lewis advocate. Lewis wrote nice fiction however; just not as good as his classmate J.R.R.

    My nihilism represents the same dead-end western philosophy and theology has reached. Not a pretty picture. Ken Wilber has grafted the still viable philosophical systems of world mysticism and eastern thought onto the bombed-out stump of western philosophy and it seems to be taking, to my mind.

    http://www.kenwilber.com/home/landing/index.html

    My nihilism is also informed by Native American vision, shamanism, entheogens and the writings of out-of-the-box thinkers like Terence McKenna and Ram Dass. I wish there was a way to fold this into the conversation to show Kyle that my thinking is far from the defense of strict materialism I am assuming in my support of the traditional scientific method. There is so much more under Heaven than Horatio ever dreamed of..

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    1. I thank you for the compliments, Bob. I think too much of the dialectic to which we add in "the great conversation" has been tainted with caustic speech from both worldviews. Unavoidably, we have been swayed (probably more subconsciously than we know) by the ethos of those who have helped build our worldviews. All we can hope to do now is retain an ethos of integrity to spur our contemporaries and future generations to think well.

      That is, after all, how Tolkien helped Lewis progress towards Christ.

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  36. Morris,
    The vividness of your vision reminded me of one of my favorite poems by James Wright

    Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
    BY JAMES WRIGHT

    Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
    Asleep on the black trunk,
    Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
    Down the ravine behind the empty house,
    The cowbells follow one another
    Into the distances of the afternoon.
    To my right,
    In a field of sunlight between two pines,
    The droppings of last year’s horses
    Blaze up into golden stones.
    I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
    A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
    I have wasted my life.

    Many have puzzled over that last line. It means different things to different people. For some it is reminiscent of the feelings that arose when Rilke surmised the archaic torso of Apollo.

    Archaic Torso of Apollo
    Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875 - 1926

    We cannot know his legendary head
    with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
    is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
    like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

    gleams in all its power. Otherwise
    the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
    a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
    to that dark center where procreation flared.

    Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
    beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
    and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

    would not, from all the borders of itself,
    burst like a star: for here there is no place
    that does not see you. You must change your life.

    For me there is a beauty in Nature and in art that calls to the deepest, most spiritual part of us. Both call us to a deeper meaning and a more intimate communion with ultimate reality than we have ever experienced. This meaning, this reality some call God, Being, Samadhi. They call us to change our lives.

    Do you remember the floating plastic bag scene in the film, "American Beauty"?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qssvnjj5Moo


    The experience reminded me again of Rilke's words from his First Duino Elegy:

    "For beauty is nothing but
    the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
    and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
    to destroy us."

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    1. Bob, that is a profoundly catching poem by James Wright, and its "I have wasted my life" had me thinking of Rilke's archaic torso before I read the next line of your comment!
          I do remember the floating-bag scene and enjoyed watching it again at that Youtube location you provided (thanks!). I wonder, though, whether we need a gloss from Rolf Dumke for the quotation from the Duino Elegies? There's something missing in that "that" clause. Another version, from the web, gives it:

      "For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
      which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
      because it serenely disdains to destroy us."

          I can't personally attest to the sense of terror. I do relate this "experience of beauty" to a sense of ripened fullness, a sense (or even a present sensation) I experienced many times in my thirties and forties, often when I was driving, and expressed by some such statement as (or maybe just the thought that), "I could die now and have no regrets. I have missed nothing."
         

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    2. This delving into poetry immediately makes me recall the work of the English poet and novelist Philip Larkin. Larkin is, I think, of the class of the more "honest" of nihilists: he doesn't allow himself the illusions of anything meaningful or "full" as Morris called it.

      I think his "Aubade" captures where nihilism logically leads one's thinking if one is willing to accept the worldview of reality that nihilism poses. All "feelings" to the contrary are difficult to call "false" because there is no true or false in the nihilist worldview: there is just a wind-up leading to oblivion. Hence morality goes out the window in the nihilist worldview, and ultimately, "allows" anyone to interfere with one's sense of "fullness" without fault (if there is fault, it is illusory, which I think we should all logically conclude).

      Here are Larkin's words from "Aubade."

      I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
      Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
      In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
      Till then I see what’s really always there:
      Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
      Making all thought impossible but how
      And where and when I shall myself die.
      Arid interrogation: yet the dread
      Of dying, and being dead,
      Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

      The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
      —The good not done, the love not given, time
      Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
      An only life can take so long to climb
      Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
      But at the total emptiness for ever,
      The sure extinction that we travel to
      And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
      Not to be anywhere,
      And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

      This is a special way of being afraid
      No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
      That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
      Created to pretend we never die,
      And specious stuff that says No rational being
      Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
      That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
      No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
      Nothing to love or link with,
      The anaesthetic from which none come round.

      And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
      A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
      That slows each impulse down to indecision.
      Most things may never happen: this one will,
      And realisation of it rages out
      In furnace-fear when we are caught without
      People or drink. Courage is no good:
      It means not scaring others. Being brave
      Lets no one off the grave.
      Death is no different whined at than withstood.

      Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
      It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
      Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
      Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
      Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
      In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
      Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
      The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
      Work has to be done.
      Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

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    3. Kyle, I'm glad that you put quotation marks around "honest" in your characterization of Larkin as one "of the class of the more 'honest' of nihilists," although I'm not sure that that entirely dismisses your implication that I am dishonest, since you seem to consider my having any meaning or satisfaction in my life a matter of my deluding myself.
          You seem inordinately proud and confident of applying the term "nihilism" to views that deny the reality of your god, and you seem to trust overmuch in whatever textbook expositions of "nihilism" you are summarizing and basing your judgments on about where it does or doesn't "logically" lead.
          Sadly, Larkin does seem to have been a pretty morose guy, but clear-headed nonetheless. He did peg religion's illusion, after all, "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade / Created to pretend we never die."
          "Nihilism" has never been what I've believed. I may be going to die, but I have lived, and that is not nothing.

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    4. It has been said that without death there would be no religion. The psychologists who formed the Terror Management Theory school following the work of Earnest Becker believe that our deep-seated desire to "pretend we never die" is at the heart of most of our societal institutional strategies, especially our religious institutions. Exoteric religions pander to this desire for the ego to live on after death by promising palliatives of immortality where we can carry our personalities and appetites beyond the grave to some Heavenly kingdom not that different than the best of what we experience here and now. An interesting side bar to the study of TMT is the discovery that -- reminding folks of their mortality or challenging their belief systems about the afterlife results in intense, irrational violence. Interesting.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

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  37. Thanks for the account of your "vision", Morris. Most interesting.
    I myself have had analogous experiences through music. Only a few times, but the experiences have been profound, and have moved me to spend years studying and performing music to try to revisit those places. I think I've written about this before.

    Oddly enough, Kyle, the music that has done this for me has all been religious work, most memorably Bach. I have not inferred a communication from god from this, because many others who have written of similar experiences have NOT had them in a Christian context. Regardless of the source, though, I keep trying to re-create the mystery. Alas, it comes as it will, perhaps once a decade, indifferent to my efforts.
    BTW, Morris, while this isn't the best venue: I'm performing Bach's Mass in B minor tonight and tomorrow, but I won't be able to get that review out in the next week. Seicento will be in Concert Week mode starting tomorrow, and I'm headed to Guatemala a few days after that. Look for reviews in late March.

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    1. Chuck, that may be odd, that "the music that has [occasioned your own 'visions'] has all been religious work, most memorably Bach" but, then, I did write [in 2006] of my 1965 waking-dream that the "Universe [was filled with] an eloquent silence so profound it could have been composed by Bach, if not by an angel." So I seem to have experienced something similar from listening to Bach in the intervening 41 years.
          But in what sense, really, was this "religious work"? Were you thinking simply of the fact that Bach and others writing in the genre were composing for performance in or about church, and their compositions probably were in some sense inspired by their religious beliefs and not just by their need to get paid?

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    2. The music is certainly religious. From the B minor Mass, Sanctus and Agnus Dei; from the St. Matthews passion, Erbarme Dich and O Sacred Head. And by all accounts, Bach was a devout Lutheran. Nor do I think such music could have been written merely to satisfy his employers. I doubt my own motives were religious. The story of Jesus, however much truth there may be in it, is one of the most emotionally profound tales our civilization has produced.

      I can't imagine how we can compare our experiences. The Sanctus, properly performed, taught me what "majesty" might mean for the only time in my life. For others, the experience was purely musical, with no religious content I could find. Your experience sounds like the latter.

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    3. Chuck, thanks for elaborating on the religious nature of the music that brought you your own profound experiences. And I can attest, from what I know about you, that your own motives were not "religious" in the sense we seem to be discussing here. However, you have also spent many hours (days and weeks) in mountains and other wildernesses "communing with Nature." You have encountered Being in its most beautiful and awe-inspiring (and sometimes frightening) settings. You are "religiously" sensitive and disposed in being motivated to experience profoundly what you find of this world, this life that you have been born into. "Religious" can encompass passions and sensibilities that have nothing to do with churches (or myths) built by men. And, in that greater, grander view, I think it probably is fair to say that you were "religiously motivated." You wanted to experience as deeply and truly as you possibly could the power of tones and melodies and harmonies and voices to ring the human emotions from top to bottom...
          I must say, though, that I have never myself suspected that Jesus's story is "one of the most emotionally profound tales our civilization has produced." I'll have to think about that some more.

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    4. If communing with nature is religion, I'm the most religious guy you ever met. I have the western prejudice that religion is about gods, though.

      As for the power of the Christian mythos, consider for instance the denial of Peter. The guilt and shame are far more universal than any particular religion. Breaks me up every time I sing about it.

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  38. Nice to have your thoughts in the conversation, Chuck. I believe it was Nietzsche who said, "Without music, life would be a mistake." Although not being musically trained myself, my appreciation of the ability of music to transform and transport is profound. I can remember in 1958 being awed, listening in a black-dark room, hearing Bartok's string quartets in a state of the art sound system for the first time.

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    1. That must have been a strange experience! Even in a normal concert hall setting, the Bartok Quartets are far removed from normal musical experience.

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    2. Chuck,
      Are you familiar with the blog, Ionarts, hosted by Charles T. Downey? He surveys the music and arts scene with a distinctly discerning eye and ear.
      He writes some of the most marvelous reviews I have ever read.

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    3. No, I hadn't heard of it. I'll try it after my current travails. Thanks!

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  39. A trained musicologist can probably explain it better. At the time I heard Bartok, my listening appetites in the realm of classical music were pretty conventional. They didn't extend much beyond Stravinsky and Ravel. Hearing such a powerful, creative use of atonality and dissonance blew my aesthetic wide open. It has never closed since.

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