Worldviews and Science
I hereby promise to go over comment threads and catch them up this coming weekend. This weekend and the coming holiday week are very busy for me!
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But let me reiterate something very foundational. True science, good science, real science, whatever your label.....Science considers all possibilities as the set of answers to investigate for the questions that it considers. There is no reason to exclude the supernatural and, in fact, it is bad science to do so! Yet it is common among scientists today to do exactly that. Is it for scientific reasons? No, because scientists are willing to consider that events have happened by mere chance, events that statistically should never occur. They are willing to believe that thousands, millions, even billions of years ago at a time that cannot be observed and a place where they cannot go that the impossible just happened! The impossible may be the appearance of the entire cosmos out of nothing or it might be the appearance of life from non-life and they are willing to give chance the credit. Yet they then say that God cannot be considered even though a Creator God fits the evidences much better and is much more logical.
Let's listen to what such scientists have to say:
"The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be." - Carl Sagan.
I ask you, how can he possibly assert this? He cannot know that this is true at all. Such a statement is made by faith, not by observation. Carl Sagan cannot go back in time, or travel beyond the limits of our sight, or move ahead in time and therefore he cannot back up this statement, no, not one part of it. Carl Sagan is speaking, therefore, out of his, er, worldview.
I have posted various statements by anti-God scientists before and I don't wish to get into the whys of what they believe, simply the what. How about this statement?
It is a shame that such as Lewontin would be aghast at the report of a miracle, but that has nothing to do with what is true or untrue. I get a kick out of commenters who try to "lecture" me about science, when they are in every case an adherent to the same worldview as Lewontin, determined to keep God out of the picture even if God is the only rational explanation!
I give you the cosmos: Cosmologists admit that they cannot begin to explain coherently where matter came from and their best explanations change from decade to decade. They cannot account for the "fine-tuning" of the Universe or the Solar System and our planet. On the other hand, believers in the Creator God can point to a Book that identifies God as the Creator. Yes, a supernatural entity beyond our complete understanding made everything. Naturalistic materialists don't like to hear that, but it is a better explanation for things than anything they have come up with. It helps explain why everything and every creature appears to have been designed, for instance.
Oh, yes, and God also claims in the Bible to have created all life. Isn't it odd that all creatures appear to be designed? Isn't it odd that the planet teems with life and yet we never see life arise from non-life? Isn't it odd?
Richard Dawkins thought so, as stated in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, "Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning."
The illusion of design and planning! Suppose Dawkins had come home to find a note pinned to his front door, a note pinned with a thumbtack and with a message, "Call your brother asap!" written thereon. He would not see who left it, could not go back in time to observe it, so wouldn't he decide that it simply appeared by chance there somehow? Hmmmm? No, he wouldn't! He'd believe someone had written it and posted it upon his door and that it might be a good idea to pay attention to the message! Design and planning is all around us and we have learned to distinguish between the random falling of a leaf in the autumn and someone throwing a snowball at our heads in the winter.
In fact, observation tells us that life had been planned and designed. We have evidence in the Bible that it was a supernatural God who did the planning and the designing.
I think of a quote by Jesus Christ in the Bible that he made about the legalistic teachers of the day, but applies nicely here: 'He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?"' Luke 6:39.
You who refuse to consider the supernatural in your view of the world have your point of view, just as I have mine. But please don't bother to try to tell me that yours is more scientific, for it is obvious that it is, indeed, far less scientific. You naturalistic materialists exclude all supernatural solutions for reasons of faith, for it is what you wish to believe and choose to believe no matter what the evidence. You blind your eyes to evidences that you prefer not to see.
~~~~~~~
But let me reiterate something very foundational. True science, good science, real science, whatever your label.....Science considers all possibilities as the set of answers to investigate for the questions that it considers. There is no reason to exclude the supernatural and, in fact, it is bad science to do so! Yet it is common among scientists today to do exactly that. Is it for scientific reasons? No, because scientists are willing to consider that events have happened by mere chance, events that statistically should never occur. They are willing to believe that thousands, millions, even billions of years ago at a time that cannot be observed and a place where they cannot go that the impossible just happened! The impossible may be the appearance of the entire cosmos out of nothing or it might be the appearance of life from non-life and they are willing to give chance the credit. Yet they then say that God cannot be considered even though a Creator God fits the evidences much better and is much more logical.
Let's listen to what such scientists have to say:
"The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be." - Carl Sagan.
I ask you, how can he possibly assert this? He cannot know that this is true at all. Such a statement is made by faith, not by observation. Carl Sagan cannot go back in time, or travel beyond the limits of our sight, or move ahead in time and therefore he cannot back up this statement, no, not one part of it. Carl Sagan is speaking, therefore, out of his, er, worldview.
I have posted various statements by anti-God scientists before and I don't wish to get into the whys of what they believe, simply the what. How about this statement?
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." - Professor Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997Did you catch that (in bold)? Lewontin is stating that science itself doesn't demand naturalistic materialism, it is a choice made by the scientist due to his worldview! He then states that , no matter what, materialistic causes must be found even if they are counter-intuitive! This is science???? That a better solution, a more sensible solution, will be abandoned if it is associated with the supernatural! Notice what Lewontin said in the very next paragraph: "The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen"
It is a shame that such as Lewontin would be aghast at the report of a miracle, but that has nothing to do with what is true or untrue. I get a kick out of commenters who try to "lecture" me about science, when they are in every case an adherent to the same worldview as Lewontin, determined to keep God out of the picture even if God is the only rational explanation!
I give you the cosmos: Cosmologists admit that they cannot begin to explain coherently where matter came from and their best explanations change from decade to decade. They cannot account for the "fine-tuning" of the Universe or the Solar System and our planet. On the other hand, believers in the Creator God can point to a Book that identifies God as the Creator. Yes, a supernatural entity beyond our complete understanding made everything. Naturalistic materialists don't like to hear that, but it is a better explanation for things than anything they have come up with. It helps explain why everything and every creature appears to have been designed, for instance.
Oh, yes, and God also claims in the Bible to have created all life. Isn't it odd that all creatures appear to be designed? Isn't it odd that the planet teems with life and yet we never see life arise from non-life? Isn't it odd?
Richard Dawkins thought so, as stated in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, "Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning."
The illusion of design and planning! Suppose Dawkins had come home to find a note pinned to his front door, a note pinned with a thumbtack and with a message, "Call your brother asap!" written thereon. He would not see who left it, could not go back in time to observe it, so wouldn't he decide that it simply appeared by chance there somehow? Hmmmm? No, he wouldn't! He'd believe someone had written it and posted it upon his door and that it might be a good idea to pay attention to the message! Design and planning is all around us and we have learned to distinguish between the random falling of a leaf in the autumn and someone throwing a snowball at our heads in the winter.
In fact, observation tells us that life had been planned and designed. We have evidence in the Bible that it was a supernatural God who did the planning and the designing.
I think of a quote by Jesus Christ in the Bible that he made about the legalistic teachers of the day, but applies nicely here: 'He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?"' Luke 6:39.
You who refuse to consider the supernatural in your view of the world have your point of view, just as I have mine. But please don't bother to try to tell me that yours is more scientific, for it is obvious that it is, indeed, far less scientific. You naturalistic materialists exclude all supernatural solutions for reasons of faith, for it is what you wish to believe and choose to believe no matter what the evidence. You blind your eyes to evidences that you prefer not to see.