Logical arguments for the existence of God begin with understanding those who deny Him...
"Critical thinking and questioning of accepted but not proven assumptions used to be a driving force in science. Now it tends to get you thrown to the curb! Where would we be if Newtonians had driven Einstein away and any others who dared to suggest something like Relativity could dare threaten the hallowed Newtonian Laws? How about Quantum Mechanics? Imagine a world of Newtonians firing and denying tenure to all who question any Newtonian Laws? Imagine a world where news media and the government and academics unite to ban Relativity proponents and cast out any who dare mention Quantum Mechanics? Imagine that, apply it to origins and BOOM, you have today's reality." - Radar
Atheists are not the biggest threat to society physically, that would be Islamic extremists and unbalanced Communist dictators with nuclear armaments.
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Gosh, Rosie, didn't you know how Steel was made? Did you know that light from the Sun can melt ice? Where you aware that people have learned to make pearls form in oysters and can create diamonds? But whatever, I am certainly not going to waste a series of articles falsifying the conspiracy theory of 9/11 because I do not see that it has any relevance. If Darwinists actually did not fear Creationism, the firings and lawsuits and scandals would end and the NCSE could pack up 95% of their staff and let them go back to teaching or writing or whatever.
(I am NOT bluing quotes in this excerpt but keeping it consistent with the author's own style)
Atheism: The term Atheist is often applied to those who deny any supreme Being with intelligence and will, the Creator of the world, and distinct from it. It is often also applied to those who say that, if such a Being exists, we can have no knowledge of Him. But this is to confound Atheism with Pantheism, on the one side, and with Agnosticism, on the other. We can, strictly speaking, call only those atheists who deny any design or order in the universe, any first principle or cause, personal or impersonal.. These may be classed as idealistic and materialistic atheists; the idealistic, who affirm God to be an idealistic fiction, an idea of their own minds; the materialistic, who affirm that all that exists is matter and motion, “atoms and empty space”; and that we need only atoms and their properties to explain the universe.
***Atheism has never had any great number of advocates, for it is repugnant to the laws of our intellectual nature, and to all noble moral aspirations. Yet, in recent times, a good many scientific men have professed themselves materialists, finding support for their belief in the newly-discovered properties of atoms, and the supposed fact of the conservation of energy. Tyndall defines matter as “that mysterious thing which accomplishes all the phenomena of the universe,” and in which is “the potency of all life.” Huxley says, though his utterances are often inconsistent that “the physiology of the future will gradually enlarge the realm of matter and law until it is coexistent with knowledge, with feeling, and with action.” The materialistic school in Germany has been, of late years, especially aggressive, and has largely affected the popular mind, Probably the number of those who affirm matter to be self-existent, and find in it the substance of all being, is now considerable, The atoms are their God, and for a Creator and moral Ruler they have no need.
***Atheism thus sets aside, not only the Christian religion, but all religion. As it has no ultimate spiritual principle, nothing but physical forces, there is nothing to worship. And, as there is no future life, as much as possible must be made of the present. According as it prevails among the people there must be seen increased devotion to material interests, with growing disregard of the intellectual and spiritual. Science, because it craves absolute and unchangeable law, is favorable inclined to materialism. It dislikes any Divine interposition; its aim is physical, not moral.
***Agnosticism: This term, claimed by Professor Huxley as a word of his coinage, is used to express man’s necessary ignorance of God. In itself it is a negative rather than positive term. Agnostics do not, like atheists, deny absolutely that there is a God, but say, we cannot know whether He exists or not; and, if He exists, we do not know that we have any true knowledge of Him, The central principle of Agnosticism is thus the unknowability of God arising from the limitations of our minds. As this is a mode of thought already quite general, and bears directly upon the main point of our enquiry, we must briefly consider it; first, in its philosophical principle, secondly, in its religious applications.
***Going no further back than to Hume (d. 1776), who has been called the father of modern Agnosticism, we find him denying that we have any true knowledge of the attributes of God, whose existence, however, he did not deny. But all our ideas of Him are, and must be, anthropomorphic. “The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery.”
***This Agnosticism was the logical result of the philosophical principle then generally accepted, that all knowledge is based upon experience.
***It was reserved to Kant (d. 1804) to make Agnosticism an integral part of his philosophy. He affirmed that all we can know of things external to us is their phenomena; of what is back of these phenomena, and underlying them, we are, and must be, ignorant. Of the three great objects of knowledge, God, Nature, and Man, we can affirm nothing certain, Kant gives three antinomies-contradictory propositions-which, he affirms, can neither be proved not disproved.
***Thus, according to the Kantian philosophy, reason is unable to attain any certainty as to these vital points; “it is hemmed in by a press of opposite and contradictory conclusions.” It is true that Kant attempted in another way to prove the existence of a God, but only as a postulate or pre-supposition, made necessary in order that man may keep the moral law, which is imperative. God exists because a necessary means to enable man to gain the victory over evil. It is generally admitted that this attempt is unsuccessful, and that any positive affirmation of God’s existence is inconsistent with the leading idea of his philosophical system. Dorner says of this system that “it leaves to the Divine, as compared with the Human, merely the semblance of existence.” Professor Seth (”Scottish Philosophy”) remarks: “Kant is the fons et origo of the most cultured agnosticism of the day.” Religion with Kant is simply morality, and Christ’s significance is only that of a moral Ideal; and, therefore, our faith in Him is moral, not historical. “A rational theology must be founded upon the laws of morality.” Humanity is the true Son of God. Whether the Scriptures are historically true or not, is a matter of no real importance, since the ideal of reason alone has validity.
***Thus Kant, by denying that we can have any true knowledge of God, of the world, or of man, laid the foundation of an universal skepticism. As the mind can think only under its limitations, our conception of God must be anthropomorphic, and, therefore, both unreal and unworthy. Nevertheless, “the notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly useful idea.”
***As bearing upon this point of Agnosticism, two later writers should be mentioned, Hamilton and Mansel. The purpose of Hamilton, in opposition to the German pantheists, was to show that the Infinite and the Absolute are beyond the limits of our knowledge. He affirms that “All we immediately know, or can know, is the conditioned, the relative, the phenomenal, the finite.” “We cannot know the Infinite through a finite notion, or have a finite knowledge of an Infinite object of knowledge.” Hamilton thus placed himself in direct opposition to all who think that they can define and understand the nature of God. In this sense he was an agnostic; but he also affirmed that,”through faith we apprehend what is be- yond our knowledge.” “When I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that it must, and ought to be believed.”
***
Mansel (”Limits of Religious Thought”) takes in substance the same ground. “The conception of the Absolute and the Infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions.” “To speak of an absolute or infinite Person, is simply to use language to which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself.” Yet Mansel believed in such an absolute and infinite Person. “We are compelled by the constitution of our minds to believe in the existence of an absolute and infinite Being.” And this being is personal. “The highest existence is still the highest personality; and the source of all being reveals Himself by His name, ‘I am.’” Thus Mansel agrees with Hamilton that “Belief cannot be solely determined by reason.” The seeming contradictions between reason and belief may exist only in our minds, and prove simply the limitations of thought.
***But, however good in themselves the motives of these philosophers, it cannot be denied that their affirmations of the necessary ignorance of men in regard to God have given a strong impulse to Agnosticism.1 The inference is that, as we can know so little of Him because of our mental limitations, it is useless to carry on the search. And, it is also objected, that to affirm faith without knowledge is credulity. Let us, then, they say, resign ourselves to ignorance. Some of those who thus speak are, doubt- less, willing to be ignorant, and glad to find some philosophic grounds on which to stand; but there are others, in their hearts seekers after God, who are burdened and perplexed by the intellectual difficulties which all questions connected with the Infinite and Eternal must present.2
***Pantheism: As to know rightly this form of error is of the highest importance in our enquiry, it is necessary to state as clearly as possible its leading principle and to illustrate it; this will be best done by a brief outline of its modem historical development
***The essential element of Pantheism, as stated by Saisset (”Pantheism”),”is the unity of God and nature, of the Infinite and the finite, in one single substance.” The Infinite is not swallowed up in the finite, nor the finite in the Infinite, but both co-exist; and this co-existence is necessary and eternal. Thus we have the One and the many, the Absolute, the All. It will have no dualism, it will unify nature, man, and God. Let us trace the development of this principle, and for this purpose it is necessary to speak of Spinoza.
***Descartes (d. 1 650), the founder of modem philosophy, who distinguished God from nature as its Creator, divided nature into the two created substances, extension and thought. But these have nothing in common, and thus arose a dualism that he was not able to reconcile. Spinoza (d. 1677) attempted to set this dualism aside by affirming one Substance, embracing both thought and extension, both God and nature. This Substance, infinite and absolute, has an infinity of attributes; but of these we know only the two, thought and extension, each of which has an infinity of finite modes. This Substance, the permanent reality under all transient phenomena, is ever changing; all finite things are only passing modes of its being, transient manifestations of its essence, coming out of it and again absorbed into it Spinoza called this substance God. Man, as to his body, is simply a mode of the Divine extension; as to his soul, of the Divine thought. Both are individualizations of the Infinite.
***If this Substance be God, embracing in Himself all existence-the Absolute, the All in all-we ask, Has He consciousness, intelligence, will? No, says Spinoza. These are elements of personality, and He is impersonal We cannot ascribe to Him purpose or design; He is with out feeling; He cannot love or pity, reward or punish; of His own will He creates nothing; all things eternally exist, and are in a perpetual flow. He is the universal and impersonal principle of the universe, which has neither beginning nor end.
***Thus there is one Substance in which co-exists the Infinite and finite. But here the problem meets us: How does the Infinite become the finite; the Absolute, the relative; the One, the many? How does the one impersonal Substance become personal in man? The dualism of Descartes is not set aside; God and nature, extension and thought, soul and body, remain distinct as before.
***This pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza was for a time little understood, and generally regarded as atheism. That it wholly denies the Christian belief respecting God, need not be said. Man is not a creature of God made in His image, but a part of Him, a finite manifestation of His infinite essence; he has no free will, and cannot be morally responsible. No finite thing has any reality, all reality is in God.
***So well satisfied was Spinoza with his philosophy that he could say:” I have explained the nature of God;” and modem German philosophers have called him,” The god-intoxicated man.”
***The attention of philosophers following Spinoza was chiefly given to other questions, such as the origin of our knowledge, and the nature of our mental powers. Of Kant and his teaching notice has already been taken so far as is necessary for our purpose. He left the dualism between thought and being, subject and object, phenomenon and noumenon unsolved. Indeed, his distinction between the pure and the practical Reason made it more conspicuous.
***Fichte (d. 1814) took up the problem, affirming that all things must be derived from a single principle, and solved it by making the subject or the Ego supreme; it creates the object. Everything external to itself exists only in the consciousness of the Ego, a form of its productive activity. Nature is reduced to a non-entity. “The conception of a particular substance is impossible and contradictory” The universe, and even God Himself, are of the mind’s creation, so that Fichte could say to his class: “Gentlemen, now we will create God.” The supreme Being in his system is no more than the Moral Order of the world: “We need no other, and can comprehend no other.” This moral order is what Mr. Arnold calls “the Power that makes for righteousness.”
***This idealism of Fichte was in its principle rather atheistic than pantheistic, but became pantheistic in its later development. For our purpose it is important to note how it tends to the exaltation of man, on the one side, and to the annihilation of God, on the other. Of his philosophy Bomer says: “Each man per se is immediately, not through the mediation of Christ, but by nature, God. . . God is the only reality in any one.” Christ has, indeed, an unique place as the first born Son of God, but “all men are equal to Him in that which constitutes their proper reality.” It is said by Morell (Hist, of Phil.),”With Fichte the idea of nature and the idea of God absolutely vanished; self became the sole existence in the universe, and from its own power and activity everything human was constructed”; and to the same effect Prof. Seth: “Self, as the eternal sustaining subject of the Universe, formed the beginning, middle, and end of the system.”
There is more at that site if this piques your interest. Again, Daniel Gracely's online book is at the site and some added materials as well.
The unsupported hypothesis of Darwinist evolution as applied to any scientific discipline is the one of the worst wastes of money and other resources I can imagine (Killing babies and pouring taxpayer money into businesses owned by politician's cronies rank up there)! Untold billions of dollars are spent trying to prove the unprovable and deny the obvious. The Universe was created and organisms are designed so quit trying to bop your collective heads on that brick wall and do some real research, please? Cure cancer, end diabetes, work on slowing down the accumulating mutations in the human genome, just about anything positive instead of all this useless effort trying to prove what is logically impossible! Same goes for "Climate Change" as man has little power to do much about the weather. We still cannot forecast accurately a week in advance for a specific location and it is quite certain that fudged records and forged information was the basis for Climate Alarmism in the first place. It was all about a bunch of Al Gores getting richer and the green loonies looking for support for their lunatic agendas. Real science now, please!!!
However, I consider the four forms of philosophy we tend to lump together into Atheism is the biggest philosophical threat to society and certainly the biggest drag on scientific research we observe. Allow me to present evidence of this:
A recent and new commenter is Daniel Gracely and he has a website I am perusing at the moment that discusses Calvinism = CALVINISM: A Closer Look By Daniel Gracely. I would be very interested in any feedback by my Christian (heck, any) readers. There are some Christians that labor with the concept of God being both sovereign and yet allowing man to have free will. Does predestination come about because of foreknowledge of God or the assertion of God's will or...? I have my own ideas on the subject in that I see that the Bible teaches us that man makes a choice to accept or reject Christ and that our own sin natures draw us away from God. So we need to both have the desire to find a meaning to life and a willingness to appreciate the concept of a moral standard and we will eventually be drawn to, led to, found by the Creator God. My last post included comments from Daniel G. that I thought were intelligent and pertinent to the extent that I made a post in large part to present them.
A recent and new commenter is Daniel Gracely and he has a website I am perusing at the moment that discusses Calvinism = CALVINISM: A Closer Look By Daniel Gracely. I would be very interested in any feedback by my Christian (heck, any) readers. There are some Christians that labor with the concept of God being both sovereign and yet allowing man to have free will. Does predestination come about because of foreknowledge of God or the assertion of God's will or...? I have my own ideas on the subject in that I see that the Bible teaches us that man makes a choice to accept or reject Christ and that our own sin natures draw us away from God. So we need to both have the desire to find a meaning to life and a willingness to appreciate the concept of a moral standard and we will eventually be drawn to, led to, found by the Creator God. My last post included comments from Daniel G. that I thought were intelligent and pertinent to the extent that I made a post in large part to present them.
May I say that I consider Theistic Evolution to be a poorly-considered position. When I imagine a God who would start a very primitive world and then sit back watching millions of years of pain and suffering and in fact USES the process to build that world, He is akin to one of those kids who likes to pull wings off of flies and watch them stumble and die. It requires a tremendous stretch to convert six days into six billion years or whatever time you assign to the process. A God who made everything Good is a God who fits the definition. A God who gives mankind free will even knowing that man will fall challenges many to explain, but I ask you, what else would you do? I admit it is a bit snarky to remind folks that there is no "Building Universes for Dummies" in publication, neither is there a "How to give free will to men with no downside" textbook to be found.
Computers are built on a binary code which basically means every choice is either yes or no, off or on, up or down, as you would like to understand it. Mankind had one choice, obey or not obey and it only applied to one situation - the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Having failed at that one choice, we now have to make value judgments every day, sometimes minute-by-minute! We did it to ourselves. Yes, there was that Satan character involved in the process. But God did make things perfect at the start and we caused things to begin to fall apart. I think that being willing to come to Earth as a man and limit Himself to a body and be limited to a material existence for 33-some years before being tortured and mocked and subjected to the unthinkable combination of ALL SINS while being separated from His constant Companions of the Godhead was proof that God is no sideline spectator. Jesus Christ is now risen to rule from Heaven while living within His people having given the Spirit of God to all who will repent, believe and receive Salvation from the Lord by the will of the Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Daniel Gracely's online book has a segment from Samuel J. Andrews that I would like to quote concerning Atheism, Agnosticism and Pantheism. The reason I think this is pertinent is that the vast majority of Darwinists are likely to label themselves Agnostic or Atheist when they are in fact often either Atheopaths or Pantheists. In fact I have seen that it is worldview that drives folks to Darwinism as a refuge from God rather than because of the science, since the science points one towards a First Cause with Intent, a Designer, since we see that we inhabit a finite Universe that was caused that is populated by both things and beings that logically could not have simply materialized. I would assert that Darwinism is itself a religion that accepts those who fall into one of the one of the four non-Theistic categories.
Allow me to first give you a good definition of an Atheopath. Then the excerpt from the Gracely site.
Atheopathy: Atheopaths are those who either hate God or hate the very concept of God. This is a bridge too far for many unbelievers. The late Christopher Hitchens, for instance, is famed for carrying on a dialogue with a Christian pastor, Douglas Wilson, and having a DVD made of their debates in public forums, casual settings and in private away from others. Collision is a very interesting ongoing dialogue between a genuine unbeliever who did not prefer Christianity but was not a hater, either AND a pastor from what some folks call "Flyover Country", one Douglas Wilson. The DVD is not beloved by Darwinists as they may have hoped that the "Public Intellectual" would bulldoze the Moscow, Idaho-based pastor and author (Wilson has a blog, by the way). Instead, it is a genuine exchange of ideas without the rancor and mocking that Darwinists usually use to their advantage in intimidating opponents. Right now Darwinists are getting people fired and denied tenure or unemployed simply for being believers in ID or Creationism and thereby violating the First Amendment to the Constitution. Not to mention being prejudiced ideologues who use force to prevent debate on either a philosophical or scientific basis.
With regret I cannot offer up a page representing the current thoughts of Hitchens, who has just recently passed on to the next life. I hope he reconsidered his view of God before he took his last breaths although I cannot possibly know that.
To understand an Atheopath, I can mention a couple of them who are very well known. Richard Dawkins is quite famous, since he is a prolific author and PZ Myers is well known as a Darwinist blogger. Both men have made statements that indicate their utter distaste for God or even the concept of God. Allow me to quote Richard Dawkins:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Gee, Richard, try not to hold anything back now! Rather than quote the oft-nasty Myers, I will simply include a link to one of his posts. I would not let any kids go see it! Personally, I think a guy like Myers is afraid to debate an accomplished Creation scientist such as Jonathan Sarfati or one of the ID guys like David Berlinski or Stephen C. Meyer. I am acquainted with Dr. Sarfati and I am confident he would readily agree to a public debate with Myers and probably quite eagerly at that! You will find that "prominent" Darwinists dodge people like Sarfati and it isn't because Jonathan has bad breath!
Another Atheopath you have possibly heard of would be Ian Plimer. His bad behavior on stage in a debate with Duane Gish caused a fellow Darwinist to write a treatise How Not To Argue With Creationists!
Plimer accused Gish of mismanaging funds (when actually the organization was victimized by a criminal act of people who took advantage of them), getting rich at the expense of common folks (ridiculous), censorship (totally unfounded) and pedophilia (a nasty lying smear) among other things! I have watched the entire debate on video and I frankly began to wonder if Plimer was entirely sane, honestly.
Jonathan Sarfati wrote concerning another prominent Atheopath, Stephen Hawking and his anti-God philosophy as the driving force behind his "scientific" assertions. An excerpt from Hawking atheopathy (Famous physicist goes beyond the evidence):
Jonathan Sarfati wrote concerning another prominent Atheopath, Stephen Hawking and his anti-God philosophy as the driving force behind his "scientific" assertions. An excerpt from Hawking atheopathy (Famous physicist goes beyond the evidence):
Atheistic faith masquerading as science
As usual with atheistic scientists, Hawking’s atheopathy long predated his science. His influential mother Isabel was a Communist, and in his teen years he admired the strongly anti-Christian mathematical philosopher Bertrand Russell.
As with Dawkins, his arguments for atheism are puerile, e.g.
We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that would care about us or even notice our existence.
Yet King David was equally aware of our tininess compared with the universe’s vastness, and came to a different conclusion in Psalm 8:3–5:
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
Similarly, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, the medieval theologians were well aware that compared to the vastness of heavens, the earth was but a point in space. But somehow modern antitheists think this is news, regard it as a profound disproof of God, as if God needed a small universe to exist. And if the universe were small, then these same atheopaths would probably whine, “If God is so great, then why didn’t He create anything else?”6
Imagine the ambivalence of Edwin Hubble, Darwinist to the core, when he discovered the red-shift of starlight from every direction? While Earth is a small planet compared to the Universe, our Solar System not the biggest and us located in one of the "arms" of the galaxy itself, we seem to be in the middle of the whole shebang! Not only that, the farther away objects are, the faster they seem to be moving AWAY from us. The Bible asserts that God not only stretched the Universe but that He stretches it. If objects in space are accelerating rather than decelerating the mind logically concludes they were not flung by a Big Bang but instead are being powered or tugged away. Think on THAT!
I would consider Darwinists to be comprised in large part by cowards (not Dawkins, he will engage people now and again, thus his dialogue with Ben Stein in Expelled) who are using censorship, intimidation and mockery to stave off arguments they know they will lose. If this is not a cowardly method of preserving your worldview, what would you call it? Upon consideration, it is probably not cowardice so much as it is just being smart. Why would a Darwinist expose the paucity of the foundations of his beliefs to the world when they are working so hard to cover that very fact up?
I would most happily walk right into any local high school and debate any of the science teachers on the matter of origins and design and supposed descent at the drop of a hat! But public schools fear that scenario. Most science teachers are not prepared to deal with the science behind Darwinism because the Darwinist propaganda is all they know and all they have been taught in most cases. This is, in part, due to the trend in education to prepare people for a career but not teach them how to think!
Critical thinking and questioning of accepted but not proven assumptions used to be a driving force in science. Now it tends to get you thrown to the curb! Where would we be if Newtonians had driven Einstein away and any others who dared to suggest something like Relativity could dare threaten the hallowed Newtonian Laws? How about Quantum Mechanics? Imagine a world of Newtonians firing and denying tenure to all who question any Newtonian Laws? Imagine a world where news media and the government and academics unite to ban Relativity proponents and cast out any who dare mention Quantum Mechanics? Imagine that, apply it to origins and BOOM, you have today's reality.
I would most happily walk right into any local high school and debate any of the science teachers on the matter of origins and design and supposed descent at the drop of a hat! But public schools fear that scenario. Most science teachers are not prepared to deal with the science behind Darwinism because the Darwinist propaganda is all they know and all they have been taught in most cases. This is, in part, due to the trend in education to prepare people for a career but not teach them how to think!
Critical thinking and questioning of accepted but not proven assumptions used to be a driving force in science. Now it tends to get you thrown to the curb! Where would we be if Newtonians had driven Einstein away and any others who dared to suggest something like Relativity could dare threaten the hallowed Newtonian Laws? How about Quantum Mechanics? Imagine a world of Newtonians firing and denying tenure to all who question any Newtonian Laws? Imagine a world where news media and the government and academics unite to ban Relativity proponents and cast out any who dare mention Quantum Mechanics? Imagine that, apply it to origins and BOOM, you have today's reality.
to summarize, a large number of Darwinists are actually God-haters. Were they not, they would not bother with the subject. I mean, I just ignore so-called "Truthers" who try to pass me videos and documents about 9/11. I don't care. Rosie O'Donnell said it all when she said:
Gosh, Rosie, didn't you know how Steel was made? Did you know that light from the Sun can melt ice? Where you aware that people have learned to make pearls form in oysters and can create diamonds? But whatever, I am certainly not going to waste a series of articles falsifying the conspiracy theory of 9/11 because I do not see that it has any relevance. If Darwinists actually did not fear Creationism, the firings and lawsuits and scandals would end and the NCSE could pack up 95% of their staff and let them go back to teaching or writing or whatever.
(I am NOT bluing quotes in this excerpt but keeping it consistent with the author's own style)
Atheism: The term Atheist is often applied to those who deny any supreme Being with intelligence and will, the Creator of the world, and distinct from it. It is often also applied to those who say that, if such a Being exists, we can have no knowledge of Him. But this is to confound Atheism with Pantheism, on the one side, and with Agnosticism, on the other. We can, strictly speaking, call only those atheists who deny any design or order in the universe, any first principle or cause, personal or impersonal.. These may be classed as idealistic and materialistic atheists; the idealistic, who affirm God to be an idealistic fiction, an idea of their own minds; the materialistic, who affirm that all that exists is matter and motion, “atoms and empty space”; and that we need only atoms and their properties to explain the universe.
***Atheism has never had any great number of advocates, for it is repugnant to the laws of our intellectual nature, and to all noble moral aspirations. Yet, in recent times, a good many scientific men have professed themselves materialists, finding support for their belief in the newly-discovered properties of atoms, and the supposed fact of the conservation of energy. Tyndall defines matter as “that mysterious thing which accomplishes all the phenomena of the universe,” and in which is “the potency of all life.” Huxley says, though his utterances are often inconsistent that “the physiology of the future will gradually enlarge the realm of matter and law until it is coexistent with knowledge, with feeling, and with action.” The materialistic school in Germany has been, of late years, especially aggressive, and has largely affected the popular mind, Probably the number of those who affirm matter to be self-existent, and find in it the substance of all being, is now considerable, The atoms are their God, and for a Creator and moral Ruler they have no need.
***Atheism thus sets aside, not only the Christian religion, but all religion. As it has no ultimate spiritual principle, nothing but physical forces, there is nothing to worship. And, as there is no future life, as much as possible must be made of the present. According as it prevails among the people there must be seen increased devotion to material interests, with growing disregard of the intellectual and spiritual. Science, because it craves absolute and unchangeable law, is favorable inclined to materialism. It dislikes any Divine interposition; its aim is physical, not moral.
***Agnosticism: This term, claimed by Professor Huxley as a word of his coinage, is used to express man’s necessary ignorance of God. In itself it is a negative rather than positive term. Agnostics do not, like atheists, deny absolutely that there is a God, but say, we cannot know whether He exists or not; and, if He exists, we do not know that we have any true knowledge of Him, The central principle of Agnosticism is thus the unknowability of God arising from the limitations of our minds. As this is a mode of thought already quite general, and bears directly upon the main point of our enquiry, we must briefly consider it; first, in its philosophical principle, secondly, in its religious applications.
***Going no further back than to Hume (d. 1776), who has been called the father of modern Agnosticism, we find him denying that we have any true knowledge of the attributes of God, whose existence, however, he did not deny. But all our ideas of Him are, and must be, anthropomorphic. “The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery.”
***This Agnosticism was the logical result of the philosophical principle then generally accepted, that all knowledge is based upon experience.
***It was reserved to Kant (d. 1804) to make Agnosticism an integral part of his philosophy. He affirmed that all we can know of things external to us is their phenomena; of what is back of these phenomena, and underlying them, we are, and must be, ignorant. Of the three great objects of knowledge, God, Nature, and Man, we can affirm nothing certain, Kant gives three antinomies-contradictory propositions-which, he affirms, can neither be proved not disproved.
- 1.”There exists, either as a part of the world or as the cause of it, an absolutely necessary Being; Contra, An absolutely necessary Being does not exist.”
- 2.”The cosmos had a beginning, and is limited in space; Contra, The cosmos had no beginning, and is not limited but infinite.”
- 3.”The soul is an indissoluble and indestructible unity; Contra, The soul is dissoluble and transitory.” (critique of Pure Reason. Meiklejohn’s Trans.)
***Thus, according to the Kantian philosophy, reason is unable to attain any certainty as to these vital points; “it is hemmed in by a press of opposite and contradictory conclusions.” It is true that Kant attempted in another way to prove the existence of a God, but only as a postulate or pre-supposition, made necessary in order that man may keep the moral law, which is imperative. God exists because a necessary means to enable man to gain the victory over evil. It is generally admitted that this attempt is unsuccessful, and that any positive affirmation of God’s existence is inconsistent with the leading idea of his philosophical system. Dorner says of this system that “it leaves to the Divine, as compared with the Human, merely the semblance of existence.” Professor Seth (”Scottish Philosophy”) remarks: “Kant is the fons et origo of the most cultured agnosticism of the day.” Religion with Kant is simply morality, and Christ’s significance is only that of a moral Ideal; and, therefore, our faith in Him is moral, not historical. “A rational theology must be founded upon the laws of morality.” Humanity is the true Son of God. Whether the Scriptures are historically true or not, is a matter of no real importance, since the ideal of reason alone has validity.
***Thus Kant, by denying that we can have any true knowledge of God, of the world, or of man, laid the foundation of an universal skepticism. As the mind can think only under its limitations, our conception of God must be anthropomorphic, and, therefore, both unreal and unworthy. Nevertheless, “the notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly useful idea.”
***As bearing upon this point of Agnosticism, two later writers should be mentioned, Hamilton and Mansel. The purpose of Hamilton, in opposition to the German pantheists, was to show that the Infinite and the Absolute are beyond the limits of our knowledge. He affirms that “All we immediately know, or can know, is the conditioned, the relative, the phenomenal, the finite.” “We cannot know the Infinite through a finite notion, or have a finite knowledge of an Infinite object of knowledge.” Hamilton thus placed himself in direct opposition to all who think that they can define and understand the nature of God. In this sense he was an agnostic; but he also affirmed that,”through faith we apprehend what is be- yond our knowledge.” “When I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that it must, and ought to be believed.”
***
Mansel (”Limits of Religious Thought”) takes in substance the same ground. “The conception of the Absolute and the Infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions.” “To speak of an absolute or infinite Person, is simply to use language to which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself.” Yet Mansel believed in such an absolute and infinite Person. “We are compelled by the constitution of our minds to believe in the existence of an absolute and infinite Being.” And this being is personal. “The highest existence is still the highest personality; and the source of all being reveals Himself by His name, ‘I am.’” Thus Mansel agrees with Hamilton that “Belief cannot be solely determined by reason.” The seeming contradictions between reason and belief may exist only in our minds, and prove simply the limitations of thought.
***But, however good in themselves the motives of these philosophers, it cannot be denied that their affirmations of the necessary ignorance of men in regard to God have given a strong impulse to Agnosticism.1 The inference is that, as we can know so little of Him because of our mental limitations, it is useless to carry on the search. And, it is also objected, that to affirm faith without knowledge is credulity. Let us, then, they say, resign ourselves to ignorance. Some of those who thus speak are, doubt- less, willing to be ignorant, and glad to find some philosophic grounds on which to stand; but there are others, in their hearts seekers after God, who are burdened and perplexed by the intellectual difficulties which all questions connected with the Infinite and Eternal must present.2
***Pantheism: As to know rightly this form of error is of the highest importance in our enquiry, it is necessary to state as clearly as possible its leading principle and to illustrate it; this will be best done by a brief outline of its modem historical development
***The essential element of Pantheism, as stated by Saisset (”Pantheism”),”is the unity of God and nature, of the Infinite and the finite, in one single substance.” The Infinite is not swallowed up in the finite, nor the finite in the Infinite, but both co-exist; and this co-existence is necessary and eternal. Thus we have the One and the many, the Absolute, the All. It will have no dualism, it will unify nature, man, and God. Let us trace the development of this principle, and for this purpose it is necessary to speak of Spinoza.
***Descartes (d. 1 650), the founder of modem philosophy, who distinguished God from nature as its Creator, divided nature into the two created substances, extension and thought. But these have nothing in common, and thus arose a dualism that he was not able to reconcile. Spinoza (d. 1677) attempted to set this dualism aside by affirming one Substance, embracing both thought and extension, both God and nature. This Substance, infinite and absolute, has an infinity of attributes; but of these we know only the two, thought and extension, each of which has an infinity of finite modes. This Substance, the permanent reality under all transient phenomena, is ever changing; all finite things are only passing modes of its being, transient manifestations of its essence, coming out of it and again absorbed into it Spinoza called this substance God. Man, as to his body, is simply a mode of the Divine extension; as to his soul, of the Divine thought. Both are individualizations of the Infinite.
***If this Substance be God, embracing in Himself all existence-the Absolute, the All in all-we ask, Has He consciousness, intelligence, will? No, says Spinoza. These are elements of personality, and He is impersonal We cannot ascribe to Him purpose or design; He is with out feeling; He cannot love or pity, reward or punish; of His own will He creates nothing; all things eternally exist, and are in a perpetual flow. He is the universal and impersonal principle of the universe, which has neither beginning nor end.
***Thus there is one Substance in which co-exists the Infinite and finite. But here the problem meets us: How does the Infinite become the finite; the Absolute, the relative; the One, the many? How does the one impersonal Substance become personal in man? The dualism of Descartes is not set aside; God and nature, extension and thought, soul and body, remain distinct as before.
***This pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza was for a time little understood, and generally regarded as atheism. That it wholly denies the Christian belief respecting God, need not be said. Man is not a creature of God made in His image, but a part of Him, a finite manifestation of His infinite essence; he has no free will, and cannot be morally responsible. No finite thing has any reality, all reality is in God.
***So well satisfied was Spinoza with his philosophy that he could say:” I have explained the nature of God;” and modem German philosophers have called him,” The god-intoxicated man.”
***The attention of philosophers following Spinoza was chiefly given to other questions, such as the origin of our knowledge, and the nature of our mental powers. Of Kant and his teaching notice has already been taken so far as is necessary for our purpose. He left the dualism between thought and being, subject and object, phenomenon and noumenon unsolved. Indeed, his distinction between the pure and the practical Reason made it more conspicuous.
***Fichte (d. 1814) took up the problem, affirming that all things must be derived from a single principle, and solved it by making the subject or the Ego supreme; it creates the object. Everything external to itself exists only in the consciousness of the Ego, a form of its productive activity. Nature is reduced to a non-entity. “The conception of a particular substance is impossible and contradictory” The universe, and even God Himself, are of the mind’s creation, so that Fichte could say to his class: “Gentlemen, now we will create God.” The supreme Being in his system is no more than the Moral Order of the world: “We need no other, and can comprehend no other.” This moral order is what Mr. Arnold calls “the Power that makes for righteousness.”
***This idealism of Fichte was in its principle rather atheistic than pantheistic, but became pantheistic in its later development. For our purpose it is important to note how it tends to the exaltation of man, on the one side, and to the annihilation of God, on the other. Of his philosophy Bomer says: “Each man per se is immediately, not through the mediation of Christ, but by nature, God. . . God is the only reality in any one.” Christ has, indeed, an unique place as the first born Son of God, but “all men are equal to Him in that which constitutes their proper reality.” It is said by Morell (Hist, of Phil.),”With Fichte the idea of nature and the idea of God absolutely vanished; self became the sole existence in the universe, and from its own power and activity everything human was constructed”; and to the same effect Prof. Seth: “Self, as the eternal sustaining subject of the Universe, formed the beginning, middle, and end of the system.”
There is more at that site if this piques your interest. Again, Daniel Gracely's online book is at the site and some added materials as well.
The unsupported hypothesis of Darwinist evolution as applied to any scientific discipline is the one of the worst wastes of money and other resources I can imagine (Killing babies and pouring taxpayer money into businesses owned by politician's cronies rank up there)! Untold billions of dollars are spent trying to prove the unprovable and deny the obvious. The Universe was created and organisms are designed so quit trying to bop your collective heads on that brick wall and do some real research, please? Cure cancer, end diabetes, work on slowing down the accumulating mutations in the human genome, just about anything positive instead of all this useless effort trying to prove what is logically impossible! Same goes for "Climate Change" as man has little power to do much about the weather. We still cannot forecast accurately a week in advance for a specific location and it is quite certain that fudged records and forged information was the basis for Climate Alarmism in the first place. It was all about a bunch of Al Gores getting richer and the green loonies looking for support for their lunatic agendas. Real science now, please!!!