Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“I was referring to the entire pagan/secular “western” ideology, including that of the American Founding”
Spirited: Though most if not all of the Founders embraced the so-called “age of reason,” and a handful embraced Deism, most were for the most part Christian, at least in terms of the following: the unique definition of man as the spiritual image-bearer of God from Whom man’s unalienable rights obtain beginning with the right to life; man’s sinful nature necessitating separation of powers; and the absolute need for training all children in the unchanging, higher Truth and Moral Law of God.
But proud men abhor the idea of human equality, even though it does not mean that we are equals here in this world but equals in terms of our souls, our spiritual being.
Pride being what it is, by 1820 America’s ‘educated’ class was challenging the notion of human equality. ‘Science’ made this possible; Darwinism in 1853 popularized and actualized it, as Prof. Angelo Codevilla reports in his profoundly insightful essay, “America’s Ruling Class:”
“The notion of human equality was always a hard sell, because experience teaches us that we are so unequal in so many ways, and because making one’s self superior is so tempting that Lincoln called it “the old serpent, you work I’ll eat.” But human equality made sense to our Founding generation because they believed that all men are made in the image and likeness of God, because they were yearning for equal treatment under British law, or because they had read John Locke.
It did not take long for their paradigm to be challenged by interest and by “science.” By the 1820s, as J. C. Calhoun was reading in the best London journals that different breeds of animals and plants produce inferior or superior results, slave owners were citing the Negroes’ deficiencies to argue that they should remain slaves indefinitely. Lots of others were reading Ludwig Feuerbach’s rendition of Hegelian philosophy, according to which biblical injunctions reflect the fantasies of alienated human beings or, in the young Karl Marx’s formulation, that ethical thought is “superstructural” to material reality. By 1853, when Sen. John Pettit of Ohio called “all men are created equal” “a self-evident lie,” much of America’s educated class had already absorbed the “scientific” notion (which Darwin only popularized) that man is the product of chance mutation and natural selection of the fittest. Accordingly, by nature, superior men subdue inferior ones as they subdue lower beings or try to improve them as they please. Hence while it pleased the abolitionists to believe in freeing Negroes and improving them, it also pleased them to believe that Southerners had to be punished and reconstructed by force. As the 19th century ended, the educated class’s religious fervor turned to social reform: they were sure that because man is a mere part of evolutionary nature, man could be improved, and that they, the most highly evolved of all, were the improvers.
Thus began the Progressive Era. When Woodrow Wilson in 1914 was asked “can’t you let anything alone?” he answered with, “I let everything alone that you can show me is not itself moving in the wrong direction, but I am not going to let those things alone that I see are going down-hill.” Wilson spoke for the thousands of well-off Americans who patronized the spas at places like Chautauqua and Lake Mohonk. By such upper-middle-class waters, progressives who imagined themselves the world’s examples and the world’s reformers dreamt big dreams of establishing order, justice, and peace at home and abroad. Neither were they shy about their desire for power. Wilson was the first American statesman to argue that the Founders had done badly by depriving the U.S. government of the power to reshape American society. Nor was Wilson the last to invade a foreign country (Mexico) to “teach [them] to elect good men.”
Continue reading: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
By "these men", you are referring to whom?
Again, I'll post this listing of well-known Christian scientific thinkers throughout history.
The list is hundreds long, and includes over a dozen evolutionists.
It does not include our more deistic Founders, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, but it does include names like Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur.
The list confirms that neither all scientists nor all evolutionists are effectively atheists.
Nor does that list include hundreds of historical Jewish scientists, who were/are also not atheists.
As for those scientist who were/are atheists, I can't defend them, except to point out that any broad generalizations are likely to be inaccurate.
spirited irish: "Of course none of these men were atheists with respect to their religiously held belief in the ‘nature’ philosophies and/or nature religions (i.e., Epicurean Materialism, Neo-Platonic or Eastern Pantheism) they embraced."
Since your term "these men" refers to nobody specific, I'll have to take it as a broad generalization, likely to be inaccurate.
spirited irish: "All nature religions/philosophical systems are monist by nature."
Perhaps if you could name some of these alleged monistically oriented scientists, we could test your hypothesis to see if it holds up?
spirited irish: "But as Crick has honestly admitted, pan spermia merely moves the problem of life out into deep space."
The fact is that as of today, there is no serious evidence to confirm any "origin of life" hypothesis.
It's all just educated guess-work.
What is known for certain is that some simple organic chemicals (not life!) are found in comets, and doubtless also arrived on earth.
It's also known for certain that under certain conditions, very simple organic chemistry can become more and more complex.
But nobody (so far as I know) has yet found or demonstrated how naturally created complex chemistry began to take on characteristics we today might call "lifelike".
Until that happens, all the various hypotheses are just that: educated guesswork.
Again, I'm afraid you're missing the point. It's not just evolution or even Renaissance humanism . . . it's the revolution that began long ago and of which chrstianity is actually a part. There is one G-d and one religion, and there are not "rights" apart from this. Furthermore G-d's Law rests on His authority alone and not on any utilitarian function in sustaining anybody's "civilization." Theocracy and Theocratic positivism. That's what I'm saying.
The west, with it's roots in Greco-Roman paganism and philosophy, was doomed from the beginning. Let's let it fall in its rottenness and accept the Laws of G-d.
“By “these men”, you are referring to whom?”
Spirited: Certainly not the Christians, but rather Max Planck and Einstein, whose god was akin to Spinoza’s pantheist conception:
“In a letter to Hans Muehsam (30 March 1954), Einstein said: “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever... This is a somewhat new kind of religion.” [Einstein Archive 38-434]
In a letter to a child who asked if scientists pray (24 January 1936), said: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” [Einstein Archive 42-601]
In a letter to M. Berkowitz (25 October 1950), Einstein said: “My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.” [Einstein Archive 59-215] http://www.adherents.com/people/pe/Albert_Einstein.html
“Planck’s God, it seemed, was nothing more than an “ideal Sprit.” His beliefs could be described as pantheist, but certainly not Christian. His idea of faith was akin to having a working hypothesis. Planck did not believe in a future life. http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=2011
First of all, we should not be so surprised if G*d appears to a scientist more like a Super-Scientific working hypothesis than the Suffering Servant from Second Isaiah.
Plank was not the only scientist to feel that way.
Second, there are circa two billion Christians in around 40,000 denomination spread amongst five general groups, and none teaching precisely all the same doctrines.
So you have to allow for some slack in doctrinal uniformity amongst different denominations.
Finally, here is a summary of Max Plank:
"He won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics and is considered the founder of Quantum mechanics.
He had been raised an observant Lutheran and was an elder in his church from 1920 to his death (1947).
In 1937 he delivered the lecture, "Religion and Natural Science", stating that both religion and science require a belief in God."
So I'd say, if you are going to claim that an elder in a Lutheran Church is "not Christian" enough for you, then really that is a problem of your own making having little to do with reality as most people understand it, FRiend.
“that never happens on Free Republic, right? ;-)”
For which I am to blame because . . . ? Or, are you indulging in the typical 3rd grade logic that, “Everyone else is doing it” (pout, sniffle)?
“First, just so we're clear: today's word "science" refers to the classical term . . . ”
Creating sidetracks to send me galloping down. Old naval tactic; when out-gunned make much smoke; great billowing clouds. The term “Science,” as it is modernly applied and understood, did not come into use until the late 17th and early 18th Centuries. Its roots, of course, can be traced back, at least, to the time of Aristotle and Plato. But I will agree with you that Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest:
“Since therefore falsehood alone is contrary to truth, it is impossible for the truth of faith to be contrary to principles known by natural reason.”
And again,
“. . . no opinion or belief is sent to man from God contrary to natural knowledge.”
. . . . . T. Aquinas, Of God and His Creatures, Book I, Chap. 7
Science, I think, is always an effort to explain 'reality' without reference to a Creator (even by scientists who, after some fashion or another, believe in a Creator), creating a kind of certainty that generates, in turn, a very comforting security (which I must assume is the generating motive behind the effort).
“. . . liberals expressing their opinions on religion are not speaking “scientifically”.”
I think that’s correct. But I also note that they and Scientists, particularly of an Atheist persuasion, misrepresent themselves as speaking authoritatively, not personally. It is to this that I object. And, when Liberals and their science lackeys are called on their deceit, their howls of anger and anguish are a dead giveaway that their distress is directed against those who give prominence to their duplicitous guile, and not to their so obvious intellectual failure.
“Don't blame “science” or “Darwinism” for liberal political agendas.”
Oh, but I do. Not for dreaming up the strategy, but for the passivity with which the Liberal agenda has be allowed to hijack Science. It’s not as though it‘s only in the past year that Liberals have been pirating Science, especially Evolution (Darwinism). It began with Marx 165 years ago (some would argue a much earlier date, but let's go with Marx and 1848), so Scientists have had ample indication of what was in store for them. Their behavior would indicate that many actually welcomed the Liberal agenda’s assault on and occupation of Science for its own purposes.
“I confess that in all these years I've never read, posted on or sent money to any site other than Free Republic, and why should I?”
You shouldn’t. Or, at least you needn’t. However, being an avid reader of FR posts, you must be keenly aware that many posts of glaring Scientific heresy have appeared on FR threads. So my question, Has anyone on his (Dawkins’) side of the issue ever declared that his opinions are simply that, and cannot be represented, in any fashion, as scientific valid? remains unanswered.
“They suppose that because a scientist said it, then it must be scientific.”
Whom is this “they” Pilgrim? If you mean moi, then again you misrepresent my opinion (with malice, I must think). It is scientists like Dawkins who represent their “opinions” (as you choose to call them) as scientific “fact.” I insist the opinions are not scientific facts and you choose to attack me rather than Dawkins.
Really? You wear shin guards I hope.
When I need to protect my shins from anonymous internet posters, I'll consider it. Hasn't happened yet.
It looks like spirited irish doesn’t know what makes an idea “scientific”. But then, the progressives don’t know what science is either.
Your supposed inability to discern my political position should be sufficient reason for you to wear shin guards. Anyone that blind needs them.
You haven’t said specificlly what it is, and “discerning” is likely to cause no end of wailing about “making assumptions”. I’ll pass, thanks.
No, go back and re-read the original exchange.
Your complaint was that "Obamatrons do not rise above the pyramid's 4th level...", to which I responded, "Fortunately, that never happens on Free Republic, right?"
For the obvious reason that we don't get a lot of "Obamatrons" posting here, and the rest of us generally try our best to be civil, even under the most trying circumstances.
Point is: your complaint seems a little out of touch with what's actually happening here.
YHAOS: "Creating sidetracks to send me galloping down. Old naval tactic; when out-gunned make much smoke; great billowing clouds."
Not at all, just thought it important to be certain we understand certain word definitions.
For something to be "scientific" it must meet certain criteria, especially: natural explanations for natural processes.
When a scientist speaks of his/her religious or metaphysical opinions, those are not, by definition, "scientific".
YHAOS quoting Aquinas: "Since therefore falsehood alone is contrary to truth, it is impossible for the truth of faith to be contrary to principles known by natural reason."
Thanks for that excellent quote.
It makes my point that a study of alleged conflicts between religion and science should begin with Aquinas, since he believed the two are in harmony and compliment each other.
So far as I know, Aquinas never addressed the question: what if science appears to tell us something in conflict with the Bible?
But that is the question since at least the Renaissance and Galileo.
YHAOS: "Science, I think, is always an effort to explain 'reality' without reference to a Creator (even by scientists who, after some fashion or another, believe in a Creator), creating a kind of certainty that generates, in turn, a very comforting security (which I must assume is the generating motive behind the effort)."
Yes, from the time of Aquinas, "science" (aka "natural-science" & "natural-philosophy") is precisely that effort to search out natural explanations for natural processes.
Any other explanations are not, by definition, "scientific".
And indeed, it has nothing whatever to do with certitude, just the opposite.
Nothing in science is ontologically certain.
No theory (outside mathematics) is ever "proved".
Every hypothesis is "confirmed" only by failures to disprove it.
Every theory is only accepted as "confirmed" until some future test succeeds in disproving it.
So science is the opposite of certainty.
Science is all about "question everything", and the questioning on one subject only ends when people grow tired and move on to something else.
YHAOS: "But I also note that they and Scientists, particularly of an Atheist persuasion, misrepresent themselves as speaking authoritatively, not personally.
It is to this that I object."
Of course, you need all the same skepticism you'd bring to a used car lot in listening to their sales pitches.
And by that, I don't mean to insult used car salesmen!
YHAOS: "It’s not as though it‘s only in the past year that Liberals have been pirating Science, especially Evolution (Darwinism).
It began with Marx 165 years ago..."
Of course, since science is generally morally "neutral", anybody can pirate it, and many have.
And I couldn't say who's done more harm with it -- the international socialists, the national socialists, the democrat socialists or now the Muslim terror socialists.
Unfortunately, scientists like anyone else know who signs their pay-checks, and take care to protect them.
Since many are paid by government, we might not be so surprised at their politics.
And in the particular case of, say, "global warming" we can see how political influence corrupted a scientific process.
But so far as I can tell, that is not true of anything to do with evolution theory.
YHAOS: "...being an avid reader of FR posts, you must be keenly aware that many posts of glaring Scientific heresy have appeared on FR threads."
"glaring Scientific heresy" refers to what, exactly?
YHAOS: "I insist the opinions are not scientific facts and you choose to attack me rather than Dawkins."
You are mistaken if you think I defend anything about Dawkins except his right to express opinions on whatever he wishes.
If people like YHAOS misinterpret those opinions as somehow authoritatively scientific, then I'm here to tell you: you'll need a raincoat and galoshes to wade out in that... ah, mess.
Actually, I suspect we do get some “Obamatrons”, but always as false flaggers posting some outrageous nonsense, just to make the rest of us look bad.
Present company excluded, of course. :-D
It looks like spirited irish doesn’t know what makes an idea “scientific”.
Spirited: Ideas, theories, conceptions, presuppositions, assumptions and opinions for example, are not things we can ‘sense,’ they do not belong to the sensory dimension but to the unseen realm, the spiritual dimension of mind, metaphysics and philosophy. This being the case, please explain exactly what, in your “opinion” makes an “idea” scientific.
Finally, here is a summary of Max Plank:
“He won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics and is considered the founder of Quantum mechanics.
In the first place, God is not impressed by the things men are impressed by and second, it is not up to any man to decide if another man is Christian enough. God is the Judge of all such matters.
But you claim that Plank was not Christian enough to satisfy your own criteria.
I merely pointed out that Plank was a lifelong Lutheran, and church elder for the last 27 years of his life.
So how many Christians do you know could say the same — one in ten? one in a hundred?
You also mentioned Einstein, a Jew of course, and not devout by all accounts I’ve seen.
But neither was he a committed atheist, which is what’s required for metaphysical or ontological naturalism.
Again, my point is that science itself does not require atheistic religious or philosophical beliefs.
BroJoek answered your question to me on “what makes an idea ‘scientific’?” on post 72.
I don’t know if you read that post. He said, “And indeed, it has nothing whatever to do with certitude, just the opposite.
Nothing in science is ontologically certain.
No theory (outside mathematics) is ever “proved”.
Every hypothesis is “confirmed” only by failures to disprove it.
Every theory is only accepted as “confirmed” until some future test succeeds in disproving it.”
In order for an idea to be a scientific hypothesis, it has to have a specific mechanism that can potentially be falsifiable by testing or forensic observation.
Examples of specific testable mechanisms:
-evolution by natural selection
-law of gravity
-the gas laws
-cell theory
Examples of untestable ideas
-climate chaos (no specific mechanism trotted out, vague pronouncements)
-precautionary principle (the threat is never specified because it is unknown)
-God (impossible to measure or define)
When Richard Dawkins says that “science” “disproves” God, he is talking nonsense. Just because the Cathedral gave him a science credential doesn’t mean everything he says is science. Many people have already pointed this out to you.
I don’t think you’re well equipped to confront the Eco-fascists or other toxic forces of the Cathedral. There’s a reason the public school system minimizes the teaching of the actual scientific method in favor of just having kids regurgitate “facts”. And unfortunately, many of the Christian homeschoolers aren’t doing it either. This of course results in a neutered opposition against the progressives in power in the Cathedral.
Nothing in science is ontologically certain.
No theory (outside mathematics) is ever “proved”.
Every hypothesis is “confirmed” only by failures to disprove it.
Every theory is only accepted as “confirmed” until some future test succeeds in disproving it.”
In order for an idea to be a scientific hypothesis, it has to have a specific mechanism that can potentially be falsifiable by testing or forensic observation.
Examples of specific testable mechanisms:
-evolution by natural selection
Spirited: In summary of the first paragraph: the underlying foundation of modern natural science and evolution is metaphysical nihilism which means that as evolution is always in motion there is nothing we can ever know with the slightest degree of certainty. C.S. Lewis understood this, thus he described natural science and evolution as magic science-—a very apt description.
As for the claim that evolution by natural selection is a testable mechanism: wrong.
Karl Popper (1902-1994) was a British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. Because he is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century, what Popper had to say about Darwinism is of importance to all truth-seekers.
Though Popper esteemed evolutionary theory and natural selection, he also honestly admitted that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but rather a metaphysical research program. By this he means that not only is Darwinism of the spiritual dimension, but so are its’ two most important foundations, classical empiricism and the observationalist philosophy of science that grew out of it.
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that immediately contradicts itself by asserting that human knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience rather than the mind (soul/spirit/ghost in the machine)while observationalism asserts that human knowledge and theories must be based on empirical observations....instead of the mind. Due to this major disconnect from reality, Popper argued strongly against empiricism and observationalism, saying that scientific theories and human knowledge generally, is conjectural or hypothetical and is generated by the creative imagination (mind).
In Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, soul and imagination are respectively defined as:
1. Soul: “The spiritual, rational and immortal substance in man, which distinguishes him from brutes; that part of man which enables him to think and reason.”
2. Imagination: “...the power or faculty of the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the senses....The business of conception (and the) power of modifying our conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new wholes of our own creation...(imagination) selects the parts of different conceptions, or objects of memory, to form a whole more pleasing, more terrible, or more awful, than has ever been presented in the ordinary course of nature.”
In conclusion, all three theories originated in the mind (spirit). As mind is a power of soul, then Darwinism, empiricism, and observationalism are spiritual. In short, all three theories are frauds. They claim to be what they are not in order to obtain an advantage over the Genesis account of creation by imposition of immoral means.
Well, since we're not "anti-science" here, I guess that makes us all "pro-fraud".
First of all, he was only talking about natural selection, not all of "Darwinism." His concern was that it's hard to know what organisms are most suited for selection except by seeing which ones get selected, which makes the theory somewhat tautological. Even so, he wrote, "It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems."
And second, he later changed his mind about even that much, writing, " I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation."
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