April 2015
ATHEISM AS IRRATIONAL
04 15 , 00:29 Filed in: Theology
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing different about the new atheism, when compared to the old atheism, is that the new atheism is newer than the old atheism! In fact, David Hart (who wrote a book on this subject) is of the opinion that the old atheists were actually better atheists than the new ones. He laments:
"The principal source of my melancholy, however, is my firm conviction that today’s most obstreperous infidels lack the courage, moral intelligence, and thoughtfulness of their forefathers in faithlessness."
("Believe it or Not" www.firstthings.com)
Frankly, these new atheists need to show a little more humility. It's not like they've
suddenly discovered the answer to the age old question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Point in fact: the well known physicist, Stephen Hawking, who responded to the question, "Why does the universe bother to exist?," by saying: "I don't know the answer to that."
I have to admit that it is always a little amusing to me when a mere creature, who has only been alive no more than a handful of decades, proclaims with noticeable hubris that his mind has reached the conclusion that the universe - and human beings - are nothing but an accident. I have greater respect for the deist who sees the implausibility of denying a creator, but has a great distaste for actually having any sort of relationship with such a being. In any event, if the computer I am typing on was to suddenly start shouting at me that it had no ultimate designer, and that it came about by mere chance, I would have to tell it to, well, shut-up!
Recently I had the idea of pretending to be an atheist. I wanted to see what it felt like
to be an atheist (to believe somehow that all that we see, hear, feel and touch is nothing but an accident). I even thought of praying to the ungod of the accidental universe to see how he managed to bring it all together by accident (although here I could be accused of reverting to primitive religious superstition). But I prayed to this ungod anyways. And as I prayed my lovely wife walked into the room: and I said, "ungod, you are truly amazing."
There's my wife, and she is sort of like a perfect partner to me! She's all so feminine
(thanks for those gentle curves), and I'm masculine (I played football in seventh grade).
I must be insane to think that you pulled off this amazing complementarity between my wife and I by accident, and so hats off to you, ungod, because the chances of this happening by accident must have been, well, zero." I paused then to see if ungod would say anything back to me, but he didn't, and the whole thing actually backfired on me as I began to see the complementarity between my wife and I as a rather obvious revelation that I did have a creator.Then I remembered that quote by C.S. Lewis: "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." In my case, it simply wasn't a good idea to pray to ungod.
Years ago Carl Sagan (the astronomer) was the unofficial High Priest of atheistic scientism. Sagan helped to popularize Haeckel's theory of recapitulation, a theory that maintains that human embryonic development recapitulates in miniature the grand course of human biological evolution. It is well known, now, that Haeckel forged some of his well known drawings of human embryonic development (ones that were standard for years in biology texts), and the theory is now generally regarded as defunct. We therefore need to be careful not to grant to scientific theory an aura of infallibility that ultimately serves merely as a disservice to science. Even scientists need to distinguish carefully between scientific fact and scientific theory. Thus, in the current debate over evolution, it is important to know that the two leading proponents of the theory - Dawkins and Gould - have seemingly diametrically opposing views as to how evolution happened ,i.e., the dispute between gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Gould opted for punctuated equilibrium due to the paucity of the fossil record.
Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, shows just how unscientific scientists can be.
Frankly, Dawkins (one of the top "new atheists") must be embarrassed for having said what he said. In his book, Dawkins maintains that if one was to see a statue of the Virgin Mary wave its hand, such an occurrence, although improbable, could be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry. Here are Dawkins own words from the book:
"In the case of the marble statue, molecules in solid marble are continuously jostling against one another in random directions. The jostlings of the different molecules cancel one another out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still. But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us. It could happen. The odds against such a coincidence are unimaginably great but they are not incalculably great. A physicist colleague has kindly calculated them for me. The number is so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts! It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump over the moon with something [[171]] like the same improbability. The conclusion to this part of the argument is that we can calculate our way into regions of miraculous improbability far greater than we can imagine as plausible."
Let's give Dawkins a break. Perhaps he was having a bad day when he wrote this rubbish.But how can I trust anything he says in light of the scientific foolishness employed by him in the just cited quotation.
Michael Corey, in discussing the possibility whether our "wondrous universe could have evolved by blind chance" quotes the distinguished University of Montreal psychiatrist Karl Stern as labeling such a view of the universe as "crazy." He further quotes Stern as saying: "And I do not at all mean crazy in the sense of a slangy invective but rather in the technical meaning of psychotic. Indeed such a view has much in common with certain aspects of schizophrenic thinking" (God and the New Cosmology, p.220). Stern is basically maintaining that it is flat out irrational to believe the universe came about by chance or accident.
Theism is grounded in common sense. It need not be intimidated by the "bio-mythology" of an accidental universe.
References . Answering the New Atheism (Wiker and Hahn). Concerning the complementary relationship between faith and science, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 159, 283 and 284. In October of 2014, Pope Francis stated the following: "The Big Bang, which nowadays is posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creating, but rather requires it. The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”
Tom Mulcahy, who has an M.A. in Religious Studies, is an independent Catholic writer, faithful to the Church, who does not necessarily agree with every opinion or commentary where his writings may appear.
"The principal source of my melancholy, however, is my firm conviction that today’s most obstreperous infidels lack the courage, moral intelligence, and thoughtfulness of their forefathers in faithlessness."
("Believe it or Not" www.firstthings.com)
Frankly, these new atheists need to show a little more humility. It's not like they've
suddenly discovered the answer to the age old question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Point in fact: the well known physicist, Stephen Hawking, who responded to the question, "Why does the universe bother to exist?," by saying: "I don't know the answer to that."
I have to admit that it is always a little amusing to me when a mere creature, who has only been alive no more than a handful of decades, proclaims with noticeable hubris that his mind has reached the conclusion that the universe - and human beings - are nothing but an accident. I have greater respect for the deist who sees the implausibility of denying a creator, but has a great distaste for actually having any sort of relationship with such a being. In any event, if the computer I am typing on was to suddenly start shouting at me that it had no ultimate designer, and that it came about by mere chance, I would have to tell it to, well, shut-up!
Recently I had the idea of pretending to be an atheist. I wanted to see what it felt like
to be an atheist (to believe somehow that all that we see, hear, feel and touch is nothing but an accident). I even thought of praying to the ungod of the accidental universe to see how he managed to bring it all together by accident (although here I could be accused of reverting to primitive religious superstition). But I prayed to this ungod anyways. And as I prayed my lovely wife walked into the room: and I said, "ungod, you are truly amazing."
There's my wife, and she is sort of like a perfect partner to me! She's all so feminine
(thanks for those gentle curves), and I'm masculine (I played football in seventh grade).
I must be insane to think that you pulled off this amazing complementarity between my wife and I by accident, and so hats off to you, ungod, because the chances of this happening by accident must have been, well, zero." I paused then to see if ungod would say anything back to me, but he didn't, and the whole thing actually backfired on me as I began to see the complementarity between my wife and I as a rather obvious revelation that I did have a creator.Then I remembered that quote by C.S. Lewis: "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." In my case, it simply wasn't a good idea to pray to ungod.
Years ago Carl Sagan (the astronomer) was the unofficial High Priest of atheistic scientism. Sagan helped to popularize Haeckel's theory of recapitulation, a theory that maintains that human embryonic development recapitulates in miniature the grand course of human biological evolution. It is well known, now, that Haeckel forged some of his well known drawings of human embryonic development (ones that were standard for years in biology texts), and the theory is now generally regarded as defunct. We therefore need to be careful not to grant to scientific theory an aura of infallibility that ultimately serves merely as a disservice to science. Even scientists need to distinguish carefully between scientific fact and scientific theory. Thus, in the current debate over evolution, it is important to know that the two leading proponents of the theory - Dawkins and Gould - have seemingly diametrically opposing views as to how evolution happened ,i.e., the dispute between gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Gould opted for punctuated equilibrium due to the paucity of the fossil record.
Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, shows just how unscientific scientists can be.
Frankly, Dawkins (one of the top "new atheists") must be embarrassed for having said what he said. In his book, Dawkins maintains that if one was to see a statue of the Virgin Mary wave its hand, such an occurrence, although improbable, could be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry. Here are Dawkins own words from the book:
"In the case of the marble statue, molecules in solid marble are continuously jostling against one another in random directions. The jostlings of the different molecules cancel one another out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still. But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us. It could happen. The odds against such a coincidence are unimaginably great but they are not incalculably great. A physicist colleague has kindly calculated them for me. The number is so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts! It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump over the moon with something [[171]] like the same improbability. The conclusion to this part of the argument is that we can calculate our way into regions of miraculous improbability far greater than we can imagine as plausible."
Let's give Dawkins a break. Perhaps he was having a bad day when he wrote this rubbish.But how can I trust anything he says in light of the scientific foolishness employed by him in the just cited quotation.
Michael Corey, in discussing the possibility whether our "wondrous universe could have evolved by blind chance" quotes the distinguished University of Montreal psychiatrist Karl Stern as labeling such a view of the universe as "crazy." He further quotes Stern as saying: "And I do not at all mean crazy in the sense of a slangy invective but rather in the technical meaning of psychotic. Indeed such a view has much in common with certain aspects of schizophrenic thinking" (God and the New Cosmology, p.220). Stern is basically maintaining that it is flat out irrational to believe the universe came about by chance or accident.
Theism is grounded in common sense. It need not be intimidated by the "bio-mythology" of an accidental universe.
References . Answering the New Atheism (Wiker and Hahn). Concerning the complementary relationship between faith and science, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 159, 283 and 284. In October of 2014, Pope Francis stated the following: "The Big Bang, which nowadays is posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creating, but rather requires it. The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”
Tom Mulcahy, who has an M.A. in Religious Studies, is an independent Catholic writer, faithful to the Church, who does not necessarily agree with every opinion or commentary where his writings may appear.
COUNTER BOYCOTTS ARE IN ORDER FIGHT AGAINST THE GAY AGENDA
04 15 , 02:20 Filed in: News
COUNTER BOYCOTTS ARE IN ORDER FIGHT AGAINST THE BULLIES
The developing firestorm around the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has opened yet another door to weaken the moral fiber of our nation. We can choose to act to close the door or witness further deterioration. It is people of faith who are being discriminated against; it is a violation of a person’s faith and their right to exercise that faith.
Modeled after the federal law passed in 1993, the Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects religious liberty against government overreach. It allows people with religious beliefs the chance to argue in court against government laws and regulations. Indiana COULD have been the 20th state to protect religious liberty and against government discrimination. But similar to Judas on Holy Thursday, Indiana's lawmakers and enforcers choose to betray Jesus for silver coins. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who initially passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that would protect religious liberty, signed into law a bill today that will prohibit any business the right to refuse services based “on sexual orientation or gender identity.” What does all this mean? Simply put, State of Indiana lawmakers gave the middle finger to businesses with religious beliefs.
Why the change of heart you ask? Big businesses threatened boycotts! Business such as Apple, Walmart, Salesforce.com, and Angies List.
And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve. And he went, and discoursed with the chief priests and the magistrates, how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and convenanted to give him money. And he promised. And he sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude. (Luke 22:3-6)
As stated by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, “the only bigotry to be tolerated is their own bigotry against religious beliefs.” It appears that their freedoms are the only ones that matter.
Persons’ rights come from God and not government. Article I of the Bill of Rights states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The role of government is to protect the inherent rights and freedoms of its people, NOT to attack and destroy them. “The law is used as a defense against lawsuits or government action, not as an aggressive action against others” (Mollie Hemingway, Federalist senior editor).
Religion doesn’t tell you it’s ok to discriminate, it tells you to obey God’s law and, because someone refuses to accept God’s law, or the belief that God exists, that doesn’t give them right to discriminate against those who do.
Absent strong objection to these tactics, be prepared for the next momentum of pressure to obliterate religious expression. Counter boycotts are in order. Withdraw support of those organizations opposed to freedom of religious expression.
- Apple
- Salesforce.com
- Angies List (call them them at 1-888-944-5478 and cancel your membership and DEMAND the 110% refund that they promise)
- Walmart
- Disciples of Christ (do not let their name fool you, Judas was also a disciple)
- National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
- Former Disney star Miley Cyrus
- Actor Ashton Kutcher
- Former CNN host Larry King