Thursday, March 31, 2016

THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF SCIENCE ARISING OUT OF ATHEISM





Physicist Lawrence Kraus insists that:

  • The more that we learn about the workings of the universe, the more purposeless it seems.
Meanwhile, mathematician and physicist, Lord William Kelvin, who propounded the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics, asserted:

  • I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.
James Joule, the English physicist who discovered the law of the conservation of energy noted:

  • It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed.
Why would Joule claim such a thing? Perhaps for the same reason that the skeptic and physicist, Paul Davies, wrote:

  • There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all… It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe… The impression of design is overwhelming.
While Kraus insists that only idiots can believe that God created this world, Albert Einstein perceived something very different:

  • I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.
Meanwhile, Kraus claims that God is irrelevant to science. However, Regis Nicoll claims the very opposite thing:

  • Our ability to learn about the universe derives from the fact that it is governed by laws and exhibits a rational order and functional design. (Salvo Magazine, Spring 2016, 33. All of the quotations come from his article.)
In fact, it was the belief in a rational God-given order that had prompted Christian scientists to probe the discoverable laws that govern its workings. Consequently, Johannes Kepler wrote:

  • The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which he has revealed to us in the language of mathematics (31).
In contrast to Kepler’s understanding, physicists like Kraus would not have been able to predict that this world, with its immutable and elegant laws, is knowable. Atheism can only account for molecules-in-motion in an ever-changing physical and unknowable world. Consequently, it is unlikely that science would have arisen out of such truncated worldview.

In Kraus’ purposeless, random universe, it would be unlikely to encounter design, order, and knowability – the necessary sine qua non or conditions of science.

THE IMPENDING DEATH OF THE WEST





Western Europe is beginning to acknowledge that Islam can be a problem. Editor of MercatorNet Michael Cook wrote:

  • Prime Minister David Cameron described the fight against “this poisonous ideology” as “one of the great struggles of our generation.” (Salvo Magazine, Spring 2016, 48)
Recently Cameron reasoned:

  • Do we close our eyes, put our kid gloves on and just hope that our values will somehow endure in the end? Or do we get out there and make the case for those values, defend them with all that we’ve got and resolve to win the battle of ideas all over again?
  • In the past, I believe governments made the wrong choice. Whether in the face of Islamist or neo-Nazi extremism, we were too tolerant of intolerance, too afraid to cause offense. We seemed to lack the strength and resolve to stand up for what is right, even when the damage being done by extremists was all too clear.
How true, but does Cameron go far enough? After all, what is right for the Muslim is not necessarily “what is right” for the UK. I think that Cook’s analysis is quite illuminating:

  • Democracy and the rule of law are the hard-won glories of Western culture, but they don’t appeal to the existential passions of young people trying to shape a meaning for their lives. ISIS recruits are being promised suffering, sacrifice, and eternal glory. To them, Cameron’s words must sound like the huffing of a latter-day Colonel Blimp. (46)
Sadly, even for many of the non-Muslim English, Cameron’s appeal is nothing more than cultural imperialism. On March 28, 2016, The Telegraph reported:

  • Teaching children fundamental British values is an act of “cultural supremacism”, teachers have said, as members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) vote to replace the concept with one that includes “international rights”.
  • However, teachers argue “fundamental British values” set an “inherent cultural supremacism, particularly in the context of multicultural schools and the wider picture of migration”.
These remarks make it obvious that more is needed than the preaching of the traditional principles of the UK. Instead, the West needs to argue that its system of justice and morality represents the truth, and the Islamic system represents falsehood. If we are unwilling to do this, then we are unwilling to stand against the insipient onslaught of Islam. If we do not have an adequate rationale for our culture, it will eventually be destroyed, and we see this happening now.

What is an adequate rationale? Clearly, tradition alone is no more than “cultural supremacism.” A pragmatic defense of our traditions is not adequate, especially in light of the pragmatic carrot offered by Islam of a glorious afterlife with 70 virgins, all your own.

Instead, pragmatism must embrace truth! Why do we believe in equal rights? Well, it might work for us, but the Muslim is convinced that subjugation of all non-Muslims under the sharia is far better. How do we argue against what they believe? By showing them that they are wrong! How? By demonstrating that the Bible is truth and the Koran is not, and that their system of justice is not!  For example, we are all created in the image of God, and this makes us all, not just Muslims, precious in God’s sight:

  • And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:5-6 quoting 1:26-27; ESV)
This means that we cannot behead others because they do not share our faith; nor can we turn them into sex-slaves.

Is such a conflict with Islam distasteful? Of course, but living (or dying) under sharia will be far more distasteful. But how can we pin our hope on the God of the Bible if we do not believe in it or even in God? Perhaps believing is not the obstacle that we think it is. As Jesus had promised:

  • “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11)
I, among many others, have found His words to be true!

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION (TOE) ON MORALITY?





For one thing, TOE naturalism removes any possible objective basis for objective moral truth and laws. It also denies that there is any higher purpose to life. Consequently, the only meaning of life is the meaning that we subjectively create for ourselves. In fact, many evolutionists gladly admit this. Atheist evolutionist and philosopher, Michael Ruse, admits:

  • The evolutionist’s claim… is that morality is subjective – it is all a question of human feelings and sentiments… We think morality has objective reference [to a moral reality outside of our own creation] even though it does not. (Evolutionary Ethics, Zygon, Vol. 21, no. 1; March 1986)
Therefore, whatever morality we have, we must create for ourselves. In view of this, Ethics Prof. David Anderson commented about the impact of TOE:

  • Objective moral values and duties are no more real than the tooth fairy. (Salvo, Spring 2016, 26)
Some atheistic evolutionists go even further and deny the existence of freewill. The late evolutionary biologist, William Provine had written:

  • What modern science tells us… is that human beings are very complex machines. There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.
  • Free will as it is traditionally conceived… simply does not exist. (“Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics,” MBL Science, Vol. 3, no. 1, 28)
Anderson comments:

  • Provine’s commitment to determinism simply lays waste to morality itself.
If we are nothing more than materials, and the actions of materials are all governed by the laws of science, there is no room for any consideration of freewill, which requires an extra-material explanation.

But if there is no freewill, then we could not have acted otherwise, and if we could not have acted otherwise, then we cannot be held guilty for what we have done. Consequently, ISIS is not guilty of their genocide, rapes, and kidnappings of women and young girls into sexual slavery. They could not have done otherwise. Their behaviors are exclusively the result of forces outside of their non-existent control.

Besides, they hadn’t broken any higher, universal, objective moral laws. Consequently, this is the way that the West is treating the Muslim refugees who are raping their way across Europe. Therefore, they are not accorded their full dignity as humans and are not held responsible for their behavior, since they are just a product of deterministic forces outside of their control.

Germany is now distributing condoms to them, reflecting the fact that they neither have any moral clarity or moral resolution to meaningfully confront these horrors and to protect the innocent.

Instead, Europe, under the influence of TOE, is further descending into moral relativistic confusion. These nations are even abandoning their traditional understanding of justice as merely their own chauvinistic beliefs. The Telegraph (March 28, 2016) reports:

  • Teaching children fundamental British values is an act of “cultural supremacism”, teachers have said, as members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) vote to replace the concept with one that includes “international rights”.
  • However, teachers argue “fundamental British values” set an “inherent cultural supremacism, particularly in the context of multicultural schools and the wider picture of migration”.
TOE has eliminated from the discussion the question of whether the British concept of justice might include some vital objective truths about justice. It has also eliminated any possible objective rationale for Britain’s existence. God help us.

ACCORDING TO FACEBOOK, LOVE SHOULD REPLACE JUSTICE, THE POLICE, AND THE MILITARY






Breitbart just announced that:
         
·       Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken out against the “fear and distrust” caused by recent Islamist terror attacks and has called for more “love” as a means of stopping them.

Wondering if more love could truly stop ISIS and the many other Islamic terror groups and whether Zuckerberg really uttered these words, I turned to his Facebook post to read:

·       Each of these attacks [in Belgium, Pakistan, Nigeria, Paris, San Bernardino] was different, but all had a common thread: they were carried out with a goal to spread fear and distrust, and turn members of a community against each other. I believe the only sustainable way to fight back against those who seek to divide us is to create a world where understanding and empathy can spread faster than hate, and where every single person in every country feels connected and cared for and loved. That's the world we can and must build together.

I guess that the 70 innocent Christians just slaughtered and the 300 others maimed in Lahore failed to love their Muslim neighbors enough. And the six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust were also evidently love-deficient.

Instead, it doesn’t seem that Muslim terrorists are love-deficient, as they go raping their way across infidel lands or simply kidnapping non-Muslims as sex-slaves. I was wondering, “How much more love will they need before they can become love-satisfied?”

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for Facebook to show some of that love to me. I have been blocked by Facebook on numerous occasions. Fortunately, they would provide me a window to ask “why.” Of course, I eagerly availed myself of these windows so I could learn of my misdeeds and rectify my ways according to their loving standards. However, I never once got a reply from them. Hmmm?

Perhaps Facebook’s style of love is the silent-treatment. They will surely win me into compliance through their loving silence, but Facebook has left me in a state of total ignorance, unable to comply with their standards.

Silence is golden. I wonder whether Facebook will issue a plea to open our prison doors and simply require our offenders to sit together with their prison guards and share love. Or perhaps we should bring together the victims of rape with their rapists and encourage them to just love each other.

Evidently, we have misunderstood the concept of justice for the centuries of human existence. Instead, Zuckerberg would have us eliminate the entire criminal justice system in favor of a massive love-fest. Gee, why hadn’t we thought of this before?

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

WHAT SHOULD CHRISTIAN COUNSELING LOOK LIKE?





Christian counseling (CC) must be Word-centered:

  • According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:10-11; ESV)
When we guide another, it must be according to the Word of God:

  • And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)
CC is for naught when we fail to consult the light – God’s Word. It also dishonors God when we reject His counsel in favor of worldly counsel:

  • As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God… in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:10-11)
CC should recognize that all positive growth comes from God through His Word:

  • I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)
  • Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. (1 Peter 2:2)
As Paul confessed, whatever good comes out of our lives, comes from the Lord:

  • But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10; James 1:17)
However, we tend to wrongly put mental illness in its own specialized category where only the “professional” can help. However, according to Scripture, we are all “mentally ill,” living in darkness and self-deceit, as Jesus claimed:

  • “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)
In short, we all are such a mess that we require the Lord’s radical surgery to remove our blindness (Matthew 7:1-5), the log in our eye. Of what does the log consist? Self-righteousness, entitlement, and arrogance! We therefore have to be humbled in order to be lifted up and made well. Otherwise, we are always right in our own eyes:

  • All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. (Proverbs 16:2)
The Apostles thought that all they needed was more faith:

  • The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:5-10) 
The amount of faith wasn’t the problem. They are already had enough faith to cast a mulberry tree into the sea. Instead, it was their entitlement mentality that was getting in the way. They had been trusting in their own merit instead of the Lord’s. Instead, they had to regard themselves as “unworthy servants,” even after they had done everything that they were supposed to do!

When we regard ourselves as worthy, to some degree we discount our Lord’s gift of worthiness. Instead of placing our trust completely in Him (Psalm 62), we are placing part of our trust in our own worthiness or merit – an offense to the gift-Giver!

In this and in many other ways, secular humanist psychotherapy (SHP) is diametrically opposed to Biblical Counseling. Here is a brief outline of the differences:

1. While SHP understands us as a pathological product of nature and nurture (genetics and environment), Scripture sees a broader, more creative process at work, which includes our own choices, like mainlining heroin. Fundamentally, many of our struggles are self-caused. We reject the light in favor of the darkness (John 3:19-20), bringing upon ourselves all manner of ills (Romans 1:21-32; Proverbs 1:29-32). By rejecting God’s gift of righteousness, we condemn ourselves to pursuing a non-existent alternative righteousness, significance, and self-esteem resulting in self-justification and denial.

2. While SHP is client-centered, the Biblical is God-centered, acknowledging that God is the source of everything good and the ultimate answer to whatever our problem might be (Romans 8:31-32). Meanwhile, SHP claims that the answer is in us, placing an extra burden on us. Meanwhile, CC starts where the sufferer is (1 Corinthians 9:19-22) and later lead them to higher ground away from self.

3. Consequently, while SHP tries to build a self-trust based upon raising self-esteem and behavioral mastery over fears and other conflicts, CC rejects self-trust in favor of trusting in God alone (Psalm 62). Self-trust opposes the Gospel. Jesus instructed His followers that they could do nothing without Him (John 15:4-5; also Jeremiah 17:5-7; 2 Cor. 3:5). Furthermore, those who trust in themselves have fallen from grace (Gal. 5:2-4).

4. While SHP seeks to exalt the client, Scripture counsels humbling ourselves to the truth of our brokenness and need, trusting that God will exalt us (Luke 14:11; 18:14; James 4:10).

5. While SHP is focused on symptomology and, in the short run, feeling better about oneself, Scripture is primarily focused on truth and thinking correctly about ourselves and God (John 8:31-32).

6. Consequently, SHP is about affirming the self, while Scripture is about affirming God and His truth, and secondarily, who we are in Him! SHP focuses on improving the client’s performance and feelings about oneself, while Scripture’s focus is upon honoring God, knowing that He will, in the long run, take care of our needs better than we can (Matthew 6:33).

7. SHP emphasizes self-expression, while Scripture emphasizes self-control and virtue.

8. SHP tends to be non-judgmental and tolerant of just about all forms of expression. Scripture maintains that truth has to guide all of our thinking and behaving. Underlying this distinction, SHP resorts to the disease model. In the same way that we are not responsible for contracting cancer, we are also not responsible for our problematic behaviors. Scripture has a higher view of humankind, and therefore we must take responsibility for our lives.

    In One Nation Under Therapy, psychiatrist Sally Satel and ethicist Christina Sommers warn:

·       "At the heart of therapism [the no-fault, disease-pathology philosophy of psychotherapy] is the revolutionary idea that psychology can and should take the place of ethics and religion. Recall Abraham Maslow’s elated claim that the new psychologies of self-actualization were offering a “religion surrogate,” that could change the world. He had “come to think of this humanist trend in psychology as a revolution in the truest, oldest sense of the word…new conceptions of ethics and values.” Carl Rogers then looked upon group therapy as a kind of earthly paradise—a “state where all is know and all accepted.” The sixties and seventies were heady times for Maslow and Rogers. They were promoting a visionary realignment of values, away from the Judeo-Christian ethic, in the direction of what they regarded as a science of self-actualization." (217)

9. Because SHP is all about mitigating symptomology, it has little tolerance or understanding for the positive role of suffering. Consequently, it fails to embrace the totality of our experience. Scripture, however, recognizes the need for suffering (2 Cor. 4:7-11), helping us to accept it and to even rejoice in the midst of it (James 1:2-4).

Tragically, the more that the Church has embraced SHP, the more it has denigrated the Gospel. Professor of religion, Philip Jenkins, writes:

·       "During the 1970’s and 1980’s, psychological values and assumptions permeated the religious world no less than the secular culture…But an intellectual chasm separates the assumptions of traditional churches from those of mainstream therapy and psychology. The medicalization of wrongdoing sharply circumscribes the areas in which clergy can appropriately exercise their professional jurisdiction, and this loss of acknowledged expertise to therapists and medical authorities at once symbolizes and accelerates a substantial decline in the professional status of priests and ministers." (“Opinion: The Uses of Clerical Scandal,” First Things, 1996, 60.)

Instead, we have everything that we need in Christ:

·       For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:9-10)

We, therefore, need to understand how complete and equipped we are in Christ. When we go forth with an understanding of Scripture, we are more-than-ready to minister to the broken (2 Timothy 3:16-17):
·       [God] comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:4-5)