EVIDENCE FOR EXTRA-MATERIAL EXISTENCE BEYOND THE UNIVERSE

Is there a world beyond this material universe? Atheists generally believe that what you see (and measure) is what you get. Consequently, they deny the existence of anything else. For them, even consciousness is exclusively a product of matter. However, there is a lot of evidence of existence beyond the universe. Let’s just look at one set of evidences - the laws of science:

1.    The universe is molecules-in-motion. The laws are unchanging, and this allows for science, predictability, and knowledge. What keeps them this way if everything in this universe is in flux?

2.    Everything in the universe has a locality. The laws act uniformly and universally as if they are not localized but transcend the universe.

3.    The laws impact everything in the universe; the universe has no impact upon the laws.

4.    The laws are the mind of the universe; the universe is their play-things and dances according to their choreography.

Add to this the fact that the laws are elegant and knowable - inconceivably the products of a mindless explosion. All of these factors point to the fact that they represent a reality distinct from the universe, perhaps even emanating from the Mind which designed and maintains them.

HAROLD KOENIG, VETERANS, INFIRMITIES, AND SUICIDE

If we really care about the welfare of people, veterans, and our neighborhoods, we should attempt to identify the leading help interventions. In “SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH RESEARCH: Methods, Measurement, Statistics, and Resources,” Harold G. Koenig, MD has done more to survey the available research regarding the question of what is associated with positive mental and physical outcomes than perhaps anyone else. He has identified religion/spirituality (R/S) as the key element. Ironically, it is this very element that has been banned from the various forms of psychological intervention. Here is only a small sampling of what Koenig has found:

HUMAN VIRTUES: “With regard to forgiveness, at least 40 studies have now examined relationships with R/ S. Of those, 34 (85 percent) found that R/ S was significantly correlated with being more forgiving (one at a trend level). Similarly, at least 47 studies have examined relationships between R/ S and altruism (volunteering, donating money to the needy, etc.), of which 33 (70 percent) reported more altruistic activities among the more religious. Finally, we located 5 studies that examined relationships between R/ S and gratefulness, and all five found significantly higher levels of gratefulness among the more religious.”

SOCIAL CAPITAL: “A number of studies have now examined relationships between R/ S, social capital, and its converse, delinquency and crime. At least 14 studies have examined relationships between R/ S and social capital, and 11 (79 percent) found significant positive associations. At least 104 studies have now examined relationships between R/ S and antisocial behaviors, crime, or delinquency, and 82 (79 percent) found lower rates among those who were more R/ S (two at a trend level). Another aspect of social capital is performance by youth in school. Of the 11 studies that examined relationships between R/ S and school performance (assessed by grades, GPA, or likelihood of graduation), all 11 (100 percent) found significant positive relationships.”

DEPRESSION: “At least 444 studies have now quantitatively examined relationships between R/ S and depression, and 272 (61 percent) of those found less depression, faster remission from depression, or a reduction in depression severity in response to an R/ S intervention (ten studies at a trend level). In contrast, only 6 percent reported greater depression in those who were more R/ S. Of the 178 methodologically most rigorous studies, 119 (67 percent) found inverse relationships between R/ S and depression.”

SUICIDE: “We identified 141 studies that had examined relationships between R/ S and some aspect of suicide (completed suicide, attempted suicide, or attitudes toward suicide), and 106 (75 percent) reported significant inverse relationships; 80 percent of the best designed studies reported this finding.”

Koenig also concluded that, “Those who are R/ S live a healthier lifestyle that lowers their risk of physical illness.”

HYPERTENSION: “At least 63 studies have examined relationships between R/ S and blood pressure (BP) or hypertension, and 36 (57 percent) of those reported lower BP or less hypertension in those who were more R/ S or received R/ S interventions. Of the 39 best studies, 24 (62 percent) reported this finding. In contrast, 7 of 63 studies (11 percent) reported higher BP or more hypertension in the more R/ S.”

CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE: “We identified 9 studies that focused on relationships between R/ S and stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA), or carotid artery thickness, or examined the effects of an R/ S “intervention on these outcomes. Four (44 percent) of those studies reported that R/ S was related to significantly less disease, 4 found no association, and 1 found greater carotid artery thickness in those who were more R/ S.”

DEMENTIA: “We located 21 studies that examined relationships between R/ S and dementia or cognitive impairment. Of those, 10 (48 percent) reported significant inverse relationships, 3 (14 percent) found significant positive relationships, 2 reported mixed findings, and 6 (29 percent) found no association. Of the 14 most rigorously designed studies, 8 (57 percent) reported inverse relationships with R/ S, whereas 3 reported significant positive relationships. Of the 7 prospective cohort studies, 5 (71 percent) found that R/ S involvement at baseline predicted significantly less cognitive decline over time.”

MORTALITY: “At least 121 studies have now examined that relationship, with 82 (68 percent) finding that greater R/ S involvement predicted greater longevity, and 7 studies (6 percent) reported shorter longevity. Among studies with the most rigorous methodology, 13 of 17 (76 percent) found that R/ S predicted greater longevity.”

From this small sample of Koenig’s work, it is imperative that concerned mental health and medical professionals must not ignore R/S. This is particularly critical concerning our veterans. “Military Times” (2018/09/26) reported:

• About 20 veterans a day across the country take their own lives, and veterans accounted for 14 percent of all adult suicide deaths in the U.S. in 2016.

It should be noted that this is occurring at a time when secular mental health interventions have increased, while the military chaplaincy has become more restricted. This is tragic because our military personnel need the reassurance of the love, forgiveness, acceptance, and hope that is to be found in Jesus Christ, whatever their sins, traumas, or infirmities - the very needs that secularism is unable to fulfill.

FINDING OUR PERSONHOOD

Today, we are still being taught to believe in ourselves and to build our self-esteem. This unquestioned advice is presented with an assortment of techniques to facilitate this goal, including visualizations, positive affirmations, and avoidance of those who do not give us these affirmations.

However, there are many problems with this pursuit. While these techniques might give us a temporary boost, there is little evidence that they will produce any desired long-term benefits. In addition to this, this focus is the source of several unintended costs:

• It is self-focused. Perhaps such self-obsession will produce despondency instead of hope. Building self-esteem inevitably blinds us to ourselves.
• It’s a denial of who we really are.
• It denies our negatives and inflates our positives. This is the antithesis of truth, self-awareness, and self-acceptance. Even the practice of mindfulness tends to minimize the importance of self-examination and the taking of an honest moral inventory of our lives.
• It is a drug that requires increasing doses to maintain a fleeting high.
• It tends to lead to pride and arrogance when “successful, depression when not.

Biblical wisdom tends in the opposite direction. It warns against pride and its fruits:

• He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the LORD will be prospered. (Proverbs 28:25 NKJV)

Building self-esteem inevitably produces pride. How? It’s built upon a faulty foundation of the desire to exalt ourselves above others.

You might protest, “I feel bad about myself. I don’t see the harm of wanting to feel better about myself.” Neither do l! However, it is bought at the price of thinking better about oneself, which is denial.

Besides this problem, our level of self-esteem is always in relation to others. We might convince ourselves that we are widely esteemed. However, we become prone to resent those who are more esteemed or liked.

The self-esteem drug fails to address the underlying problem - alienation from God and, secondarily, the self. Therefore, it is only a palliative, like a sleeping pill (just try using antihistamines!) which requires increasing fixes.

Also, the thrust to build self-esteem undermines understanding. How? If our goal is to feel good about ourselves, it will be at the expense of thinking accurately about ourselves.

So what? Well, if we want to manage our lives well, we first have to understand them. This same principle pertains to all areas of our lives. For example, if we want to manage our clothing well, we first have to know which can go into the washing machine and the dryer and for how long. This is also true for our lives. However, when understanding has been taken captive by the need to feel good, it will inevitably suffer.

However, if we really want to feel good about ourselves, the obsessive focus of raising our self-esteem will take us in the wrong direction. While self-focus is necessary for self-correction, a safe-place of guaranteed love and forgiveness is a must. We cannot endure the burden of our lives and of seeing our many failures and inadequacies. This is why Jesus promised to be our resting place:

• “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Elevating ourselves becomes an unbearable burden. It is also antithetical to peace and self-acceptance. In its quest for self-esteem, it is unwilling to accept the self, even to flee from the self. Result – a never-ending peace-depriving struggle to suppress the real self.

UNANSWERABLE CHALLENGES CONFRONTING ATHEISM

Even agnostics have a problem with Big Bang cosmology, simply because it claims that the universe had a beginning, and therefore requires a Transcendent, beyond-the-universe Cause. In “Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion, Michael Newton Keas cites agnostic/atheist George Abell as an example:

• “I was brought up heathen,” he declared. Did this affect his work as an astronomer? Indeed, for he admitted a bias against the idea of the universe’s origin in a big bang, or cosmic singularity, with its implications favorable to theism: “Philosophically I was attracted to the steady-state theory, because it’s philosophically easier to envision an infinite universe, infinitely old, than one with such a singularity. On the other hand, I have to admit that the observations don’t look very favorable to a steady-state universe.” The steady-state theory, which denied a cosmic beginning, was widely regarded as falsified by the time of Abell’s 1977 interview. Virtually nobody defends it today.

In order to maintain their worldview, the atheist must ignore far more than the Steady State Theory. Here are just a few examples:

• Freewill
• Consciousness as an extra-material phenomenon
• The existence of consciousness apart from a living body
• The fine-tuning of the elegant laws of science apart from ID
• The apparent absence of juke DNA
• Tremendous gaps in the fossil record
• The inability to explain the origins of life, matter, time, and space naturalistically
• The continuous failures of constructing the Darwinian tree of evolution
• Explaining material development in light of the law of entropy

These are only a few of the many challenges to the naturalistic/materialistic paradigm. Some atheists have found these challenges so invalidating of their worldview that they have exchanged the atheist paradigm for a theistic one. For one example, in "There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind," Antony Flew concluded that DNA requires an intelligent cause:

• “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”

• “I now believe there is a God…I now think it [the evidence] does point to a creative Intelligence almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together."

According to the late Flew, one need not abandon science in order to adopt theism. One merely has to listen to what science has been saying.

CONTROL FREAK PRISON

I am a control freak, and it’s not fun. We are driven by both fear and desire. We want to control those things that might cause of stress and pain. We also want to control those aspects of our lives that can give us some comfort, whether success, popularity, or even a good time with friends.

However, to maintain a tight grip on the reigns of our lives is to oppose the Spirit and even our own nature. When we are driven to maintain control, we are not responsive to the guidance of the Spirit or even to the roses, which we pass by without a thought. And when two control freaks (CF) get together, there are sure to be sparks and sharp disagreements about the plans to be controlled. Our stress levels are elevated, and we are not free to enjoy the moment with one another. We are like a car speeding along at 100 mph. The slightest wrong move can create a crisis.

What to do? Perhaps the better question for the CF is “What not to do.” We are really very limited creations who were created to learn to depend and to find comfort in our Creator (John 15:4-4; 2 Corinthians 1:8-9). Paul admitted that he had to despair of life itself before he could learn to trust in God:

·       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9 ESV)

If we are truly so helpless, then we need to understand and accept our helplessness and to pray to our Lord, and this is the very thing that He wants. However, do not be surprised if this is a slow and painful process. Self-trust and CFism die a slow death. Therefore, as we die, we need to also grow in the assurance that our God is faithful and works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28), especially when we are terrified that our lives are beyond our control. Well, they are, and there is a reason that we experience this terror – so that we might pray, “Lord help me. I am out of control. I cannot even endure my own life.”

This feeling is so threatening, but it must be this way. Why? Because we love to maintain control, even if it is strangulating us!

We also need to know that our Savior truly, truly, truly loves us (Ephesians 3:16-19), or else we will despair. However, this has led me to meditate on the Scriptures both day and night (Psalm 1; Joshua 1:7-8) to find His comfort. Often, at the times of the deepest despair, the Spirit has illuminated His Word in dramatic and reassuring ways. This self-despair has also led me to meditate on the meaning of the Cross, the time of Jesus’ ultimate glory (John 12:23-24), when He offered us the portrait of His surpassing love, even while we were His enemies (Romans 5:8-10). Consequently, over the years, I have fallen deeper in love with our Savior. This would never have happened had I not been reared on the painful diet of my inadequacies.

We cannot apply any self-help formula to deliver us from our suffering. Instead, we are told that it will be painful, but eventually it will produce the fruits that our Lord seeks (Hebrews 12:11). Even Jesus had to learn obedience through what He suffered (Hebrew 5:8). How much more will this be true for us!

We too must walk in obedience, even as we wait upon our Lord (Psalm 27:14). As strange as it might seem, we experience healing through obedience:

·       Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:12-13)

The CF must understand that we do not directly heal ourselves through our obedience any more than we save ourselves through our obedience. However, our faithful obedience keeps open the healing channel between ourselves and our Lord. In a sense, it serves as our plea of help. For when we honor Him, He honors us. When we turn away from Him, He turns away from us. But when we humbly confess our sins, He is always ready to receive us back.

Whatever our pains or inadequacies, we belong to Him (Galatians 2:20), and He guarantees to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This is why He commands us to cast all of our cares upon Him:

·       Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

He’s in charge. The battle belongs to Him (Zechariah 4:6). I therefore pray, “Lord I can’t handle my anxieties, but you can, and You will give me what I need in Your good time.”