Trees, Versailles
Greetings,
I am thankful to God today for a good formal academic review from my PhD advisor, but there is much more work to do. I am also thankful for discovering through the internet a product called Klear Screen which is alcohol and ammonia free and cleans glossy LCD screens like mine and works better than water as a cleaner. A little bit of water cleans the screen but at least on my screen leaves mineral deposits which are now gone. Plastic LCD screens should be cleaned differently than glass monitor screens which can be cleaned with traditional glass cleaner.
On the Albert Mohler program today I listened to a friendly debate between Mohler and atheist Susan Jacoby. I side more with Mohler's reasoning, but agree with Mohler that Jacoby made a good point when stating that many Christians do not know their Bible well enough for the importance they attach to it.
http://www.albertmohler.com/radio_show.php?cdate=2007-02-22
I presented the argument below in a comment in a different form on satire and theology. It concerns meaning in life. As far as meaning is concerned, the following does not on its own demonstrate God's existence or everlasting life.
Premise 1: Strictly speaking, there is no scientific, empirical evidence for everlasting life.
Premise 2: The deduction is made that Donald Trump being a billionaire receives a life quality rating of 9/10.
Premise 3: The deduction is made that the male drug addict on Main and/or Hastings Street in Vancouver receives a life quality rating of 1/10.
Premise 4: Both of these men shall die and since they cannot take their physical body or any of their material possessions with them their life quality ratings will drop to 0/10. Neither person can take any of their earthly success with them because they are unconscious and dead and all that exists physically is their remains.
Premise 5: Trump's life will likely provide a superior legacy to that of the drug addict and some will at least enjoy Trump's legacy, and perhaps some will enjoy the legacy of the drug addict but as the centuries and millennia go by the legacy of both men will fade. Even with Trump's legacy all persons that enjoy his life work will die and not consciously remember Trump or experience his impact.
Conclusion: Human life is not substantially meaningful, if permanently terminated.
Outside of this argument may I state that the Christian understanding is that the Bible provides a historically based theology of meaningful everlasting life for believers through the atoning work and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ was empirically viewed by followers in his resurrection form although everlasting life itself has not been empirically, scientifically demonstrated. The culmination of the Kingdom of God would provide repeated verifiable scientific evidence of everlasting human life.
Thanks for reading.
This is where I originally presented the argument in a looser format.
ReplyDeletehttp://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2007/01/universe.html
According to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
The scientific method involves the following basic facets:
Observation. A constant feature of scientific inquiry.
Description. Information must be reliable, i.e., replicable (repeatable) as well as valid (relevant to the inquiry).
Prediction. Information must be valid for observations past, present, and future of given phenomena, i.e., purported "one shot" phenomena do not give rise to the capability to predict, nor to the ability to repeat an experiment.
Control. Actively and fairly sampling the range of possible occurrences, whenever possible and proper, as opposed to the passive acceptance of opportunistic data, is the best way to control or counterbalance the risk of empirical bias.
Falsifiability, or the elimination of plausible alternatives. This is a gradual process that requires repeated experiments by multiple researchers who must be able to replicate results in order to corroborate them. This requirement, one of the most frequently contended, leads to the following: All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative. As a body of knowledge grows and a particular hypothesis or theory repeatedly brings predictable results, confidence in the hypothesis or theory increases.
Causal explanation. Many scientists and theorists on scientific method argue that concepts of causality are not obligatory to science, but are in fact well-defined only under particular, admittedly widespread conditions. Under these conditions the following requirements are generally regarded as important to scientific understanding:
Identification of causes. Identification of the causes of a particular phenomenon to the best achievable extent.
Covariation of events. The hypothesized causes must correlate with observed effects.
Time-order relationship. The hypothesized causes must precede the observed effects in time.
There is no one true religion, using the analogy of the spiritual journey; different modes of transport might be employed, some will be quicker than others. The fastest route might get you there sooner, but it might not be the best. The slower passage enables you to witness more.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Jesus stated in John 14:6 that he was the only way to the Father. The Father Biblically of course is God and therefore Jesus was saying that the only way to God was through Christ and his atoning work and resurrection. It seems reasonable to me that Biblical theology is supported by many writers over centuries that documented God's supernatural work in his creation. The most important supernatural work being the atoning work and resurrection of Christ which provides meaningful everlasting life for followers.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that without the hope of an afterlife, there is a certain depressing finality to your deduction. I don't see how people who think there's nothing after can get up in the morning.
ReplyDeleteSo if you didn't believe in an afterlife, and if this life was it, then you'd want to make this life as satisfying as possible, right? Which would mean you do everything you want to, and the only regard you would have for consequences would be if they would limit your ability to get what you want in the future. Your entire life would be about playing the system to take as much as you can before you die. Even giving love or making sacrifices would ultimately be for the satisfaction you would get in return for hopefully making some sort of difference.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like a crappy life. Regardless of any argument someone could make using science, I view your deduction as a pretty good argument for at least some kind of religion.
On a different note, do you take all the pictures you post on your blog? They're excellent. If they're yours, you should think about making a photo blog or getting a website or something.
Thanks David,
ReplyDeleteI have to say that without the hope of an afterlife, there is a certain depressing finality to your deduction. I don't see how people who think there's nothing after can get up in the morning.
Yes, life has little meaning.
So if you didn't believe in an afterlife, and if this life was it, then you'd want to make this life as satisfying as possible, right? Which would mean you do everything you want to, and the only regard you would have for consequences would be if they would limit your ability to get what you want in the future. Your entire life would be about playing the system to take as much as you can before you die. Even giving love or making sacrifices would ultimately be for the satisfaction you would get in return for hopefully making some sort of difference.
And even if one succeeded in getting what they wanted, they would lose it all anyway in death and would be in the same place they would have been had they not succeeded in life.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like a crappy life. Regardless of any argument someone could make using science, I view your deduction as a pretty good argument for at least some kind of religion.
Cheers.:)
On a different note, do you take all the pictures you post on your blog? They're excellent. If they're yours, you should think about making a photo blog or getting a website or something.
I have taken a minority of the pictures and those are the weaker ones. Most of the pictures are from trekearth.com and sometimes I use images from wildnatureimages.com. These are of course freely provided.
Have a great weekend, David.
Hey!
ReplyDeleteI was just reading CS Lewis comments about this in Mere Christianity this week - parenthesis mine:
"If the whole universe has no meaning (as Atheists believe), we should never have found that it has no meaning (because we wouldn't have anything with meaning to compare it to); just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning."
And if I can again quote Mr. Lewis to respond to Mr. Looga:
"If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through.
But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong.
As in arithmetic - there is only one answer to a sum, all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."
Hey!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wade.:)
I was just reading CS Lewis comments about this in Mere Christianity this week - parenthesis mine:
"If the whole universe has no meaning (as Atheists believe), we should never have found that it has no meaning (because we wouldn't have anything with meaning to compare it to); just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning."
A good point. As well the atheist may find it meaningful to state that the universe has little or no meaning, yet the statement is supposedly meaningful in contrast to opposing views.
And if I can again quote Mr. Lewis to respond to Mr. Looga:
"If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through.
But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong.
Yes, Christianity very importantly offers exclusive theology in regard to the nature of God and salvation.
As in arithmetic - there is only one answer to a sum, all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."
Good thoughts, cheers Wade.