Yay, I’m graduated. It took roughly the better part of 6 years due to major changes, school changes, etc… I’m reminded of the Tommy Boy line where Richard says to Tommy something like “wow, graduated just shy of a decade.” To which Tommy says “hey, lots of people go to college for 7 years.” And Richard replies “Yeah, they’re called doctors.”
Well shut up Richard. I’m finally done. Rock.
The Intelligent Design vs Atheistic Evolution debate has been on my mind more and more often, recently. Particularly, I am reminded of a specific atheist’s question: “what has Intelligent Design ever gotten us?” I answer that question with a quote from Alfred North Whitehead:
I do not think…that I have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement. I mean the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labors of scientists would be without hope…. My explanation is that the faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivation from medieval theology.
In other words, meaningful scientific dialog is dead without the theological assumptions held by early scientists. Indeed, as I have briefly mentioned in an earlier post, it seems to me that everything about modern science has been built upon the back of the assumptions of Intelligent Designers. This line of thought in turn gave rise to the realization that this debate is simply a matter of philosophy. The hecklers spouting off that there is no science behind the notion of Intelligent Design are biased spin-doctors, trying to silence an opposition they fear (or hate, ether way it makes no difference). For there is just as much ’scientific’ proof behind the notion that there is no God and that that evolution (understood as a process of random change “directed” by nature’s survive-or-perish judgments) is the sole cause of human development as there is behind the idea that God exists, is the prime mover and first cause of all creation and that the universe is ordered, rational and inherently meaningful.
So again I ask the question: exactly what HAS an atheistic, Darwainistic, evolutionary worldview ever gotten science truly? What value has the idea that all is bound by randomness ever garnered an endeavor that strives to find the correlations between all things in the universe (namely the sciences)? As I study the arguments of atheists, I find in them a disturbing level of unreflectiveness. Rarely do they seem to ponder the underlying worldview assumptions that make up their ’scientific’ mindsets. Of course, it seems to me that this philosophical oversight is willful for two reasons: first being that any sort of examination of modern science’s past reveals wave after wave of men developing theories based off the assumption that the universe has some sort of creative power behind it. Secondly, as we discover more and more about the world around us, the less random processes are able to account for what is being observed and it seems to be that it would hinder an atheist’s claims against design to consider such things.
Irregardless, I will end, again, with a word from Mr. Whitehead:
In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity [comes from] sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deduction.
The more I examine this ’scientific’ duel between ID and Evolution, the less it seems scientific at all. And the sooner we might admit that this is all a game of philosophy and metaphysics, the better off we will be.
Prince Caspian is out. Yay! I was really psyched for the movie because A) I loved the book B) I loved Caspian’s character design and C) I loved the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. After seeing the midnight showing of the movie on Thursday/Friday, though, I found myself a little let down. I suppose it’s hard to re-create a masterpiece. It seems to happen less often than not. Matrix, anyone? But it has been proven to be achievable a la Lord of the Rings, Bourne identity, etc. Certainly, it shouldn’t be too terribly hard to create a masterpiece with Prince Caspian if they’d simply follow CS Lewis’ genius book, right?
Apparently, this wasn’t what director Andrew Adamson had in mind. Caspian was more of an “inspired-by” than it was an adaption of the book, and while it’s true that the book itself is inferior to Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, it would nonetheless make a flippin sweet movie would they just adhere to the book.
Thusly, Prince Caspian the film threatens to degenerate into the depend-too-heavily-on-flashy-graphics, pseudo-epic battle type of movie that are all too common these days (Beowulf comes to mind). The worst part, though, is that CS Lewis’ charming influence is almost wholly removed from the film. The lines are somewhat simplistic and the characters are almost never expanded upon - most grievously in the case of Prince Caspian himself. By the end of the film, you know almost nothing about him except that he’s hot, is a prince, and has cool armor. The most telling line Caspian has in the entire movie is to declare “I am Prince Caspian!” At least we now know for sure… On a positive note though, Reepicheep mercifully retains most the awesomeness he exudes in the books. Even still, he seems far too intent upon stabbing people in the face while lamenting the fact that they notice he’s a mouse (they seriously bring it up about four times in the movie).
Lastly, the movie fails to bring up plot points that the book uses to connect itself to the rest of the Narnia series. Aslan barely makes mention of how the Telmarines came to Narnia, but we’re given a glimpse of how our world relates to theirs - Saddam Hussein is one of the main antagonists and I must say, his fashion sense is much improved. Apparently, there’s a door to Narnia somewhere in Iraq.
Either way, the movie seemed a bit like they rushed to get to the battle scene at the end. More time should have been spent having Caspian unite the Narians, less on how Peter is now very surly for whatever reason. Having said that, I’m thinking I should go see the movie a few more times. Maybe it’ll be better to see it earlier in the day. I wanted to like the character of Prince Caspian so bad - he was always my favorite in the books - but my initial reactions were a little disappointing.
I was able to contribute to one of ColdWater Media’s recent shoots by drawing a chibi Charles Darwin on a chalkboard for a bit they did on college-level biology. They nabbed an English teacher to act the part of the biology professor which ended up working a lot better, lol. Either way, it was a bit of fun. It’s always a good day when I get to work around the cameras.
First off, these pictures are almost unreal. That lightning playing around the volcanic plume is breathtaking. But GEEZE, nature! Can’t you see we’re just tryin to help out?! Spittin all that toxic crud into the air with your dang volcanoes… shoooooot.
Or perhaps this is the way that earth is helpin out… Maybe the ash is suppose to shield the planet?
Either way, I want to hear no more about how “Global Warming” is a man-made event. You hear me Algore? Seriously, how blatantly egotistical of us humans to think we have that kind of power.
So in less than an hour, I will be attending the last class of my entire college career (hopefully). With just a bit of irony, the class happens to be my Astronomy lab.
People keep asking me if I’m happy to be done with school. I don’t know how to answer that question. I figured that by this point, I’d be ecstatic. I’m not, though. I’m neutral. I guess innately I have this notion that the school is going to call me the day before my graduation and tell me that I still have something to take care of and that I won’t be able to finish. I would probably go a little crazy if something like that were to happen. Perhaps I’m being a tad paranoid, but given my previous interactions with this university, I think I’m just being careful.
Either way, by this time next week, I should have a diploma in my hands. Officially then, I will be unable to avoid paying full price for software and computers. Also, I won’t be able to use “but I’m a student!” as a viable excuse not to have a job or career or aspirations. Now begins the much-lauded “real” part of life that my college professors have been going on about for the last few years.
In honor of this upcoming “realness,” I have decided to put off thinking about school for the time-being. As far as I’m concerned, tonight is simply me going to school like normal. Next week, I can let the reality set in that never again must I enter a classroom in order to satisfy some sort of cultural expectation. And yes, I do have my fingers crossed.
Somehow, I can never seem to get to bed before 2:30am. I don’t really know why this is, but it happens and I think I have visibly aged as a result.
Tonight, though, nothing particular is on my mind; well, nothing and then again everything. Today, I saw Expelled for the third time (my brother Jay had yet to see it), and even still the movie stirs up in me new thoughts.
The more I think of evolution as a theory and atheists as a people group, the more I just have to laugh. I mean, I suppose it works to simply shout louder and louder about how right you are in order to get people to actually believe you, but eventually I think the crowds start to wise up. At one point in the film, an evolutionist states “What has Intelligent Design ever gotten us?!” That question should be reversed: “What has atheistic Darwinism ever gotten us?” I mean to truly ask that question is interesting. What new, tangible things have arisen as a result of tackling the world from a Darwinian, atheistic mindset? In what ways have evolutionists NOT piggy-backed off of the work of theistic scientists? Newton? Kepler? Galileo? The list goes on… Critics mock Ben Stein’s attempt to draw a parallel between Nazism and Darwinism, but can the connection honestly be denied? Isn’t genocide and eugenics one of the oft-lauded rational conclusions to an atheistic, Darwinian worldview?
The most atrocious thing, however, is the blatant hypocrisy of atheists as they try to mount their counter-arguments, which consist almost entirely of shouting “Creationist!” To which I ask: “so what?” If indeed the evidence points towards a creator, then by all means, call me a creationist. Is that so terrible a proposition? Even Richard Dawkins admits he thinks there may be room in biology for a superiorly-intelligent creative force somewhere out in the universe. But there is more than one firm out there that offers considerable sums of money to anyone who can provide concrete, peer-reviewed documentation of Neo-Darwinian-style evolutionary processes. Why hasn’t anyone been able to collect? Why are their arguments always ad-homonym?
What evolutionists in general and atheists in particular seem to think is that evolution somehow explains away a God-figure. In fact, it does no such thing. In fact, at BEST science provides a neutral proposition. As I study this situation, I find it increasingly odd and laughable that there is such a hard-headed resistance to admit that there may be a transcendent intelligent force at work here on Earth. Does it make any sense for a scientist to become emotionally involved in scientific endeavors? Is not that sort of thing better served through metaphysical studies? Dawkins, for example, clings blindly to the concept of an alien race seeding the planet with life rather than even consider the slightest possibility a God-type of being exists. The reason? He’s somewhere along the line moved from the realm of science and into that of philosophy, even though he seems not to have realized it.
I guess, then, I just don’t understand this willful desire to be so completely nihilistic. The scientific evidence doesn’t prove the Neo-Darwinist idea of evolution no matter how many times atheists want to repeat that it does. Most scientists still have no idea why the world works even though they spout off like they do. Our culture still stubbornly refuses to let God into any sector of life while continuing the attempt to infuse things into society only a transcendent God can provide. I wonder if perhaps it might be too late for the world to pull itself out of this Postmodern Dark Age.
I always get great blog ideas during the day. Or at least I think they’re great blog ideas. Perhaps they’re just nonsensical thoughts that run through my head transiently because by the time I actually get to a computer to write them down, I can never remember them.
But this particular subject has been brewing up in the noggin for a few days and I saw part of a show that gave me a way to tie it all together.
We’ve all heard the argument that violence in media causes violent behavior. Whether it’s video games or movies or toy guns or whatever, just letting a kid have eye-contact with a weapon is said to send ideas of death through his head and bloodlust boiling through his veins. But is that really true? Is that the cause of it? Or merely a catalyst acting to set off something that is already there?
I’ll just come right out and say that I think violence is a catalyst, not a root cause, which it is often painted as. You know what I mean: “If ONLY guns were harder to get! If ONLY the kid hadn’t played as much HALO! If ONLY they hadn’t seen the Matrix! Etc etc etc.” It’s easy to confuse catalyst and cause.
So if not these violent things, what IS the cause for such violent behavior as 9/11, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and Virginia Tech shootings?
I would say the answer is simple: man is evil.
Or rather, man is naturally more prone to evilness than to goodness.
Is that so hard to believe? Most people RECOIL from that idea. “Man is basically EVIL!? NO! I refuse to believe it! Mankind is basically good!” Heck, even I don’t like to think about that. Who WANTS to believe the worst about something? But the proof is in the pudding, as it were. Either way, this idea, that man is basically inherently good, permeates our culture. Abraham Maslow was the first in recent history to push the idea with his philosophy. He basically asserted that Mankind is basically good and that human beings will acheive perfection through greater education and “self-actualization.” This is the idea that people who do ‘evil’ things such as kill kids with a shot gun or use airplanes to blow up skyscrapers do so out of sheer ignorance influenced by their bad circumstances. Somewhere along the way, this basically good human was turned bad by some wrong information taught to him/her or by some poor circumstances and thus they kill and maim and rape and become the dregs of society.
You hear this way of thinking all of the time without even realizing it! What’s the first thing that happens when a kid blows away his classmates? Or actually, lets take 9/11. What happened? What were the questions asked? “What happened to those poor men to make them think blowing up the World Trade Center would be a good thing?” “What did we do to create that anger in them?” “What circumstances were these men placed into to make them do that?”
In essence, Maslow’s philosphy is thus: There is no moral or ethical absolutes (because there is no God), mankind is basically good, but man is corrupted by his imperfect surroundings and is simply a product of his brain’s input, rather than the choices he makes when faced with those surroundings.
It really flies in the face of what the Bible teaches which is: There ARE moral and ethical absolutes (set by God), mankind is basically EVIL, corrupted by his OWN decisions when PRESENTED with a certain CHOICE.
So when these liberals start to talk about how poor Johnny was molested by his dad as a kid and liked to play Grand Theft Auto and religiously watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre and THAT’S why he took a semi-auto to the halls of his highschool, I can’t help but be frustrated. That awful stuff MAY have happened to that kid but that doesn’t excuse his behavior, it doesn’t explain why, it just states how.
So I feel silly asking the who’s and why’s when the root problem is never addressed because it’s inconvenient to acknowledge the truth.
Which is really the problem, isn’t it? Deny the truth, deny God and deny the fact that man is basically evil.
Because IF man is basically evil then man cannot fix himself. And if man cannot fix himself then he needs a Savior. And if man needs a Savior then we have to acknowledge God. And if we have to acknowledge God, we also have to acknowledge that we need to do what he says is right to do. Which is extremely uncomfortable for people to think about, which and only further serves to prove that WE ARE depraved beings (constantly seeking to be disobedient).
So you see the drawing factor in continuing to live in denial about all this: continuing to assume that mankind will achieve perfection through education, evolution and actualization. That man needs no God because WE are gods ourselves.
Anyways, this is long. Sorry. But before it’s done, something to consider:
Are we truly becoming more civilized? Or are we simply becoming more efficient at being evil? The last 100 years have been THE BLOODIEST in human history. Well over a quarter billion dead to various wars and political ideologies (Nazism, Atheism, Communism). How is that self-actualizing towards perfection? Mankind is evil because of our sin nature. How can mankind solve a problem that runs as deep as our own nature? We can’t. That’s the whole philosophical point of the Old Testament.
Man is truly capable of anything he sets his mind to as God himself admits. There are undeniable good things man has done. We’ve all heard that: “man is capable of both great good and terrible evil.” But which of those are because of our fallen nature? And which is owed to the trace of a good God that we all have inside of us?
There are about four different places I have written extensively in the last few years. Four websites, I mean. I imagine some day, once I’m long dead, some kid is going to want to do a history paper on me but there will be no journal, no diary that he can tap into to learn my inner-most thoughts. No, instead he’ll have to scour the internet for all of those scattered blogs, web journals and art sites in order to piece together how I viewed life as an angsty teenager-slash-twenty-something.
The lack of written words is something I think future generations will lament about ours. Someday, all of our hard drives will be rusted to crap and the thousands and millions and billions of words that are stored digitally will be gone forever. I suppose paper has a tendency to decay even more than magnetic disks, but there’s just something about leaving behind a leather-bound manuscript of my life that Microsoft Word or Myspace just can’t compete with.
I guess it’s slightly ironic that I am using a blog to grieve the shift in paradigm from paper to digital. I suppose if I weren’t such a blatant hypocrite, I would be writing these words down in a journal somewhere. But the honest truth is that this is just plain easier. I can type almost three times faster than I can write by hand and this way I am able to avoid those annoying wrist cramps. The convenience of word processing is undeniable, and yet I can’t help but think that the world is worse off for the lack of actual substance.
At any rate, there is no mind-breaking take-away. I was just up a little late thinking about how interesting it would be to go forward in time and watch as someone tried to do a research paper on my life. I’m sure they’ll just re-write whatever it’ll say on my Wikipedia, just like every other paper-writing student does today.
Oh the marvels of immediate digital publishing.
Tuesday night is my Astronomy lab.
Or at least it will be for the next few weeks. I’m coming up unto the end of my time in “higher learning;” as of three weeks from now, I’ll hopefully be a college graduate, and therefore for the first time in my life prove that I am actually capable of finishing something painstakingly arduous.
But I’m not sure if I’ll be passing my Freshman-level Astronomy lab because I’ve skipped a large portion of it, the reason being that I have recently discovered that Astronomy annoys me.
That was not always the case; I used to love space. I played with model planets and moons, and my favorite show as a young teenager used to be Star Trek. But now, the blatant prideful elitism suffered by many scientists in the field of Astronomy boggles my mind.
If the history of scientific endeavors could teach any one thing to today’s scientists, it’s that they are almost certainly always wrong about whatever they think they’re currently right about. This ESPECIALLY applies to Cosmologists. The Earth is flat? JK! It’s really round. The universe revolves around us? Oh no, we actually spin around the Sun! And it turns out the Sun is just a retarded star in the back alley of our galaxy which, just when we thought that was as deep as the well goes, turns out is only one mid-sized galaxy amongst billions. And! To boot, the universe’s expansion isn’t slowing down, it’s speeding up! Not exactly what you might label a good battin’ average here, folks.
You’d think that today, scientists might review the past and say to themselves: “wow, history has shown us to be way way WAY off over and over again. Mayhap THIS time we should approach the situation with a little bit more care when developing hypotheses.”
But the tricky thing about science is that it almost by default creates the perfect atmosphere for unchecked puffery and arrogance amongst its practitioners. It’s almost effortless to adopt a “well that was then, this is now” mentality where the discoveries of the past are simply relegated to the trash-heap of the scientifically passé.
And scientists are left to draw themselves up by feeling vastly superior to any of their predecessors… Only to be smacked in the face once again by the fact that, superior though they may be, they STILL don’t know a bloody bit about anything.
And yet they solider on, blindly charging forward consumed with unrelenting pridefulness.
Which is why Astronomy in particular is so annoying: in arguably no other area of science is the overly-inflated sense of know-it-all-ness so apparent with so little merit (with perhaps Biology being the exception). Tonight we watched a History channel special on Dark Energy and Dark Matter. At the beginning of the program, the interviewed experts basically admit that they have no idea what Dark Matter and Energy are, have never observed them directly and can only know of their existence by layers upon layers of mere inference, but that in no way kept them from speaking for the rest of the program like they have it all EXACTLY figured out! They might as well call it “Magic” for all they know about it. (On a side note, tonight’s film at one point also declared the universe to be flat. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.)
How supremely frustrating.
It’s easy to forget that modern conceptions of Cosmology have only been on the table for some 80 years, and yet Astronomers strut about as if they’ve unlocked all of the deepest goings-on in our universe. They speak of the Big Bang as though they witnessed it firsthand. They tell of other galaxies as if they have vacation homes there which they visit on the weekends. They expound upon the origins of the universe, black holes, super nova, the properties of gravity and the apparent infinite nature of the universe, all when they’ve never directly experienced any of it and have the vantage point of some podunk planet in the supposed backwater part of some obscure spiral galaxy, completely dependent on (for the most part) American tax dollars and 1980’s technology.
To me, Science has a dire, unfathomably deep need for a dose of humility.
