from CED message on the myth of the destruction of the library of alexandria by christians

----NOTE THIS IS NOT MY WRITING---------------------

Date: Sat Jun 29, 2002 10:27 am
Subject: The myth of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria by Christians

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Group,

I would like to address a common myth that does the rounds again and again
on the circuit of atheist, free thinker, internet infidel and anti-Christian
sites. It also appears on many anti-ID/creationist sites and boards.This
concerns the story that mobs of Christians destroyed the Great Library of
Alexandria burning all the books in the process and brutally murdering the
pagan mathematician, Hypatia. This tall story is periodically dragged out,
dusted off and paraded around to confirm how beastly and barbaric the early
Christians were and to confirm the smug prejudices of those who wish to tar
and feather Christians and creationists today.

I apologise in advance for the number of quotes but I believe these, and the
links given, are necessary to establish the truth of the matter.

Here is the legendary story:

"Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, is also the patron saint of arsonists.
As Christianity slowly strangled the life out of classical culture in the
forth century it became more and more difficult to be a pagan. There stood
in Alexandria the great temple of Serapis called the Serapeum and attached
to it was the Great Library of Alexandria where all the wisdom of the
ancients was preserved. Now Theophilus knew that as long as this knowledge
existed people would be less inclined to believe the bible so he set about
destroying the pagan temples. But the Serapeum was a huge structure, high on
a mound and beyond the abilities of the raging Christian fanatics to
assault. Faced with this edifice, the Patriarch sent word to Rome. There the
Emperor Theodosius the Great, who had ordered that paganism be annihilated,
gave his permission for the destruction of the Serapeum. Realising they had
no chance, the priests and priestesses fled their temple and the mob moved
in. The vast structure was razed to it foundations and the scrolls from the
library were burnt in huge pyres in the streets of Alexandria."
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm



What follows are a selection of typical quotes from the hundreds of websites
sites that perpetuate this propaganda myth. I am sorry for the mind-numbing
repetition of fiction, falsehoods and half truths (as will be demonstrated)
but this is par for the course for the cavalier disregard for historical
facts on many of these sites:

"In 391 Christians burned down one of the world's greatest libraries in
Alexandria, believed to have housed over 700,000 scrolls. All of the books
of the Gnostic Basilides, Porphyry's 36 volumes, papyrus rolls of 27 schools
of the Mysteries, and 270,000 ancient documents gathered by Ptolemy
Philadelphyus were turned to ash."
The secular humanist site:
http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/controversies/essay-science.html

"Perhaps the greatest single intellectual loss of the classical world was
the destruction of the library of Alexandria. At one time, it was reputed to
house about 700,000 books on subjects ranging from literature and history to
science and philosophy. In the year 391, the bishop of Alexandria,
Theophilus (d.412), in his quest to destroy paganism, lead a group of crazed
monks and laymen, destroyed all the books in the great library."
a skeptic's guide to Christianity
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/bookburn.html

"It was nascent Christianity that destroyed the academic knowledge of
pagans, who were the first educative force in Europe. After burning the
Library of Alexandria, destroying the majority of writings and books by
pagan scholars, (hiding a few away in church vaults), they exterminated
anyone who was pagan; exemplified in the brutal murder of Hypatia. They
plunged the world into a thousand years of darkness, the only knowledge
remaining retained and hidden by the church. Only by the steadfastness of
courageous scientists such as Galileo was the church forced to withdraw its
influence over the lives of the people. Each step forward was fiercely
opposed by the church. The church fathers recognized clearly that learning
and wisdom, truth in the classic meaning, were, as they still are, the
eternal adversaries of faith and dogma."
From the site IN REASON WE TRUST: REASON RULES AMERICA
http://www.aztriad.com/jesus.html

"In 415 AD, a young female librarian, Hypatia of Alexandria, Egypt
mathematically proved not only that the Earth was round, but that it
revolved around the Sun (contrary to Christian belief). She was innocent
and ignorant of propaganda that unjustly placed her as the protagonist of
deadly conflicts between Christians and Jews and was slaughtered by a
Christian mob. As a pagan, Hypatia was completely unrelated to the holy war
between the followers of the same God. The Library of Alexandria was
subsequently burned to the ground to destroy all documents supporting the
heresy of an Earth that was not at the center of the universe. A Christian
tradition that is (sadly) still in practice today. This one act began the
Dark ages. A millennium in which any text that did not praise God was
forbidden and experimentation with any science might be punishable by
death."
from The Evolution of Genesis :An introduction to the origins of the
Creation myth site
http://evolutionofgenesis.homestead.com/evil.html

"Probably one of the most unforgivable acts of the early Christians was the
killing of Hypatia in March of 415 a. d., which was soon followed by the
departure from Alexandria of most of the scholars who were associated with
the great library. Not long after that, the library itself was destroyed,
including the burning of all of the remaining books which the departing
scholars had not taken with them. What we know today of the great library
comes from the few books removed by the departing scholars, along with
letters from the scholars which were preserved in other places. This sparse
record gives us so many tantalizing clues as to the contents of the great
library... But unless someone discovers how to construct a time machine, all
of this is lost to us forever, thanks be to the local Christian patriarch,
St. Cyril, and his followers, who set out to burn the pagan books which they
believed Christians had no use for."
From the "Agnostic Church" homepage http://www.agnostic.org/BIBLEH.htm

"They're not just coming, they've been around since tribal legends, the fall
of The Great Library of Alexandria, witch hunts in Europe and in Salem, and
they're here today still; people like Ham have a long and bloody history
behind them already of which they claim to be proud. Biblical literalists
like Ham and company are what inspire the Taliban to be so certain their
martyrs will be serviced in heaven by 72 virgins for eternity."
"The Archon, a place where we apply logic and reason before superstition and
pseudoscience. No brain, no gain!"
http://www.the-archon.com/Essays/museum.htm

"And then there are other matters, like the mad monks led by Saint Cyril,
the patron saint of arsonists, who burned the Great Library at Alexandria,
destroying 600,000 volumes of knowledge of the ancient world--the greatest
property crime of all time."
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/murphy1.html

"The destruction of the great ancient Egyptian Library of Alexandria under
the reign of Ptolemy with its estimated millions of books and manuscripts
was a horrendous crime against all civilization. The burning and looting was
organised by monk-led mobs of Christians in the year AD 389. The foremost
librarian and scientist, Hypatia was dragged out of the library, stripped
and torn apart by the Christian mobs armed with jagged seashells."
from The Canadian Atheist, Issue 1 Winter 1994/95
http://home.istar.ca/~tcas/canat1.html

"When the great library at Alexandria was ransacked by Christian fanatics in
387... an inestimable wealth of gnostic literature must have been destroyed.
Until the nineteenth century the main source of knowledge of Gnosticism was,
ironically, in the writings of the Church Fathers, who in their refutations
summarised gnostic texts and often quoted at length from them."
Stuart Holroyd, The Elements of Gnosticism, p.22, 1994
http://members.tripod.com/~gnostica/

"The evolution/creation conflict is not a battle between to two equal
theories, it is a battle between truth and deceit. Creationists like to say
that evolution is 'just a theory', well creationism is just a primitive
superstition. In 415 AD the Alexandria Library was burned to the ground and
the scientist who ran it was beaten to death by catholic monks, because they
considered scientific work heretical. The damage done to science and
enlightenment by this primitive act is incalculable."
from the RAGE AGAINST THEISM webpage
http://home.mweb.co.za/it/iti04330/atheist1.htm


Again, I invite readers to do their own Google search of the Web and
confirm just how common this story is, and the sort of sites on which it
appears and the miasma of contradictions contained therein.

The problem with this story is it a total fabrication, a piece of fiction
masquerading as historical fact designed and perpetuated solely as
propaganda against Christians. It is not my intention to reinvent the wheel
by detailing a point by point rebuttal; this has already been done in
several thorough and scholarly examinations of this story available on the
Net. I wish merely to point out where this topic can be investigated more
fully for those who wish to uncover the truth. I shall merely present a
summary of the historical facts from a number of sources:

1.The Mysterious Fate of the Great Library of Alexandria
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm an article based on the existing primary
sources:

"An awful lot of ink has been splashed around about the destruction of the
Great Library. You can blame Christians, Moslems or Julius Caesar depending
on taste. But the only way to find the truth is a careful examination of the
original sources. This essay goes over them with a fine-toothed comb and
finds that while Christians and Moslems were almost certainly innocent, the
Romans just might have a lot to answer for."

"Burning down libraries
The idea of deliberating setting fire to a repository of knowledge appals us
in a way that few other crimes can do. As demonstrated by the astronomical
sums paid at auction, we value art far more than human life. Tens of
thousands of Afghans could die in war without anyone in the West caring very
much but, as the BBC reported, when the Taleban demolish a couple of ancient
statues, there is world wide horror and condemnation.

This attitude has meant that the false accusation that Edward Gibbon laid at
the door of the Patriarch Theophilus in chapter 28 of his Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire regarding the Great Library of Alexandria has been
tremendously damaging to Christianity and is repeated by every author with a
bone to pick. But although we can establish that this library was not
destroyed by a Christian mob, were there not other ancient libraries that
did suffer exactly that fate? The saying that there is no smoke without fire
would seem to be exceedingly appropriate in this case. I do not for a second
claim to have analysed every ancient source but I have read a good deal and
have only located one example of deliberate destruction of an entire library
recorded by the chroniclers.

The chronicler in question is John of Antioch about whom we know almost
nothing. He was a Greek speaking Christian historian who may have lived
between the sixth and tenth centuries. All his works are lost and only
fragments of his chronicle remain preserved in other places. Among them is
the following passage from the great Byzantine encyclopaedia called the Suda
in the article on the Emperor Jovian:

Emperor Hadrian had built a beautiful temple for the worship of his father
Trajan which, on the orders of Emperor Julian, the eunuch Theophilus had
made into a library. Jovian, at the urging of his wife, burned the temple
with all the books in it with his concubines laughing and setting the fire.

Scholars believe that it is John of Antioch is being quoted. The Suda itself
is full of snippets of information but it is treated with justifiable
caution by the scholars who have studied it. Certainly, it is very often
wrong but usually not deliberately. Instead it just quotes earlier authors
uncritically and repeats their mistakes...

The pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus was actually with Jovian in Antioch
and does not breath a word about any libraries... Although Jovian was a
Christian he is recorded by the rhetor Themistius to have insisted on
tolerance towards pagans. The great pagan orator Libanius who lived in
Antioch at the time and from whom we have speeches, lectures and no less
than 1,500 letters, makes no mention of the library's destruction. We have
no other record of there being a temple of Trajan built by Hadrian in
Antioch.

John was writing several hundred years after the library burning is supposed
to have taken place but no one else mentions it.... All the counter
arguments depend on silence which demonstrates just how hard it is to prove
a negative... If we knew that burning down libraries was the sort of thing
that Jovian or other Christians actually did, we might have a case for
believing it happened here but as it is a single example it cannot be
allowed to simply reinforce our prejudices. Still, this remains the only
possible record of a library being deliberately destroyed that I have been
able to find in the sources and those who with an anti-Christian axe to
grind should use this case rather than Alexandria. Furthermore, it does
illustrate that Christian writers were happy to report such things and
repeat them from other sources. Contrary to the allegations of many
sceptics, the Christian scribes made no effort to censor this alleged
misdeed of Jovian even though he was a Christian emperor."
http://www.bede.org.uk/literature.htm#biblio


2. ...Did the Christians burn/destroy all the classical literature?
by Glenn Miller http://www.christian-thinktank.com This extensive and
voluminously referenced work is summarised here:

a)"The pre-Constantine church did NOT do 'burnings' or destruction of
classical works and/or libraries.

b)The early church leaders widely and favorably used classical works in
their writings, maintained them in their personal libraries, and made
attempts to preserve them.

c)The pre-Constantine church was the victim of a thorough-going Christian
book burning campaign by the Roman Emperors.

d)A few post-Constantine Christian Emperors 'traded' censorship initiatives
with a few Non-Christian Roman Emperors, but the overall effect on classical
texts were minimal.

e)The post-Constantine church was NOT responsible for the burning of the
famous main library at Alexandria.

f)The destruction of the classical works and libraries of the ancient world
was the result of accidental fires, neglect, the barbarian invasions,
de-urbanization, and the destruction of the educational system/public
records systems by those invasions.

g)The Western institutional church--although considerably uneven in its
estimates of the value of various classical authors--nevertheless had a
number of individuals and institutions that almost single-handedly preserved
the classical works that we enjoy today.

h)The Eastern institutional church preserved the major mass of Greek mss.
that was used to 'fuel' the Renaissance in Western Europe.

i)The vast majority of the censorship/book burnings of the later church were
insubstantial--either symbolic directed at non-classical works."

Miller's work is profusely annotated and repays close inspection.

Miller addresses the popular statements of Ellerbe:
"... Christians burned down one of the world's greatest libraries in
Alexandria, said to have housed 700,000 rolls. All the books of the Gnostic
Basilides, Porphyry's 36 volumes, papyrus rolls of 27 schools of the
Mysteries, and 270,000 ancient documents gathered by Ptolemy Philadelphus
were burned. Ancient academies of learning were closed. Education for anyone
outside of the Church came to an end..."
Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, p. 46, 1995
http://members.tripod.com/~gnostica/

"The problem with this is that it is ABYSMALLY inaccurate. If one compares
the statements of Ellerbe with the works of ACTUAL academic scholars in the
field one can see how wrong this statement is. The actual history of the
famous Museum library of Alex (which is said to have housed 500,000 rolls)
goes like this:


1)Ptolemy Soter (Ptolemy I, 367-282bc) built a shine to the Muses (a
Museion) and brought outstanding scholars to live there Books and Readers in
the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p177
The History and Power of Writing by Henri-Jean Martin (trans. Lydia
Cochrane), Univ. of Chicago: 1994 p55.

2) it was a communal society of men of science and letters , and was located
in the royal precinct
Books and Readers in the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p178

3) later, a smaller library (for overflow) was built OUTSIDE the palace
area--called the "daughter" library. It contained less than 8% of the total
holdings of the combined' libraries, and was connected to a pagan shrine
(the Serapeum).
Books and Readers in the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995
p179-180

4)The major library (Museion) was without peer in the 3rd century , and
probably had most extant classical works.
Books and Readers in the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p180
The History and Power of Writing by Henri-Jean Martin (trans. Lydia
Cochrane), Univ. of Chicago: 1994 p55
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris,
Scarecrow:1995. p45

5) Then--trouble begins: "Then, around 145 bce, the persecution of
Alexandrian scholars and their disciples by [Ptolemy VII Physcon] Euergetes
II resulted in an emigration of academic talent from the Museion and a loss
of distinction in its librarians." Books and Readers in the Early Church,
Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p180


6) "Ptolemy VIII [Lathyros, Soter II] (Cacergetes) came to the throne.
Having been forced to leave Alexandria by his enemies, he returned in the
course of a civil war (89-88bc) and burned much of the city. The students
and fellows of the Museum were at least temporarily scattered...Though never
reaching their former greatness, the Museum and its library were
reconstituted and survived for several hundred years longer." Note: most of
the damage to the library occurred before the birth of Christ!
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris, Scarecrow:1995
p46

7) Then, in 47 BC when Julius Caesar was conquering Egypt, the Library was
partially destroyed
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris, Scarecrow:1995
p46
Books and Readers in the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p180

8) In the first century AD, some of the volumes in the library were moved to
Rome to replenish libraries there
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris, Scarecrow:1995
p46

9)Finally, the main Museum and library was destroyed in 273 AD, when the
Roman Emperor Aurelian burned much of Alexandria--including most of the
Palace area.
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris, Scarecrow:1995
p46-47
Books and Readers in the Early Church, Harry Y. Gamble, Yale: 1995 p180
The History and Power of Writing by Henri-Jean Martin (trans. Lydia
Cochrane), Univ. of Chicago: 1994 p56.

10) It is possible that the Museum (already a shadow of the glory of the
first one) was rebuilt "on a smaller scale."
History of Libraries in the Western World, Michael H. Harris, Scarecrow:1995
p47

11) But "A few years later, the city was completely sacked by Diocletian.
The Museum, which had enjoyed long periods of renewed splendor during
Imperial times and which had recently been restored once more to its old
glory thanks to the notable efforts of the mathematician Diophantus, must
have suffered terrible damage."
The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, by Luciano Canfora,
Univ. of Calif: 1987. p87

12. The small, daughter library--the Serapeum--was thought to have survived
and WAS destroyed by the Patriarch Theophilis in 391, under the directives
of Emperor Theodosius in 391. Note--this is NOT the famous library at
all...it was a very small temple library. "




3. The Beauty of Reasoning: A Re-examination of Hypatia of Alexandra. Bryan
J. Whitfield, The Mathematics Educator, Vol.6 No. 1
http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/DEPT/TME/Issues/v6n1/v6n1.pdf.

" From the sixth-century writings of Damascius to more recent writers like
Charles Kingsley, Edward Gibbon, and Carl Sagan, the tragedy of Hypatia's
death has been used as an occasion for a miscreant euhemerization that
falsifies historical fact, at best in the service of a larger narrative, at
worst in the service of propaganda. These tendentious historians present
Hypatia as a noble pagan martyr, a sacrificial virgin murdered at the
instigation of Cyril, the evil Christian bishop of Alexandria, for her
refusal to abandon the religion of the Greeks. She becomes the embodiment of
Hellenism destroyed by the onslaught of mindless Christianity, the epitome
of the end of the wisdom of the ancients.This rendering of Hypatia's death
may be high drama, but it is poor history that does a disservice to
Hypatia's real contributions and ignores the continuation of the Alexandrian
philosophical tradition after her death. Examination of her significance
must begin, therefore, with a refutation of this idealized portrait and then
continue with a development of her life and work using more reliable
historical sources as well as legitimate inferences that may be drawn from
the intellectual and cultural context in which she lived."

"Attempts to use the death of Hypatia for polemical ends began with the work
of the Athenian scholar Damascius, the last head of the Academy before it
was closed by Justinian. He wrote in exile, as one of the last of the
pagans,and was anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's
death.Consequently, he placed responsibility for her death in the hands of
Cyril's men so that readers would picture her as the martyr of Hellenism,
comparable to the heroized Emperor Julian, who had sought to restore
paganism as the of the empire and was reportedly killed by a traitorous
Christian."



4. The Primary Sources for the Life and Work of Hypatia of Alexandria by
Michael A. B. Deakin
History of Mathematics Paper 63 August 1995 Mathematics Department, Monash
University, Australia
http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Hypatia/primary-sources.html

"...it should be said that works of fiction (whether the fiction is
intentional or not!) are not historical sources at all. Regrettably much of
what is readily available on Hypatia derives from fictional, rather than
historical, sources.
The life of Hypatia of Alexandria depends on a small amount of primary
material, and anything going outside that is either fiction or speculation
and in a good account should be flagged as such.

5. Ellen N. Brundige, The Library of Alexandria: The Legend of the Library
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Ellen/Museum.html

"The library of Alexandria is a legend. Not a myth, but a legend. The
destruction of the library of the ancient world has been retold many times
and attributed to just as many different factions and rulers, not for the
purpose of chronicling that ediface of education, but as political slander.
Much ink has been spilled, ancient and modern, over the 40,000 volumes
housed in grain depots near the harbor, which were supposedly incinerated
when Julius Caesar torched the fleet of Cleopatra's brother and rival
monarch. So says Livy, apparently, in one of his lost books, which Seneca
quotes. The figure of Hypatia, a fifth-century scholar and mathematician of
Alexandria, being dragged from her chariot from an angry Pagan-hating mob of
monks who flayed her alive then burned her upon the remnants of the old
Library, has found her way into legend as well, thanks to a few contemporary
sources which survived.Yet while we know of many rumors of the destruction
of "The Library" (in fact, there were at least three different libraries
coexisting in the city), and know of whole schools of Alexandrian scholars
and scholarship, there is scant data about the whereabouts, layout,
holdings, organization, administration, and physical structure of the
place."


The actual fate of the Library of Alexandria is unknown but it is likely to
be less exciting and propaganda-friendly than is popularly supposed:

"The story that Theophilus destroyed a library is clearly a fiction that we
can very precisely lay at the door of Edward Gibbon. It is in his monumental
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that we first find the allegation made.
Gibbon seems mainly concerned to clear the Arabs of the responsibility of
destroying the library and allows his marked anti-Christian prejudice to
cloud his better judgement. His excellent footnotes show he had exactly the
same sources as we do but drew the wrong conclusions.

The burning of the library at Alexandria has been referred to as a tragic
loss of information and knowledge. Livy wrote that the library was destroyed
when Julius Caesar torched the fleet of Cleopatra's brother and rival
monarch. Another myth is that Hypatia, a fifth-century scholar and
mathematician of Alexandria, was dragged from her chariot by an angry
Pagan-hating mob of Christian monks. The Christians had her burned alive in
the library to in a fit of religious fervor."

The Library at Alexandria - And Other Information Management Tragedies,
Paula Gamonal
http://www.ravenwerks.com/practices/the.htm



"Unfortunately, no traces of the original library at Alexandria remain. The
story of what happened to it is shrouded in legend and controversy. A
well-known and controversial theory is that the library was burned to the
ground by Julius Caesar in 48 B.C. when, according to some accounts, he set
fire to an enemy fleet and inadvertently burned the library too. There is
also a disputed legend that says Mark Antony presented Cleopatra with
200,000 scrolls from another library as a gift to help replace the lost
works.Some chroniclers say that in the fourth century A.D., after
Christianity had become the state religion, Theophilus I, the bishop of
Alexandria, spurred his followers to destroy the pagan temple that housed
the daughter library. Others, however, argue that the books might have been
removed or sold.

The upwelling of anti-pagan fervor culminates in the role of Hypatia, a
fifth-century mathematician and philosopher whose father had taught
mathematics at the school associated with the library. The glamorous and
intellectual Hypatia earned the enmity of Bishop Cyril, leader of the
Christian church. Some say Cyril had a mob attack and kill her in 415 A.D.
Other sources claim she was flayed and thrown on a pile of burning pagan
books. Still other accounts have Hypatia peeled to death with oyster shells
or stabbed with pieces of pottery. A final legend surrounding the library of
Alexandria comes with the arrival of the Arabs in the middle of the seventh
century A.D. Supposedly the invading Arabs destroyed the books because they
believed everything true or useful to be contained in the Koran, but this
legend is likely an anti-Arab fabrication from the time of the Crusades.

The truth behind the loss of the library of Alexandria may be less dramatic
than the stories that swirl around it. It is possible that the scrolls
simply disintegrated, or that they fell out of fashion with the advent of
vellum to replace papyrus. It is possible that other centers of learning
such as Constantinople replaced the primacy of the library at Alexandria.
According to Canfora, it was hard to preserve books in large urban libraries
that were prone to being attacked, and the safest locations for books were
more remote places such as monasteries and private collections.
Mystery, melodrama, reversal, and renewal by Jane C. McFann, Reading Today
February/March 2002
http://www.reading.org/publications/rty/archives/ancient_library.html


"The surprising thing is not that some books got burned in the conflict
between moribund
paganism and nascent Christianity, but that the burned books
were so few. When early Christianity had to fight for its life
and when it found obnoxious matter in so much of the pagan
literature, it really exercised great tolerance in destroying few
books except those that contained heresies or frontal attacks
upon itself."
"Books for the Burning" Clarence A. Forbes University of Nebraska, American
Philological Society 67 (1936), pp.114-25.
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/forbes_books_for_the_burning.htm
(This article cites the known cases of books intentionally burned with no
mention of the Library of Alexandria).

This post has focussed on the myth of the Christian burning of the Library
of Alexandria. It has not dealt substantially with the equally erroneous
myth that the early church generally destroyed the literary heritage of the
Classical world, which I may examine in another post.

So what is the source of this myth? There are some fragmentary and
contradictory early sources but several writers have pointed to Edward
Gibbon as the main originator of the legend in its current manifestation.

'Gibbon, who otherwise presents such an evocative picture of the destruction
of the Temple of Serapis, is mistaken when he says (XXVIII) that "The
valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed" by Theophilus,
whom he characterizes as "the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold,
bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold, and with blood."
That the temple did have a library is related by Ammianus, as well as by
Epiphanius, who, writing in AD 392, speaks of a second library "in the
Serapeum, called its daughter." But there is no support for the presumption
that it was destroyed at the same time as the temple or even that it still
existed by then.'
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/serapeum.ht
ml

But probably the most influential piece on which the legend depends is a
speech given to the Independent Religious Society in Chicago and published
by "The Rationalist" in May 1915 by Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian entitled
"The Martyrdom of Hypatia (or The Death of the Classical World)". It is a
piece of over-heated and vitriolic anti-Christian polemic that has set the
standard for the myth that gets promulgated all over the web by the
advocates of "reason" and "free thought".

The full text of this article can be read here and on a number of pagan and
rationalist (!) sites.
"A bit overwrought" is the assessment of one of this article's admirers:

The Martyrdom of Hypatia (or The Death of the Classical World)
by Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian
http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Hypatia/Mangasarian.html



I post this piece, and others like it, because it is "de rigueur" among many
of the opponents of Christianity and ID to claim that Christians are liars,
uneducated, stupid, ignorant, back woods yokels, misquoters of sources,
misrepresenters of facts, lacking in intelligence and reasoning ability,
flat-earthers, book-burners, controlled by the ideas of others - and a huge
list of other insulting and offensive slanders.

"Religion takes gullible people and makes them stupid, small-minded,
bigoted, and ignorant... and no less gullible."
http://www.kilnet.org/fragrant.html And he should know a stupid,
small-minded, ignorant gullible bigot when he sees one...

As demonstrated by the morally upright and intellectually superior statement
above when I turn to many of the comments and websites of their opponents I
see the very same and more - abusive language and profanity, libellous
insults, poor spelling and grammar and adolescent anti-Christian ravings all
thrown together in a mish-mash of repeated "sound bites", sophomoric slogans
and embarrassingly ignorant mythologising. Now if the assessment is true
about some Christians - who can't help it according to the enlightened
mindset of the free thinkers - then why is it so prevalent among the
supposedly educated intellectual giants of rationalism who spew forth their
venom all over the Net? If some Christians or creationists publish myths
on the Net because they are "liars, uneducated, stupid, etc." what excuse is
there for the enormous - and I mean enormous - amount of fabrication,
half-truth, old wives tales and myth that appear on many anti-ID, atheist
and "free thought" sites?

So what really happened to the great Library?

"Whatever the truth, the Great Library, wrapped in myths and legend, has
come to epitomize the ideal of free thought and independent scholarship.
'One ghostly image haunts all of us charged with preserving the creative
heritage of humanity: the specter of the great, lost Library of Alexandria,'
said James H. Billington, the US. Librarian of Congress, in a 1993 speech."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0806_wirelibrary.html

Forget the facts, what matters is the myth, the legend, the ideal...the lie


Mark Gosling

from
CED
this is Stephen Jones talking, moderator of the group.
permission to copy has been given, provided backlink as done above is maintained...
-----------------PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN EXTENDED QUOTE IT IS NOT MY WRITING------------------



The "essence of idolatry" is "severing of the world from God", which is
what "those who cannot discern God's action in the world", to whom "the
world is a self-contained, self-sufficient, self-explanatory, self-ordering
system" in which "they view themselves as autonomous and the world as
independent of God":

"Throughout Scripture the fundamental divide separating humans is
between those who can discern God's action in the world and those
who are blind to it. Those who can discern God's action in the
world that Scripture calls "spiritual"; those who cannot, Scripture
calls "natural" or "soulish."' For those who cannot discern God's
action in the world, the world is a self-contained, self-sufficient,
self-explanatory, self-ordering system. Consequently they view
themselves as autonomous and the world as independent of God.
This severing of the world from God is the essence of idolatry and
is in the end always what keeps us from knowing God. Severing the
world from God, or alternatively viewing the world as nature, is the
essence of humanity's fall." (Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design:
The Bridge Between Science and Theology," InterVarsity Press:
Downers Grove IL, 1999, p.99).

"Naturalism leads irresistibly to idolatry" because "idolatry is ...
investing the world with a significance it does not deserve":

"Naturalism leads irresistibly to idolatry. As we read Scripture
today, we often wonder at all the excitement about idols and graven
images. Idolatry is uniformly condemned in the Old Testament, and
yet we are less horrified than amused at the idol makers who
fashion an idol from a piece of rock or wood and bow down before
it. It all seems rather ludicrous to us enlightened Westerners. If we
speak about idols at all these days, we speak of money, reputation
and power. But these are not properly speaking idols. They can
become idols, but in themselves they are not idols. Although in
ancient times graven images were the most obvious sign of idolatry,
idolatry is not so much a matter of investing any particular object
with extraordinary significance. Rather it is a matter of investing the
world with a significance it does not deserve. We need to ask our
selves why anyone would want to worship a material object in the
first place. The ancients certainly knew as well as we that a carved
figure by itself holds no special significance. What is significant
about a graven image is not the image itself but what it signifies.
Some images in the East, for instance, are hollow on the inside and
have a hole so that the reality signified by the image may enter the
image and thus become the proper object of worship for the
worshiper. Similarly in making a golden calf for the Israelites and
claiming that here were Israel's gods that had led them out of
Egypt, Aaron was not attributing to this chunk of metal any special
power." (Dembski, 1999, p.101).

"Idolatry is always a denial of the Creator, for it sets the creation above the
Creator":

"The problem is that all our images can signify only other things in
creation and not the One who gave creation its being in the first
place. A graven image signifies something else in the world, some
power, some influence, some favor that the worshiper wants to tap
into. The tacit assumption here is that what needs to be tapped into
is part of the world, not the God who created the world in the first
place. Idolatry is always a denial of the Creator, for it sets the
creation above the Creator and thereby transforms creation into
nature." (Dembski, 1999, p.102).

"idolatry ... is *foolishness*:

"The Bible uses many words and images to characterize idolatry,
but the most apt is *foolishness*. What can be more foolish than to
elevate what is second best to what is best? It's like preferring the
publisher of Shakespeare to Shakespeare himself. It's like preferring
golden eggs to the goose that lays the golden eggs. Because the
creation is so marvelous, it is easy to understand why we become
enamored of it. But as Maximus the Confessor reminds us in his
Four Centuries on Love, "If the creation is so marvelous, how
much more marvelous, is the one who created it?" The creation is
good and even very good. But it is not best. God is best. In fact,
God so far surpasses what is second best that giving anything
eminence comparable to God is simply outrageous." (Dembski,
1999, p.103. Emphasis in original).

"Naturalism['s] ... key tenet is the self-sufficiency of nature; it "affirms
not
so much that God does not exist as that God need not exist"; "the dyed-in-
the-wool naturalist" is therefore, from the Bible's perspective, an idolater,
who has "praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and
stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know", in preference to "the God in
whose hand" his "breath is, and ... all" his/her "ways":

"Naturalism is in the air we breathe. It pervades our cultural
atmosphere. We see it whenever the mysteries of the faith are
ridiculed. We see it whenever a PBS nature program credits nature
for some object of wonder instead of God. ... We see it, alas,
whenever we forget God and worship the creature more than the
Creator. ... Within Western culture, naturalism has become the
default position for all serious inquiry. From biblical studies to law
to education to science to the arts, inquiry is allowed to proceed
only under the supposition that nature is self-contained. To be sure,
this is not to require that we explicitly deny God's existence. God
could, after all, have created the world to be self-contained.
Nonetheless for the sake of inquiry we are required to pretend that
God does not exist and proceed accordingly. Naturalism affirms not
so much that God does not exist as that God need not exist. It's not
that God is dead so much as that God is absent. And because God
is absent, intellectual honesty demands that we get about our work
without invoking him. This is the received wisdom.... Naturalism is
an ideology. Its key tenet is the self-sufficiency of nature. Within
Western culture its most virulent form is known as scientific
naturalism. Scientific naturalism locates the self-sufficiency of nature
in the natural laws of science. Accordingly scientific naturalism
would have us to understand the universe entirely in terms of such
laws. Thus in particular, since human beings are a part of the
universe, who we are and what we do must ultimately be
understood in naturalistic terms; This is not to deny our humanity.
But it is to reinterpret our humanity as the consequence of brute
material processes that were not consciously aiming at us. Nor is
this to deny God. But it is to affirm that if God exists, he was
marvelously adept at covering his tracks and giving no evidence
that he ever interacted with the world. To be sure, there is no
logical contradiction for the scientific naturalist to affirm God's
existence, but this can be done only by making God a superfluous
rider on top of a self-contained account of the world. ... Theists
know that naturalism is false. Nature is not self-sufficient. God
created nature as well as any laws by which nature operates. Not
only has God created the world, but God upholds the world
moment by moment. Daniel's words to Belshazzar hold equally for
the dyed-in-the-wool naturalist: 'Thou hast praised the gods of
silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor
hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and
whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified" (Daniel 5:23 KJV)."
(Dembski, 1999, pp.103-104. Emphasis in original)

Note the "we". Dembski (and I) recognise that "Naturalism is in the air we"
(including Christians in Western societies) breathe" and so it is largely
unrecognised even by most Christians. I know that I personally have had
to work hard at first recognising, and then eradicating, naturalistic ways
of thinking that I had simply absorbed through the "cultural atmosphere"
I grew up in.

"Naturalism is idolatry by another name" because "it assigns ultimate value
to" nature:

"This is why idolatry-worshiping the creation rather than the
Creator-is so completely backwards, for it assigns ultimate value to
something that is inherently incapable of achieving ultimate value.
Creation, especially a fallen creation can at best reflect God's glory.
Idolatry, on the other hand contends that creation fully
comprehends God's glory. Idolatry turns the creation into the
ultimate reality. We've seen this before. It is called naturalism. No
doubt, contemporary scientific naturalism is a lot more
sophisticated than pagan fertility cults, but the difference is
superficial. Naturalism is idolatry by another name." (Dembski,
1999, p.226)

jesus journal

_meaning of creation_ by conrad hyers

my review posted to amazon---

5 of 5 stars
towards a exegetical solution in the creation evolution mess
February 9, 2003
it is one of those drop everything and read now type of books. very
much appropriate to a discussion of gen 1 and 2, and the extended
discussion of creation evolution, with attention to the relationship
of religion and science.

his thesis is that the first two chapters of genesis are polemic
against the neighboring cultures of the hebrews. simply put genesis
has nothing to do with modern science at all. we impose our catagories
of thought, but more importantly we impose what we want to hear onto
these chapters.

just a few quotes will help:
it is quite doubtful that these texts have waited in obscurity through
the millennia for their hidden meanings to be revealed by modern
science. it is at least a good possibility that the "real meaning" was
understood by the authors themselves. pg 3

and in response to henry morris who wrote "the creation account is
clear, definite, sequential and matter-of-fact, giving every
appearance of straightforward historical narrative"

---hyers writes on pg 23 "this may indeed be the way things appear to
certain modern interpreters at considerable remove from the context in
which the texts were written, living in an age so dominated by
scientific and historical modes of thought. It may also be the way
things appear to those for whom modern science and historiography
offer the criteria by which religious statements are to be understood
and judged to be true or false. Yet it is by no means obvious that
this represents the literary form or religious concern of the Genesis
writers"

the problem of the debate over origins from genesis is like pogo said
in the widely quoted cartoon "we have met the enemy and he is US".
the reason we have so much smoke over genesis is that we forgot the
first rule of hermenutics. approach the text as the first readers did,
with their assumptions, their world and life view. with the issues
they were interested in understanding in the forefront. NOT OURS. the
extension of scripture to all times and ages is done after this
culture and historic criticism. not before.

therefore genesis is a religious not a scientific document addressed
to the questions of that time. polytheism, and sacralization of the
physical world. this is in alignment with _battle for god_ by karen
armstrong and her analysis of logos and mythos. our problem is that we
so depreciate mythos as being NOT TRUE that we very much miss the
point of the first two chapters of Genesis....

------------------------end of my quote---------------------------

and two pieces from boar's Head tavern at
http://www.internetmonk.com/blogger.htm



The Meaning of Creation by Conrad Hyers (John Knox Press) This is a
Grand Slam. A book I underlined till the pages were ripped. Here is a
review. I could not agree more BUY THIS BOOK!

"Probably the finest book ever written on this topic. Hyers points out
the hermeneutical dilemmas associated with the reading of the Genesis
creation accounts. The Creation/Evolution controversy should never
have arrived at a scientific level, and Hyers wants his audience to
understand why. This well written work separates itself from the
hodgepodge of works that have come out the past several years
attempting to integrate theology and science. Hyers' work does not add
another trumpet to that redundant performance. Rather, he looks at the
literary genre and how it is being violated by the literalists. He
also examines how our modern literalistic culture places a harmful
interpretive shade over our eyes as we read ancient texts written
during a time rich with allegory. And he explains the neglect of
authorial intent in the Genesis creation accounts--texts which appear
to be more of a response to one or both of the ancient cosmologies
neighboring the Hebrews. Hyers is sensitive to those who cling to
traditional interpretations of the creation accounts in Genesis, and
is careful not to insult the intelligence of anyone. Hyers is a
conservative theologian, but his definition of conservative is to
conserve the original meaning of the text, as opposed to conserving a
traditional interpretation of the text."

and two links to conrad hyers' essays:
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/literalism.htm
http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1031

---------------------end of quote----------------------------------

i actually found the book while researching how to reply to AiG's
arguments about Genesis. It was perhaps the 3 or 4th commentary on
Genesis that i read specially for this issue.

its short, well written, only slightly liberal/JPD-based. if you
really want to get a hold of what the not-YEC not-AiG are saying this
is the best(imho) book to start with.


richard williams

richard williams.................... thinkcreation2002@y...
http://fastucson.net/~rmwillia ......creation evolution homepage
http://rmwilliamsjr.blogspot.com ....blog
http://myhq.com/public/t/h/thinkcreation ...sorted CED bookmark list
http://myhq.com/public/r/w/rwilliam ........unsorted CURRENT bookmark list

working on a new yahoo discussion group. blessingsyou. got here from a message on apologetics about the constantine's synthesis.

-----------------------------
--- In blessingyou@yahoogroups.com, "martnluther " wrote:
snip snip
> Secular movements are flawed and we judge them by the gospel.
> However, secular movements are also used by God to accomplish his
> purposes and we judge and praise them by the gospel.
>
>
snip snip, trying to isolate one line of thought....



this looks to be a good synopsis of your position.
that is the judgement of God upon secular movements, including political ones, 1-done to further God's purposes 2-done in order to further the godly line(Abraham in OT. Christians in NT) 3-our criteria for judging these movements is to be the gospel.


i dont have a problem with principles like this at all. they appear to be straightforward and Biblical. My problem is with "how close" does the Church or Christians get to movements. "How close" does theology begin to intertwine with particular cultural or political movements?

my first big issue in Christianity was theonomy, now called reconstructionist or dominion theology. It is divisive in the churches we attend. in fact, it has like creation been a object of a study committee in the PCA, although not nearly as divisive as YEC's. So most of my thinking on the issue is really a long running discussion with Rushdoony, North, Bahnsen etc..

Plus as you can see from my post at apologetics.com i have had a long history of struggle with racism and my unconquered unvanquished Southern roots. It is their, the christian identity, the very right wing southerners that i think of as the ultimate intertwining of culture and the faith. completely unable to extricate themselves from the union(no pun intended).

so i have deep and long standing issues on the topic of nationalistic movements as it is currently being worded. your postings show a much milder form of the syncretism that i label as constantine's heresy, the alignment of Christianity with power rather than with powerlessness and poverty as it was for 300 years, and is by its(Christianity's) very nature. and if it boils down to the few principles i drew out of your postings, then i have no real argument with your position.

on the problem of seeing ourselves as others do.

my experience in china, where everyone stares, has me often coming back to the thought of seeing ourselves as others do.

our self images are apparently fixed sometime near the end of puberty, 16-19. we carry that outdated image inside our heads for the rest of our life. seldom modifying it, seldom really challenging it.

but i am aware of a part of me that strives for recognition from others. i can see in my emotions as i read a response to my messages on discussion groups, where i am please to be supported, downcast to be challenged, especially when they are right, and i wrong.

but most of all, i think about china. all heads turn. you literally leave a wake of people talking about you where ever you go. it is enough to cause some people to not go out, to be so shy, that they miss the experience of china by staying inside.

that summer i walked so much in china, was the only time i managed to loose weight, with mom's death just 2 weeks after i got back, i lost the ground i had gained so sacrifically there. it is time to regain the initiciative against my overweight, and remember the lessons of china. try to use the social pressure i felt then to work with my desires.

philosophy games link
take the test!!

posting at apologetics.com in response to a question about how should a christian approach nationalism


i look on constantine as one of the truely wrong synthesis or syncetisms that the church has undergone in its 2000 years of involvement in this world

my studies of the issue revolve around the radical reformation and its denial of the doctrine of 'corpus christianum' or the idea that the body of Christ existed in the physical communities of europe. of particular help was _The Reformers and Their Stepchildren_, by Leonard Verduin.

as such i think that the ideas of the historical peace churches are more biblical and christian than those of the reformed like presbyterian on this issue. following augustine and the doctrine of the two swords the reformed churches did not challenge this false idea of the unity of the church and state. either in the reformation nor in the subsequent nearly 500 years.

it was in the historical analysis of christianity in america that the separation of church and state arose, mostly as a compromise not to allow any particular sect alignment with political power. this was more pragmatic than the spiritual analysis of the anabaptist churches, but a step in the right direction.

i think the final step is to understand that political power is a necessary evil. to be very careful not to confuse spiritual and political domains, example is national flags in churches. for our citizenship is in heaven, not in this world where we are strangers in a strange land, finding it impossible to sing the songs of a political nature when they ask for an allegience we owe only to Christ and His kingdom yet to come.

one of the places we can watch these things work out will be in the burgeoning churches in africa, south america and asia where they will have to come to grips with the legacy of colonialism and its unique confusion of political power from the barrel of a gun and the spiritual power of a christianity that worked hand in glove with the colonial powers
. i think liberation theology is just the beginning of such re-theologizing.

thanks for listening.
richard williams

mr rogers died today.
i'm seeing more references to it as i read through blogs and emails.
lots of people greatly respected him.

alma's mom watched his show every day she was here.
it was one of the few things she really wanted to do.

i even teased her the days she missed it, that mr rogers emailed me that she wasnt watching. it really hurt the ratings for the over 80 watching group. i'm not sure she understood that i was joking.....

one thing i have often heard from old folks is that all their friends have died, and that all they do is go to funerals (remember the movie where to 2 old ladies go out to funerals on weds? took place in scotland i think)

hope mom clark hears he died, nicely. it will hurt her.

--- In CreationEvolutionDesign@yahoogroups.com, "richard williams
" wrote:
> i know Stephen is working on the rules of this discussion group.
>
> i went looking for examples of book group or discussion group rules:
>
> found this
> http://www.internetmonk.com/rules.htm
>
>
> i really do take myself too seriously at times.
> therefore i will read this group daily as an antidote.
>
> richard williams

sorry i forgot Stephen's rule that message ought to contain more than
the URL. and contain some discussion of the item....

therefore since it is short---

quote

Posting Guidelines for the Boar's Head Tavern



1. It's a good place. Make it better and we'll like you.
2. Persons requesting to be added to the blog will be asked to
submit a personal/theological/vocational bio to me. You also can
expect to wait a few days to get on.
3. If you are a legalist or a sensitive type, you are probably not
going to be very happy here, because there is a lot of humor, ranting
and skewering of various targets, so if you are looking for the
typical Christian discussion area, I would move on. Seriously.
4. All points of view are hanging around here somewhere, so if
sounds like it's all a bunch of men or Calvinists or Republicans or
worship traditionalists or ______________ or Oprah fans (!!) don't be
fooled and post something you'll regret. There is actually quite a bit
of diversity on here. Baptists. Pentecostals. Catholics. The
uncategorized.
5. People really do read this. I mean LOTS of people, so before you
post it, think about it.
6. People's feelings can get hurt (though we might hate to admit
it.) And it usually happens because you are upset that someone holds a
different opinion than you, or you forget that discussing opinions
doesn't involve making personal judgments about people you only know
on the other side of a monitor.
7. We basically accept the Christian profession of anyone who says
they are a Christian, and I will delete anyone who decides to question
that in the course of a post, based upon a disagreement over
legitimate issues.
8. Please do a reasonably brief bio on yourself when you start
posting regularly, and if there is something we need to know in under
to not run you over, please tell us. I mean, if you are a midget, and
you don't mind the risk that midget jokes will one day appear on the
blog, then keep it a secret. But if your short status is an emotional
issue with you and could cause hard feelings, please let us know.
Either at the beginning, or when appropriate.
9. If you join, I will list your email addy on the page while you
are an active poster unless you tell me not to do so.
10. It ranges from the serious to the trivial, sometimes the really
serious and sometimes the extremely trivial. If you assume it will
always be one thing or another, you will be wrong.
11. I'm no prude, but keep the language and humor pg-13 please. It's
mostly boys and we tend to act like it.
12. Try to start posts with the name of the person to whom you are
responding. (And it's MATTHEW, not Matt.) If you have a nickname you
prefer, tell us and we'll use it.
13. If you make a statement of reality or fact, it is perfectly
fair- and not rude- to ask you to produce some credible evidence that
backs you up. That is particularly appropriate when claims about
individuals are made. Ex: Luther and Calvin believed in the perpetual
virginity of Mary. Ken said it, I asked for references. He came up
with them. I was wrong. Imagine that.
14. If you are a liberal or a big fan of TBN or overly enamored of
your own opinions it may occasionally get ugly, and if you read the
stuff on Internetmonk.com you won't be surprised at what may be said.
(If you haven't read the main site, you might do so before falling
into the fray. We welcome all points of view, but it can get pretty
lively.)
15. Don't take all the alcohol discussion too seriously.
16. We cannot discuss the War Between the States. We've proven it,
so remember, I warned you.
17. Please be careful with blogger when posting pictures, sounds or
wild html tricks. I will delete all pictures within 24 hours unless I
don't
18. If you don't post for two weeks, I will probably take you off
the list. I think Blogger gets buggy with too many posters. Just write
me and I'll put you back. (Ask Rob...really!)
19. There are some points of view so offensive even I don't want to
listen to them. So if you become so obnoxious no one wants to post
anymore, I'll show you the door, but I'll warn you first. Maybe.
20. Members of BHT are encouraged to use the e-mail directory to
admonish one another. IOW, if you have a gripe about someone else,
tell them, not just me. Lurkers- that goes for you to.
21. Don't sell anything on here unless you ask me and I say OK.
22. If you really liked the Left Behind Books, I am happy for you.
Really. But that's just one example of things lots of people are into
that I'm really not into, so be forewarned. Others: Jabez. TBN.
Revivals. Invitationalism. CCM. P&W.
23. Really long posts are tolerated. But there are limits to the
human attention span, and many readers will not read long posts. After
a while they conclude you have nothing interesting to say.
24. Don't repeat yourself unless your mind is going and you can't
help it.
25. One word: Spelling. OK- I know I'm not perfect, but try, OK?
26. On the infamous DEAD HORSE (Heated discussion of Calvinism vs.
Arminianism). There seems to be some evidence that extensive
discussion of the topic may be discouraging other discussion and
participation on the blog. As the PRIMARY OFFENDER, I (MSpencer) take
full responsibility for this problem. But, hey, it's my nickel.
Anyway, some further rule regarding this MAY be forthcoming. At
present, let me mildly admonish all of us to remember that we've
covered a lot of ground here. NEW POSTERS: Let me please admonish you
NOT to try and cover this topic as if it hasn't been covered. We have
pretty much ridden the horse till it dropped. We've heard it all.
Several times and no one has changed their mind.
27. The CALVINISTS are right.
28. I am waiting for the tithes and offerings to start arriving.

end quote.


like the author(s) i am a self-conscious calvinist.
rules 26 and 27 are HILARIOUS, he even has a dead horse link to those
conversations.....


so what does this have to do with the discussion of Creation Evolution
Design. fundamental rule #1?

when discussing serious topics with great intellectual concentration
we forget to laugh. at ourselves and at our most precious and sacred,
heart felt principles.

i've spend almost every waking hour on the topic for several months
now. my to be read reading pile is now housed in 5 32 gallon plastic
tubs. i am further behind then when i started. but you know what....

these rules reminded me to laugh...


richard williams
http://fastucson.net/~rmwillia

a series of messages i wrote on science apologetics


> > reason: is it from God? does God reason in much the same way that
we
> > do? more specifically; is our logic something derived from creation
> or
> > something we impose onto a "unreasoning/unreasonable" creation?
> >
>
> I would like to see you develop these ideas a little more. I do not
> necessarily see a link between humans creating reason and creation
> being unreasonable. In other words, if God has revealed an orderly
> creation to us, then we may be able to impose our rules on to the
> observed creation in order to describe what we observe. As the
> observed creation obviously isn't entirely orderly, this can be done
> with a disordered universe as well.
>
snip snip...

i quess i start with:
i am impressed at the ability of science to capture some very amazing
things about the universe.
there seems to be no reason why, at very significant levels, the
universe is 'understandable' 'pervious to' 'amiable to' our 'reason'
'rationality' 'technic of science'.

i think that is where i start the train of thought. why does science
not just work, but capture some essential essence of the universe?
it is a little like the wonder i have when math, invented simply as an
intellectual exercise, finds application years after the original
theory was laid down.

now from a Christian perspective, that a reasonable God created the
universe, so that it reflects some of His attributes like reason,
consistency, it is explainable maybe even expected that science would
achieve such simple yet widely applicable theories.

but modern science is secular, it doesnt have a Christian perspective
on the universe like this, maybe the argument could be made that
science derived from a Christian world and life view, and as a result
has this idea of the reasonableness of the universe, but i dont think
this is a fruitful way of looking at it. rather i see modern physics
propose a universe of structure but not necessarily one corresponding
to human reason or rationality. i think leading edge researchers are
surprised and awed that their theories seem to capture something real
out there in a particularly beautiful way.

i think we make working assumptions about being able to manipulate the
things out there. assumptions like 'there are no demons in the world
that will punish us for looking too closely at them' (desacralization)
but i dont believe a high order assumption that the universe is
rational or reason 'all the way down' is a necessary assumption in
modern science.

but in the observer observed relationship, we need to look at our own
reason or rationality as well. and that is problematic, both from a
scientific evolutionary view and from a traditional Christian
viewpoint.

but to keep the discussion managable perhaps we ought to bite off just
the piece "is the universe reasonable ? " first.


Subject: Re: is faith rational?


snip snip, trying to isolate one line of thought.
>
> > if on the other hand, we do reason analogously to God, this reason
> > does try to reach God but can not due to the effects of sin, then
> God
> > can heal the effects and reason can "comprehend" God in some way.
> > faith in this scheme becomes the right reason beyond human reason.
> not
> > something contrary to reason, but something that fixs broken sinful
> > reason.
> > i believe to put the gap between faith and reason is dangerous, it
> > readily leads to things that i do not wish to say. on the otherhand
> > putting the two-faith and reason on the one side of a great divide
> and
> > putting unregenerate reason without faith on the other side fits
the
> > pieces better.
> >
>
> This is interesting because I think equating faith and reason is like
> equating black and white. Faith and reason are opposites. Why not
> just call them both reason? Or why not just call them both faith?
> Are they this synonymous? No! I think we have different words for
> them because they are very different things. I see them as different
> as black and white. Why try to marry these two concepts when they
> describe completely different methods of viewing truth? Ultimately,
> faith is believing things for which you have no evidence; no
> underlying principle supports faith based statements. Reason,
> although impossible to do without faith in axioms, allows one to
> build arguments on the axiomatic principles.
>
> So why do faith and reason belong on the same side of the great
> divide?
>
> tk


i think we are defining reason in similar ways. a particular type of
thought, bounded by certain ways of operating. i often use it in the
same way i use rationality, the whole complex of inductive, deductive,
facts, definitions etc.

i think what is important in reason is the 'steps', analogously to a
simple geometric proof. how is it that we accept the reasonableness of
a stepwise proof? in some deep way we share a set of axioms and the
ways we can handle them, the proof convinces us of its truthfulness,
or its reasonableness by reference to this logical system. what i am
interested in is this 'convincing' activity.

when i started the learning curve on creation-evolution last sept, one
of the first big articles i read was a paper on pseudogenes. what is
important is that it convinced me that humans and chimps shared a
common ancestor. what happens in some way is that we accept a body of
logic, theories, reasonableness; from this we draw 'reasonable'
conclusions, a process of being convinced.

i imagine faith is similar, what is different is the system that
surrounds us as we are involved in the process of being convinced. its
axioms, facts, etc are analogous to reason's but they are different.
In a historical faith like Christianity, part of faith's system is the
rational system. faith looks like something on top of, in addition to
rationality, rather that being opposed to it.

that is why your statement "faith is believing things for which you
have no evidence" is something i would question. for i look at faith
not as something i believe despite the evidence but rather something i
believe in addition to the evidence. faith is like a additional level
of certainity that you add to just not quite enough.

maybe a law analogy would help clarify my thoughts here.

we have introduced different burdens of proof.
fundamentally because we recognize that evidence and convincing are
probability based.

civil trials have something like preponderance. like 51% is good
enough.
criminal have something called, 'beyond reasonable doubt", maybe we
set a level of 95%+

faith essential takes a 'beyond reasonable doubt and makes it certain.
or maybe takes preponderance and makes it 'beyond reasonable doubt'
depending on the topic. when we are unable to reasonable move up the
limits yet we think in order to operate we need the next level of
certainity, then faith jumps in an pushes the topic up a level.



Subject: is faith rational?

i've been trying to work out an example of how faith builds on reason
not opposed to it.

i think the resurrection of Jesus is the key element of Christian
theology. i believe to have faith in the resurrection is not contrary
to reason thus:

we have reasonable testimony from eyewitnesses.
just because i have never seen anyone rise from the dead, as an
inductive proof, it is possible to believe that someone did. the
reasons would be supernatural, the why and how, of the resurrection.
but unlike science, theology is certainly not limited to naturalist
reasons.
as a matter of a bigger circle of previous knowledge the Scriptures
provide all kinds of supporting evidence, prophecy, consistent
interpretation etc.


now take another possible resurrection scene.
rather than a crucifixion, say Jesus was excecuted by chopping off
His head like the Chinese did in the same time frame. and that the
Gospels futhermore have Jesus returning from the dead with His head
in his hands. this is contrary to beliefs that it is required to have
your central nervous system intact to live. likewise you could
imagine the head talking, this contradicts the need for air to
originate in the lungs and be pushed past the vocal cords to make the
words. this in a real way is contrary to reason. to believe this i
would have to have faith despite reason. while in the actual
resurrection i believe because of the evidence. i see a significance
difference between the two.

richard williams

what's at stake? and is creationism especially YEC the best or right way to defend it?
------------------------------------------------------------
from the following long quote from Miller:
" Morris had been unable to answer the geological data on the earth's age I had presented the night before, and it had badly damaged his credibil­ity with the audience. Nonetheless, he looked me straight in the eyes. "Ken, you're intelligent, you're well-meaning, and you're energetic. But you are also young, and you don't realize what's at stake. In a question of such importance, scientific data aren't the ultimate authority. Even you know that science is wrong sometimes."


This is the slippery slope to unbelief argument that has so occupied my mind for the last few months.

The God revealed to us through the Scriptures is real, and He really created the universe. Now if at this point in time it looks as if the entire edifice of science is going to prove that religion is just a module in our evolutionarily designed brains, and that belief in God will soon, like belief in dwarves, and pixies be looked at as a mental problem. That does not change the nature of the universe. What we believe doesn't effect the world, it effects our activities in the world, but it doesnt change the world at all. If this is Gods' world, then no matter what current scientific thinking is, or how it explains away God, that edifice that science builds doesnt in any way change the facts about the world, only how people think about those facts.

that is why a fundamental scientific mindset tempered by the knowledge that God has revealed in Scripture things that are not shown to us in nature, the love and justice that revolves around Jesus,
is not ultimately afraid of science, despite its growing scientism. Morris expressed a fear that on a very low level, the age of the earth and of the universe, that science necessarily is wrong because to believe in an old earth is to challenge the fundamental Biblical believes he holds so valuable.

But scientism is wrong first on its metaphysical level, it is building idols to replace the Biblical God with. It is a system in competition with traditional theism. Furthermore it has made some good sound Biblically derived ideas fundamental and central to its vision of man and the world we inhabit. Foremost is the idea that the universe is desacralized, the creation is not God, and the subsequent understanding that it is good for Man to investigate and understand this world we find ourselves within.

As Christians we understand that creation is not God, that it was created good but because of our sinfulness it is fallen and is not longer good in very significant ways. But more importantly we realized that we are not good, that our minds are not clear but clouded. That our reason is not a good or fair judge of the evidence but it is in fact in rebellion towards God, justifying that rebellion by and with the elements it pulls from the world and presents as evidence that there is no God. Science even as a methodology, even as a technic of observation and explanation does not have clean hands in the debate about God, but rather will share with unregenerate man the desire to slay God and make Him irrelevant to the entire conversation of modern science. So in significant ways i end up agreeing with A. Kuyper that there are two sciences, regenerate and unregenerate which from the examination of the smallest fact, to the expounding of the grandest theory of everything are at odds because they worship different Gods.

Science is wrong from the top down, it is not as easy a proposition that to believe in a young earth. To hold to faith despite the facts. What i am calling an unreasonable faith versus a faithful reason. It is to look like modern science from the outside, to believe in an old universe, that God uses evolution to create, to look to many Christians as if you have abandoned the faith. When in fact, you are agreeing with the secularist, materialist, naturalist, evolutionist etc from the facts up, but not the metaphysics, not the religion. And now the real work needs to begin, how to go back over those facts and demonstrate that having a different metaphysics changes even what appears as a brute fact into an interpreted fact that supports the Biblical God.

This will be a much more difficult science than creation science ever aspired to be, For it means not to distance yourself from a mortal enemy in scientism, but to live intimately with it. Intertwined with the work of science, looking to be indistinguishable, open to every attack from the brethren as being compromisers, collaborationists. In order that you understand not just the science as well as do the secularist but that you have another whole field to master, theology. To then start the process of rebuilding science with Biblical presuppositions, with a Godly metaphysics.

It is rather more easy to just put your foot down, here i stand on a 6000 year old earth, i can do no other, God so help me. Then to take a longer view that this is God's world, and rightly guided science will support theism, will support much of the Scriptures. The problem is that man is in rebellion towards the God of this universe and he will always try to substitute worship of the creation for righteous worship of The Creator. We may play the same tune on the bandwagon of science as do the secularist, but we play for a different reason, and for a different audience.

this is a long extract from keith miller's book _finding darwin's god_ p 172-173
----------------------------------------------------------------
Are such opponents of evolution sincere? Several years ago, I was invited to Tampa, Florida, to debate the issue of evolution with Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research and one of the most influential of the young-earth creationists. The debate had been occa­sioned by the passage of a curriculum mandating the inclusion of so-called creation science in high school biology. In front of a large audience, I ham­mered Morris repeatedly with the many errors of "flood geology" and did my best to show the enormous weight of scientific evidence behind evolu­tion. One never knows how such a debate goes, but the local science teach­ers in attendance were jubilant that I scored a scientific victory.17

As luck would have it, the organizers of this event had booked rooms for both Dr. Morris and myself in a local motel. When I walked into the coffee shop the next morning, I noticed Morris at a table by himself fin­ishing breakfast. Flushed with confidence from the debate, I asked if I might join him. The elderly Morris was a bit shaken, but he agreed. I ordered a nice breakfast, and then got right to the point. "Do you actually believe all this stuff?"

I suppose I might have expected a wink and a nod. We had both been paid for our debate appearances, and perhaps I expected him to acknowledge that he made a pretty good living from the creation business. He did nothing of the sort. Henry Morris made it clear to me that he believed everything he had said the night before. "But Dr. Morris, so much of what you argued is wrong, starting with the age of the earth!" Morris had been unable to answer the geological data on the earth's age I had presented the night before, and it had badly damaged his credibil­ity with the audience. Nonetheless, he looked me straight in the eyes. "Ken, you're intelligent, you're well-meaning, and you're energetic. But you are also young, and you don't realize what's at stake. In a question of such importance, scientific data aren't the ultimate authority. Even you know that science is wrong sometimes."

Indeed I did. Morris continued so that I could get a feeling for what that ultimate authority was. "Scripture tells us what the right conclusion is. And if science, momentarily, doesn't agree with it, then we have to keep work­ing until we get the right answer. But I have no doubts as to what that answer will be." Morris then excused himself, and I was left to ponder what he had said. I had sat down thinking the man a charlatan, but I left appreciating the depth, the power; and the sincerity of his convictions. Nonetheless, however one might admire Morris's strength of character; convictions that allow science to be bent beyond recognition are not merely unjustified - they are dangerous in the intellectual and even in the moral sense, because they corrupt and compromise the integrity of human reason.

My impromptu breakfast with Henry Morris taught me an impor­tant lesson-the appeal of creationism is emotional, not scientific. I might be able to lay out graphs and charts and diagrams, to cite labora­tory experiments and field observations, to describe the details of one evolutionary sequence after another; but to the true believers of cre­ationism, these would all be sound and fury, signifying nothing. The truth would always be somewhere else.

Three Wooden Crosses: Randy Travis.

Unknown.
(© Unknown.)
From "Rise And Shine", © 2002, Warner.

A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin' on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One's headed for vacation, one for higher education,
An' two of them were searchin' for lost souls.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
An' eighteen wheelers can't stop on a dime.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith an' love for growin' things in his young son's heart.
An' that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give 'em all a better start.
An' that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker's hand.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an' the preacher;
"Who gave this Bible to my mamma,
"Who read it to me."

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, now I guess we know.
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway.

QUOTE

If a person believes in evolution (macro) and believes also in a God, they must believe that this God created pain and suffering- based on the macro evolutionary processes. If pain and suffering has been created by God to bring about change and advancement than how can we say that this God is good. The bible teaches that in the Beginning God created everything good and he called it very good. It teaches that man brought death into existence and through that, pain and suffering. From the christian perspective we can say that GOD IS GOOD as God did not make the world as it is, with pain and suffering. But a theistic macro evolutionist cannot.


I have seen the argument that confuses theodicy with an old earth position before in AiG. The problem of evil is so complex it is really sad to see a deliberate attempt to use it to discredit an origins theory while trying to use it to booster your own. Look carefully at Gen 2:17, God curses the ground for Adam's sake. Even in your truncated, literalistic view GOD is the author of evil, period. Dont try to align your young earth view with some GOD is good and created no evil position in the theodicy problem while at the same time accusing old earth creationists of introducing evil into a good world. Try to do some careful thinking on the issue. Theodicy is a BIG problem, with a omnipotent, omniscent GOD there is no solution to the question without trust that GOD can solve it. But you do such a great disservice to the Christian community to imply that a YEC position solves it, and an OEC introduces it. This is simply not true. Both positions believe in a such a God as will yield an intracible theodicy question. I apologize for the tone of the message here, but it is this type of ad hominen argument that has the majority of Christians so confused on the question of origins and Genesis. Not even to mention the very bad effect on apologetics that a reasonably educated secularist can see the issues clearly than most of the members of our own community.
Separate the question of evil from the question of origins, you do yourself and your cause a great disservice by confusing them. In either system, YEC or OEC, the question of the introduction of evil into a world created by God needs to be faced. This is such a massive question that careful thinking will see that either system has the problem and to introduce it repeatly into the question of origins as if your side has solved it simply by saying that God created the world good is begging the question, in the worst possible way.




first, you are right, the curse is Gen 3:17, i am very sorry to have made the error. i am without excuse.

Again you repeat the YEC line that evil is introduced into the world with Adam's sin. That is good for my argument. Maybe if i calm down a little and explain myself better and more completely.

Here is the YEC argument as i understand it:
God pronounces the world good, several times during creation week.
If, as OEC contend, these days are long ages, then death must be present, logically so, during those long ages. death is evil, therefore evil introduced before the fall of Adam. Therefore theodicy, the problem of evil, falls onto the OEC position, thus disproving the OEC position UNLESS you desire God to be the author of evil. or to assert the presence of evil before the fall.

To me this is a massive confusion of the problem of evil, theodicy, and the problem of origins.
Certainly we will make great reference to origins to work on the problem of evil, but this is an attempt to shortcircuit the discussion(imho) by casting the OEC position as particularly hard to work with evil.

For evidence you may wish to read the AiG pages on the problem of death before the fall.
AiG on death before the fall

It is not that theodicy is such a problem that it ought not to be addressed. it is that the YEC criticism of death before the fall so confuses the two issues: theodicy, and origins, that it seems to use theodicy as a criticism of the OEC position. Essentially forcing the OEC position to uniquely answer theodicy before it can finish the elaboration of its origin question.


Theodicy stems first from the character of God, as omnipotent and omniscient. period. it has nothing to do with long ages, or short recent creation week. Yet the YEC issue a strong criticism of long ages by making death during those long ages such an issue. that is what i mean by confusion. separate the two issues.

First, OEC have death entering into the world before Adam's disobedience and God's curse on him, Eve and creation. In both systems YEC and OEC it is God's curse of creation that involves the creation of evil.

i need to be a little more careful with words however:
as the westminster confession states so compactly:

QUOTE
I. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.



the problem of sin, of evil. of theodicy. is how does God allow, without being the moral agent responsible for, ie author? that is another topic, for another place. my desire is to show how YEC confuse the two topics: origins and theodicy. in such a way as to excuse the OEC of introducing death, hence evil into a world labelled good by God, thus in essence accusing the OEC of all the problems of theodicy, while absolving the YEC position since it has such a short period of time from animal creation to Adam's fall that death might not have occurred until the curse.

At this point, it appears that i am hypersensitive to the issue, for this i apologize. For AiG in particular, seems so intent on burdening the OEC position with the stigma of introducing death into an old world, thus by inference denying the goodness of creation. This argument seems so sound to common sense that many Christians are apparently buying into the YEC scheme on this point alone.(i have several webpages where people attribute to the problem of death their firm conviction the YEC are properly interpreting Genesis).

It appears to be pushing the whole burden of theodicy onto the OEC position. when in fact any consistent Christian has a serious problem with theodicy no matter what their position on origins is.

--------

maybe to switch viewpoints will help me clarify what i think is going on:

QUOTE

I don't think the YEC need to argue about the goodness of God or the introduction of evil by God because the bible clearly states that evil was brought about by man. I think it is the theistic macro evolutuionists that must face that because their belief stands in opposition to the biblical view that man brought evil and death into the world rather than God.


You can see clearly that your quote requires the TE position to deal with theodicy as a part of their origins system. While YEC does not. It is as if you make solving theodicy a prerequiste for a consistent TE position on origins. When in fact, theodicy is unsolvable part of any Christian's world. The logic being that since TE as an explanation of origins requires a solution to theodicy before it can finish the origins explanation, that it can not be true, or complete....etc.

since both TE and OEC have death before the fall, since most people would interpret death as evil. therefore TE and OEC introduce evil before the fall. That pushes the problem of evil into the ages before the fall, this is what i mean by "putting the burden of theodicy onto the OEC position". in time, as a matter of priority, or as a matter of needing to explain, the OEC position encounters this question of death, in the form of the question of evil. The reason you dont think you need to argue the theodicy issue is that you have pushed it temporally onto the OEC position. Essentially requiring them to answer the unanswerable as part of their origins explanation. That is the point i am so desparately trying to make, in my own incoherent way. We have a common problem as Christians- theodicy, the YEC push the burden of the question onto the OEC since they see the problem earlier in their logic. The inplication being that the OEC position introduces evil/death into a good world.

The OEC position is that the death of not-human previous to the fall, is not evil, in the same sense that Adam's spiritual death after the Fall is a punishment for the evil of disobedience.

I guess all i what is to explain is how theodicy is confused with the death of creatures before the Fall.
This is what i mean by the confusion of big issues. the YEC position unreasonably confuses a already very confusing situation by its unwarranted introduction of theodicy into the conversation.

Again i apologize for the misquote of Scripture, the curse is Gen 3:17.
and for the strident tone, i really ought to be more respectful in tone, i usually am.

thanks for listening and sticky with the discussion despite me.
i hope this helps at least understand my position.

I feel so inadequate to the task of trying to clarify what i am referring to as the confusion of theodicy and origins. but like all insights it so dominates one's thinking that you see it everywhere.


QUOTE

I don't think I have just said that God created the world good and left it at that. I stated very clearly that the biblical view that God created the world to be VERY GOOD. The bible is very clear that death came after the fall as the result of God's judgement on man. if you believe that God created man so that he could suffer from things such as famine, rape, war, hunger, poverty.....so that he could progress and things today have always been from the beginning than from God's action- what would you call Him. If I am wrong than how would you address this issue that theist macroevolutionists must ultimately face? Secondly, what other reasons would I need to have to bring up the issue of the goodness of God when I am addressing the THEISTIC macroevolutionist view. How would I go about doing such a thing when the very nature of the discussion has to do with God and macro evolution. I fail to see why this is an ad hominen.


The Bible is clear that evil entered into the world with Adam's disobedience.
It's, (evils) potential existed before in the person of the snake, and in the potential for Adam's disobedience due to his(adam's) genuine freedom to choose. The actualization of evil came with the act of disobedience.

It is also clear that the death of God's curse, in Gen 3:17, is the spiritual death of Adam first, and his(adam's) subsequent physical death as punishment for sin. It is a jump from this to the death of animals before the fall. i believe an unwarranted jump done for the express purpose of moving theodicy onto anyone who believes anything but a literal creation week, and a young earth position. As proof i offer your words--"famine rape war hunger poverty. These are theodicy questions. By making the logical jumps from evil in disobedience, to spiritual death for Adam in the curse to physical death, to physical death for animals. You push the burden of theodicy onto the TE origins position. How to justify the death and suffering of animals before Adam's fall, as a theodicy question. Thus effectively requiring TE to solve the unsolvable(theodicy) as a exercise in the origins problem to explain the presence of death in the pre Fall world. Essentially, God couldn't create evil in the world, death of animals is evil, therefore God couldnt create in long ages, since death occurs in them. Furthermore since death entered into the world with Adam's sin, no animal death could have occurred previous to Adam's fall.

A two pronged attack on long creation ages, predictated on the curse being physical death, not just of Adam/Eve but of all creatures. Since i interpret the curse to be first, spiritual, second a later physical death as a result of the spiritual death, the curse has nothing to do with creatures dying at all. Secondly evil is a catagory only applicable to the human sphere of ethics. 3.5 billion years of evolution have no ethical content at all, God can pronounce the universe GOOD at any point up to the curse where He Himself creates the punishments for sin, where the world begins to reflect the evil that man introduced into the world.

Now that feels a lot better as an adequate defense of my thoughts.
thanks for the opportunity.


richard williams

begin to work on the methodological naturalism essay.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i am working on the problem of methodological naturalism.
i have just the outline begun at: http://www.azstarnet.com/~rmwillia/methodological_naturalism.html

your essay on naturalism in science is such an excellent synopsis of the issue that i really wanted to talk to you about it.

"this restriction to natural causes for natural events is what gives science its explanatory power."
This sentence is fanastic because it leads to some very interesting ideas.

first how you mean for it to say. since we are restricted to naturalistic answers, we can not introduce a 'science stopper' type of supernatural explanation thus forcing the naturalist to pursue the chain of explanations to their lowest possible levels. it is understanding in this basic underlying level that gives science it's great explanatory power(likewise later to been discussed predictive power). for unlike pure technic which often halts when it has a good enough tool, science with this deep explanatory theoretical level just keeps on producing higher levels of technological objects.

sciences explanatory power comes from the complete chains of reasoning down to a fundamental level of scientific theorizing. a big side benefit is that naturalism allows lots of different kinds of people to cooperate on this scientific enterprise. without naturalism we would break up into little pieces like religion/theology does and argue each in their little hole. to a great extend the explanatory power comes from sheer volume. the fact that supernatural explanations are often 'science stoppers' is the flip side of your argument, that they stop science prematurely.

second, it is not the restriction to naturalism that gives science its explanatory power however.
the restriction allows science to reach those levels. it is a necessary condition, but neither sufficient nor CAUSATIVE.

like me try to explain.

explanatory power is a judgement of utility on science. we think of science as being good because it works. the better it works, ie wide/great explanatory power the better it is. these are moral/ethical judgements where we try to understand science as a system. it is because utility is such a common and such a high ethical value that you can use it to support naturalism without people thinking twice about it.

but for me it re-anchors the discussion into the realm of people's desires.
so the full line of reasonings becomes: i believe that utility is good, things that work are good, explanatory power makes science work very good, naturalism allows explanatory chains of reasoning to extend as far as possible in the material world, this gives us the greatest explanatory power likewise a good thing.

the causative agent is the curiousity of mankind, which if allowed to pushes these explanatory chains downward through the layers of scientific theory.
if i visualize science like the little kid who keeps asking why. each layer is a substantially deeper, more complex, more scientific, less technological explanation. but naturalistic methodology doesnt cause it, it allows it.

richard williams

There is an undercurrent in the YEC community, not just their
representatives here or on other discussion boards but in AiG, ICR,
and in print. I am not quite sure what to label it, but i am sure you
all will help.

Here's is their line of reasoning:

Scripture requires obedience to its framework. Analogous to God
requiring obedience from His creation-us.

Science and its representatives, unbelieving secular materialist (go
add your favorite words here) propose an evolutionary method for
explaining the same kinds of things that the Bible explains. origin of
man, reason for our existence, how to live a good life, and what
happens to us after death.

Then they align Faith with them, and allow the opposite in their mind
Reason to default to the OTHER, to the DARK SIDE, evolutionary science.

Then they defend their actions on the grounds that it is more faithful
to God to follow their led then it is to follow the secularists.

What seems so cut and dried to them is really a false set of
dichomotomies that cut the world into the wrong pieces.

Faith is not opposed to reason. It is as if to the YEC to believe the
most wild unreasonable thing is to be congratulated on his ability to
ignore the facts and hold onto faith despite the obvious.

But in the Scripture faith is never presented opposite the facts, it
is presented as a addendum to the facts. The way to interpret the
facts properly by added the thing that is missing from the facts. It
as if the facts take you almost all the way, but faith is needed to
get to the finish point. Faith is never presented as unreasonable, it
is presented as extra reason, past reason, beyond reason, but not
opposite.

again i see this position as defending the indefensible. I see God as
requiring faithful reason from us, not unreasonable faith.

richard williams

problem of induction
----------------------------
nice complete essay piece on arrow of time as well.

post to reformed group on yahoo.

------------------------------------------------
Here's a brief outline of my current big overview picture of evolution.

I've being thinking about the parable of the wheat and the tares.

From the theonomists i get a historical view of two world and life views becoming more aware of themselves and the consequences of their thinking. The Christian community and for want of a better description the secularist naturalist community.

My immediate issue is to understand if we, as Christians especially those informed by insights from such theologians as Abraham Kuyper and C. Vantil are justified in using a tool called methodological naturalism.

I have a couple of principles to bring to bear on the subject:

1-I understand that tools, methods etc carry with them more than just simply an objective existence. Tools remake their users in very significant ways. They not only direct the users attention in specific ways, (the message of the old joke about the man whose only tool is a hammer) but their use itself 'bias' the users in ways particular to the tool that the user may be unaware of even.

2-we are to be consistent in our lives. Consistent to the best and biggest, most important principles we believe. I am thinking of a scene in a movie where the priest is walking down the line of blasting cannons sprinkling holy water on them and blessing them. Just because a tool works in some significant ways, that is no reason to adopt it IF it is wrong in some high level reasoning.

3-then i have the usual conservative reformed thought- this is God's world, it reflects His reasoning and His character. common grace allows God to rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, but for different reasons, but it is the same rain. The noetic effects of sin will blind reason in very broad ways so that we can not completely trust our vision of the universe. the two books of God are Scripture and the universe in very important ways they will not contradict each other or themselves.
-------
So i look at the adoption of methodological naturalism simply as a technic, as a 'hammer', as a tool that allows several important things to happen:

1-allows all humans to cooperate to an immense degree in the scientific enterprise. for at some very important level we see the same world. a subproblem is "is this a tower of babel issue?" but for right now i will ignore this potential and concentrate on the 'fact' that cooperation is good. building a structure of science is good in just the fact that people cooperate together, peaceably.

2-science appears for all evidence to be yielding fundamentally important true insights into the creation. that is the edifice of modern science appears to be correctly describing the universe we live in, that God made.

3-a question of utility, in that the knowledge is truely predictive and is very useful, in that it really works effectively. I take these to be not just support for the truthfulness or correctness of the edifice of science but to be things that God intends for us to do. Think God's thoughts after Him, to have dominion...


Now the big problem is the relationship of methodological to metaphysical naturalism. We will always be metaphysical supernaturalists, we will always anchor our thoughts in the person of God. I understand that metaphysical naturalism is a statement by unregenerate, natural man that he is the ultimate determiner of truth and arbitrator of what is significant and what is not important. I have no problem in dealing with the metaphysical position as at war with God. my problem is how far to co operate in the use of the methodological principle.

Kuyer would have the Christian community build a second science parallel to the one we have, with a difference all the way down in the very facts it works with. Vantil in his analysis of "no brute facts" would point us towards the same solution. We would share the world with the secularist but at a very significant level we would be in different intellectual worlds since we would insist that on the level of the facts our worlds collide. Let allow the entire edifices of the two sciences would differ at every interpretive point. Every branch, every choice between options would be judged on very different sets of assumptions.

interesting enough is the idea that this 2nd science is what the young earth creationists are doing. i dont believe it, i have come to the conclusion that the YEC are political/social creatures with a religious not a scientific agenda. but to the outsider it would look like the YEC are doing what Kuyer proposed. This just complicates the problem without showing any real light on what this 2nd science might look like.
-----------

So the issue appears to be:
1-adopt methodological naturalism as a working principle aware that at some point, yet to be determined, the believing scientist would jump off the wagon and in essence declare that it broke at this point. That furthermore another supernaturalist methodology along will explain properly. I see this as how to understand Howard Vantil who is the most vocal conservative Christian supporting the whole edifice of modern evolutionary biology.

2-scrap the methodological naturalism and strive to build a supernaturalist methodology consistent from its inception to the principles of supernaturalism.



So this is where i am rather stuck. I am concentrating my reading on the first generation to encounter Darwin. Roughly 1850-1900, reading as much as i can about how Princeton scholars reacted to Darwin and to the preaching of A. Huxley. I have several profitable books on the pile now but am always interested in reading recommendations.

What is complicating the issue is that Biblical higher criticism arose at the same time, from the same evolutionary mindset. With the two pieces, darwinian evolution and higher criticism, the church really divided in the 1920's with those who allow/encouraged the principles, including methodological naturalism, to criticize/modify the faith and those who resisted rewritting the basics of the faith.
I am conscious of being in the stream of modern day conservative, more fundamentalist thought, so i watch the leading edge of the liberal church for signs that the principles they adopted in the early 19th C drive them to unbelieving positions. I in fact, see that as the case, so i know there is a logic towards adopting tools, where the tools force changes in the big picture, despite the tool users better judgement.

thanks for listening,
you can see my problem, maybe you can see a way to solve it as well.

richard williams


--------------------------------

links

plantinga on methodological naturalism

vuletic

ebon musings

at apologetics.com

You bring up several points, i'll respond to just one.

quote: But the one thing I still don't understand is the need for a god. And what I understand even less is why we should need a biblical god.

You should find several different answers to this question in the Christian community. One answer will follow Augustine's God-shaped piece analogy. Another long standing reply will argue first that mankind is inescapably religious, and secondly will point to the usual evidential apologetics for Christianity. I think these fail to adequately penetrate a scientific frame of mind for several reasons.

First, Augustine's argument presupposes that the people look internally and feel this God-shaped piece. The problem with a scientific frame of mind, especially one with knowledge of current psychological or religious theory is that an explanation is already given for such a piece. It is explained as an evolutionary mechanism to cement together human communities so that they function more efficently. An origin of alturism argument writ large. So even if someone is aware of their God-shaped piece the argument doesn't resonate with them as it did since Augustine's day.

The argument that man is inescapably religious falls short because it doesnt assume that man's inescapably religious nature can only be satisfactorily filled by the Christian Gospel. It assumes a two step process where the second step is 'normal' Christian apologetics.

The modern scientifically based, secular frame of mind, has in many significant ways been inoculated against the Christian Gospel because it has internalized many of the significant elements of the faith, without accepting the crucial elements that involve supernaturalist explanations.

One of these crucial elements is the origin and subsequent fall of man's consciousness. It is critical to both a Christian world and life view and to a secular scientific one as the individual, the person who is being presented the message is himself/herself the product of this chain of events.

Who are you, who am i, who is the next person that reads these lines? In one creation story, we are the results of aeons of evolutionary mechanism that honed and fashioned a me that sits here now. And a you. That leads me to the problem of "how do I trust the mind of a monkey?", how is it that my consciousness is able to grasp of much of the universe in a way that is both satisfactory and functional? I am interested in consciousness research, i find it both interesting and mildly amusing the there seems to be a religious module in human brains. Likewise i am interested in the current debate over socio-biology and the origin of alturism, for there is an understanding that here are things that need explanation.

but science essentially jumps the explanation fence and assumes that if we havent found a naturalistic answer that he will in the future. So that the adherents of this world and life view are not internally bothered that there remains so many things unanswered. Analogous to places where orthodox Christians posit the unfathomable mysteries of God, science poses a future solution to all problems. This is adequate to feed most hungers for answers now, for like StarTrek becomes our mythos, the answers may not be known now but they will be.

The problem is that science is hitting the basic unknowables of the universe in very significant ways. This is the take home message of Heisenberg's uncertain principle, Godel's proof relating consistency and completeness, quantum mechanics explanations of both wave and particle. We know now that there will be many questions that we can direct to the universe that we will not be able to answer, and we will know that we can not answer them. Science essentially will always find itself with important explanatory gaps, rooted in the very nature of the universe it proposes to study.

There is another very important angle to me concerning the "mind of a monkey problem" and that is the message of ecology. If there every was an important thing to learn from a science it is the lesson of "unintended consequences" from ecology and how the modern world is undermining its very material basis of life. It is pure, unadulrated HUBRIS to read ecology and not see that mankind both as individuals and as groups is screwing up the world-bigtime. And Science and its powerful tools hooked to the doctrine of unintended consequences is explanation enough.

It is things like this that illustrate Science and Scientism as the faith it is. It is a religion, a religion of MAN, it is part of a faith that has been around since mankind was first conscious of himself and the world around us. It is MAN's self centered, egotistical faith that we can by the strength of our arms and the brillance of our thoughts conquer both the universe and ourselves. In many ways it is our first faith, that our mother's breasts exist only to supply us with nourishment. And most of modern mankind never outgrow this first ego-centric faith that the world is here to produce us. That the universe exists only to feed, cloth, and supply playtoys for us.

We may give lip service in science to Galileo moving the center of the solar system from the earth to the sun. We may believe that evolution is random and directionless. But Scientism is the fundamental egotism that the universe exists only as matter for us to manipulate. That is is good to learn physics in order to build bombs to incinerate countless people, again. that MAN is the MEASURE of all things.

If you dont see the fundamental contradictions in the faith of scientism then you are simply blinded by the light. the light that mankind has achieved by careful study of the universe as if it existed only for our benefit. From Edison' electric light to the flash of atomic bombs, we are blinded by our own creations. The raw power, the simple utilitarian functionality has blinded us to the fact that they are TOOLS. things to do a job, to fulfull a function.

But science cant supply those ends, it supplies only means, and as the old joke about a man whose only tool is a hammer. Science turns ends into means. It co-opts philosophy to supply imaginary ends to its tools. it becomes itself a god, and feeds upon its adherents. People are goal orientated. The very fact that we will all die means at some level we must get something done. Something we label good, righteous, beautiful. But this are qualities. This are how we judge between competing goals or priorities. Science can't give you things ideas. Only a faith can.

No, i find it much easier to believe in the traditional orthodox Christian God who explains to me carefully that i am not the center of the universe, He is. that my studies of the universe are not for making more toys, in more malls, in more countries forever. but that the purpose of my life is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Scientism, like most religious inverts God planned order, and puts the created on a platform, speaking ex cathedra Scientism tells us "what you see is what you get" even if in doing so we will destroy the world that supports our lives.

science is a mean to ends that it can't define, scientism is a faith that it has found those ends inside the created universe, and therefore substituted the creation for the Creator.

reply on apolegtics.com

As people we build systems of thought, we try to relate our experiences of the world together. For those in power in any society religion presents a unique opportunity to co-opt and use to support the present holders of power. To the cynical and more realist that is what Constantine tried to do with Christianity in the 5th century. this continued and aggravated the problem that all theistic religions have with becoming intertwined with the cultures they find themselves in. These are problems not of the religion but of the religion-tied-to-closely-to-culture. They need to be critized as such, but separated from the claims of the religion itself.

Christianity has intertwined in significant ways with Western European or American culture. It has also supplied the intellectual underpinnings for many pieces of the philosophic thought systems for our shared culture. Many of the most cogent and serious questions directed at the faith are actually problems of this intertwining where Christians themselves mistook culture for crucial elements of the faith.

Take a simple example from your second letter. Swearing an oath in court on the Bible. In fact it is not done anymore for various reason. The fact of the matter is that the Bible itself prohibits the practice. Matt 5:33-37 clearly teaches that the practice is not right. Yet it evolved in a primarily Christian context despite the teachings of the religion. So what we have is a proper criticism of an improper intertwining of religion and pieces of the cultural complex it finds itself in historically.

The real criticism of Christianity itself that you propose is that it is nothing more than a pale reflection of Isis worship.
[URL=http://www.askwhy.co.uk/awmob/awpagan/pag280RELOsiris.html]
Osiris and Isis, the Heavenly Mother[/URL]
likewise there are criticisms levelled against Christianity about it being a type of Mythras worship
[URL=http://www.litjournal.com/docs/fea_pagan2.html]
the hidden legacy[/URL]

But in these discussions the problem of syncretism agains raises its many faceted head. But since Christianity is a revealed religion with a historical book the solution is in the words of the book rather than being located in the way different times interpreted/exgeted that book for their times.

The big question on the Scriptures concerning this is how God uses the mental structures of both the writers of the various pieces and how He uses the cultural complex of the times in order to present a book that is on one hand cultural and on the other hand timeless, directed at believers through out time. It is in this discussion that you will find answers on the relationship of Christianity to Isis. Not so much to Mythras because the New Testament was written before the massive influence of Persian orientated Mythras worship in Roman military culture.

One only for a moment needs to reflect that the Hebrew spent generations in Egypt to realize that common themes and vocabulary must have influenced the Hebrew Bible. But before discussing those issues i wonder if the issue is really about the connections of the Bible to Isis or whether that is just an issue of tactics. Christianity has problems, as long as it relies on faulty, error prone, self seeking human beings to propagate its thoughts, we will continue to misinterpret and misuse it. But somehow each person works on separating out what is human dross from what is God given revelation. That is the crucial key to the faith. It proposes a system of thought where the creator, sustainer of the universe is also known as the redeemer. Where the God becomes human to be a sacrifice for sin. Now sacrifice is a common theme in history and in the world today. In many important ways Christianity is first given meaning in Roman terms. but it is the timeless, themes underneath and through these terms that makes Christianity unique.

This is where the parallels to Isis fail. Mythos is always presented outside historical time, stories of redemption, sacrifice, payback are common themes in human thought. The unique contribution of Hebrew thought was to historize the discussion. To posit a real God behind the activities of the universe. To believe that a real human being who walked in 1st century Palestine. Who died a criminal's death for sedition. And whose followers didnt seek power but oftentimes found death testifying that they saw a risen Lord.

scientism as religion.

There is an undercurrent through both your letters and likewise throughout the scientific community of a faith in science. This is a religious-like projection of science as method into the world of philosophy/religion/metaphysics. It is rapidly becoming the faith of our age. supported by its own creation story-evolution, buttressed by its own priesthood of secular believers in the progress of science and its ability to explain all. and thus to save us all from our own impulses and our own ignorance.

This scientism is comfortable and fits well the people of our age. Which is above all else utilitiarian. What works is good, right, and even beautiful. But it is a faith. It many significant ways it is Christianity without the supernaturalism. It is a logical way of seeing the progression throughout history of crucial ideas. This is often what secular people see as the throwing off of supernatural myth. but it is a faith in people. the same people who brought us so much horror in the past, only now unrestrained by any concept of a judgement for their crimes after death.

To get a handle on scientism as faith you need to see how modern societies answer their religious questions:
how did i get here?
where am i going?
and how do i live a good life in between?

While you are involved in that activity, realize that in one significant way that Christianity gave birth to the modern scientism is in the accent on the individual and his/her ability to judge, accept, receive wisdom. This is a piece of both faiths, although i personally doubt that it is fundamental part of a Biblical view.

But try to look internally and see that you exercise a faith, not unlike mine in general terms. It is a faith in science, in historical progress, in utility. Then look under the hood, and see if your faith, in mankind, is due to historical events, badly misplaced.


richard williams

non euclidean geometry

The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry

Two Philosophical Mistakes in Poincaré


Creative Thinking and
Critical Thinking
in Science

on apologetics.com in response to a secularist post that the bible was significantly flawed and the faith foolishness....

am curious about why you would take a significant amount of time to write your essay here? you must obviously be aware that your time on earth here is limited. since death marks the end of all your activities and completely takes you out of the discussion here and on any other places that you post, you are wasting a significant amount of time writing about and thinking about religion which obviously from your message is of negative survival value.

instead you ought to be making babies and teaching them as best you can so that your genes and your ideas are passed down to the next generation in as efficent and effective manner as possible.

but yet you are here, wasting your time, writing about a obsolete and psychologically damaging creation of people's minds called the Christian faith. why? there are much more interesting science related sites to be reading and getting information out of while you are teaching your kids about the great evils of organized religion and how beneficial this new age is where religion is dying out as fast as secularist can make it.

but you are here. why? is it because you wish to enflame people into some kind of heated debate where everyone shouts and loudly insists that Christianity is not at all like the thing you described.

but that would mean you would be spending even more time here, now reading as well as writing more. reading Christian posts which obviously as worthless are a waste of time, like reading the Bible, i assume you did read it before you wrote your message. so again that would involve more wasting your time.

so i dont understand why you would take the time to post here. it is the secularists who never visit an apologetics site that are consistent to their beliefs. it is those who when they encounter the Christian Gospel who just yawn briefly and ignore it that are consistent to their secular beliefs. those who get upset and think about things or respond to things that are thinking maybe my beliefs are so air tight as i thought.

so maybe there is a chance you are actually here to learn. in that case, think about spending your time wisely, for death ends all of our posting to useless and useful places. ends all our activities and what happens next after death will show the significance of the science sites and the apologetics sites you visited in life. additionally death will separate you forever from the wife you mention and from all the little kiddies you so carefully raised and taught the secularist gospel to. think a moment about that and why you are wasting so much time replying to a faith that is so backwards, so ancient, so full of lies and deliberate falsehoods.

and if you return to reply to me now, i will assume that you havent anything better to do with the thin slice of time you are allotted on this earth than to talk about what the Bible really means, or what the faith really teaches.

question came up on religionscience yahoo groups about euclidean geometric system. investigate.

question:
in light of noneuclidean geometries and space time looks like a hyperbolic space, what is true about euclidean system? what can we learn about the chain of events seen in topic?

logos and mythos
-----------------------

star trek is mythos.
to be believable to our culture it must be historical, even though it is in the future we find it belivable since it is a projection of current culture. the themes star trek covers, and often the way it does it are the same themes mythos has always engaged in. what makes people fight. what gives plain lives meaning and significance.

--- In ontheoriginofspecies@yahoogroups.com,

>
> Hello Richard, I don't see any point to limiting the discussion to christianity,or even the supernatural. Not all pseudo science is supernatural.Lysenkoism is an example.I am assuming from your address that you are a creationist.
> A methodological approach would only establish continuity in the praxis. I am fully fully aware of methodological theonomy.Thing is do we make the model to fit the facts or do we make the facts to fit the model?
> I need to know more about your position before I can discuss further.


i'm working on the issues. i really dont have a well developed position. mostly i find that i learn what i believe in the give and take of the arguments.

my big question now(to me) is certainly related to the essay as posted.
and it is related to your statement "do we make a model to fit the facts or do we make the facts to fit the model?"

the essay works backwards from the metaphysical position that a naturalist thinks is true to the methodology adopted (in order to analyze the universe effectively) to what can it accomplish in the physical world. in particular to fulfull its aims of explaining the real world(truthfully). i believe this is analogous to making the facts fit the model.

maybe an example from another field i need to know/work on just now will help clarify my thoughts a little on this matter.

in tax law. you are responsible for keeping records. but the level/sophistication of the record keeping is not specified. rather there is this general rule "you are responsible for keeping the records that a person, both reasonable and prudent, in your occupation who exercising due diligence and a responsible matter would do"[these are my words, not a quote]. what that means is that the standard is not explicit, but if you run a multimillion dollar per year business you better not be keeping your records in a shoe box. likewise i once went to tax court with a simple ledger, one entry per dollars in/out, and that was sufficent.


what this has to do with the essay and the matter at hand is that both start with the individual and have expectations of his behavior. but neither specify exactly what the elements of the behavior must be inorder to be consistent with the metaphysical position. just as the definition of naturalist methodology was that which is performed by a metaphysical naturalist. top down reasoning. build the models, look for the data to fit[an exageration] both apparently deductive reasoning models. no particular elements, like no particular bookkeeping requirements are specified as being in keeping with/being necessary to the situation.

so the tool in each case-one methodological naturalism, in the other bookeeping rules- is just what the person doing it says it is. i am more than just uncomfortable with this type of setup. basically because it anchors the tool into the consciousness of the tooluser. how would you criticize bad tool formation? that's why judges are needed in tax courts, because the standards are not well defined. balancing and analysis is needed. what is a reasonable person? likewise who's methodological naturalism? it appears in most cases simple to devolve to what works, what is efficent, what seems reasonable.

my basic argument with the model is something like:
you get what you put into the model.
tools bias the outcome, (to a man with just a hammer, all problems are thought of as nails)
if you start with naturalism how do you end up with anything but naturalism?

the object of the essay appears to be how to use methodological naturalism to decide questions of supernatural intervention. a direct attack back on the ID people and their outspoken desire to drive a wedge between naturalist methodologies and metaphysical naturalism.

sorry the message got so long, it didnt start out that way. *grin*

thanks for listening.
richard williams

--- In ontheoriginofspecies@yahoogroups.com,

entire paper
>
> Library: Modern Documents : Mark Vuletic: Methodological Naturalism and the Supernatural
>

> Supernatural forces, if they exist, cannot be observed, measured, or recorded by the procedures of science - that's simply what the word "supernatural" means. There can be no limit to the kinds and shapes of supernatural forces and forms the human mind is capable of conjuring up from "nowhere." Scientists therefore have no alternative but to ignore "claims" of the existence of supernatural forces and causes.
> Methodological naturalism leaves no room for appeals to the supernatural.
> Science must follow the procedures of methodological naturalism to accomplish its aims.

> First, I take methodological naturalism to be the practice of adhering to the kind of methodology a metaphysical naturalist devoted to fulfilling the aims of science would adhere to. Methodological supernaturalism, correspondingly, is the practice of adhering to the kind of methodology a metaphysical supernaturalist devoted to fulfilling the aims of science would adhere to. Astute readers will note that these two categories are not altogether mutually exclusive - a point which will resurface later on in the paper.


------my reply follows

as someone who is struggling with the nexus of issues around methodological naturalism this paper doesnt help much at all.

he DEFINES MN to be the way a metaphysical naturalist would reason.

but to a theist the whole problem with methodological vs metaphysical is that metaphysical principles are by definition NOT science. for a theist the very problem is the relationship of methodological to philosophic in the angle that to adopt the method entails an eventual adoption of the philosophy to be consistent. the whole idea for a theist is NOT to adopt the ways a metaphysical naturalist would do, but rather look at what principles by the nature of the physical world we can agree on.

frankly i am rather surprised at the definition. for if the definition is true, and philosophic supernaturalists accept it then the only logical reason is for the two to completely part company from the very beginning of the scientific enterprises and lead to what Abraham Kuyer called the two sciences position, from the very definitions.

what i would expect from a paper like this is to show how much the two positions: philosophic super/naturalist share in the use of methodological naturalism as a TECHNIC of observing the universe to produce science. the point would be to try to figure out where the two in order to be consistent to their philosophic principles would part company on use of the methodological principles.

but rather than an explanation framed in shared principles we get a "tongue-in-cheek" parallelism of how the two methodological super/naturalism would work side by side. with comments like:
" If the methodological supernaturalist remains devoted to
empiricism as a means of collecting data, I would expect him to eventually end
up with a whole pantheon of different dwarves that correspond to the different
types of chemical bonds that can exist"

the paper, imho, is nothing more than a nasty polemic against philosophic supernaturalism by showing that it can do only silly thing s with its principle of methodological supernaturalism.

when this is a straw man issue to begin with.
for a philosophic supernaturalist the issue is when to switch methodological principles. when does the naturalist methodological principle break because the issue can NOT be explained in terms of matter in motion, but must instead be explained in terms of supernatural intervention.

from a Christian viewpoint the issue is clearer than just from a general supernaturalist position. the Christian God is the creator of the world and as such created a reasonable world which is separate from God. as such it is to be expected that methodological naturalism works, is in many ways and adequate description of what goes on in the real world. In fact this is the world and life view that gave rise to science as a methodology in the first place. the issue is if there are places where the method breaks in that the supernatural does intervene(deism-no theist-maybe/yes) and to try to figure out where if so.

at first reading the paper is interesting but not real instructive, at subsequent readings his faulty definitions and desire to belittle get the best of his argument.

richard williams
http://fastucson.net/~rmwillia
http://rmwilliamsjr.blogspot.com

still thinking about the little girl song
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

>
> Then I will share what I know of the -many- sides.
>
> Naturalists, including myself, do not believe that supernatural
> means or events explain or have explained anything, ever. To infer
> a devious motive (e.g. 'in order to avoid the point') will only
> polarize the discussion and inhibit an objective discourse.
>

i can map a piece of the discussion:

i understand that what i believe about things colors the facts that i see "out there" in the world. but i dont know how significantly this "coloring" process is.

i see a logic in what we expect is what we get.

now try to unify these two ideas with the difference that a naturalist and a supernaturalist would say about the world.

if we say, i accept the working hypothesis of naturalism. for instance, methodological principles of "the world is made up of matter", "forces i see in action today, here, are the same forces i can hypothesis into the past and into different parts of the universe", "there is no reason to expect the supernatural will intervene in a natural world" (i am trying to word the big 3 assumptions of materialism, uniformity, naturalism as best i can)

my problem is that by accepting the presuppositions do i bias the conclusions in a significant way? that is by ruling out God's activity in the natural world via the naturalism principle do i by necessity blind myself to His activity?

going back to the piece of your reply that i quoted above:
>Naturalists, including myself, do not believe that supernatural
> means or events explain or have explained anything, ever


there is a statement of utility there. worded differently than you do but i think substantially the same--my principle of naturalism has never been violated in the past and therefore i have no need to reexamine its usage now because it has been effective in its explanatory power.

i think this is exactly why the arguments about presuppositions etc are not entirely a circular waste-of-time arguments. because we can choose to change presuppositions if we believe we have sufficient reason to do so. then we begin to rework the systems to make them consistent with our new changed presupposition(s).

------

maybe something a little more concrete will help me define this thought. go back to the song of the little girl. my presupposition in the discussion is that there are several levels to interpret the song at: highest level is something like the big picture of how the song fits into my world and life view. this is the level my idea that people in our culture take mythos and think of it in terms belonging to logos. its an example of a good story with a moralizing principle.

now there are lower levels. one deals with the intentions of the creator of the words. now was (s)he building on a story that (s)he heard? made up from a dream? just thought up out of the air?
i dont know. say for arguments sake (s)he is conscious of dreaming it up one night and awoke in the morning and wrote the song in an instant of inspiration.

does that change my high level theorizing about how modern scientifically trained people tend to over intellectualize things and look for historical and scientific explanations first? nay. because my argument rests on how people react to the song, whether or not it has an historical basis in the real world is irrelevant in my argument.

but say instead of looking at the song in these ways we look at it as proof that Jesus exists and will comfort those in need. going back to the breakpoint argument that the story evokes something in people because they need to believe. the unstated conclusion in breakpoint is that since people have the need there must be a "thing" to fulfill that need.

now this argument needs the historical basis in the song. people will be motivated to search for the author and maybe for the little girl herself. i see the logic of the argument pushing people to act in a historical manner.

what they expect to find conditions what they believe they have found.
in essential ways it sets up the universe of discourse where they look for answers to their questions. it narrows the search to a pre-conceived arena, in a significant way channels their energies into finding a particular kind of answer.

----end of post, it was too long, let alone continue

now the significant fact to me is that so many people call the radio station with the question "did it really happen?"

why? because if it really happened they that supports a very high level idea that Jesus exists and will comfort the afflicted. it involves proof to them of a continuing presence of Jesus and thereby miracles into this world of ours. They are looking for proof in an historical and scientific sense.

Now someone who finds the little girl. asks her if she really saw Jesus next to her. If you are a naturalist you KNOW that Jesus can not have been there physically, spiritually, emotional or what ever the case. It must be explained in naturalistic terms. She must if she believes it be imagining it in a very psychological way. For as a naturalistic would say "we know that Jesus can't do such a thing, therefore we must find another logical reasons for her belief". Now is this "closing the door" to supernaturalistic explanations legitimate? It is if the world/universe is naturalistic. It is legitimate if the presupposition is true. How do you know that the presupposition is true? because in all of my experience i have never needed to posit the supernatural for an explanation, therefore i do not need to do so now.

but that is an argument from induction. induction has a fatal flaw. it doesnt work quite as advertised. the best it yields is probabilistic knowledge not absolute truth.

i need to start using the blog to take notes:
notes to myself and quotes from discussions to work on.
reading list blog ought to become, like stephen jones quote data base, a tool for reflection and stored knowledge.

reply from stephen jones on ced about my kuyper-warfield quotes in marsden. must remember to keep these two men in mind as archtypes...

on two sciences


And that therefore a science based on those false materialistic-naturalistic
"starting points and frameworks of assumptions", would, to the extent that
it depends on those false, "starting points and frameworks of assumptions",
be itself false.

But note that it says "*some* conclusions". In the vast majority of
cases, "Christians and non-Christians would reach" the same "conclusions".
There is a huge overlap of common ground. The Earth goes round the sun and
E=mc^2 in both of these "two kinds of sciences".

It is mainly in the area of *origins* that the "different starting points
and frameworks of assumptions" of "these "two kinds of sciences" come into
conflict.

-----

But there's another definition held implicitly in the scientific
establishment, and it is tantamount to the philosophy of materialism
or naturalism. This is the idea that science may legitimately employ
only natural causes in explaining everything we observe. The way
this definition of science operates is to outlaw any questioning of
naturalistic evolution.

------

there are two different things i need to learn from this reply:
1-continue to work on methodological naturalism/materialism as working axioms, but be aware that there is a good chance that using them IMPLIES the full blown philosophy.

2-continue to work on the 2 sciences angle, but widen it to the "wedge of truth" with ID to 2 definitions of science. just be aware that kuyers criticism is much deeper than ID.

the big question of this project will end up being is evolution directional-----


i am simply not prepared to tackle that issue yet.
but i would like to start thinking about it.

use dennetts image of creatures exploring a genotypic landscape, that looks like a topographic map.

random mutations yield the spread of the organism.
natural selection prunes the population each generation.

if at one generation you put a dot representing the average organism.
then each subsequent generation do the same, then connect the dots.

is there motion towards something?
or is it a random walk?

from open letter to dembski from dawkins

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I am now sixty years old and increasingly conscious that time is finite. The thing I really resent about people like you and Johnson and Behe is that you are a gratuitous waste of precious time. You hold scientists back by forcing them spell out what is wrong with your supernatural spooks, instead of getting on with trying to gain a real explanation of how the world works.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""




i once wrote a paper about creationists being a loyal opposition to evolutionary science. maybe i will be able to find it in the boxes in the library, now there is a place for such things.

but dawkins is not expressing gratitude towards ID for being a loyal opposition, but anger at them for being a disloyal pain in the arse.

back to the question:
is ID the kuyperian 2nd science?


Holding Fast the Great Concession of Faith: Science, Apologetics, and Orthodoxy

logos and mythos
-------------------------

the country western song about the little girl just played on the radio. the song is about a little girl with abusive parents, eventually the mom is killed by the dad and he commits suicide. the little girl goes to live with a Christian family, the first day of sunday school she asked who is that man on the cross. i know he got off, for he held me tight the night my parent's died.

not only is it a good song, like the best in country it is a ballad with a heart tugging theme. but the reaction to the song betrays the way we think. for almost every time it plays someone calls in an asks "is it true?'.

the question shows how far mythos has been absorbed into logos.
the stories into historical narratives, the great(ok, country might to YOU be not so great *grin*)ballads of our culture can only be interpreted as HISTORY, never as myths....

its sad. for history really needs to be rewritten for each generation, but really good stories are timeless and forever fresh and revealing of new insights and new roads to explore.

we truely truncate ourselves. how sad.
because we equate history with true and myth with false. again an issue cut wrongly.

see breakpoint article for another take on the song

> > Likewise, God proving himself is revelation, not reason.
>

>
> > The impetus for reason
> > originates within human beings. The impetus for revelation
> > originates in God. This is precisely why I think reason and faith
> > are different.
>
> > Reason is a system of
> > man-made rules that fail miserably in attempts to describe OR COME
> > TO God. Faith is a process of God giving us eyes to see what God
> > sees. Reason is man centered, faith is God centered. The impetus
> > for reason is derived from man; the impetus for faith is originated

> is fallen, and he uses his mind to reason against God, he is still
> using something that is a supernatural gift. That makes it difficult

> You are using several different terms or ideas here. There is God's
> reason and man's reason, which are completely different. There is
the
> mind, and logical evidence, which you are saying that God can use.
> Now, if I understand you correctly, you believe that when God
connects
> with our minds through logical evidence, that is revelation (or God's
> reason?). It is no longer man's reason.
>


i cut and snipped a lot of the message. i sincerely hope that i did
not do injustice to either post. i want to show one strand of thought.

reason: is it from God? does God reason in much the same way that we
do? more specifically; is our logic something derived from creation or
something we impose onto a "unreasoning/unreasonable" creation?

the person quoted in the original message contends that there exists a
gap between revelation and reason, the gap is of God, of man.

the second person, who wrote the message, contends that God both
reasons and reveals. furthermore that sin degradates our reasoning.


these are not the same positions, more than semantics, more than
definitions, but real differences.

it revolves around "where is the gap that we perceive between
ourselves and God reflected in the way we think?" do we think like God
but in much smaller thoughts? or is God's thinking so much different
than ours that a new facility must be given to believers in other to
think like Him?

specifically if human reason is not analogous to Divine Reason in some
very important and significant ways then God would need to give us
faith in order to comprehend Him at all.

if on the other hand, we do reason analogously to God, this reason
does try to reach God but can not due to the effects of sin, then God
can heal the effects and reason can "comprehend" God in some way.
faith in this scheme becomes the right reason beyond human reason. not
something contrary to reason, but something that fixs broken sinful
reason.

i believe to put the gap between faith and reason is dangerous, it
readily leads to things that i do not wish to say. on the otherhand
putting the two-faith and reason on the one side of a great divide and
putting unregenerate reason without faith on the other side fits the
pieces better.

thanks for listening.

two sciences
-----------------

from george marsden's _understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism_ from chapter 5 titled "the evangelical love affair with enlightment science":

pg. 122-3 "Kuyper denied that there was one unified science for the human race. Rather, he argued that because there are 'two kinds of people' regenerate and unregenerate, there are 'two kinds of sciences'... but insofar as any science was a theoretical discipline, Christians and non-Christians would reach some conclusions that were different in important ways. Each would be equally scientific, but they would be working from different starting points and frameworks of assumptions."

"to BB Warfield, Kuyper's view was sheer nonsense. Warfield was a man of his age at least to the extent of believing that science was an objective, unified, and cumulative enterprise of the entire race." pg 123

pg 126 "Why were the Princetonians and so many of their twentieth-centry conservative, evangelical, intellectual dependents so committed in principle to a scientifically based culture even while the scientifically based culture of the twentieth centry was undermining belief in the very truths of the Bible they held most dear?"
--------------------------------------------
first, as does marsden i will begin to think of the two types as kuyperian and warfieldian. the only consistent kuyperians i am aware of are the theonomians, dominion, reconstructists; most of the conservative church is not. How about them creation scientists? aren't they trying to build a second regenerate science? i dont believe so, they are working on a theological enterprise which happens to be talking about science. but on the other hand, i think that there may be a number of kuyperian types in the ID movement, i will look at this angle.

so as i begin to finish off the fundamentalism as movement readings i will go find my copy of kuyper's sacred theology and reread it.

working on _meaning of creation_ particularly if gen1-2 are polemics directed against the neighboring cultures polytheism.


creation and the flood

search for _The Polemic Nature of the Genesis Cosmology_ by Gerhard Hasel


criticism of kline

lots on creation myths

adam and anthropology

reformed against framework

surprise same title as chapter in _meaning of creation_

dancing on the titanic

i am still interested in a dialogue with stephen over at ced on the issue of his position in the debate axis and what it is measuring. however i dont think he read my first message, but i am hesitant about pushing it. he responded by my questioning the degree of supernatural intervention with an analysis of kind, back to the significant argument of the great divide between those who believe that naturalism will explain all and those who have a committment to supernaturalism....so i will try once more with the following message posted to CED.
------

> *** Moderator: As a newcomer, Richard would be unaware that I have a
> long-standing policy that members don't put other members' names in the
> subject line of posts to CED, since it unncessarily personalises the debate
> and can be a form of ad hominem. See:

RW:where can i find a copy of the rules of engagement for CED?
i searched without success on your homepage and on the CED yahoo homepage. i am only back to message numbered 3900 or so i my catching up, therefore i am unaware of many of the rules.

>
> RW>at: http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/faqiposs.html
> >
> >contains the following interesting statement:
> >As can be seen, the main defining characteristic is primarily the
> >decree to which supernatural
> >intervention by God is allowed, and secondarily the age of the
> >Universe and Earth.
> >
> >

> RW>i don't see a difference in degree here
>
> Whether Richard wants to "see" it or not, clearly, 1) whether God
> intervened in natural history? and 2) if so how often? *are* "difference[s]
> in degree".
>
> And clearly that *is* a (if not the) primary distinguishing characteristic of
> positions on the creation-evolution spectrum, ranging from positions that:
>

RW:it is exactly the conclusion that you made that the great divide in the CE debate is between those who support some form of supernaturalism versus those who deny the principle entirely and whole therefore to a consistent philosophic naturalism, that encouraged me to look at the axis of your faqiposs.html

therefore how do you measure degree of committment or how often a principle whose acceptance or rejection is of primary concern? in essence your axis in faqiposs is a discrete principle. either one believes in some supernatural intervention or does not. degree at that point is immaterial. it is for this very reason that i searched for another way to express the axis....i am not sure you looked at the option i presented. there is no engagement with the issue in this message.

schematically: xxxxxxxxxxx

yec oec pmc te
xxxxxxxxxx
de ne


where a axis to distinguish positions ought to look like:

x
x
x
x
x etc. etc.



there are at least 4 places where a Christian can support a supernatural creation event:

1-as you point out the infusion of a soul into a person.
i would extend that to the 2-creation of the new man at regeneration.

furthermore two elements at adam's creation which are the archtype for individual's creation. 3-adam as a living being, the clay + the breath of God. and by extension the creation of the human race, something captured by the traditional 4-federalship arguments for adam.

additional depending on position on your chart one could hypothesis:
unique supernatural creation of progenitor of each kind---oec
unique supernatural creation of each species/genus---yec


nonetheless, how do you measure these committments to supernatural intervention? how many? how often? plus if committment to supernaturalism is the key element, arent you front loading the argument for who would want less of an essential characteristic?
so logically everyone would pile to the maximum supernaturalism end to be consistent....

my idea was that if you flip the axis around. look at where the methodological naturalism principle breaks across the bow of supernatural intervention, then the continum makes interesting sense.

for there are a series of concentric spheres:
universe, world, living things, humanity.

where our concerns with supernatural intervention make us challenge the principle of methodological naturalism as it applies to each sphere in turn from larger to smaller. it is as if we can as believers allow the world it's independence from God until it gets to an issue too important to allow naturalism to explain it all away.

YEC challenge naturalistic presuppositions at the very largest sphere, at the age of the earth. they would say that the principle of naturalism blinds people from the very beginning of scientific investigation: astronomy and physics.

OEC would allow naturalistic methodology free rein at this level. but would balk at application of it at the transition of kinds to another kind.

TE would challenge the methodological naturalism not at the level of the living things but at a smaller sphere of man's unique formation. the key element to me being the creation of adam from pre-existing chimplike protohuman or physical dust and what it means to be in the image of God.

What this does is admit that the great divide is committment to supernaturalism at some level. rather than try to quantitize how much, rather see at what level the supernaturalistic intervention is committed.

i still am interested in what you think about this, rather than a reaction to my questioning how to measure degree of supernatural intervention. although i would be curious about how to measure the amount of supernatural intervention necessary to distinguish between a oec and yec position.

richard williams
blog at http://rmwilliamsjr.blogspot.com
homepage at http://www.fastucson.net/~rmwillia

continuing to carefully read stephen jones' site:


mediate progressive creationist

of particular interest to me is:
Probably the main difference between PMC and PC is that some PCs believe that God created some things ex nihilo after the original creation of Genesis 1:1. PMC would maintain that God created everything mediately (i.e. not ex nihilo) after the original immediate creation of the raw materials in Genesis 1:1. That is God created by modifying existing materials, working (naturally and supernaturally) through natural processes. An exception to this might be the infusion of man's soul.

The difference between PMC and TE is less clear because it is hard to know what TE is anymore. Much of what passes for TE is really Deistic Evolution (DE), or even just Naturalistic Evolution (NE) held by those who also happen to be Christians.



so much better granularity then just OEC and TE.....nice.

infusion of adam's soul
made in the image of God
creation of individual soul's
creation of the new man.

the 4 places to concentrate study on to work out the details of a TE position. mediate and immediate are good principles to keep in mind as well. Howard Vantil writes directly to this issue, coming down very hard on the immediate at creation, and a fully gifted creation having whatever it takes to get to now via only mediate works of God.

the problem will remain however, like providence. how do we see it differently from a secular evolutionist if we hide all the supernatural events inside people????

since he hasnt experienced the new birth there is a decreasing point of contact, again.

chris pointed out to me that my essay
related issues is not very clear. so i rewrote it. while doing so i found stephen jones faq on positions in the CED so well done that i imported it as the line up of positions in the issue

while studying his continum as defined:
As can be seen, the main defining characteristic is primarily the degree to which supernatural
intervention by God is allowed, and secondarily the age of the Universe and Earth.

i have a problem on how to define: how much or how often i would expect God to intervene supernaturally in creation. so i looked for another way to express the axis....

i posted this to CED to elicit some help, plus i wrote chris:

at:http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/faqiposs.html

contains the following interesting statement:
As can be seen, the main defining characteristic is primarily the
decree to which supernatural
intervention by God is allowed, and secondarily the age of the
Universe and Earth.


(i take decree is misspelling of degree)

i don't see a difference in degree here but rather something else that
interests me.

start with a set of concentric spheres:
universe, earth, living things, man

look at the axioms/presuppositions/assumptions of science that
creationists most often point to: materialism uniformity naturalism


if you think of the sufficency of the assumptions for explanation at
each subsequently smaller spheres.

yec jump off science's bandwagon at the first level...age of universe
oec off the parade at level of living things.
te somewhere on level of man

de at the level of explanation of the whole thing---ie before big bang
and the ne stay on for the whole show and take presupposition of
methodological naturalism to logical conclusion of philosophic naturalism.


so is this a level of the sufficency of naturalism as a explanatory
principle? This appears better than to measure
amount/degree/commitment to supernaturalism because i don't know how
to quantize my own supernaturalism let alone someone elses....but i do
think i know where my understanding of the applicability of naturalism
would be challenged by secular thought....

this also fits the general idea that the closer to humanity the
discussion gets the more important these assumptions become in the
analysis. hence the greater chance/amount a supernaturalist would
differ with the conclusions of a naturalist based on a difference in
committment to these presuppositions.

thanks for consideration of this.

richard williams

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

it looks like a good way to describe what is going on.
first because it relies not on quantity but simply on the assent that the naturalistic presuppositions break at the given level, somewhere not yet specified.

i am uncomfortable with quantity of supernatural intervention as i detect at least the following ways God intervenes in creation:

providence, as i see it the moment to moment sustaining of the very elements of creation. the image being His hand holding up the world so that if He would momentarily remove His hand the universe would cease to exist.

two points in the creation of man's soul. first is each individual and the second is the creation of the new man in Christ. both supernatural.

but in the CED we are usually referring to supernatural events where God makes some kind of creature in order to bridge a gap that naturalistic forces are unable to do, given that the descendents of that creature are either alive or in the fossil record as extinct beings. I think what stephen is trying to quantitize is how often God would be required to intervene in the natural order of evolution.

but how to differentiate yec from oec?
they can differ only in age of universe, and agree at every other point. my idea of interlocking spheres, like russian dolls, posits a differences in levels that distinguishes these positions.

but why is this interesting?
if we posit God's supernatural intervention as directly opposite the big 3 naturalistic presuppositions: materialism, uniformity, naturalism. i would be forced to move as far towards God's supernatural intervention as possible to acknowledge His soverignity. But if in fact it is a question of where, of what level the supernatural BREAKS those assumptions then we ought to concentrate our energies on questions occurring at that level.

Additionally this incorporates stephen's insight that the BIG peak is between those who allow supernatural intervention and those who would deny its applicability all together. If you make a continum where supernaturalism is the axis then the characteristic is analog, but if instead you approach it from breaking the assumptions, then supernaturalism can remain digital: yes or no. It also clears up the methodological naturalism as not opposed to supernaturalism per se but at what level you need introduce supernatural explanations.

I like the solution. i look forward to discussion on the topic.

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the great divide
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

something resonates inside of me with stephen's idea that the great divide in the CED is between those who accept the supernatural explanations potential and those who dont.

i have been mislead by the polarization technic of the YEC, who so strongly differentiate themselves from anyone with the idea of an old earth. i saw the divide as between acceptance of the scientific idea of an old earth and the literalistic biblioidolatry that held stubbornly to a young earth. i had accepted their division in the discussion, as defending myself from their charges of accomodationist to unbelieving science seemed the important issue.

but this is not the most significant division.
the big division amongst men will always be Christ and Him crucified. how do i/we interpret this event. as supernatural, and the intrusion into our natural world of the world of God which lies underneath our world. God sustains via His providence all that exists, but i am not sure how we would see it. but there is no missing the call for the resurrection. it is and will always remain an event unable to be discussed without reference to the supernatural.

so as a Christian, i must always be aware that the real division is for or against Christ. this division is NOT evident in the argument for a young or old earth, despite the strenduous arguments from the YEC. but to force the issue of methodological naturalism to always remain a provisional tool. never able to say that the universe will be one day explained with the use of this tool. that is a big divide.

the principle of not causing your brother to stumble ought to be invoked in my lack of capitalization of Christ Christian Jesus God Lord. stephen initially thought that i was a troll, evidence was the lack of capitalization of significant words.

i dont believe to capitalize or not to capitalize is significant.
however to give people the wrong idea is significant.

therefore i will make genuine attempt to capitalize those words in the future. remembering stephen's words as i do so. consciously not trying to have anything give affront but the ideas.....

how do we distinguish between the use of the tool provisional methodological naturalism and the philosophic position naturalism?

by the hope that the PN has that the tool MN is sufficent to answer all questions in the universe. he will point to the past and say look all the gaps that God used to inhabit are being filled. this activity will continue until all potential supernatural gaps are filled and explaining using MN. thus vendicating the principle's elevation to a philosophic principle from a provisional tool.

a Christian on the other hand, internally understands the supernatural, for we are a new creation in Christ Jesus, our point of contact with the supernatural is internally resonating. we furthermore point to at least 3 supernatural events which will never be explained with use of MN. creation, the birth/life/death/resurrection of the Lord. and the final judgement. we therefore know that MN is a provisional tool. adopted for various reasons but unable to penetrate to the core of reality.

reading stephen's pages:
from his id page at:http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/faqdntsl.html

Philosophical: The dominant philosophical position underlying science today is the twin assumptions of materialism ("matter is all there is") and naturalism ("the universe is a closed system of natural cause and effect"). These philosophical assumptions are embodied in Darwinism, the dominant theory of biological origins and development. Darwinism acknowledges the appearance of design in nature, but assumes that is merely an illusion. All three philosophical positions : Darwinism, materialism and naturalism, deny the reality of design, and therefore the scientific legitimacy of ID. Therefore a major part of ID's efforts to date has been in mounting counter arguments against materialism, naturalism and Darwinism, as well as asserting its own scientific legitimacy. ID's fundamental strategy in loosening the grip of materialist philosophy on science it calls "The Wedge". This aims to exploit the logical `crack' between the fact that empirical science and materialistic philosophy are not necessarily the same thing.
--------------------------------------------

why does science make these assumptions?
and are they as strong as he perceives? ie methodological naturalism vs philosophic naturalism. materialism as a hope for premise---everything will be explained in materialist terms given enough time vs. materialist answers are to be preferred....

this is stephen's question from CED groups yahoo---------

RW>i am most aware of this because of two articles that because of their
>logic and forcefulness pushed my thinking into theistic evolutionary
>paths from a long held old earth creationist position.
>
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
>http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

Being a newcomer Richard would be unaware that just posting URLs is not
acceptable on CED. That is because: 1) CED has 60+ members and they
cannot all be expected to go off and read webbed articles on other sites;
and 2) CED is a *debate* where members are expected to state their
position(s) either in their own words, or the words of other's *that they are
prepared to defend, right here on CED.

So I will leave it to Richard to explain: 1) what was his "old earth
creationist position" 2) what was it in these "two articles" that 3) "pushed"
his "thinking into theistic evolutionary paths"? and 4) what does Richard
mean by "theistic evolution"; and 5) what distinguishes Richard's "theistic
evolution" from atheistic evolution?
-----------------
start with the plagarized pseudogene article....
-------this is the crucial paragraph on pseudogenes-----
All of the examples of functionless sequences shared between humans and chimpanzees reinforce the argument for evolution that would be compelling even if only one example were known. This argument can be understood by analogy with the legal cases discussed earlier in which shared errors were recognized as proof of copying. The appearance of the same "error"--that is, the same useless pseudogene or Alu sequence or endogenous retrovirus at the same position in human and ape DNA--cannot logically be explained by independent origins of the two sequences. The creationist argument discussed earlier--that similarities in DNA sequence simply reflect the creator's plans for similar protein function in similar species--does not apply to sequences that do not have any function for the organism that harbors them. The possibility of identical genetic accidents creating the same two pseudogene or Alu or endogenous retrovirus independently in two different species by chance is so unlikely that it can be dismissed. As in the copyright cases discussed earlier, such shared "errors" indicate that copying of some sort must have occurred. Since there is no known mechanism by which sequences from modern apes could be copied into the same position of human DNA or vice versa, the existence of shared pseudogenes or retroposons leads to the logical conclusion that both the human and ape sequences were copied from ancestral sequences that must have arisen in a common ancestor of humans and apes
----------------------------------------------------

why is it so important to me, as to push me to accept a TE rather than OEC position?

the big difference, imho, between oec and te is the idea of kinds. i was aware 20 years ago that there was no way to tie down the idea of kinds. it was acceptable however to lend on the idea to hold evolution in a micro-like state. kinds represented a bulwark of activity that had to be performed by god, whether miraclously or not. evolution, as i thought, properly understood could not explain/predict crossing over these boundaries. whether genus up to phylum(swim, fly, crawl) i didnt care.

the crucial issue for christians is the unique position of adam. three options are readily apparently possible. 1-unique creation from dust of the earth, analgously to potter spitting into clay and making a figure, how the rabbis interpret the passage in the talmud. 2-creation of adam from existing chimp-human ancestor. adding the breath of life and creating in the image of god. fundamentally the roman catholic position. goes along well with superaddendum theology. 3-naturalist evolution where god doesnt have to intervene in a supernatural way at all to create man from chimp-man ancestor.

what the plagarized gene does is makes it look like god used 2 or 3 and not one. otherwise god would be open to charge of lying to us and making it look as if evolution occurred and it did not. on these grounds i eliminate 1 and forced to adopt te position.

what distinguishes te from de(deistic evolution) or ne(naturalist evolution) stephen's terms.

god appears to have told us that he operates in 3 distinctly different ways in creation: 1-as creator 2-as sustainer 3-as redemmer

sustainer is concept of providence. gods hand as it where underneath the very elements of the universe, sustaining it from moment to moment.

redemmer involves the new creation of the new man with the new heart. a new creation replacing the old man. miraclous, supernatural.

god as creator is the problem here.
1-creates then leaves---deism....i reject notion
2-creates then intervenes when needed...see howard van til for discussion of fully gifted creation...
2a-creates and guides the whole process. bridging the gaps where necessary. appears to be stephen's pc catagory. same areas of problems: the kinds and adam.

2b-guides in order to achieve particular goals. explains origin of man versus blind chance. argues against s.j.goulds replay tape of evolution and get another world.


the solution to the issue revolves around several things. first is god still creating or is he at rest?
if he is at rest, as the church appears to teach, except in the redemming field, then he ought to be using existing material to build with, not creatio ex nihilo since creation.

this question seems to revolve around means used. do we have scriptural warrant to believe that god creates new matter in the universe. or just reworking the old? i dont know. miracles dont require new matter. lazarus was raised from the dead without creating new fundamental particles. the question of is jesus' heavenly body a new creation? appears to be......

stephen.

i dont understand your attitude but i will try to explain a few things you asked.

1-i dont capitalize much at all. it is a habit from programming under unix. if you would take a few moments to briefly examine my blog at
http://rmwilliamsjr.blogspot.com you would see that. simply a common trait i picked up innocently.
the one exception is that i rarely capitalize i and that is due to a desire to be conscious of things i learned from ee. cummings. ...

to read into that i dont capitalize a atheistic mindset is just a little over....i dont use apostrophes often either in online communication. what does that imply?


2-you asked an honest question.
to quote the first page of my homepage at
http://www.fastucson.net/~rmwillia

" taking some time off(almost 3 years now) from life to tie up loose intellectual ends. you know the burning questions that you felt and argued about all night long when you where younger but got lost in the business of life, and wife, and kids, and money etc etc.
so about 2 months ago i revisited my old friend and heartbreaker evolution and creation. i've been through a pile of books and many sleepless nights staring at the roof thinking.
ok....more than enough background. basically i am finding myself moving to a theistic evolutionary viewpoint. now the church has forcefully condemned the position as wrong. (op pca)
the question boils down to the role of reason in our/my life. i understand, i think, the ramifications of "I believe in order that i might understand". committed to the proposition that reason does not escape the effects of the fall and can/will lead us astray, that is why the church's position is important to me. "

this is from a letter i wrote sep 11th 2002. as i embarked on the study of creation-evolution that eventually ended up with me writing this to you.
i wrote about my mom's suicide on the blog and how that pushes me to try to get closure on an issue that took me first to ucsd to study biology and later to westminster to study theology. it's in the blog. dated. and in black and white. issues i'm wrestling with, and why i think creation evolution is a very important topic.

the fact that i care about what the bible has to say about scientific things implies that i have some emotional attachment to the bible as gods revelation to us. otherwise it just wouldnt matter.

3-i dont usually respond at all to personal attacks. i think it gets in the way of learning to emotionally respond to them. if you'd like to see this in action you can read the rtb-groups message base where i have been posting for about 2 months. despite rather unpleasant company, i feel i am learning something there and it helps to bounce ideas off people who really respond to them.


4-so we are back to the first page of my website. why i am here and what i expect to gain with the conversation with you and with the other members of the group.

i think you have worked through many of the issues that i will be working through over the next few months. having that experience i think you can helpfully critize ideas i am working on...(see the essays link off my homepage).



so back to the real issue.

stephen writes in the previous message--->

No, "the framework" determines in advance what *can* be "facts". Every
"fact" that does not fit "the framework" of atheistic materialism-naturalism,
is declared to be a non-"fact".


i dont believe it is that simple.
there are a few pieces of the puzzle available.

a---m. polanyi with his distinction of distal and proximal shows that theory formation occurs at the level of fact in what we see and what we dont see. backup evidence is early childhood acquisition of faces. theory formation preceeds fact gathering in some very important ways.

b---paul's argument in romans 1:20 leads us to believe that the unbeliever will not see or accept "facts" in contradiction to his rebellion towards god.

abraham kuyer is the most consistent theologian i know of following up this idea and leading to the formation of a separate christian science. although the theonomists would also plead this case strongly.

i am working on how i think about this issue with the idea that science is a "christian" enterprise. in the way that it uses some very low level assumptions that it inherited from the culture it developed from. these presumpositions, assumptions, axioms, whatever you wish to call them, are important pieces of the framework of science. and analogously to how sin is its own reward and punishment. good ideas have good consequences. i see this happening in science. starting from a base in common grace, science has principles that "minimize" the effects of sin.

the big issue is how far are christians to co-operate in the scientific enterprise? YEC constantly accuse me of capitulation and accomodation to unbelievers in accepting the old age of the earth.
there appears to be no issues that can not be reconciled between scripture and an old earth.

so you move up to the next big issue. it is really the issue i see separating oec and te. the issue of kinds, with the kind human being the real point. this is the importance of these two sites i quoted earlier:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/

this being the most important.
i was consciously oec when i started this project back in sept. this paper pushed me towards an acceptance of te because the plagarism angle seems to make god to be a liar if he did not use a pre-existent being to create adam.

so back to my home page. this view is forcible condemned by the church. so again. i go looking for help to understand.....


richard williams

is science atheistic?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

is science atheistic because it assumes that any question can be answered in terms of matter in motion? is the atheistic idea that matter in motion is all there is a direct result of using materialistic presuppositions?

0r less strongly: if you assume in your scientific programs that the question of miracles is irrelevant do your therefore tell god he is irrelevant?

are they natural conclusions to make from the assumption of materialistic thinking, or are they unwarranted extensions of a belief that science ought to be agnostic with respect to a miracle working god?

there was a book of poetry that alma and i read together years ago. it was written by a CRC. in there was a poem "i dont care" in which he as a young person had answered a question about god with the words "i dont care" which to the teacher meant "god damn". is a statement like "to science questions of god are irrelevance" in the same class? at least the theonists are consistent, and would build theistic science and new christian universities...

the distinction by AiG of origin and operational sciences.
------------------------------------------------------------------
is it the same thing as the distinction of historical and experimental?
No. AiG has an agenda behind their distinction, they divide things that way in order to deny the applicability of particular assumptions in origins studies.

the historical and experimental distinction flows naturally out of our experience of time. we are all too conscious of the one way arrow of time, and our subsequent inability to modify things that happened in the past. this makes historical studies unable to participate directly in the goal of experimental science, ie to design/frame/form hypothesis and then test them. historical studies are rather more like the detective stories some are fond of reading. it investigates the past, not thereby released from experimental support but rather experimental support takes a backseat to the cause-effect analysis to predict the likihood of effects happening in such and such a way. we only have to cite CSI to eliminate any argument that detective work is like sherlock holmes smoking a pipe and theorizing without any significant laboratory work needed.

but thereis a tenuousness and unpredictability of the historical studies due to their intrinstic probabilistic underpinnings. it is likely to have happened such and such, or it seems reasonable to believe. our legal system is proof enough of the unreliability of detective work to assure that the historical studies are never able to say. this is certainly what happened.

but tenuousness and uncertainity is not what AiG is seeking in it's false division. it wants to change not degree of tools available in the historical studies but rather rule inadmissible the use of tools such as uniformity, materialist, predictive assumptions in the origins studies all together so that science must be silent on those questions. thus leaving the field open only to the scriptures to speak. the division of historical and experimental is one of degree. the present is forever retreating into the past. yesterday's experiment is historical, last years but an memory and 300 years ago a historical oddity. time pushes the distinction, beginning with one of kind, but continuing to one of degree. yesterday is in the past as certainly as 300 years ago. but yet we speak convidently of historical things. we do not rule out everything because it is past, only we increase probabilities, we speak less certainly as events receed in our collective memories. the fact that the beginning of life on earth was a long time ago is not one of kind from yesterday's experiment, as AiG would contend. but one of degree.

on rtb-groups there is a member who participates who posted his essay at AiG...the link to his article is in my message. it is worth the time to read. the two paragraphs i quoted as excellent places to start a discussion.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1st-thank you for the link to your essay in the messages above.

from:
dr faulkner's AiG essay--->quoted in
"
Ross argues that science alone can drive men to the correct understanding of our origin and hence see the necessity of a Creator. But this assumes that fallible men using a man-made (and hence fallible) methodology (science — in particular origins science7) with an incorrect postulate (atheism) can come to the truth about God. It would be most unexpected and illogical for a system of thought to reach a conclusion that is in contradiction to one of the basic postulates of that system.


This paradox underscores Ross’s greatest misconception of how modern science works vis-à-vis the question of origins. As Johnson has pointed out, modern science, even origins science, by its very nature starts with the assumption of materialism.8 This assumption excludes consideration of any metaphysical reality, and leads to such quotes as those of the late Carl Sagan, ‘The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.’9 This assumption is blatantly atheistic. That does not mean that all, or even most, scientists are atheists. It merely means that the total exclusion of any possibility of a Deity makes most of modern science an atheistic enterprise, at least tacitly.
"
---------------
2nd-
this argument as expressed in these two paragraphs is key not just for dr. faulkner's criticism of h.ross's science but it is key for any conservative christian's understanding of science.

what's going on? the paragraphs outline the noetic consequences of sin. the first result is that science operates on false premises. the conclusion is that science is atheistic. the second conclusion is that we can not trust anything science says about origins(historical) versus normal (operational) science because this in particular is where atheism will differ from the truth.

outlined as---
1. human beings are fallible.
2. the noetic effects of the fall are such that "our understanding is darkened and we exchange the truth of god for a lie", even christians are not free of this in our lives.
3. science requires(strong) or uses(weaker) two assumptions/propositions/presuppostions. materialism atheism
4. the conclusions are forgone. atheistic scientism

------------
1---i dont believe that atheism is a low level assumption of science.i believe science and scientists in general are agnostic in their assumptions about god. i dont think science as a methodology assumes god as christians conceive of him as creator/sustainer/redeemmer does not exist but rather a weaker form of irrelevance. god is not part of scientific explanations, we assume his presence is not necessary as an operational explanation. this is not the same thing as a high level conclusion that god does not exist. but this is not a key part of the argument.

2-what is key are two points: the noetic effects of sin, and the use of assumptions as working tools,(bridging hypothesis)

there seems to be a continuium of "how bad" the noetic effects of sin are understood in the christian community. there appear to be those who would say that the effects are so serious that unbelievers can not say anything with expressing their hatred for god underneath what they say. i'm thinking of some theonomist who would say that there are virtually no points of contact with the unbeliever and that christians ought to build a parallel christian institution next to each unbelieving worldly one. science, university, etc etc.

on the other hand there are those who would minimize this noetic consequences of sin to the point that it is just a stain to be washed away. the truth must be somewhere in the middle. key element would be to decide the point of contact with unbelievers or unbelieving institutions like science.

as i read the pca discussions on the framework perspective (see capo.org for links). i believe where on the continium(just how bad are the noetic effects of the fall) you personally fall is how you will decide the gen1-2 issues.

i find myself defending the view that the system of science, with ideas of depersonalization, peer review, multiplicity of sources etc are designed to combat the effects of sin(early in the history of science consciously). all people know that they err, science is a deliberate attempt to minimize this error. so what happens is that i conclude that science rolls back the effect of sin so to speak. this is an opposite conclusion to the pca brethren who conclude that science as it looks closer at things to do with people and their responsiblity to god, becomes more sinful in order to escape the consequences of concluding that god creates in YEC style. i believe this is a difference in degree not kind.

the second idea in the article that is of crucial importance is materialism(from other AiG papers he might very well have added uniformitarism) as a working hypothesis of science.

i would disagree with dr. faulkner that it is the presence of these hypothesis that makes science (potentially) atheistic, rather it is an unwarranted extension of the hypothesis that is causing the movement towards an atheistic science.

i believe we need materialistic and uniformity assumptions to bridge the gap between our theories and the data. it is when people draw an unwarranted conclusion that since the usage of materialistic principles has yielded us so much power therefore materialism as a philosophy must be true. it is as if in using a tape measure to measure a table i conclude that it will likewise be the right tool to measure the world. it is again the noetic consequences of sin pushing the unbeliever to justify his rebellion against god that logically pushes him to desire materialism as a balwark of his world and life view. it is a misuse of a tool. it is a confusion of levels. the lower level of materialism as a working assumption in order to do science and the radical acceptance of the proposition of "things are all there is and all that is important".

it is on this level. the unwarranted assumption that you can extend working hypothesis of uniformity materialism etc. to form a world and life view that i would chose to attack scientism, materialism atheism etc....not on the level of those elements being working tools.

------------
this is longer then i would like. but it is because the article's two paragraphs give me much to think about. it is really why i am here to read and discuss these kind of issues.

thanks
richard williams

----------------------------

it was already too long to post. so i will continue here.
can science lead us to god? no.
can science say true things about the world? yes. the methodology tends to decrease the noetic effects of sin.
as science says things about man versus when it talks about things, are there increasing rebellion towards god, in that it is closer to home and the conclusion are more inescapable. ? probably

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--- In RTB_Discussion_Group@yahoogroups.com, XXXXX wrote---
> Where does compromise begin?
>
> by Charles Taylor, M.A., Ph.D., PGCE, LRAM, FIL, Cert. Theol.
>
snip snip snip.
> does, interpret it. That's sometimes the trouble. We're so busy
> looking at the various spiritual applications that we overlook the
> historical aspects. Christianity is unique in being a historical
> faith, and if we downplay the history, we end up being just
> another religious philosophy.
>
snip snip snip


it's a good article. well reasoned. timely. certainly an article that any conservative christian would assent to.

scripture is written on various interpretive levels.
the historical, as we envision the bottom level, anchors it into this world. jesus was a real man, issues that took the church 400 years to hammer out. spilling not just ink but real red blood in doing so.

the underlying message of the article, and in case i'd miss it, entitled where does compromise begin? the implication is that an interpretive scheme which decreases the percentage of historical interpretation is compromise and will end up like bultmann, a liberal.

--------
our problem is that we hold to several doctrines that are all important. and not equally important. i believe i have then in prioritized order.

first is the reliability of scripture.
second is principles like try to interpret scripture first with literal man-in-the-street commonsense ideas as applied to those it was first addressed to.
third but realize that scripture is literally a letter addressed to the church in all the ages, until jesus returns.
fourth a closed canon
fifth an evolving historical theology which changes and adapts the message of god to different cultures and historical epoches. the bible may be cultural but the message it contains is timeless and cultureless.

the author of the message takes two books, daniel and jonah of examples of how people have demythologized the verses. dehistorized. in response to as he puts it, the desire to eliminate the miracles.

-----
in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth.

to believe that god created it in one 6 day 24 hour creation week is not any more miraculous then to believe that god used evolution to do it. i dont compromise the gospel to believe that the days are not 24 hours long.

my desire is to open the book of nature and to understand what god has written there. if anything i hold to a higher view of history than does a YEC. for i believe the fossils, the radioactive data, the things god has written in the very nature of the universe. the history is real. i dont hypothezie light created as if the stars where very far away, when in fact they are 6K years old.. i dont call scientists grossly mistaken for seeing evidence of a very ancient earth. i take history seriously.

i take sides with science against an overly literal, unwarrantly historicized genesis 1 and 2, whose proponets are polarizing the church into warring camps when the only distinction ought to be the resurrection of jesus and its significance(to know nothing but jesus and him crucified). i take sides with science, not to diminish the meaning of scripture but to put it into the framework that god intends for us to understand it.

the universe exists. it is god's creation. if something is clearly understood from a scientific viewpoint that appears to be in conflict with scripture then i first reevaluate the meaning of the science, but if it appears from a general christian preceptive to be valid. and if i can see christians with a high view of scripture believing those things from science. then i need to re evaluate my interpretation of scripture.

we are heirs to a different way of looking at the world than were the ancient hebrews who first heard the words of genesis. a big part of that world is science. it is something that i will take seriously, i will be careful to do my homework in the field, i will believe god when he says that he created the heavens and the earth. not a deceiver who is casting a great spell on the scientific world so that they see what is not there. especially since that scientific world contains many believers who see genesis as supportive of a very old earth.


so yes, i believe as the author of your quote does, that history is important. the history as discovered by biology and geology and astronomy. this side is better use of my reason that to side with the YEC and hold to a literal view of an ancient world where myth and stories where the primary means of explanation. god accommodated himself to our frailities, he spoke our languages, he took upon himself the form of a man. the world of man, that god spoke genesis to
is a different world from the one we inhabit. we cloth our arguments in terms that the hebrews never would have, dna ribosomes, stellar clusters ... yet the meaning and significance is not changed.

in the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth.


richard williams