"Magic Circle" by John William Waterhouse, 1886 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Magic

Far too many atheists will argue that the supernatural world is simply a belief in magic. Magic certainly utilizes the supernatural as the force to which it endeavors to control but it cannot be defined as the same as supernatural. 

There is nothing in the definition of ether Science or Supernatural that eliminates the Supernatural from scientific consideration. The claim by Evolutionists that Science can not consider the Supernatural is a purely philosophical and essentially atheistic position.

For this reason it is not rational to believe that the supernatural cannot influence the natural world. Supernatural force is transcendent and independent of natural laws. This means that supernatural forces can influence the natural laws but not necessarily the natural laws influence the supernatural, this would simply make all forces natural laws.

Causality, by natural laws, states that everything that exists has been caused to exist by another force. This uses the natural laws of the universe to explain the continued existence but causality cannot continue to an infinity past in a finite universe. It is not possible to an infinite regression of causes in natural laws because time would never progress forward unless there was a fixed starting point. Therefore the original cause of origin cannot use natural laws to bring about the beginning of the universe and had to be acted upon by an external force that may be described as supernatural by the definition I will provided.

Many atheists embrace a belief known as naturalism or scientism. This is the belief that all of the observations within the universe can be explained by the use of natural laws or through the sciences. I do not argue that these tools have their place in the rational world however if I were to give you a definition of natural laws that support pure naturalism or scientism that would be a false definition. Even University of Arizona's famous atheist Dr Lawrence Krauss understands that naturalism and scientism is not sufficient as tools for explaining the operations observed within our universe.

Therefore I define natural laws in this fashion:  Natural Laws - an order that governs the continued cause and effect of the natural universe and is known to all people through their natural faculties (especially reason and/or conscience)

Again, there is nothing in this definition that would make natural laws the sole influence of the universe or cause the collapse of the natural system if they were violated. There is nothing in the Scientific method that requires natural causes within explanations or theory. Some events once thought to be supernatural are now, after acquiring new knowledge, known to be natural. While this is true, it is a false analogy. Such events were deemed to be supernatural because nature was poorly understood by those who made such claims. A scientific application of supernatural explanations concludes that natural processes are inadequate, not do lack of knowledge but an actual inability of chance and natural law to suffice as a probable explanation. If one simply believes that a natural law has not been discovered or conceived of, the argument is absurd since it is impossible to eliminate a theory that does not yet exist. It would have to be restricted to natural explanations that are consistent with the theoretical system under consideration, since any that is not consistent with it would be eliminated by definition. Sometimes all possible natural explanations can be eliminated, by virtue of inconsistency with the laws of nature or being impossibly improbable.

Any time an atheist uses the word magic to describe someone’s faith in the existence of God, they are attempting to belittle that person and psychologically disarm them by them by making them look foolish. This is an effective strategy to many Christians who have not been trained in critical thinking.

Now the definition of supernatural is a mechanistic or intelligent agent that does not conform to natural laws; can influence natural laws but is not governed by them.

I do not have the faith to be an atheist in the light of holes in atheistic theories. In 1687, physicists believed in the Static Universe Theory. In 1915 physicists believed in the Einsteinian universe theory. In 1929 physicists traded that for the Expanding Universe Theory more commonly called the Big Bang. We also have the Oscillating Universe theory, the Inflationary Universe Theory and the more recent Multiverse theory. All of these theories cannot be disproven by scientific experiment, these theories cannot even be tested fully by experiment, nor can any claim the monopoly of fact. Throw in state-of-the-art M-theory, superstring theory and Brane cosmology and you have different ideas that simply try to justify or support a physicist’s position. Again no monopoly on fact.

Theory of Atheism

Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. The proofs of logic within a theory are deduced from premises and achieve certainty only because they are evident in the empirical world. What I mean is that gravity exists because I can observe it through experimentation and without fail, gravity functions logically the same every time. If you do not believe in God it is because you interpreted the facts in that direction and I in the opposing direction.

A theory is plausible only when the probability of that hypothesis is greater based on the available evidence and background information than on the background information alone (this is known as the Bayne calculus). All Atheistic theories are not supported logically by the complete evidence but are constructs of imagination to interpret facts. Case in point, the limited resource argument for extra-terrestrial life has not stopped astrophysicists from fancifully imagining that ET exists against all empirical evidence to the contrary.

Atheism discards much of the evidence before them which in turn eschews their interpretation of the fact. For example, Naturalism, refers to the view that nature is the ultimate substance from which all life and the whole of existence is comprised. Therefore first principles, eternal ideas, souls, spirits, divine reason, supernatural events and afterlife are considered absurdities in their worldview. As an end result, only reason is left, but within the naturalistic worldview, reason is only active because it is a reaction to stimuli or sensations (i.e., firing of neurons, chemical interactions). Would this disregard of principles not be considered a form of bias if it came from anyone other than a scientist?

The fact that humans can have a concept of infinite in a finite universe suggests that we are more than the sum of our parts. Many human emotions such as commitment, loyalty, and love extend human consciousness beyond anything observed in the natural world. Human consciousness is a mystery that has evaded decades of intensive research by neurophysiologists. According to a Wall Street Journal article: “When an organism's neural pathways grow sufficiently complex, materialists insist, their firings are somehow accompanied by consciousness. But despite decades of effort by philosophers and neurophysiologists, no one has been able to come up with a remotely plausible explanation of how this happens--how the hunk of gray meat in our skull gives rise to private Technicolor experience. One distinguished commentator on the mind-body problem, Daniel Dennett, author of Consciousness Explained, has been driven to declare that there is really no such thing as consciousness--we are all zombies, though we're unaware of it.” (Jim Holt. 1997. Science Resurrects God. The Wall Street Journal (December 24, 1997), Dow Jones & Co., Inc.)

According to Daniel J. Povinelli, from the University of Louisiana's Iberia Research Center humans differ vastly from any so-called related primate: "Humans constantly invoke unobservable phenomena and variables to explain why certain things are happening. Chimps operate in the world of concrete, tangible things that can be seen. The content of their minds is about the observable world."(Tuma, R.S. 2000. Thinking Like a Chimp. HMS Beagle, BioMedNet 90: feature 2, Originally cited at http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/imageofgod.html)

What Povinelli is saying is that humans have the ability for abstract thing, which is unlike any other animal or creature in the natural world. In light of such scientific data, it may be unwise for physicists and evolutionists to discard these supernatural qualities that reside in man as being absurd.

Physicists and evolutionary biologist commonly fall prey to the bias of Empiricism. Empiricism is the philosophical idea that there is no reality beyond what we prove with our senses. This philosophy teaches that the existence of all thought and immaterial existence is for the sole purpose of increase scientific observation. Many use this argument to "prove" that God cannot exist because He cannot be observed or His existence experimented.. But it is logically erroneous to assert that claims of positive truth (that God exists) bear a burden of proof, while claims of negative truth (Atheism) do not require proof.

Pure empiricism denies any learning through vicarious means. As intelligent beings, humans have the ability to learn not just through our observations and personal experiences but vicariously through historical principles. Though I never lived in a country whose government had toppled, I can read about the issues of that country and learn from their mistakes vicariously without having to endure the harsh experiences. This is the process of abstract thinking that cannot be accounted for in the natural world yet is observable through the scientific method.

This form of thinking not only devalues human life and existence but also ignores human life and experience as an evidence of the supernatural cosmological argument. In essence atheism will not allow the human experience to show that the uniqueness of human life in this universe is in itself evidence for the existence of God.

Fallacy of Improper Hermeneutics

Fallacy of Improper Hermeneutics

Yet another logical fallacy among people is the desire to interpret a religion based on their own inability to properly interpret the scriptures. Can an untrained man who was raised in the modern world, of a different geographical location, different economical status, different worldview (Postmodern, modern, and classical) understand the writings of the ancients?

This is not to suggest that the general teachings of any religion cannot be understood by anyone, on the contrary, they can. What is often overlooked in the proper understand of how language has changed and evolved.

For instance, in recent years the Christian Bible has been attacked for its teachings on slavery. Also this argument has been used to further the homosexual agenda (Rudnick, 2012). Essentially the argument is that we as a society have outgrown certain biblical principles such as slavery and that now we can also ignore other biblical principles such as homosexuality.

First, is the concept of slavery biblical? Yes it is. Before you suck in all the air in the room you must overcome your 21^st century way of thinking and realize that biblical slavery is still in practice today even in the United States of America, and it is completely legal.

It is important to understand that God set forth strict guidelines on the owning of slaves and that over the years the system that God created had indeed been abused by man as has so many other biblical systems. Scripture teaches "He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 21:16). No one could just be made a slave in the biblical society the punishment for doing so was death. No one had a right to enforce their will over another.

The issue of slavery in the bible was a method to handle certain social and economical problems with the community. If a citizen, after making several bad financial decisions, finds himself in a state of bankruptcy, he could sell himself off in order to pay his debts. As scripture says: 'If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave's service. 'He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. 'He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers. 'For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. 'You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God. (Leviticus 25:39-43)

The nomadic Israelites did not have prisons to hold criminals. You either committed a capital offense in which the punishment was death or you owned restitution to your victim. If you could not pay the restitution, you were sold into slavery to pay in manual labor. This was a very effective criminal justice system. And again the godly system did not make a person a slave for life but as scripture teaches: "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment." (Exodus 21:2).

When you consider the absolute need for a system of criminal justice within either and agrarian or nomadic society (and not out 21^st century society), one sees the wisdom of this system. I would implore people to learn the proper rule of hermeneutics before making rash judgments against age old biblical wisdom.

 Work Cited

Rudnick, A. (2012, May 1). TimesUnion. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from Anti-bullying advocate: ‘ignore the bullsh*t in the Bible’: http://blog.timesunion.com/rudnick/anti-bullying-advocate-bullying-ignore-the-bullsht-in-the-bible/2749/

 

Fallacy against Organized Religion

Jesus' Church (Church of Grace), Cieszyn (Poland) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fallacy against Organized Religion

In following with the previous fallacy, another fallacy of human thought arises within people. Because many religions of the world have sects and divisions among them such as the many denominations of the Christian faith and the many divisions of the Islamic faith, we tend discard the religion entirely because of the religious tenants of a single division.

Within Christianity there are far too many denominations and sects to be listed here and is outside the scope of this dissertation. However to site a point, Mormonism espouses itself as a Christian religion though the doctrines of that faith are considered heresy by more orthodox denominations.

When judging the validity of any religion, say Christianity, a reasonable judge must look beyond the label that the denomination has given itself and search out the doctrinal principles and the examine the actions of its members that are considered praiseworthy by its leaders.

If leaders of a sect consider homosexual with small children, such as one small sect of the Islamic faith, as being praiseworthy, this must be weighed against the whole teaching of the entire religion. Islam is not the only religion that has been guilty of such actions. The so called Christian sect named the “Branch Davidian” once believed in the leader’s right to have sexual relations with any female within his sect. Clearly this was a violation of the principles of all the rest of Christianity that taught such actions as adultery.

Ask yourselves the question, “What is wrong with organized religion?” or even its reversal, “What is good with unorganized religion?” Perhaps this definition is too obscure and the consensus is the amount of power a well structured religious denomination brings.

Inarguably, among men, power corrupts but then that corruption is made manifest by the actions of men and not the tenant of a religion. Perhaps it is too much for a person to believe that a church or religion should wield power of any society but this like given an employee in a company great responsibility for a job without giving them to power to effect changes in the efficiency of that job. It is illogical to suggest that a true religious principle should not also have the right to be acted upon.

  For instance, for the sake of argument, lets say that God will judge you when you die. Let us also say that baptism (immersion in the Greek) was a requirement set forth by God and failure to observe such commandment would mean exclusion from salvation (Mark 16:16). If these principles were the measure of salvation and the majority of the world did not comply, do I, who knows the truth, not have a moral obligation before all of humanity teach that with authority? Does not my moral obligation also equate to authority in what I practice? If we deny that moral obligation is directly related to authority and power then we discard all governmental powers and authority as well and this leads us into obsurdity.

Fallacy of Principles verses Actions

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC; the alabaster mantle is a modern addition. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fallacy of Principles verses Actions

There is a logical fallacy within people who condemn all religion and religious affiliations because of immoral actions committed by a minority within that religious tenant. This is the equivalent of hating all Muslims because one hates Mohammed Gondi or believing that all Jews are evil because some killed Christ. A person of reasonable cognitive powers should be able to reason that the principles of a faith and not the action of believer should be the first steps of judging a religion.

Headlines around the world are filled with disturbing actions of priests and cult leaders alike that perform many immoral acts against their fellow man and their community. In Ireland, a scandal is currently affecting the Catholic Church that is rocking its foundations. Multiple priests have been accused of committing sexual assaults on children (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2012) and having gay porn on their removable storage device while teaching on Holy Communion (CNN World, 2012).

This blight is not only a mark on the Catholic Church but also on non-denominational protestant churches as well (Ann Rodgers-Melnick, 2003).

By no means are these immoral acts that were performed by members of various denominations a reflection of the entire organization. It is unreasonable for anyone to judge a religious organization on the actions of some corrupt members of the organization.  Corrupt members of such organizations should and must be punished by the letter of the law. However the religion must be examined through the microscope of its doctrine.

Anyone who would apply such logic to their lives must also exclude their children from daycare centers because one center 500 miles away had a pedophile on staff or exclude them from the boy scouts because of their scandals and must never attend political protest because one ended in the murder of a police officer.

What the American society is facing right now is a plague that feeds on the rational minds of Americans. Society fails to use the rational mind that is given to them by the Creator and accepts as facts major dichotomies of thought. For example, many consider themselves Christian but also believe that when we die our ghost can haunt our home for years afterward. Or another example is the feel-good hipster Christian that believes that just accepting Jesus into my heart is enough without the actual lifestyle changes that Christ spoke of.

Works Cited

Ann Rodgers-Melnick, P.-G. S. (2003, May 31). Father of girl feels 'betrayed' by church . Retrieved May 3, 2012, from Pittsburgh Post Gazette: http://old.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030531valenciareg4p4.asp

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2012, May 3). 1. Retrieved May 3, 2012, from Ireland's top Catholic rejects abuse cover-up claims: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-03/ireland27s-top-catholic-rejects-new-abuse-cover-up-claims/3986416

CNN World. (2012, April 29). Priest in gay porn probe leaves parish. Retrieved May 03, 2012, from CNN World: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-04-29/world/world_europe_ireland-priest-gay-porn_1_cardinal-sean-brady-church-investigation-priest?_s=PM:EUROPE