Tag Archives: Science

Polemics

Sean McDowell takes a closer look at the Mormon Scriptures

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Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 tweeted this article from Conversant Life.

Excerpt:

The view of faith in the Mormon Scriptures differs from the Bible. Alma 32:17 says, “Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe. Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.” In other words, faith involves believing something we do not know. If we knew it, there would be no need for faith. But the Bible proposes a different relationship between faith and reason. Rather than being opposites, the Bible presents a view of faith that is based upon what we do know. As philosopher J.P. Moreland put it, “Faith is trusting what we have reason to believe is true.”

For instance, in Exodus 7-14 Moses performs various miracles so the people will know there is a God and then in turn trust him (see 7:14 and 8:10). The pattern is:

1.  God performs a miracle

2.  The people have knowledge about God

3.  They are called to believe

Exodus 14:31 says, “When Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.” The miracle that they could see and know came first, not the belief.

Knowledge is not the opposite of belief, as the Mormon scriptures suggest. Faith does not involve believing something without evidence. Rather, it is a trust in God in light of what weknow to be true. Jesus healed the paralytic so the people would know that he has the authority of God (Mark 2:10).

I suspect the reason the Book of Mormon has this view of faith and knowledge is that the Mormons’ claims cannot be investigated. The cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon have not been located (i.e. Zarahemla), the gold plates cannot be examined, the hill Cumorah cannot be excavated because LDS scholars can’t even agree whether it’s in North or Central America, and the millions of bodies destroyed in the Americas are nowhere to be found. When there is no convincing external evidence corroborating a belief, it must be based upon experience, feeling, and blind faith. This may be the view of faith in the Book of Mormon, but it is decidedly not the biblical view (see John 20:30-31).

This reminded me of a comment written by a Mormon named “Stacie” over at Answering Mormons:

I feel very sad that you are so lost. I also find it sad that you do so much more ‘research’ on why the LDS beliefs are ‘wrong’ rather than simply living your life as you believe you should. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true. I have received confirmation that it is true, that every aspect of the LDS church is true. Joseph Smith was a true prophet and all prophets that have succeeded him have been and are true prophets of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that the Bible is true as far as it is translated correctly. I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers, whether you are LDS or not. I know that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that through His Atonement and resurrection we have the ability to return to our Heavenly Father. I won’t use any more of my time to read anything on this blog, but I know that if you truly read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, do all that you can to learn about the LDS church and believe that Heavenly Father will answer your prayers then you, too, will know the truth of the Gospel. If we based our faith on logic it wouldn’t be faith would it? Faith is believing in something that you cannot see or feel. I wish you all the best and pray that you may find the peace and happiness that comes with the truth and light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This view by Stacie is consistent with my own experiences dealing with Mormons over the past two decades. Many of them can be quite “nice” and talented in every area except religion. When it comes to the religion, feelings and blind faith dominate over reason and evidence, for Mormons. They believe what they believe because they want to, and that’s all there is to it. I once had a Mormon in high school tell me that Mormons didn’t care at all about what scientists could show about the origin of the universe. Whenever what scientists could show contradicted their Scriptures, they always chose their Scriptures. There was a huge divorce between their religion and the real world.

I explained in a previous post that Mormonism is not only contradicted by science, but also by history. In addition, others have shown that Mormonism is incoherent philosophically. I recommend checking those posts out if you want three clear-cut reasons why Mormonism cannot be true.

One final thought. As Mormonism becomes more widespread, might we not expect that their unBiblical, irrational, unsupported view of faith will infect the larger culture, so that the the divorce between theology and truth becomes complete in the minds of the secular world? Let’s hope that Mormonism’s view of faith does not become mainstream.

For a good explanation of the Christian view of faith, read this post.

Podcasts

Are religious claims about the real world or just untestable assertions?

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Dr. Walter L. Bradley

This lecture is based on the book “Truth in Religion” by famous philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. At the time of writing the book, he was not a Christian, but there is still a lot of value in the book for Christians who are trying to understand what religion is about. In one sense, the material on this lecture should be the first thing that Christians learn about Christianity before they ever open the Bible. And I mean before even knowing about the existence of the Bible. The most important question when it comes to religion is this: “IS RELIGION CONCERNED WITH TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT REALITY”? That is the first question to answer.

About the speaker

Dr. Walter L. Bradley (C.V. here) is the Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor.

Here’s a bio from his faculty page at Baylor University:

Walter Bradley (B.S., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor. He comes to Baylor from Texas A&M University where he helped develop a nationally recognized program in polymeric composite materials. At Texas A&M, he served as director of the Polymer Technology Center for 10 years and as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering, a department of 67 professors that was ranked as high as 12th nationally during his tenure. Bradley has authored over 150 refereed research publications including book chapters, articles in archival journals such as the Journal of Material Science, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, Journal of Composites Technology and Research, Composite Science and Technology, Journal of Metals, Polymer Engineering and Science, and Journal of Materials Science, and refereed conference proceedings.

Dr. Bradley has secured over $5.0 million in research funding from NSF grants (15 yrs.), AFOSR (10 years), NASA grants (10 years), and DOE (3 years). He has also received research grants or contracts from many Fortune 500 companies, including Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, Shell, Exxon, Boeing, and Phillips.

He co-authored The Mystery of Life Origin: Reassessing Current Theories and has written 10 book chapters dealing with various faith science issues, a topic on which he speaks widely.

He has received 5 research awards at Texas A&M University and 1 national research award. He has also received two teaching awards. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the largest organization of Christians in Science and Technology in the world. He is President elect of the ASA and will serve his term in 2008.

You can read more about his recent research on how to use coconuts to make car parts in this article from Science Daily.

The MP3 file is here. (31 minutes + Q&A)

Topics:

  • what is pluralism?
  • what is multiculturalism?
  • what is relativism?
  • some propositions are true culturally – just for certain groups in certain times (cultures)
  • some proposition are true trans-culturally – true independently of what anyone wants or feels
  • Mathematical truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
  • Scientific truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
  • Some truths are not like this – cooking traditions, clothing traditions and greeting traditions
  • These kinds of truths are NOT trans-cultural, they vary by culture
  • The question is – is religion true like math and science, or true depending on the culture
  • Some people think that your religion depends on where you were born or what your family believes
  • Religions make conflicting claims about the way the world really is, so they can’t all be true
  • And these conflicts are at the core of the religions – who God is, how can we be related to him, etc.
  • So if religions convey trans-cultural truth, then either one is true or none are true
  • If they are not trying to convey trans-cultural truth, then they are not like math and science
  • Let’s assume that religion is the same as trans-cultural truth
  • How can we know which religion is true? 1) the laws of logic, 2) empirical testing against reality
  • Logical consistency is needed to make the first cut – self-contradictory claims cannot be true
  • To be true trans-culturally, a proposition must at least NOT break the law of non-contradiction
  • According to Mortimer Adler’s book, only Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not self-contradictory
  • All the others can be excluded on the basis of overt internal contradictions on fundamental questions
  • The others that are self-contradictory can be true culturally, but not trans-culturally
  • The way to proceed forward is to test the three non-contradictory religions against science and history
  • One of these three may be true, or they could all be false
  • We can test the three by evaluating their conflicting truth claims about the historical Jesus
  • Famous skeptics have undertaken studies to undermine the historical Jesus presented in the Bible
  • Lew Wallace, Simon Greenleaf and Frank Morrison assessed the evidence as atheists and became Christians
  • There is a lot of opposition in culture to the idea that one religion might be true
  • But if you take the claims of Jesus at face value, he claims to be the unique revelation of God to mankind
  • Either he was telling the truth about that, or he was lying, or he was crazy
  • So which is it?

Why don’t religious people ask if their religion is true?

Truth claims are necessarily divisive. If God wants people to know him as he is, and I tell them a lie that they can invent their own view of him, then that is sinning against God. And the only reason I would lie about that is because I can’t be bothered studying these things and taking the heat for standing up for God’s real personality and goals for his creatures to his creatures. Nowhere in Bible does it say that our goal is to tell people that they can believe anything they want about God and he really doesn’t care since he just wants us to be nice to each other and be happy and have fun and believe whatever we want about him whether it’s true or not.

People who think that all religions are true are doing it for three reasons: 1) they don’t want to study and be bound to one view through study, 2) they want to use religion to be comforted, but to leave it when it makes demands, 3) they want other people to like them so they want to say that all views of God are true. But this pluralism is not a view that is consistent with the plain meaning of the Bible – the people who embrace the idea that all religions are true based on personal preferences or cultures reject the plain meaning of the gospel, which makes exclusive claims. It is NOT TRUE that you can believe whatever you want as long as you are sincere – sincerity doesn’t mean that you can’t be mistaken. Not wanting to know whether Christianity is true is really just another way of saying that you don’t think God’s existence and character matters that much to you. Is that a good relationship? Is that the right way to be God’s friend?

I think that God’s existence and character can be assessed and known based on logic and evidence. I think that God exists independently of whether I want him to or not, and I think that his character and desires are not the same as my character and desires. And I don’t really care what my neighbors think of my disagreeing with them, my goal is not to keep silent and to just get along with them and be happier in my community. God’s first commandment to us is not to love our neighbor – that’s number two. Number one is to love him. And how can we love him, if we don’t want to know him. And how can we love him, if we don’t tell people the truth about him, (when asked to, and within the context of a respectful relationship, as in 1 Pet 3:15).

1 Cor 15:13-19:

13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

You can read papers from Dr. Bradley here.

Podcasts

Is Eugenie Scott right? Are there no peer-reviewed papers supporting ID?

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The video above is discussed in this must-hear podcast, featuring Casey Luskin.

The MP3 file is here.

Details:

On this episode of ID The Future, Casey Luskin puts to rest once and for all the common assertion by opponents of intelligent design that there are no scientific papers supporting the claims of ID. This wasn’t true in 2005 when Eugenie Scott of the NCSE stated it on MSNBC and it certainly isn’t true six years later. Luskin discusses the most recent scientific paper, by Stephen Meyer and Paul Nelson, and talks about the importance of the peer-reviewed scientific literature: “These papers collectively make a case that intelligent causation is necessary to produce the sort of biological complexity that we are discovering in the cell today.”

If you listen to the podcast, Luskin goes over some of the recent peer-reviewed papers that support ID. But much more importantly, he proves that Eugenie Scott is a liar. She is literally caught in a lie in the video above. She claims that there are no peer-reviewed papers that support ID. Stephen Meyer cites a peer-reviewed paper that he authored. Eugenie Scott claims that the paper does not mention ID. Casey Luskin reads from the paper. The paper explicitly supports ID. Eugenie Scott lied in order to defend her religion of naturalism from the scientific publication that falsifies it.

Here’s an excerpt from the paper that Eugenie Scott claims doesn’t support intelligent design:

Does neo-Darwinism or any other purely materialistic model of morphogenesis account for the origin of the genetic and other forms of CSI necessary to produce novel organismal form? If not, as this review has argued, could the emergence of novel information-rich genes, proteins, cell types and body plans have resulted from actual design, rather than a purposeless process that merely mimics the powers of a designing intelligence? The logic of neo-Darwinism, with its specific claim to have accounted for the appearance of design, would itself seem to open the door to this possibility. Indeed, the historical formulation of Darwinism in dialectical opposition to the design hypothesis (Gillespie 1979), coupled with the neo-Darwinism’s inability to account for many salient appearances of design including the emergence of form and information, would seem logically to reopen the possibility of actual (as opposed to apparent) design in the history of life.

And:

Yet it is precisely for this reason that current advocates of the design hypothesis want to reconsider design as an explanation for the origin of biological form and information. This review, and much of the literature it has surveyed, suggests that four of the most prominent models for explaining the origin of biological form fail to provide adequate causal explanations for the discontinuous increases of CSI that are required to produce novel morphologies. Yet, we have repeated experience of rational and conscious agents–in particular ourselves–generating or causing increases in complex specified information, both in the form of sequence-specific lines of code and in the form of hierarchically arranged systems of parts.

And:

There is a third reason to consider purpose or design as an explanation for the origin of biological form and information: purposive agents have just those necessary powers that natural selection lacks as a condition of its causal adequacy. At several points in the previous analysis, we saw that natural selection lacked the ability to generate novel information precisely because it can only act after new functional CSI has arisen. Natural selection can favor new proteins, and genes, but only after they perform some function. The job of generating new functional genes, proteins and systems of proteins therefore falls entirely to random mutations. Yet without functional criteria to guide a search through the space of possible sequences, random variation is probabilistically doomed. What is needed is not just a source of variation (i.e., the freedom to search a space of possibilities) or a mode of selection that can operate after the fact of a successful search, but instead a means of selection that (a) operates during a search–before success–and that (b) is guided by information about, or knowledge of, a functional target.

And the conclusion:

An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate–and perhaps the most causally adequate–explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.

Those are just a few excerpts.

According to Eugenie Scott, this paper “doesn’t mention intelligent design”. She is a liar.

In listening to this podcast, it really struck me how proponents of evolution must lie in order to defend their religion – the religion of naturalism. You would think that the refutation of naturalism by the Big Bang cosmology would cause these naturalists to abandon the religion of naturalism, and be open to the reality of non-material intelligent causation. But it’s not the case. Naturalists must necessarily oppose the progress of science. They oppose the Big Bang cosmology. They oppose the cosmic fine-tuning. They oppose origin of life research. They oppose the fossils found in the Cambrian explosion. They oppose findings showing the high requirements for habitable galaxies, solar systems and planets.

It’s a case of religion versus science. The speculations of a blind-faith religion against the experimental results of scientific research. The anti-ID people have the religion of naturalism to defend, and the pro-ID people have the science.  One side is willing to lie about nature, and the other side tells the truth about nature.

If you missed it, my previous post noted how the list of pro-ID peer-reviewed papers is now up to 50.