Defanging The Atheist Tiger - Volume Sixteen.

Audio Lectures by Father Thomas Hopko - The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia

Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias  - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.

 "Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961.

Audio Only for streaming or download.

Jul 24, 2010

Darwin and Christianity - Part 15:  Nature and Super-nature

54:41

 “The perception of Truth is primarily a matter of purity.” Another way to say it is that perception of Truth is primarily a matter of character. No thinking person would argue with the idea that “ideology” colors perception, that “bigotry” colors perception, that “prejudice” colors perception, that “hatred” colors perception, that “culture” colors perception. Father Tom punches this idea with great emphasis and shows what to one degree or another all of us know, that the “mindset” determines the perceptions.  "How One Thinks, Determines What One Thinks."


He also spoke about dishonesty destroying the truth in theology, and science. I would like to say it this way: Not only does dishonesty bend, distort, cloud and sometimes destroy the truth in theology, dishonesty bends, distorts, clouds, and sometimes destroys the truth in archeology, aerology, aetiology, agrology, algology, angiology, anthropology, apiology, archaeozoology, astrobiology, astrogeology, bioecology, biology, bromatology, cariology, climatology, cytology, geology and all the other “ologies.”

In each one of these fields of study there are forced of truth and forces of the liar at work. As a theologian I know that there are “schools” of theology some holding greater and lesser light and that some theologians in almost every school of theological thought are completely blind to the truth of “theology” itself, (including some claiming to hold Orthodox Christian Sacred Theology) yet some of what they discover and say is true. 

We know that the complexity of theology is very complex. We know the angles in which God and Man are viewed in theology is very great. The exact same “matrix” exists in the fields of science, where even the idea of “peer review” can become a cult of lie and has proved to degenerate into that as respected scientists and scientific institutions move from “honest inquiry” into the dishonest realm of trying to “hang onto the status quo, for reputation and money's sake.”


The Darwinists and evolutionists of all sorts, in fact scientific disciplines of all sorts are absolutely paranoid and fearful of the idea of some one's faith coloring their science, their scientific perceptions. Why should people of faith not challenge the coloring of science by those whose scientific perceptions are colored by atheism and or secular humanism. Richard Dawkins proved the prejudice of his atheism skewing his reason. The idea that Atheism or secular humanism has more support via the data of science is simply not the case. Clearly we saw this in Dawkin's willingness to entertain the possibility that life on earth had to have a “helper,” a “designer” (something a host of others would never have admitted). Yet Dawkins was only willing to entertain the possibility that the designer was an extraterrestrial. He could NOT under any circumstances entertain even the possibility that the designer might be God. Certainly not one of the gods of human history, with whom billions have claimed to have had experience, in the course of human history. 

In that short interview with Ben Stein he absolute ruled out the possibility of creation from “nothing” and did so with absolutely no scientific grounds to make that assumption. For him matter, has to be God. While living in the sea, the fish says there is no sky, no clouds, no rain, no atmosphere, no dry ground. Why? Because the only thing the fish can perceive is water. Water is around him and through him. So Dawkins living in the sea of material being, shows the intelligence of a fish. He cannot even entertain the possibility of  angels, or heavenly hosts, or heaven, or powers outside of the sea of material being.


Since the vast majority of all human beings from prehistory to today have innately been 'people of faith' that is “believers of one sort of god or another' anthropologically speaking who has the better argument? Dawkins or any one of the billions who claim experience with “a god.”  Today, the science is clear, and Dawkins readily admitted, “nobody knows how life was started.”  Yet, it is more complex than that, since nobody knows not only how the spark of life overcame inert matter, nobody knows how species arrived.  THINK, the one follows the other in logical conclusion. The fossil record clearly shows drastically different “species” appearing at the same time in the Cambrian Explosion. The Cambrian explosion of species refers to the geologically sudden appearance in the fossil record of the ancestors of familiar animals, starting about 542 million years ago. In addition, a similar pattern of diversification is seen in other organisms such as phytoplankton and the various colonial calcareous micro-fossils grouped together as calcimicrobes. The base of the Cambrian is also marked by strong geochemical perturbations, including excursions in carbon and sulfur isotopes. This “anomaly” alone destroys Darwin and the Evolutionists, “uniformitarianism” without which “natural selection cannot function.” Natural Selection hangs on the dogma of gradualism. Gradualism is refuted in the fossil record itself. That this event which in geological language happened in an explosion of species, destroys the dogmas of “uniformitarianism” and “gradualism.” This is the fossil record, not the ravings of a deranged “Christian or Jew.”

Just as the evolutionist deny after death experiences, and others in science say, “Wait, not so fast.” Some would relegate my personal testimony of being instantly healed of burned fingers, which I related in Volume 15, to some sort of psychosis, caused by shock at a time when I was emotionally vulnerable, etc. And indeed, if you read my account you will see that I instantly explained the blessing of healing away, in exactly the same way. Even as a thirteen year old I was already so cynical and removed from the greater reality of Being, as are most caught in the western paradigm, that I could not trust my own experience. Even in my own experience I needed “proof.” As I testified, I would not have trusted my own experience had I not returned to the kitchen and witnessed with my own eyes the charred skin of my fingers and thumb hanging from rim of the blue hot cast iron skillet. (Proof) Think now, only moments before I had experienced a serious burn, a painful and frightening experience. A few moments later healed of the burn and the moment I was healed I could not believe I had actually been burned. Yet, the burning was so serious, my fingers and thumb stuck to the frying pan.


Try as an experiment, dropping a piece of bacon or pork onto a non-seasoned raw cast iron skilled, heated to blue hot heat and see for yourself what it takes to pry that meat loose from the skillet. See for yourself the “flesh” that remains. As Father Tom said, speaking of belief and knowing, I don't believed my fingers were healed and that the incident happened just as I describe, I know it. You cannot know it. You only have my word, which is worth nothing to you. You would have to experience it for yourself to know it. You would have had to be there. This is a graphic circumstance of knowing, but every experience of God, which produces results different than the reality we all think is “natural law” fits this law: if you haven't experienced it you cannot know. As Father Tom states, “you can know about it” but you can't “know it” without experience of it. I quoted in an earlier volume, Saint Symeon the New Theologian saying, “How can one know about the joy of repentance, renewal and regeneration without the experience of it?”


However, we are speaking of two different kinds of knowing. (1) the knowing of experience, which both faith and science produce and (2) the knowing of facts, which both faith and science produces. I testify to a healing upon which there is no evidence and the only fact is my testimony. However, as to the reality of “evolution” via Natural Selection, which requires “gradualism” and “uniformitarianism” it is factually refuted. That's the record, that's the fact. The only reason that “science” clings to the status quo is because it has moved into the realm of the dishonest, protecting position, reputation, power and money from the new data that is clear to see. It requires no faith, no “belief” merely the honesty to read the record to see that the foundations of Darwinism and evolutionism of all sorts is simply missing. (1) As Richard Dawkins testified, “nobody knows how innate matter became alive. (2) there is the likely possibility (I think proved fact) that very primitive life was of such complexity it required a “designer.” (3) God cannot be eliminated as a candidate to be considered as that designer. (4) From the anthropological evidence, and the evidence of the mythologies of every ancient culture, a creator is the common link.


The truth is we are to the point that those clinging to the extreme materialist view of BEING, do so against all the best evidence, against the factual record and it can't be called anything but scientific malpractice.


This is a very simple question and the right answer is no.  Unwilling to say no, Dawkins has to regroup and like a political pundit falling back on talking points that contain no truth, he rambles on.