It really is that simple

I've quoted this before, and no doubt I'll quote it again (to make, once again, the same point I'm going to here) -- From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan --

Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow.

As the above quote demonstrates to those willing to think about it, the God-deniers don't scoff at the possibility of miracles for any principled reasons, but only because as they have chosen to deny God, they must perforce deny all things connected in any way with God (*).

What is the difference between the claim that "once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street" and the claim that an iron axe-head, rare and expensive in the time and place, which had flown off the handle into a body of water, was seen to float to the surface to be retrieved by the people who needed it?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *could* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it actually happening is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and that claim is recorded in a certain famous "bronze age religious text".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, should it ever be witnessed to occur, would be utterly meaningless, caused by nothing and for no reason and signifying nothing (**); whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate act, and signifies, among other things, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

What is the difference between the claim that at some point in the far distant past, mere undifferentiated and unorganized chemicals became living entities, and the claim to have witnessed the death of a person and then later to have seen that very person alive?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *did* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it happening again is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- and further, such an occurrence is contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature", whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and while such an occurrence is not commonly witnessed, it is not contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, while asserted to have happened, and asserted to be one of the ultimate causes of our existing, is intrinsically utterly meaningless, being something that "just happened", for no reason, and given what 'Science!' has become of late, no cause; whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate and reasoned act, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".


Now, my point is that God-deniers do not denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles out of any high-minded principles. And they certainly don't do it because miracles "break the Laws of Nature", as they like to accuse. For, as the Sagan quote makes clear to anyone willing to see, in the end the God-deniers deny that there even are any such things as "Laws of Nature".

No, the reason -- the *only* reason -- that the God-deniers denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles is because, by definition, a miracle is the result of a deliberate and reasoned act of God, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

God-deniers don't hate miracles because they "fuckin' love science", as so many of them are wont to claim when they imagine that 'science' may be a handy stick for beating God, but because they hate God; it really is that simple.



(*) which is why, in the end, they always end up denying that they themselves, and you also, of course, even exist.

(**) well, it does signify the denial that there even *are* any "Laws of Nature"

How ‘Science!’ works!

Im-a-fool-and-don’t-you-forget-it! wrote at Victor Reppert’s blog -- "Illion [sic] shows again that he has absolutely no idea what kind of physical laws are entailed by relativity and quantum mechanics. There actually IS a difference between "science" and feats of "magic" that have never, and will never occur. These things are not entailed by any physical law. They are nothing more than stories concocted by people like you who don't have a clue, but just want to justify an imaginary God."

From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan

"Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow."

Ah!

So, if one were to assert that at any time my "car [might] spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of [the] garage and be found the next morning on the street", with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed the Risen Christ to *intentionally* walk through a locked door, damaging neither door nor self, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that at any time all the oxygen molecules in the auditorium might spontaneously gather themselves into the upper corners of the room (this was an example assertion by one of my professors as an illustration of what QM “tells us”), thus leaving all the humans in the room lacking for the oxygen necessary to sustain their lives, with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a certain usefully-shaped collection of (primarily) iron atoms rise to the surface of a body of water into which it had fallen, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that, contrary to all experience, and contrary to all scientific and medical findings to date, non-living chemicals can spontaneously arrange themselves into living organisms ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a collection of once-living molecules walking around, eating, breathing, and talking to other collections of ambulatory molecules well after one knew that collection of molecules to have been dead, and one attributed this socking-and-totally-unexpected development to the sovereign power of the Being who created molecules and living organisms in the first place, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

I think we all see how ‘Science!’ - and ‘I-pretend-to-be-rational’ -- operates.

Sauce for the goose

Victor Reppert: Sauce for the goose --

Perhaps I can pose the question concerning the multiverse and ECREE this way. Look, if people consistently denied the probabilistic relevance of the multiverse in all contexts, that would be one thing. They could say "Regardless of the multiverse, we have to look at what is probable in the world as we experience it. but in fact, the multiverse theory is used to mitigate the initial improbability of a finely-tuned universe without a designer." But, if you can help yourself to the multiverse to blunt the effect of the fine-tuning argument, can't you also use the multiverse theory to blunt the effect of the initial improbability argument against miracles such as the Resurrection.

The "ECREE" to which Mr Reppert refers is that bogus, anti-reason, anti-logic, hypocritical, self-serving, selectively employed "principle" enunciated by Carl Sagan, and immediately latched upon by the self-proclaimed Epitomés of Reason (*) everywhere (who, while they are willfully irrational, are not wholly stupid): "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Victor Reppert: "Perhaps I can pose the question concerning the multiverse and ECREE this way ..."

By definition, human beings will never have, and can never have, "scientific evidence" of any "other universe", much less of a "multiverse". By definition, any evidence that is asserted to be of some "other universe" is just more facualy-claims about *this* universe, which is the only one to which we can ever have "scientific" access.

While he's far too "nice", or at any rate, far too much the academic, to come right out and bluntly say it like a man, what Mr Reppert is getting at in the above post is the intellectual dishonesty -- that is, the hypocrisy with respect to reason -- that undergirds *all* deployment of the "ECREE" pseudo-principle. (**)

==============
Victor Reppert: "But, if you can help yourself to the multiverse to blunt the effect of the fine-tuning argument, can't you also use the multiverse theory to blunt the effect of the initial improbability argument against miracles such as the Resurrection[?]"

I have discussed this previously, in the 'Science!' and Miracles ... and Skepticism! thread. Here is that same Carl Sagan, making "extraordinary claims" -- sans *any* evidence, whatsoever -- and expecting you simpy to believe them because they are 'Science!':

From The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

"Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow."

As I have previously said concerning Sagan's 'Science!':

And, sometimes, iron axeheads which have flown off their handles and fallen into a pond or river float to the surface. [This is a reference to a miracle of the prophet Elisha, as recorded in II Kings 6:1-7] And, sometimes, the dead bodies of persons who really and truly are dead, rise back to life. [This is a reference to a number of resurrections recorded in both Old and New Testaments, including that of Jesus the Christ.]

So, given what 'scientistes' believe and assert about the nature of reality, how can their denial of, and refusal to believe, any of the miracles recorded in the Bible be anything other than selective hyper-skepticism, which is to say, intellectual dishonesty?

(*) Even Bob Prokop, who consistently employs this "principle" to protect his leftism from rational examination, understands that the entire point of "ECREE" is to protect God-denial and materialism/naturalism from rational examination: "In my experience, ECREE is simply another way for skeptics to say, "Whatever you say, and no matter what evidence you submit, there is no way in the world you will ever get me to change my already made up mind.""

(**) Concerning the "ECREE" assertion of a pseudo-principle -- Even if it were not offered hypocritically, it is false in itself: the simple truth is that just as with "ordinary claims", "extraordinary claims" -- whatever "ordinary" and "extraordinary" are supposed to mean -- require only appropriate evidence.

'Science!' and Miracles ... and Skepticism!

The purpose of this post is to mock (once again, for it is a never-empty font of mockability) the selective hyper-skepticism of those I call 'scientistes' (the word is meant to echo Miss Piggy's claim/plea to be recognized as "an Artiste"), that is, adherents and promoters of scientism, worshippers of 'Science!'

The specific target of this post is a selectively hyper-skeptical idea I've encountered before, both the Sagan quote (for instance, here), and the underlying idea, which I heard in a television "science" program; if I recall correctly, the Speaker For 'Science!' in the program was Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he even used the same specific claim that one's car could well "ooze" through the garage wall and park itself on the street.

Recently, on Crude's blog, Orandath posted this quotation:

"From The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

"Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow."

My response to this selectively hyper-skeptical assertion is:

And, sometimes, iron axeheads which have flown off their handles and fallen into a pond or river float to the surface. [This is a reference to a miracle of the prophet Elisha, as recorded in II Kings 6:1-7] And, sometimes, the dead bodies of persons who really and truly are dead, rise back to life. [This is a reference to a number of resurrections recorded in both Old and New Testaments, including that of Jesus the Christ.]

So, given what 'scientistes' believe and assert about the nature of reality, how can their denial of, and refusal to believe, any of the miracles recorded in the Bible be anything other than selective hyper-skepticism, which is to say, intellectual dishonesty?

Modernism and the Rejection of Reason

John C Wright: Modernism and the Rejection of Reason

...
A reader comments [regarding a review of a story Mr Wright had written when he was an atheist, in which the reviewer had back-read Wright's current Chrisitian belief into the story]: "One thing about Stoic thought is that in many respects it is more like Christian thought than it is like modern thought in general. If the reviewer is unfamiliar with Stoicism then the mistake would not be entirely surprising to me."

Aha! Your thought I fear is true and right. Modern thought is so eager to reject Christ, that it ends up rejecting paganism as well, not to mention logic, philosophy, objectivity, faith, hope, charity, temperance, moderation, fortitude and justice. It rejects everything, and leave us with nothing.

Modern thought is composed, with innumerable minor variations, with two great main streams: the revolt against the Church in the name of Reason, and the revolt against Reason in the name of Nothing. The first revolt we can call, with no violence to the term, Modernism. The second we can call Postmodernism. There may be more accurate uses of these two terms, but for the purposes of this essay, these are correct in denotation and connotation. The sum of these two streams taken together produces an odd, indeed a horrifically ironic, modern movement. Christianity so successfully adopted an explanation of the world and heaven, that the postmoderns find they cannot reject the heaven they loath, the place of mystic revelation, without also rejecting the world, the place of reason. They are left with an abyss, where neither revelation nor reason reach, a place of pure Nietzschean willpower, a void where the meaningless Self is utterly free to shape the meaningless Nothing into whatever form the empty Self desires. This void is fitliest called Hell. As if they cannot burn down the Cathedral without burning down the Academy.

Why should this be? In every bumper sticker slogan pasted to every half-empty brain, in every television show, paperback novel, and quip by Carl Sagan, science is proposed as the enemy of the Church and the victor over her. Why in the world would the pagan idolaters of science smash their own idols in the fury of their iconoclasm to trample our Christian icons?

The short answer is that the scientific worldview is as Christian as the Great Mass of Mozart, as Christian as Michaelangelo’s David, as Christian as Christmas. I submit that the one cannot be degraded and dismissed without degrading and dismissing the other.

...

That's just the start of the article; following this introduction is a well-reasoned argument which may help Gentle Reader understand some importanf things about the strange, anti-rational modern and post-modern world in which we all live.

The only (minor) quibble I have with Wright's essay is that some readers may understand him to be saying that Modernism and Post-Modernism are two different things; whereas, Post-Modernism is the logical culmination of Modernism.