Hawking is obsolete

Read a commentary here.

Hawking may be an insightful physicist but he is poor at philosophy. So where did M-theory come from? Where did gravity come from? It is the thing that prevents the physics of the big and the physics of the small from integrating.

Just this morning, I opened my Bible and read the words of Jesus. I put down my Bible with the thought of praising Christ, I could not desribe what I experienced inside me, perhaps the best word to describe it is Life (His words). So I thought of praising Him for what I received, in my internal prayer, I felt no words could describe the gratitude in heart that I wanted to express to him. His spiritual blessings and the praise due to Him are beyond human words.

I like what one guy said, how could Jesus be dead, I just spoke to him this morning.

What Godel has to say in all of this

My last recent posts on 24 have attracted some form of controversy. So what else is new?

On thing emerges in the heated discussions, and that is, the role of science in reading the Bible. It boils down to authority and which one has priority. Does one give authority to the language of the Bible, or does one give authority to scientific empirical pronouncements? To whichever we give priority, that one therefore has authority. The two are connected.

There is also a corollary point that has been missed in the discussions, and that people are not aware of the philosophical critiques that philosophers have been making against science (falsely so called). If people only knew, they would not trust so much in it.

So, I turn to my patron (whose picture you see in my profile) - Godel and try to find out what he thought about science and scientific pronouncements....

Here is what he said:

1. I do not believe in (natural) science.
2. I don’t think the brain came in the Darwinian manner. In fact, it is disprovable. Simple mechanism can’t yield the brain. I think the basic elements of the universe are simple. Life force is a primitive element of the universe and it obeys certain laws of action. These laws are not simple, and they are not mechanical.

In both counts, my bias says Godel was correct, most specially in #1. The wise scientist should be the first to admit the limitations of his craft.

Besides, we are not allowed to believe in anything and in anyone, John 11:25-26.

Who is your grand daddy?

UPDATE: Issues Etc has a topic for this here.

Inostrancevia.

That was our grand daddy some 230m+ years ago.
....

It so happen I went to the museum yesterday.


I happened to chance upon the skeleton of Inostrancevia.

There was some printed blurb about this creature... what struck me was this portion in of what our museum says about this mammal-like reptile. Printed at the bottom of the platform where the skeleton is displayed, it spoke about its behaviour and so forth, then we get into this part...

"these mammal like reptiles eventually led to modern mammals including humans".[Italics mine]

So, I wonder what some of you think of this statement.

If I take this seriously, my ancestors used to lay eggs..., and that goes for yours too!


If you find no problem with this statement, then it is either I do not know how to read Gen 2:7, or I completely missed the poetic meaning of what our museum just said.

24 and Scientific Reading

UPDATE: Issues Etc has a topic for this here.
Apparently my 24 day reading is a scientific reading of Genesis 1-3.

I find the accusation astounding. Suddenly semantic reading is being scientific. I think there is confusion of categories here. Semantic reading is the proper respect for the ideas that the language conveys. Whether science agrees with it or not, it is irrelevant.

So the ancient Jews and Christians who believed a 24 hour day in Genesis 1-3 are now being scientific? Or were they simply respecting what the text says?

The nice thing about having no commitment on the 24 hour day is that one does not have to be embarrassed amongst scientists who believe the earth is absolutely ancient. You can claim, Genesis does not claim what it claims if you use common sense. It is not a scientific book anyway. Amazing, for an unscientific book, it can be made to certainly accomodate old earth theory, even the theory of Evolution!!!

So the Bible is a non scientific book which happens to agree with science, eyh?
Can you see the equivocation there?

The thing with science and scientists is that they modify their theories at the speed of light. I am not being sarcastic, I worked with high energy physicists and each time protons collide, right there is a new theory about matter and how it came about.

There is another point, when do these non-24 hour believers discover
a.) there are physicists who laugh at big bangb.) there are biologists who reject evolution
so what now if these groups become in vogue?

Well the non-24 hour folk are in a convenient place, since they never committed, they can swing anywhere the flow turns.

24 and Perspicuity

Comments from the previous post (and I thank the brothers for your participation) make me think we need to discuss this a bit more.

I think it was Luther who said, you may get all parts of Christian Theology wrong, but if you do not get the Gospel, you are dead meat.

It is true, the Gospel is that one central doctrine that we should get right, and get it out to people.

But, does that mean, if we get the Gospel right, we can now afford to get the other things wrong? For example, can you now disbelieve the doctrine of the Trinity? Is it now optional, anyway you believe the Gospel? Same thing is true with doctrine of Creation, can you now plead ignorance on this?

I seem to think that folk are using the Luther quote to mean, all the rest are optional.

Such an attitude, I believe, makes justification by faith, a form of works.

Getting the Gospel right, does not mean, you can now get the others wrong. Why? Because the Gospel is standing on a foundation, it is a truth, that is founded on another truth. If it is Good News, there must have been a Bad News, for what is so Good about the Gospel after all? Why is it Good News.

The Bad News, goes back to Creation, at the word go, not very long, we mucked things up, the good things God did, we screwed up so Genesis 1 - 3 says. I am saying that if you get the Bad News wrong, you will make the Good News shaky.

So here is the point, the Bad News of our sin in Genesis 1-3 requires we take sin there literally. So if you take sin there literally but you are affording to take some things there non-literally, like the word "day", what is your criteria for picking and choosing?

Perhaps would you not say, that the "tree of knowledge" may just be symbolic, i.e., no literal tree? Perhaps there was no fruit at all, perhaps these are just projections of our inner bent qualities that Moses projected backwards to Creation, and it is just a statement of what is, is...?

Perhaps, Moses was just trying to explain how we are bad, but that was just Moses' theory of our human psychology in the end, who knows. An attempt to give reason to what is just reality, but the reason is not factual?

Perspicuity of Scripture means that the "Scripture is plain". It can be understood, some parts are difficult to understand, true, yet, people equivocate here. From Scripture being difficult to understand in some parts, to --- sliding down to --- Scripture not understandable at all.

Experiment. Take the "days" in Genesis 1-3 as non-literal days - tell that to a 5 year old kid. Read it to him. Continue reading, and most specially, while catechizing him(her), you need to discuss the 10 Commandments anyway. So jump sometime to Exodus 20. What will you say when you get to Ex 20:11 if you be honest and be consistent?

It does not work, I suggest you will wind up confusing the person you are catechizing. What we confess to people is not always verbal, what we confess is also gathered by our attitude towards some things, is that not correct? And what is that attitude, effectively, you will be saying? The Scripture is not plain.

Survey says Augsburgeans rank down the bottom when it comes to the practice of bible reading. This is sad, because for a denomination who rallied the slogan "sola scriptura", it is an aweful testimony, it makes us look hypocritical.

However, if right at the word go, they are already told, Scripture there in Genesis 1-3 is a bit obscure, do not take them plainly as what it says, can you blame them for not even attempting to make Bible read ing a devotional practice?

As they say here ... it is your own bl..dy fault.

Let me be clear, I do not believe in 24 hour creation because of this, as I said, I believe in it due to my own linguistic and philosophical analysis. What I am saying, now that I rejected my former belief of a non-24 hour period, is that it so happens that the 24 hour interpretation has a nice side effect, it promotes the perspicuity of Scripture, too. A good thing because it gives people confidence, that the Scripture is plain.

24 and argument for the Sabbath rest

UPDATE: Issues Etc has a topic for this here.
It seems I am belaboring my 24 point of view but I woke up this morning with this Scripture running around my head.

Exodus 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The crucial verse for me is v.11.

This is an argument why the Sabbath is to be kept by the Jews. The "for" (though I have not checked this in the Hebrew version) is an argument why the Sabbath is to be kept, because God created the whole world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. So, it says, do no work on the 7th day. God is giving the rational for the Sabbath.

Now if "days" here stood for "epoch", why be stoned for working on the 7th day? You can argue, well that "day" there is not the normal usage of"day", it means a long period of time, it could mean have a rest every 1000 years, so God, why have me stoned for working on the farm?

Exodus 20:8-11 clarifies Genesis 1-3. Scripture interprets Scripture, and this passage interprets Genesis 1-3 for me.


Anyway, I have no care if physics or geology could not validate my faith. It does not bother me at all, like I said, I already believe in things that cannot be validated by chemistry etc., like the Lord's Supper so...if I am peculiar, I have no care. I am more concerned to be consistent with Scripture than being consistent with my senses.

I suggest this debunks the modern understaning of Genesis 1-3. You cannot convince me that Moses and his contemporaries interpreted "days" as "epochs".

It is important to believe Moses because Jesus said something about this.

24

I wil tell you why I believe in a 24 hour day creation. I did not use to but I changed my mind on it a few years back:

Linquistically:

- Because of the linguistic Hebrew use of "yom" in Genesis. By this I mean fiat out of nothing to something creation, a miracle in other words. Normal usage of "yom" implies it to be understood by the contemporaries of Moses as that, I find it unbelievable that his classmates would have understood it as a very very long period of time. So in this case I am being literal here.

- Also linguistically, the ancients do not have a sophisticated view of billions and millions of years. To them, this is packed under the term "myriad". So I doubt if I speak to Moses' contemporaries about evolution he would have accepted it. He would probably say to me, look man - I was there, the Red Sea parted, I have been around miracles my life, so don't talk to me about naturalistic creation.

- Did Jesus believe this? I think so in Mat 19.

Philosophically:

I already belive things that are quite peculiar, for example:

- I believe in the virgin birth and Christ's resurrection these are all peculiar beliefs already as far as naturalism and science is concerned. By statistics, my belief in resurrection as far as they are concerned, is improbable. No one rises from the dead as a normal phenomenon.

- The Apostle's Creed. I doubt if the ancients when they recited the first article - they understood it in evolutionary terms. Ancients were fiat believers. They had no problem believing in miraculous creation.

- Here is the kicker, I also believe at the Supper that is the actual body and blood of Jesus given to me to eat and drink. I already believe this and if the wafer/bread is broken down bio-chemically, science would probably tell me, there is no human flesh here etc etc.

So I do not understand, if I believe already these things that are scientifically odd, why should I not believe in a 24 hour day in Genesis? I do not need science to confirm my faith and I do not care if I am thought dumb for believing in literal day period in Genesis. If I cower to science, I have to justify scientifically my belief in the Supper etc.

Here is also the issue (I credit this to the missus who teaches Sunday school), what do you teach the children about Genesis day period? So you sit down a 4 year old kid, read Genesis 1 to him, you mention the word day. So what do you do? You put a fine print in the text, - actually kids, "day" there means not your usual day, actually it does not mean what you think it means - day there really means thousands and thousands of years. According to the missus, the kids have no trouble believing the literal day period.

You just undermined the kid's understanding/confidence on the Scriptural text. You just told him - you cannot understand this as plain words to you. You just told him that when the text is being literal, you are not to take it as literal, then what confidence would he have that he could understand it when he reads it on his own when he grows up? Don't you think the kids has just been dumbed down?

Defining away the problem

I am around intelligent and smart people. I do not mean that sarcastically, but in truth, and in much respect and recognition of their great minds.

When I talk to them about creation, they can easily accept that the universe has always been there. It is just the way it is. Even if we follow Hawking's theory that the Big Bang started from a black hole, you need not explain why it happened except it simply did. You need not find an explanation for it.

Now the philosophically intuitive principle is that since there is a being, then there must be a necessary being. Since there is something then that something could not have sprouted from nothing without Somebody doing something i.e. creation posits a Creator.

To this the unbeliever rebutts using the above answer: you need not find an explanation for creation because it has always been that way. It is a fact not contingent on other facts, so they say.

But that is really begging the question and so I do not find it convincing why smart and educated people accept that the universe is just brute reality. Firstly they are trying to assume what needs to be proven. They may posit this as a possibility - that the universe is just one brute reality, but they need to do more, they need to prove that it is indeed a brute fact. So where is the proof of that except their conjecture?

Do not get me wrong, there are phenomenons where our frame of questioning might be irrelevant to the phenomenon being examined, there does exist such cases. But most of the time this is discovered after the fact. In other words, we realize the frame of questioning is irrelevant only after we have established and understood the phenomenon. I do not think this is the case with creation.

To say that the universe has always been there is to define away or deny the need for an explanation. This is not answering the question but rather the ushering of it away, a type of hand waving. It is ducking at the issue, a type of moving the goal post.

In reality the proof by necessary being is a very compelling anti-atheist polemic, it begs an explanation which they rebutt by simply denying the obvious - like putting hands in their ears, looking the other way and saying - "lalalalala, I am not listening".

A mathematician speaks about Darwinism

Here is what Dr. David Berlinski, a mathematician, who is not even a Christian, says about Darwinism.

Knowing what the scientific method entails, it is really hard to believe evolutionary theory is a science. It is science only by dictum but not in practice. Here Berlinski argues against from an engineering standpoint.

Evolution plays so much on this thing called "randomness", meaning - accidental. Perhaps this is the best time now for me to assert that randomness in science does not really exists but it is a mathematical construct, a bit bucket to direct our none-knowlege of information we do not yet possess. Philosophically and mathematically there is no such thing as randomness.

Let me explain, take the process of tossing a coin in the air, probability says that it will land 50% heads or 50% tails. Now that is true if we do not have more information than the possibilities of outcome. However, if I know that the landing of heads or tails is influenced by other factors, like wind direction, weight of the coin, material composition, if I know the starting angle my thumb lifts it and the height it goes and the material it lands (it could bounce), I will be able to predict what comes up and not rely on 50-50 chance. The reason why we go by probabilities is only because we do not know these factors, but if we do, we will not calculate what face will land based on it, we will use these information to build a formula and that is what we will use.

Evolution says that information is random but randomness when you go down to the core is none-existent.

As a person trained in mathematics, I have to have more faith to believe that evolution theory is science.

Yom - don't be ridiculous

Did God use evolution in Genesis 1-3? I did a study of this several years ago and as I concluded then, the more I conclude now, my answer is : I do not think so.

I came to this conclusion by studying the word "yom", the Hebrew word for "day" as used in the Hebrew Bible in Gen 1. Now, I am no Hebrew expert but I did take university subjects in Biblical Hebrew for a couple of years and I think I was taught enough to know what are the arguments going on surrounding this word. I believe the word "yom" stood for "24 hour day" as we know day to mean in the normal day to day usage of day (pun intended) to mean, ie just that. Why? I have several reasons, both linguistic, philosophical and theological.

1. If Moses wrote this to his contemporaries, "yom" could not be understood as a very very long period of time. The reason is that the ancients do not have sophisticated arithmetic notion of millions and millions of years. (My knowledge of maths come here too). So, in order to give a notion of evolution, Moses would have to say God took myriads and myriads of time for things to sprout on the earth. Also, ancient people are so into changes in seasons, they have this notion of cycles and at home with it. Evolution counters the notion of cycles, even if theistic evolutionist say that "yom" means epochs. This granting of cycles for day is an argument itself against the notion of evolution, for evolution has no cycles. It is just one long continuum of time when you come to think of it.

2. If theistic evolution is the way to understand Gen 1 narrative, then it rids itself of literalness. If day is not literal then, was there a tree? Was there an Adam and Eve? Was there a serpent? Or are we to understand these as representing something else? Was there an actual eating of the forbidden fruit? In effect, was there sin? This completely throws off the need for atonement. If Jesus died for a literal sin, then there must have been a literal Adam too, and so on, and hence it has to be a literal day for there is a literal world that God is stated to have created.

3. Evolution requires and implies death of previous life forms. Then death happened before sin came, and collides with, Rom 5:12. According to this verse, death only happened due to sin. Evolution presupposes dying and decay prior to sin thus it does not square with the other implications of Scripture. A friend of mine even suggested that the lions around have always eaten other animals during Adam's time. I said, then it was possible for Adam to have been mauled by a ferocious beast and could have died then. Think of these lions stalking and pouncing upon weak isolated water buffaloes, look at one here

4. Lastly, I do not have to resort to the validations of Science to affirm my faith. The concept of fiat creation is at home with the nature of a Supreme Creator who is by definition the Judeo-Christian God. I find it weak to say, God had to use evolution in the process. God does not have to be patient here although he is patient with sinners not desiring their destruction but their repentance.

This reminds me, of Balki, one of the main characters of Perfect Strangers, one which I enjoyed watching very much. His famous line is "don't be ridiculous". I hear some people out there telling me that now.

Frankly I do not mind being called ridiculous because I already believe in something that sounds ridiculous, one of them is the Gospel. Let me challenge you, if you think that the Gospel which says that this God takes the sins of the wicked world, dumps it and punishes it in his innocent Son is not ridiculous, you may have a natural understanding of the Gospel. The Bible says the world calls this thing foolishness. If I believe in something the world ought to be calling foolish, why should I not let them call me a fool for believing in a fiat Creation which Science says is contrary to "evidence"?

If our minds are not astounded by the Gospel, if it does not say "this thing is so good to be true", we may have gotten the Gospel wrong, it should sound ridiculous and radical. Of course, it is out of this world. Am I making sense?