Beyond Nature

I wish to dispel the notion that natural equates good.  Head toward any hospital for a clear indication that we live in a world where nature is broken.  Even discounting the limitations of human effort and flaws/evils of human will (producing accidents, abuse, neglect, and violence), we spend billions on health and research to stave off nature's onslaught of disease, decay, and disaster.  We take antibiotics against infection, injections for hormones, and i.v.'s for electrolyte and fluid imbalances.  We supplement nutrition, filter blood, rearrange digestion, reroute vessels, transplant organs, implant synthetics, excise cancers.  We do not "let nature take its course," but instead we work continually to counter the course of nature.  Eventually such efforts fail us.  I'm not trying to be nihilistic but point out that our practice does not embody a trust in the natural.

Consider the hostile elements associated with foods we might consider natural.  Aflatoxin produced by fungal growth on organic peanuts causes liver cancer as does patulin from fungus that grow on apples.  The carcinogen ptaquiloside found naturally in the bracken genus of large ferns has been attributed to gastrointestinal cancers; yet certain ferns are used in our dishes.  Many of our common household plants are, in fact, poisonous.  We've needed training or expert guides to distinguish what is suitable for food or not.  The current market capitalizing around designations of "local," "organic," "free range," "vegetarian fed," speaks to sustainability but also what is considered safe, natural, good but it's not all good.

We shelter and shield ourselves to survive; build barriers and HEPA filter, air condition, moisture-wick, humidify, reverse osmosis, sleep number, gore-tex, terraform our environment.  Living does not come naturally nor easily.  We've long concluded the universe is not centered around man, but is likely indifferent and hostile even.  Is that it?  There must be more.
Celebrated science fiction author, Philip K. Dick once wrote:

• We do not have an ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.
  
• Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive. Even though I can't prove that, even though it isn't logical—I believe it.

What is this idea, this yearning for something else?   What is this longing for an unseen world.  Based on his writings, Philip K. Dick was likely speaking towards other dimensions or alien life.  These aren't the only possible answers.  His comments seems driven by humanity's survival instinct or desires beyond what this life may offer; echoing a yearning for something better, something which this physical nature apparently fall short on delivering.  We may even rage against this nature: human nature, the nature around us.

This life must mean something, no?  Some atheists offer that, "You create your own meaning" because none is offered.  The purer atheists state, "There is no 'meaning.'  All things are dictated by chance and time, ascribing any value to anything is futile."  But theists believe (there's that word again) that there is something more.  PKD identified himself as a panentheist (belief that the universe and God were one and the same).  Therein lies a potential answer, a consciousness that is beyond our fragile, finite, mortal existence with the ability to impart meaning, purpose and value.  Atheists respond by mockingly propping a strawman of the great spaghetti monster—a response which provides a smokescreen but does not offer an alternative answer beyond nature.

Hitchens Lennox Debate

The debate on "Is God Great" between atheist journalist Christopher Hitchens and Christian pure mathematics professor John Lennox at University of Alabama Birmingham was an event where two individuals not only appealed to reason but also to emotion. I found Lennox more capable of grasping philosophical and logical angles. Hitchens' arguments hinge not on debating creation vs. evolution but on two main posits:

1. God is cruel for creating all things while allowing suffering and designating individuals for Hell; and,
2. Individuals claiming to follow or represent God commit atrocities.

Responding to the first posit, Lennox also plays the "cruelty" card. Atheism permits only the impersonal forces of material interactions. For Lennox, the random forces of chance are cruel in rendering all things meaningless and worthless: you are just a combination of programmed responses to physical stimuli and chemical reactions.  As for the second, Lennox points out that, logically, a purely atheistic system precludes any objective morality, thus the system is permissive of atrocities. He keenly points out that, yes, people identifying as Christians have committed atrocities but this is in violation of Christianity; whereas, atheists commit atrocities without violating atheism.  The amoral atheistic system results in an endgame where Might does make Right; the fittest do survive; and Nietzsche's Übermensch–a superior race–should dominate.  The fallacy in Hitchens' worldview then, is the absence of objective goodness, which if Hitchens is to remain consistent, he could not deign something or someone as "not great"–as his book title proposes.  In this debate Hitchens partially concedes this lack of objective morality in Atheism, but he still admits that he still thinks morality does exist.

What is considered cruel then? For both individuals, cruelty takes on forms of determinism.  Hitchens essentially asks: If God is [omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfect, good and loving], does He orchestrate the entire composition and circumstances of an individual, knowing full well that this very person is thus fated to commit evil, reject God, and be sentenced to Hell?  Is one unavoidably faced with harm and folly?  Does God orchestrate the suffering of millions over time?  Such questions address the problem of evil and destiny that any worldviews should attempt to answer.

Lennox counters by portraying the cruel determinism of atheism.  Under such a system we are irrevocably compelled to act and behave because we as electrochemical-soup-sacks are all "dancing to our DNA" (quoting Richard Dawkins).  No matter how terrible our actions or their consequences, everything and everyone is just moving, colliding, and drifting for no reason at all.  Disaster strikes, suffering happens without any explanation.  Life is meaningless.  Atheism doesn't allow you to "make your own meaning" because you're just fooling yourself.

Coming from a Christian background, I propose the overlooked characteristic in [blue list] is that God is also just.  If God's measure of goodness is perfection then His measure far exceeding human standards.  Bring justice in and everyone is left guilty and at fault with God.  Does this then remove choice and free will?  Not necessarily, a choice is to be had but the reward and consequence are in stark contrast: eternity with God or eternity separated from God.  Is such an opportunity to choose even offered?  According to the Christian worldview, the Book of Acts shows that, "Yes," this is the offer:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. -Acts 17:26-27

Such questions seem much more critical than the question of origin (creation-evolution debate). It is ironic then that Hitchens claims solace only in science but directs his efforts at philosophical issues removed from science. My minor gripe for Lennox is that he states that God bestowed on humans "infinite value."  Yes, we cannot put a price on human life, but are humans of infinite value?  Wouldn't that warrant redeeming everyone?  By Lennox not providing further justification, I believe he actually meant intrinsic value.

Mosque Debate

The religious freedoms that the Pilgrims sought and found in America translate over to the debate over the mosque to be built two blocks from Ground Zero. Legally we should allow the construction and I am inclined to agree with Mayor Bloomberg's speech. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a Sufi (of the mystical branch of Islam) who grew up in a family that worked to dialogue with different religions. I believe he continues in his father's work to represent a moderate Islam still willing to dialogue. Some American Muslims find this mosque debate characteristic of the umbrella of hatred that many Americans have towards them. Opponents of the structure find this offends what has become "sacred ground" of those who died at the hand of extremist Islam. I agree the victims should be honored. But does this dishonor them? I have to think more about this.

I doubt the opponents of the mosque would describe or recognize their stance as hatred; fear or distrust is more likely the emotion. We see in Europe the growing Muslim populations and unrest. We hear Muslim leaders speak of populating the West so as to eventually bring all under Sharia law. We read of sleeper cells training and plotting to bring the downfall of America. That is what this proposed building has come to represent in many American eyes. If we are to chose a representative or authority of Islam, Imam Rauf would be ideologically closer to American ideals, a counter to that extremism. As all atheists are not Pol Pot and Stalin, nor all Christians witch hunters and pedophiles, so also not all Muslims are terrorists. I want this to be a step in the right direction to allow free speech, assembly, freedom of religion. Am I misinformed?

On Certainty - Part 2: Science and Religion (another look)

Among skeptics, many hold fast to science as the be all and end all of all things, as the means to direct, disprove and prove everything else. Yet it so often gives a whiff of patronizing or feigned humility to say, "no one can know anything," while at the same time trying to disprove religion by science and or history. If everything is a great "I don't know," how can you use anything to justify your stance on anything?

Just as skeptics claim that philosophy, more specifically religion is a "stop to thought," skepticism also risks putting a stop to thought. Religious institutions so often welcome explanations except those which challenge their religion. At the same time skeptics welcome explanations except those which challenge science and more specifically Darwinism. Another way of looking at this is well articulated by self-proclaimed Marxist, atheist, evolutionary geneticist, and Harvard professor Dr. Richard Lewington:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Therefore the conclusion is already drawn for many religious or evolutionist that God exists or does not exist and to consider otherwise is unacceptable and any data must be molded or spun to fit that presumption or presupposition. I do not say that it is necessarily wrong at the outset to hold to one side or the other. I do say to claim that religion is the sole stop to thought is to defy self examination and risks hypocrisy. I myself am not above this as I presuppose the existence of God whereas a friend of skeptical leaning presupposes the absence of God. My friend cannot accept or acknowledge even the consideration of God as on the same level of discourse as science. However he puts forth that, "the sad thing is that there are fools on both sides."

Because the denial of God is presupposed, it is not Reason that motivates the denial but often a dogged refusal to change or challenge one's presuppositions. Is science the be all and end all? Skeptics chalk religion and philosophy up to human constructs and science as reality. However I say science is also a human construct in that it is our attempt to describe and organize what we observe. Of the sciences, evolution may very well be the least empirical and most philosophical. Philosophy and science are efforts to grasp reality and are not mutually exclusive. Science attempts to answer the what and sometimes the how, while philosophy attempt to answer the why and sometimes the how. Even this is simplistic as there is overlap; however, it is a start to see how the two can coexist.

On Certainty - Part 1: Self Assessment

From my experience, skepticism is often synonymous with atheism or atheism in the guise of agnosticism--in other words, the denial of a God (usually singular) in the form of a denial of everything. The folly here is the claim of being certain about uncertainty. This is knowingly and even glaringly contradictory. So I want to direct attention to some certainties. From a pragmatic standpoint no average adult functions devoid of certainties. Everyone has a worldview/belief system/philosophy that they operate off of (whether they recognize or are able to articulate it is another question). Each system roots itself in a particular set of ideas that it assumes are truth. I find two means to start vetting out the certainties a person holds to at a given instance are the questions addressing "is" and "should":
1. What do you think you are or the state of the world is?
2. How do you think you or the world should be?

An honest assessment of how you answer these will quickly show, I hope, that you do hold to certainties. The next question that follows your answer to these first two questions is, "Why?" or "How do you know?" This will clarify the certainties that you assume and operate by.

In other words we live upon a foundation of understanding of our existence and purpose - the "is" and "should."