Tag Archives: science

Knowledge is Power?

Knowledge is power, so the pitch goes. Therefore, education is the key to success, the passport to the future, the door to a career. Bow down to us, and we shall give you the objective science, the value-free technology, and the business savvy to plunder the world of its goods. Enter the fold, and we shall give you the capacity and the skills to surround yourself with nice things. You will be respected, admired, and envied. Thus administrators, teachers, and above all students have been placed on a market of exchange, where the things bought and sold are not only the idols we pass off as consumer goods but also human souls. All too often the schools deemed to be the “good” ones are those that are good for the economy, attracting industry, grant money, and droves of bodies. The more numbers we have entered into our computers–indeed, the greater the number of the computers we have–the better we think we are. Hence we have fallen into a terrible confusion between quantity and quality: numbers mean everything. “Successful” programs are those that demonstrate “growth,” and growth is nearly always measured quantitatively. And so the numbers numb us into the sleeping sickness of complacency, where we bask in the illusion of knowing something for having increased our stores of information.

–David Patterson

How to Ban Science from Science

A sensuous person is one who is ruled by their senses. Because this term has a negative connotation, however, modern thought substitutes “sensuality” to “empirical science.” This is merely a mask for the rulership of the senses–complete reliance upon that which can be seen, felt, tasted, heard, and smelled to whatever degree of scientific “repeatability” you desire. And yet, it is largely believed that if something is not observable, then it does not exist. This was true of cells, molecules, and atoms at one time. Did they suddenly exist when we sensed them? How about dark matter and energy (the majority of the universe)–did these, too, suddenly exist when formulas necessitated it? How about the supernatural?
 
Check out how TED is trying to ban real scientific discussion from scientific discussion…


Science and God: Mutually Exclusive?

A sensuous person is one who is ruled by their senses. Because this term has a negative connotation, however, modern thought substitutes “sensuality” to “empirical science.” This is merely a mask for the rulership of the senses–complete reliance upon that which can be seen, felt, tasted, heard, and smelled to whatever degree of scientific “repeatability” you desire. And yet, it is largely believed that if something is not observable, then it does not exist. This was true of cells, molecules, and atoms at one time. Did they suddenly exist when we sensed them? How about dark matter (the majority of the universe)–did it, too, suddenly exist when formulas necessitated it? How about the supernatural?

If a claim exists beyond the bounds of the senses, one cannot use the lack of senses to refute the claim–only to become skeptical. However, the claim can be rejected if the senses prove otherwise–just as the senses can serve as inductive evidence that the claim stands.

If there is such an intersection between the natural and supernatural, a true scientist ought to ask questions (second step of the scientific method) of the supernatural claim to determine if it is supported by the natural world. If the claim fails the test of coherence among the categories of origin, meaning, morality, or destiny, or if natural observation definitively negates the claim, then the scientist can rightly deem the claim as false. Short of this thorough investigation, however, no valid conclusion may be reached.

Philosophical science today (that’s what I call a scientist who steps outside the bounds of his or her trade) desperately attempts to prove there is no God because science can describe new things. Admittedly, theists have argued, insubstantially, that God must be the missing piece when something is unknown (God particles and the like). It’s not that God is the missing piece of our understanding as much as He is the cause and controller of everything. Science merely observes. It connects. It attempts to explain. It does not create. It controls precious little. Science may, ironically, be God’s biggest indictment against atheists and agnostics because of the sheer volume of its witness to and interaction with the created order.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

–Romans 1:18-20

 

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

–Ephesians 4:17-23