I have listened inattentively to radio talk shows and call-ins for years. Don’t eat while listening, because they definitely are not good for digestion. They talk of degeneration in our culture and of how government is taking away our basic religious freedoms. Morality takes a backseat to economics. They are disturbing, because of how correct they are. I have mentally joined in on the complaining, even if I have not called in.
But in a democracy, who can we blame? No, I don’t think we need a push for more Christians involved in politics. Yes, we do need more, but that is hardly the core problem. A democratic society merely reflects the people, and Christian leaders can only do so much when society is going the other way.
We complain about how Thomas Jefferson is misrepresented today on the “separation of church and state” issue, and yet why has it only been a problem in the last 50 years? Maybe it’s because for the last 100 years we have separated God from our state of mind.
Does my Christian service begin and end with attending “services?” Does reading my Bible affect the way I live? Do I talk with Him as I walk through my day, or is that just for my “prayer time?” If not, then I deserve my government. Correction begins with deciding whether God is real in my own life.
No more separation.
Archive for the ‘Personal story’ Category
The separation problem
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011Avoidance of Talent
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009I need some help if I’m going to learn to draw with Photoshop, so I went to the web. I never cease to be amazed at the free resources available there. For this article I want to compare and contrast two very useful tutorials, not to teach anything about drawing, but to illustrate an important point about design itself.
The first is “How to Draw High-Detailed Glass Ball.” This site gives clear step-by-step instructions with pictures for the many details that, though unnoticed by most of us, are necessary to convince the mind that a real glass sphere has been photographed, nor drawn. I’m going to have to do this exercise several times; there is much for me to learn here.
The other site, “How to Draw a Horse,” is equally useful, with a major difference. This second site again gives detailed, step-by-step instructions, and there is much to learn from the techniques presented. The difference between the two sites, however, is obvious from the very first step: The learner must have some talent!
Yes, the first art instructor is obviously talented too, but the object of study was probably purposely selected for any motivated learner to master. In the second, once the learner gets past the layout lines that divide the drawing surface into 3×3 boxes, the learner must simply be given a reference photograph and the foundational sketch of a horse.
Both tutorials are well done but aimed at different learners. Both could be reverse engineered back to the foundational images, but there the differences are blatant. The foundation of the first is a colored circle. The foundation of the second is a sketch. The first image is built entirely on the graphic capacities of the software. The second requires at least a modestly talented artist at its base. Even if the high-priced software is at my disposal, the requirements of the sketch are irreducible to software capabilities.
In the same way, the laws of physics are not enough to explain what we find when we reverse engineer any living organism. Even if we assume the laws of physics (like the drawing software) somehow occurred without a designer, we eventually get to a level where the input of a designer is blatant, unavoidable, and irreducible.
No Matter What
Sunday, October 5th, 2008Yesterday I saw “Fireproof.”
It was a matinee, and the theater was packed, even though the movie has been out
for a week. I was impressed with the leap in quality over the last movies by the
same producers. I
don’t often hear people applaud during a movie or see them openly crying as the
lights come back up at the end. I expected
Kirk Cameron to carry the movie, but I didn’t expect him to be that
believable. And he didn’t carry it alone. Erin Brea, who plays his wife, is
surprisingly his match.
But praise of a movie is not why I’m writing this.
I got the message: God loves me, no matter what the response. And
we should love no matter what the response. I have heard, and perhaps you have
too, that Christ would have died on the cross even if you were the only person
who ever believed. That may be true, but I’ve come to a deeper conclusion: I
believe Christ would have died on that cross even if He knew ahead of time that
no one would ever come to Him. Love is only love if it’s based on the source,
not the object.
About five years into our marriage I
realized that I had to make a decision. I had to decide that my wife was
beautiful. I decided that 34 years ago, and she’s still beautiful. There’s
nothing on the internet to match, so I’m not even checking. If I ever see
something while crossing the street or elsewhere that confuses me, I simply look
back at my wife to reset the standard. Though I didn’t mention it in “Hidden
Cost,” my love commitment to her is one thing that helped me through my loss
of faith, even though our marriage was shaky.
Descartes could only say, “I think, therefore I am.” I could say, “I love,
therefore I am not all there is.”
When I finally came to the conclusion
that God was real (again), it was also with the realization that I should never
be saved. After all, I well knew the Scriptures, and that included, “No one who
puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” God was real, and
Christ had died on the cross for those who accepted Him, but I couldn’t believe
that could include those who accepted and then turned back. And boy, had I
looked back! If God was real and the only thing worthy to follow, what was left
for me to do? This may sound weird, but since it’s the truth, I’ll say it: I
came to the conclusion that even if I was destined for Hell, I would live my
life for God, because He was the only One worth living for. I would praise Him;
I would do what His Word says; just don’t ask me to speak for Him, because I
would not want to invite anyone to where I was.
One day I was taking a walk with my beautiful wife,
and she asked me a question about the Bible. I don’t remember the
question, but I remember the answer, because I am the one who desperately needed
to hear it. The answer was John 6:44. “No one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” I
thought about the answer for the rest of the day and into the night. I read the
whole chapter over and over. The first sentence in verse 44 says that He had to
first draw me. I would not even want Christ, much less seek Him out, unless God
the Father placed that desire in me. That means that if I want Christ, then God
the Father of all Heaven endorses me to Christ. And Christ’s response? “I will
not turn down my Father’s request. I will raise that one up on the last day.”
Let me say that again: If I want Him, it is only because He wants me. There is
absolutely no human being, including me, whom Christ will turn away, if we
simply respond to God’s draw.
What is left?
He gave Himself for me, no matter what I do. I will follow Him no matter what He
does. Therein is truth.
Not what they had in mind
Sunday, September 7th, 2008The high school girl faked a sheepish smile and giggled,
"He wants to go to bed with me."
I was taken back by the teen’s answer. How could she be so
naive? Only three words in her sentence were correct.
Vicky’s response in the school cafeteria was to my question
about her low cut dress: "Do you know what your boyfriend thinks when he sees
you dressed like that?"
Sure, "He wants to," but what? "Go to bed?" I don’t think
that would be a requirement. She had some romantic scene in mind, but the fact
is, if he could get what he wanted with impunity behind the cafeteria dumpster,
he’d take it. Her appearance prompts him to think of a sensation, not an
occasion.
And the last part was the most naive of all: "with me." She
really thinks that what she prompts in him has something to be with who she is.
Silly girl! She has done the exact opposite of what she seeks. She has made him
think of a process instead of a person.
The problem is that she thinks that he thinks like she thinks. The
brain connections are not the same, and the chemicals that affect their
thinking secrete from different glands in vastly
different amounts. The most ironic part is that some guys would actually
like to be allowed to think of girls as persons, but the girls’ presentations of
themselves short-circuit any opportunity for that.
Guys have a stronger drive to "want to" than girls. Girls
do what gets quick response, even if it’s not the real response they want. Guys
and girls may do what feels good right now, even if it means in the long run
they can’t feel good about themselves.
Is this off my usual subject? My usual subject is the
tragedy of teaching students what to think instead of how to think.
Allow me to through in one more thought to complete this
vicious cycle: If guys and girls are taught in school that they are no different
from other animals, then they are more likely to give in to animal impulses. It
begins with self image and ends with self image. If an adult places into a
teen’s brain that abstinence before marriage is best for several logical
reasons, and then the adult places into the teen’s hand a condom, which do you
think will rule–the brain or the body? The message is, "We know what would be
better, but that’s really irrelevant. We also know you can’t do any better."
In essence guys and girls are taught that they cannot change their
behavior by thinking, all the while not only thinking, but
unaware that they are thinking differently from each other.
There is another irony here: By promoting the idea that we
evolved from lower animals by chance, we reverse the theory’s prediction. We
begin to act more like where the theory says we came from than where the theory
says we are going.
Orgnizations v. Organisms
Sunday, August 24th, 2008Recently on my You-Tube submission about my PhD process I made the following comment: “We
are allowed to say that an organization was designed by creative human minds,
but not so for the cell. Evolution says it occurred as an accumulation of
errors, even though it is much more complex and functional than any Fortune 500
company.”
The person with whom I was
corresponding replied: “Comparing living organisms to things that people design
and build, as creatinists [SIC] often do [SIC] makes for an extremely poor
analogy and weak argument from the creationist side. Reproduction is very unique
to life; objects that we produce do not reproduce themeselves [SIC], and if they
could they would evolve as computer models have demonstrated. Reproduction, the
success of which is heavily reliant on environmental conditions, is key to
evolution.”
I did not address this argument on You-Tube, because it was off the subject.
The subject was that the professors on
my dissertation committee would not hear me out on less-than-full endorsement of
Darwinian evolution, regardless of my arguments.
Even so, the question raised deserves discussion somewhere, so I’ll do it here:
There are three phenomenon that easily can be compared between the theory of evolution of organizations (called
population ecology in the organization science literature) and the theory of
evolution of organisms (particularly, Darwinian evolution). These are a) the
generation of new types, b) the survival or demise of types, and c) the
proliferation of surviving types. My objector has rolled them together. Some
confusion is avoided by recognizing them as distinct. I will discuss them one at
a time in reverse order:
c) Organisms are indeed unique in
how they reproduce—A set of DNA is read and duplicated automatically upon
certain preconditions being met. But organizations are also reproduced. Not only
do the original builders of an organization tend to build more organizations
based on their initial success, but also other people see what works and copy
it. This is so “natural” that copyright and other infringement laws must be made
to protect some processes organizations do. For our purposes we can set aside
reproduction as a “uniqueness” in comparing organisms with organizations.
b) Organisms must survive in a
less-than benevolent environment. They must access specific materials (be they
oxygen, carbon-dioxide, water, food, whatever) from the environment, and what
they give off must be received by the environment without fouling it; or the
organism will perish. Organizations, by comparison, must receive raw materials
and financial profits, by producing products and services for which the market
is willing to pay; or the organization will perish. This is key to population
ecology theory, which argues that the “survival of the fittest” accounts for the
populations of organizations that we find at any given time and place. For our
purposes we can set aside survival as a “uniqueness” in comparing organisms with
organizations.
a) Organisms change to some extent
from generation to generation. I do not look exactly like my parents, but this
can be entirely accounted for in the mix of DNA between my two parents. Setting
this aside, mutations occur, which increase the options in the survival mix; and
may introduce permanent change in the organism type, if it helps the organism
“win” in the fight for survival. (An example would be
cycle-cell, which enhances survivability in the presence of malaria.) It may
also be the case that mutations increase variations that may not affect survival
(hair, eye, and skin color). Organizations likewise differ from generation to
generation of organization, because founders make mistakes in copying former
organizations. But they also differ from those that came before because the
creators intentionally make changes, thinking through and projecting what might
work better in the changing economic environments.
On this point organization change
has a leg-up on organism mutation, which has no such creative option. Darwinian
theory denies any opportunity for forethought or “purpose” in the generation of
change. There can be no goal in sight, not even survival. Organizations can not
only change from generation to generation, but organization change can take
place without an existing organization. (I teach courses on how this is done.)
Even though major reengineering and restructuring of organizations is difficult
and complex, it is a far cry more possible than an organism deciding to have
more legs or less gills. (No, tadpoles don’t count. They were programmed from
conception to make that change, and it is repeated every generation without
permanent change.)
In my dissertation committee I
never said that evolution was not a useful or defendable position; I simply said
that the theory of evolution works better when applied to organizations than to
organisms. Regardless of what one chooses to believe about evolution of
organisms, it should be clear that it is easier to support survival of the
fittest as a mechanism for continuous change among organizations than it is
among organisms. If this is denied, I don’t see how it can be done on the basis
of logic. And if not logic, then what?
Beyond Urey-Miller
Sunday, May 4th, 2008This week as I prepared to move from my home of 12 years, I
came across a "novel" I started in high school. It was in a Nifty spiral
notebook (if anyone can remember those), and it was sort of an
absent-minded-professor story. I was probably inspired by the black-and-white
Disney movie, but in my story the hero was trying to discover a way to create
life. As I read some of the lousy text I wrote back then, I was struck by the
fact that at that time in my life I bought whole-heartedly into the theory of
evolution. As with most other people, evolution was a given, and I was sure my
Christian upbringing was compatible with it all; it was just a matter of
discovering the details. As a junior scientist, I clearly understood that
neither the Urey-Miller experiment nor those of anyone else had achieved life, but I
assumed that in time someone else would. Why not my hero? Also, as a junior
scientist, and officer in my school’s science club, I knew that all life requires cell structure. As for what a cell contained, I was only slightly ahead of Darwin, knowing that
a cell had a nucleus, some jelly-like stuff (protoplasm), and a cell wall. All my hero had to do was get
the required chemicals into the right three-part arrangement, add a spark, and
life would happen! I had no concept of the sophisticated parts and incredibly
complex processes required for even the simplest cell.
By that time in high school my personal fossil finds were
overflowing boxes in my basement, and science fair awards lined my shelves.
Never once had I heard a scientific criticism of the Darwinian evolutionary model–only
religious ones. Then I was invited to a meeting on my college campus, and one
45-minute audio tape blew it all out of the water. One meeting, one audio tape.
Where had this information been all my life!
I abandoned my belief in God during my PhD program, but
that did not make Darwinian theory any more plausible. Then when I discovered
that my dissertation could not continue until I pretended confidence in
Darwinian theory, my doubts about God took a huge hit. If that group of scientists
would work that hard to prevent me from even doubting this theory, then there must
be something powerful and even real to be feared from this consideration. Slowly I concluded it must be the Truth.
Today I never hear any talk of scientist hoping to create
life from non-life, and information prevents my faith that life could ever occur
without intelligence behind it. But should some scientist (or scientists) ever
achieve life in a test tube, there would remain only one step to prove–that they
were not intelligent.
Science v. Fear
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007This YouTube video presents a turning point in my life. When I went before my
dissertation committee, I was basically an agnostic who wanted to believe that
God is real. The evidence and attitudes I had experienced in my PhD program had
stripped me of any confidence in God’s existence. Everything, and I mean
everything, could be and was explained with no reference to God, including
god-consciousness itself. Then came the day that my dissertation process was
stopped by certain committee members who inadvertently discovered that I lacked
confidence in Darwinian evolution as a sufficient explanation for the origin and
diversity of life. I was forced to profess belief in Darwinism, without any
consideration of opposing empirical or theoretical evidence, in order to proceed
with my degree plan. It did not matter that my particular dissertation, or even
my chosen field, had little to do with Darwin’s theory.
I never remember the word "religion" being mentioned in
that encounter, but the message was loud and clear. Suddenly it made sense why I
had never heard any arguments to balance the atheistic materials in my course
work. Suddenly it made sense why the attitudes and beliefs around me were so
consistently atheistic. It made sense why peer-reviewed journals contained so
little confession of the obvious shortfalls in evolutionary theory. I had
thought it was because the academics were more learned, deeper thinkers,
pursuers of truth at all costs, uninhibited by the superstitions and traditions
of men. Silly me! Just the opposite was unfolding right before my eyes. Opposing
evidence was selectively and systematically being filtered out. Peer review
doesn’t work if dissenters cannot become peers. If some work so hard to suppress
the evidence, then the evidence must be stronger than I thought.
There was one principle I had learned about culture,
through my international travels, even before pursuing my PhD in sociology. That
was that the most powerful ideas of a culture are never voiced. They are passed
on and reinforced by the way things are done, and depend as much on what is not
said as upon what is said. If they were voiced, they could be questioned. If
they could be questioned, then they could be rejected. But if dissention is
never heard, then change never happens. It is a uniting and sustaining force of
any culture; and academia is a culture.
Don’t get me wrong. I have the utmost respect for scholarly
work and academe. The far majority of scientists function productively with no
sinister intent in the taboo within which they live, that no evidence can ever
be interpreted as supporting a higher being, no matter how outlandish the
alternative explanations may be. If pressed on the issue, most will say, if they
are willing to discuss the issue at all, that religion must be kept out of
science; not realizing that the position that God never has, would, or could
intervene in the universe IS a religious position. They consider themselves to
be open-minded, all the while wearing blinders.
It reminds me of when I was dating the woman who later
became my wife. She candidly remarked once that certain subjects were taboo at
my families’ dinner table. I had never thought about it. I simply obeyed the
rules unconsciously. When I pointed out the same about her family, she flatly
denied it.. until I gave her examples.
For some it is more serious. When confronted with the idea
that Darwinism deserves critique, some I have encountered react with such
irrational forcefulness that it could be compared to standing on their air hose.
That critique is interpreted as threat tells me that critique is not only valid
but needed. It tells me there are deeper reasons than logic for avoiding
consideration. It tells me that for them protection is more important than
truth. It suggests that there is a fear that God just might really be there.
The Truth about Dirt
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting and hunting fossils with a geological engineer in the mountains of Montana. Besides wearing me out on the hike (He is ten years my senior.), we had a vigorous and extended conversation about the geological record. In the process, I asked him a question that I have never heard anyone else ask, and for which I have never gotten a satisfactory long-age answer: The conversation went something like this: He was pointing and speaking of the earth layers around us, and I asked, "Where did the dirt come from?" He didn’t know what I meant, so I pointed out, "There are layers of fossils one on top of another. Once the lower layer was laid down, where did the dirt come from for the subsequent layers?" He went into an extended explanation of tectonic plate movement and subduction. (This is a good example of an argument fallacy called Ignoratio elenchi.) I replied, "I have no problem with the idea that earth’s plates move or that one may move underneath or on top of another, but I’m talking about sedimentary layers. If approximately 70-75% of our land surfaces are covered with sedimentary rock and dirt, the second, and all subsequent layers, could not possibly come from the remaining 25-30% of surface." He explained the lifting and erosion cycle, and that some mountains of the world are documented as still getting higher. "Yes, I agree that uplift and erosion take place today simultaneously, and that some land is rising. But my question is, why are trilobites in the bottom layers and dinosaurs are buried on top of them? The dinosaur dirt must have been laid down from the top onto the trilobite dirt, not from the bottom up. If one layer was laid down, and then millions of years later another layer was laid down without disturbing the dirt already in place, where did the new dirt come from–and the layer on top of that and on top of that?" Our conversation extended through the hour decent on gravel roads, but I eventually allowed him to change the subject without a satisfactory answer. His last answer was, "It came from the sides." This of course ignores the observation, that there are no "sides." To date the only explanation that makes since to me is that all the dirt must all have been in suspension at the same time and gradually settled apart, perhaps taking weeks or months, not millions of years. If any reader of this site has a millions-of-years explanation to offer for where the dirt came from, please offer it. Thanks.
Materialism v. Academic Freedom
Saturday, September 29th, 2007This came to me by e-mail, and I want to pass it on without my comment:
I once wrote an entertaining account of my autistic son and our experience with a bunch of psychologists during a time when autism was believed to be caused by maternal rejection. Parents rebelled against the theory, and parents of autistic children are no longer subjected to psychiatric treatment. However I finally had my story published for the enjoyment of my grandchildren and descendants. iUniverse will supposedly publish anything for a modest fee.
I recently became interested in the debate over materialism. I’m not committed to any specific non materialist scientific theory, but I am passionate about academic freedom. I hate the tactics materialists use to stifle criticism of their materialistic formulas — such as the notion that “natural selection” (the grim reaper) is capable of organizing genetic accidents (random mutations) into complex biological systems. Materialists denounce all critics of RM&N as “ignorant creationists”. So I rewrote my story, adding a few questions about materialism to each chapter. “What is intelligence?” “Does free will exist?” “Does belief in an immaterial soul require belief in a personal God?” etc., and asked iUniverse to republish it.
They refused, claiming they feared they might be sued. I offered to remove anything that might cause potential law suits, but they still refused.
Who is going to sue them? Freud? I gave all the doctors in my book an opportunity to read what a I wrote about them, and they had no comment. Besides, I never used real names. The only difference between the book iUniverse published and the book they refused to publish were those questions about materialism. Attempts at suppression of ideas seems to be an automatic response for materialists.
You can read the story, with the questions, at:
and judge the potential for libel for yourselves.
Berthajane Vandegrift
The Unacceptability of Insufficiency
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
It has been several months now since my appendix was removed (see entry April 10), and I am yet to detect what my body no longer does or gets that it did or got when I had an appendix. The evolutionist’s response to this is that it is a vestigial organ, one made useless by evolution away from the need while the organ remains. I have several problems with this concept: First, if the organ is useless, then why is it there at all? Nature is very frugal with energy, and anything not used can disappear rather quickly, like the eyes of the blind cave fish (permanently and genetically) or the legs of a developing tadpole that gets no opportunity to exercise its new legs on dry land (a missed developmental stage), or even the atrophying of the limbs of an accidental paraplegic (recession simply from lack of use). Yet the organ is there generation after generation. Second, I have a problem with the vestigial concept, because there is no clear ancestral function for the organ, including in our supposed more primitive relatives. How could we make such major changes as is suggested by the stated relations and yet the appendix remains unchanged?
It would make more sense to assume that the organ has one or more functions that are quickly duplicated by other organs in the absence of the appendix. When my appendix ruptured, my intestines took on a new function of walling off infection. Isn’t it rational to assume other organs could do the same? Why do we have two kidneys when one can do the job? Why do we have two lungs, when a person can live with one? Two ovaries? Two testicles? Two parathyroid? We are replete with duplication. the problem with this assumption is not that it is without parallel in the body, but that it flies in the face of evolution. How could an organism evolve a back-up system, which is needed only once over many generations? The answer is, it can’t. Evolution is an insufficient explanation. The real question is, why isn’t it OK for evolution to be viewed as vestigial?