The Universe has a serious psychological disorder

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Psychology, Uncategorized

Tags

Dissociative Personality Disorder, paganism, Panpsychism, Psychology, Scientific American

O18.1Potamos

The authors of an essay in Scientific American have couple constitute panpsychism and Dissociative Identity Disorder as a mechanism for explaining the existence of consciousness in the material universe. A fundamental trouble of the materialist worldview is that there is consciousness and rocks don’t have consciousness — so how things made out of powdered rocks and water (human beings) have consciousness presents problem.

One way to solve that problem is to say the consciousness is just a physical property and so my electrons have a rudimentary consciousness. As the authors explain:

Under this view, called “constitutive panpsychism,” matter already has experience from the get-go, not just when it arranges itself in the form of brains. Even subatomic particles possess some very simple form of consciousness. Our own human consciousness is then (allegedly) constituted by a combination of the subjective inner lives of the countless physical particles that make up our nervous system.

This leads to a problem: how then can human beings experience their own center of consciousness? If there is one great consciousness which underlies the entire universe (it is inherent in everything), then how to we explain our individual identities?

This is where Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) helps: One human being can be the locus of multiple centers of consciousness which is known as DID. The same mechanism which permits one human body to have multiple centers of consciousness is the mechanism which permits individual humans to have their own center of consciousness separate from the universal consciousness in all things.

Essentially, the universe has DID and we are one of those personalities.

It should be noted that this is paganism: where the universe is animate. Indeed if you scratch this hard, you end up with tree spirits and water sprites.

That Octopus on Your Plate Came From Outer Space

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Apologetics, Evolution, Octopus

octopus-salad-with-lemon

Evidence of the role of extraterrestrial viruses in affecting terrestrial evolution has recently been plausibly implied in the gene and transcriptome sequencing of Cephalopods. The genome of the Octopus shows a staggering level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes more than is present in Homo sapiens (Albertin et al., 2015). Octopus belongs to the coleoid sub-class of molluscs (Cephalopods) that have an evolutionary history that stretches back over 500 million years, although Cephalopod phylogenetics is highly inconsistent and confusing (see Carlini et al., 2000; Strugnell et al., 2005, 2006, 2007; Bergmann et al., 2006). Cephalopods are also very diverse, with the behaviourally complex coleoids, (Squid, Cuttlefish and Octopus) presumably arising under a pure terrestrial evolutionary model from the more primitive nautiloids. However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great, akin to the extreme features seen across many genera and species noted in Eldridge-Gould punctuated equilibria patterns (below). Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch colour and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene. The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus (e.g. Nautilus pompilius) to the common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to Squid (Loligo vulgaris) to the common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Fig. 5) are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form – it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.

In plainer English: The Octopus is so very sophisticated that it could not have evolved: therefore, it came from space.

It wasn’t billions of years

03 Thursday May 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Apologetics, Billions, Creation, Universe

I like mysteries:

Hubble Deep Field in Infrared

“How this assembly of galaxies got so big, so fast is a mystery,” Tim Miller, a doctoral candidate at Yale University and lead author of one of the papers, said in the statement. “It wasn’t built up gradually over billions of years, as astronomers might expect. This discovery provides a great opportunity to study how massive galaxies came together to build enormous galaxy clusters.”

A bit about brute facts

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized, Van Til

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Biblical Counseling, Brute Facts, Jay Adams, Presuppositional apologetics, Van Til

(I am working on an essay about the relationship between biblical soul care (biblical counseling) and those who advocate for an integrationist position. I wrote upon a couple of paragraphs on “brute facts” which I cannot keep due to space constraints. But I also wanted to keep these those notes around for use later)

Van Til famously rejected the notion of “brute facts”.[1] ; and thus our understanding of the world — when it is not properly anchored in a right relationship to God is problematic:

But then sin enters. By virtue of it, man seeks to interpret experience independently of God; indeed he is left to himself so that he must seek to interpret all things without God. Hence, all his interpretation will basically be wrong. He will set up a new and false standard of objectivity. Man will think that though he interprets alone, he nevertheless interprets correctly. He thinks that his idea of God is still correct, though there is no longer any foundation for his ideas about anything.[2]

This concept is not purely a belief of Van Til, but is now considered a factor of all scientific inquiry. As Frame explains of Thomas Kuhn’s understanding of the philosophy of science, “When two people differ on interpretation of something, they share agreement on the existence of the thing they are trying to interpret. But in a paradigm conflict [between one system of understanding and interpretation and another], even that agreement can be lost.”[3]

This problem of interpretation is acute when it comes to understanding “psychological” facts:

All such evidence, in the end, is interpreted evidence. There is no such thing as brute uninterpreted fact. Data are collected and related and presented by men, all of whom are sinners and subject to the noetic effects of their sin. In God’s world, all men are related to him as covenant breakers or covenant keepers (in Christ). The judgments of unbelievers, therefore, are arrived at and presented from a point of view which attempts to divorce itself from God. Such judgments must be understood, weighed and examined in this light.[4]

It is at this point, that those who advocate biblical soul care and those who advocate for some form integration[5] between Scripture and “secular” psychology can easily misunderstand one-another.

[1] “Since the natural man assumes the idea of brute fact in metaphysics and the idea of the autonomy of the human mind in epistemology, the Reformed apologist realizes that he should first challenge these notions.” Cornelius Van Til and William Edgar, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 2003).

[2] Cornelius Van Til, Psychology of Religion (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1971), no pg.

[3] John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2015), 486.

[4] Jay Edward Adams, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library, 1986), 269.

[5] “In his analysis of current state of integration, Brian Eck identified twenty-seven models of integration.” David N. Entwistle, Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: An Introduction to Worldview Issues, Philosophical Foundations, and Models of Integration (Eugene, Or.: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 163.

Theophilus of Antioch on the False Accusations Against Christians

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Church History, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Church History, Theophilus of Antioch

Theophilus makes an interesting move, because he seeks to pry his reader (Autolycus) his prejudice; notice the move here:

Nor indeed was there any necessity for my refuting these, except that I see you still in dubiety about the word of the truth. For though yourself prudent, you endure fools gladly. Otherwise you would not have been moved by senseless men to yield yourself to empty words, and to give credit to the prevalent rumor wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us, who are worshippers of God, and are called Christians,

This comes immediately after Theophilus has made the point that Hebrew prophets wrote of what they knew — as opposed to the poets who have no reason for their belief. He then turns to the accusations against the Christians. These accusations seem to come from both Christian use of the concept of “family” and the Lord’s Supper wildly distorted through rumor of a group not well understood:

alleging that the wives of us all are held in common and made promiscuous use of; and that we even commit incest with our own sisters, and, what is most impious and barbarous of all, that we eat human flesh.

Finally, it is the apparent newness of Christianity that seems to be a trouble:

But further, they say that our doctrine has but recently come to light, and that we have nothing to allege in proof of what we receive as truth, nor of our teaching, but that our doctrine is foolishness. I wonder, then, chiefly that you, who in other matters are studious, and a scrutinizer of all things, give but a careless hearing to us. For, if it were possible for you, you would not grudge to spend the night in the libraries

Then in the next several chapters, Theophilus recounts instances of Heathen poets and philosophers espousing the very things of which the Christians had been (falsely) accused (such as cannibalism and holding wives in common). Following that, he again recounts the contradictory opinions of the poets on matters the gods:

And one can see how inconsistent with each other are the things which others, and indeed almost the majority, have said about God and providence. For some have absolutely cancelled God and providence; and others, again, have affirmed God, and have avowed that all things are governed by providence. The intelligent hearer and reader must therefore give minute attention to their expressions; as also Simylus said: “It is the custom of the poets to name by a common designation the surpassingly wicked and the excellent; we therefore must discriminate.” As also Philemon says: “A senseless man who sits and merely hears is a troublesome feature; for he does not blame himself, so foolish is he.” We must then give attention, and consider what is said, critically inquiring into what has been uttered by the philosophers and the poets.

And also the depravity of the gods:

They who elaborated such a philosophy regarding either the non-existence of God, or promiscuous intercourse and beastly concubinage, are themselves condemned by their own teachings. Moreover, we find from the writings they composed that the eating of human flesh was received among them; and they record that those whom they honour as gods were the first to do these things.

Theophilus of Antioch, “Theophilus to Autolycus,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 113.

Theophilus of Antioch: “They beat the air”

01 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Theophilus of Antioch

(The previous post on Theophilus is here)

800px-Francisco_de_Goya,_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_(1819-1823)

(Goya, Saturn Devours His Son)

Theophilus of Antioch makes an important point in his reason with Autolycus: and it is a point which can be easily missed when we speak of people from the ancient world. There is a sort of prejudice against those from another time or another place — particularly those from the past — they are merely credulous, thoughtless beasts. Now the New Testament explicitly denies such things: Luke gives us his credentials in the introduction to his Gospel. John in his Gospel takes pains to explain that he was there and personally saw and heard the things he reports. Yes, the things they report of Jesus are remarkable — but that is part of the argument.

Theophilus pits the Scriptures — and he in particular is writing of the Old Testament prophets –against philosophers and poets as follows:

For it was fit that they who wrote should themselves have been eye-witnesses of those things concerning which they made assertions, or should accurately have ascertained them from those who had seen them; for they who write of things unascertained beat the air.

And if we don’t know, can’t know, if a thing is true; then what is the point? What does it profit?

For what did it profit Homer to have composed the Trojan war, and to have deceived many; or Hesiod, the register of the theogony of those whom he calls gods; or Orpheus, the three hundred and sixty-five gods, whom in the end of his life he rejects, maintaining in his precepts that there is one God?

He goes on to explain that they contradict themselves — and one another. They cannot maintain consistency. I heard John Frame in a lecture explain that any understanding which is not ultimately anchored in reality will always have one pole in irrationality. Greek thought was a mess, a shambles: and if one looked at the product of the thought, it was easy to see that it could not be true. Oh sure, there were buildings and armies: but what of the depravity it produced? Surely human beings are meant for more than that.

For either they made assertions concerning the gods, and afterwards taught that there was no god; or if they spoke even of the creation of the world, they finally said that all things were produced spontaneously. Yea, and even speaking of providence, they taught again that the world was not ruled by providence. But what? Did they not, when they essayed to write even of honourable conduct, teach the perpetration of lasciviousness, and fornication, and adultery; and did they not introduce hateful and unutterable wickedness? And they proclaim that their gods took the lead in committing unutterable acts of adultery, and in monstrous banquets.

For who does not sing Saturn devouring his own children, and Jove his son gulping down Metis, and preparing for the gods a horrible feast, at which also they say that Vulcan, a lame blacksmith, did the waiting; and how Jove not only married Juno, his own sister, but also with foul mouth did abominable wickedness

Theophilus of Antioch, How do you think the world began?

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Creation, Theophilus of Antioch

The previous post on the Apology of Theophilus may be found here

In chapters V, VI & VII, Theophilus takes his pagan reader to task by listing out all the various things the poets have said about the beginning of the gods and the world, and all the strange and confused genealogies. He quickly shows that the origin stories are wildly incoherent. As such, it would be easy to disregard this section of his apology (who believes in Greek myths any more?). But then he makes this argument which is salient:

And saying this, he has not yet explained by whom all this was made. For if chaos existed in the beginning, and matter of some sort, being uncreated, was previously existing, who was it that effected the change on its condition, and gave it a different order and shape? Did matter itself alter its own form and arrange itself into a world (for Jupiter was born, not only long after matter, but long after the world and many men; and so, too, was his father Saturn), or was there some ruling power which made it; I mean, of course, God, who also fashioned it into a world? Besides, he is found in every way to talk nonsense, and to contradict himself.

In the end, modern creation accounts differ little from pagan creation accounts: In the beginning was the world and the world made itself. There was some original state of stuff which somehow changed itself: but how?

To argue that in the beginning was a singularity may make for “god” with a name more amenable to our ears, but is that really much of an advance? Where did this singularity come from? Where did the rules which gave rise to control this singularity come from — that is information which is capable of molding matter and energy. It certainly has profound powers.

The names are different, the mechanism by which the formation takes place is different, but the basic story is the same.

Van Til: There is no Third Possibility

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Presuppositional apologetics, Presuppositionalism, Van Til

An interesting aspect of post-modernism is the acute realization that everyone is reading the world through a grid. This is precisely the point of presuppositional apologetics: Everyone “reads” the world through some means (there is no naive, uninterpreted world for the human being). As Van Til writes, we either read the world as God’s world, or we read it in rebellion:

The Christian principle of interpretation is based upon the assumption of God as the final and self-contained reference point. The non-Christian principle of interpretation is that man as self-contained is the final reference point. It is this basic difference that has to be kept in mind all the time. It will be difficult at times to see that such is actually the case. The very fact that by God’s common grace fallen man is “not as bad as he could be” and is able to do that which is “morally good” will make the distinction between two mutually exclusive principles seem an extreme oversimplification to many.

In fact, it is in spite of appearances that the distinction between the two principles must be maintained. The point is that the “facts of experience” must actually be interpreted in terms of Scripture if they are to be intelligible at all. In the last analysis the “facts of experience” must be interpreted either in terms of man taken as autonomous, or they must be interpreted in terms of God. There is no third “possibility.”

Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge. (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1969).

Pharaoh found in slum.

10 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Exodus, OT Background, Pharaoh, Pride, Ramses II

JS122942409-reuters-ramses-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqeK8ehqBZJSTiVTgumtathRUrxw2k0v3FIvnVyxhkUuM

“A statue workers say depicts Pharaoh Ramses II who ruled Egypt over 3,000 years was unearthed on Thursday in the Matariya area in Cairo”

“Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a massive eight-metre statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum that they say probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.” This man was one of the most powerful and consequential human beings to ever live:

One measure of Egypt’s prosperity is the amount of temple building the kings could afford to carry out, and on that basis the reign of Ramses II is the most notable in Egyptian history, even making allowance for its great length. It was that, combined with his prowess in war as depicted in the temples, that led the Egyptologists of the 19th century to dub him “the Great,” and that, in effect, is how his subjects and posterity viewed him; to them he was the king par excellence. Nine kings of the 20th dynasty (1190–1075 bce) called themselves by his name; even in the period of decline that followed, it was an honour to be able to claim descent from him, and his subjects called him by the affectionate abbreviation Sese. (Britannica)

Now his image lies in the working class area of Matariya, among unfinished buildings and mud roads.

egypt_archeology-2

Reminds me a bit of this (different Pharaoh):

¹And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. ²And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.

Exodus 5:1–2 (AV)

Masterpiece Cakeshop

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Culture, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Culture, first amendment, law, Masterpiece Cakeshop, politics

The First Amendment prohibits the government from telling private citizens “what they must say.” Agency for Int’l Dev. v. Alliance for Open Soc. Int’l, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2321, 2327 (2013). It is undisputed that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (the “Commission”) does not apply CADA to ban (1) an African-American cake artist from refusing to create a cake promoting white-supremacism for the Aryan Nation, (2) an Islamic cake artist from refusing to create a cake denigrating the Quran for the Westboro Baptist Church, and (3) three secular cake artists from refusing to create cakes opposing same- sex marriage for a Christian patron. App. 78a; App. 297a-App. 331a.

Neither should CADA ban Jack Phillips’ polite declining to create a cake celebrating same-sex marriage on religious grounds when he is happy to create other items for gay and lesbian clients. See Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2607 (2015) (“[T]hose who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”).

Here’s the rest of the brief

This is interesting, because it was not the refusal to sell anything: rather, the issue is whether the government can compel speech.

Because of the artistry associated with custom cakes, Phillips also honors God through his work by declining to use his creative talents to design and create cakes that violate his religious beliefs. App. 282-283a, ¶¶ 57-58, 62. This includes cakes with offensive written messages and cakes celebrating events or ideas that violate his beliefs, including cakes celebrating Halloween (a decision that costs him significant revenue), anti-American or anti- family themes, atheism, racism, or indecency. App. 283-284a, ¶¶ 61, 63-64. He also will not create cakes with hateful, vulgar, or profane messages, or sell any products containing alcohol. Id., ¶¶ 59, 61.

Consistent with this longstanding practice, Phillips also will not create cakes celebrating any marriage that is contrary to his understanding of biblical teaching. App. 276-277a, ¶¶ 21, 25. As a Christian, Phillips believes that God ordained marriage as the sacred union between one man and one woman, a union that exemplifies the relationship of Christ and His Church. App. 274- 275a, ¶¶ 10-15. And Phillips’ religious conviction compels him to create cakes celebrating only marriages that are consistent with his understanding of God’s design. App. 275-277a, ¶¶16-22, 25. For this reason, Phillips politely declined to design and create a cake celebrating Respondents Craig’s and Mullins’ same-sex wedding, App. 287a, ¶ 78, but offered to make any other cake for them, id., ¶ 79.

This was not bigotry: he did not refuse to sell them anything. He merely treated the couple the same as he did every other patron: there were some-things Jack would not say. Irrespective of how one feels about the underlying wedding, one should be concerned if the government can force speech under threat of penalty. Think of it this, would you like President Obama or President Trump (or both) telling you what you had to say? You can’t pick the guy “on your side”.