"he who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Apologetics is not for unbelievers. It's not exactly for convincing
oneself either. But it is definitely not for atheists. Its' pointless
trying to convince someone of something that is contrary to their
paradigm. Paradigms control all. People cannot and are not capable of
seeing into a different world. They live in the world they are in, the
world of the paradigm. Paradigm shifts only when there are too many
anomalies to be absorbed by the old paradigm. Until that happens there's
no convincing someone his paradigm is wrong. Now you might think this
means that means we should go about the task of trying pile up
anomalies. The problem with that is atheists are able to absorb vast
amounts of anomalies into their paradigm and they employ a verity of
methods to do so. Kuhn says this is what happens, the ruling paradigm
can adsorb a certain degree of anomalies and until you get so many that
can't deal with them any more and the paradigm starts to shift, they
are just all absorbed and don't' seem to matter.
Now i
think little by little the paradigm is shifting, it will eventually
turn over. It will probably never be non materialists or
"spiritualist." But it is clear that the old paradigm has given way in
several areas and ideas that would once have been considered totally
loony are not part of the new paradigm. The problem is the new paradigm
is packaged as a continuation of the old; in other words, the old
materialist paradigm has now given way to the new physicalist. The
difference being that under the old paradigm (materialist)only materiel
things were possible. Reality was thought of as the "material" realm.
Then it was realized that energy is another form of matter, so it's not
mater itself and thus more than just mater is possible.So the new
paradigm (phsyicalist) says that only what is physical is possible.
Spirit still ruled out (except it can come in the back door in the form
of energy) but it is recognized that there are two media for
existence, rather than just the material there is also energy (which is
another form of matter).
Meanwhile, there are many
areas through which the evil idealism has seeped into the new paradigm:
healing in medicine, the idea of mind over matter, realms beyond that
of nature (which is what string membranes are) but they have to be
packed as "physical." As long as it all part of "the physical" (which
is idealist enough as it goes, then it can have a place. So ideas which
never have been considered fifty years ago are now front and center.
But the only proviso is we can't acknowledge it. We have to keep up the
charade that idealism/spiritualism is beaten and materialism (in the
form of physicalism which allows for energy) prevails. But in
prevailing it makes room for other realms beyond that of nature
(space/time) mind over matter, healing in medicine, archetypes, here's a
complete list:
(1) Quantum Theory (no need for cause/effect)
(2) Big bang Cosmology (realm beyond the natrual)
(3) Medicine (healing)
(4) Consciousness (invites concept of dualism)
(6) Maslow's Archetypes (universal ideas)
(7) Miracles (empirical evidence)
(8) Near Death Experiences (scientific evidence)
(9) Esp Research (the fact that they do it)
(10) Validity of religious experince (Shrinks no longer assume pathology)
(11) Mind over matter (pleacebo effect).
For
this reason I am willing to think that the paradigm will eventually
shift. It probably wont ever allow for "supernatural," but it will
contain supernatural like ideas masquerading as
materialist/physicialist. We already see it now in the mind over matter
of the placebo effect.
Nevertheless, despite this
movement, the materialist/physicalist paradigm can absorb an almost
infinite amount anomalous of behavior simply because "energy" covers a
multitude of idealist propositions. Anything not material can always be
sold as "energy." Pure idea can be sold as brain chemistry because it
has to be transmitted that way. Thus Dawkins insists there cant' be a
mind without a brain. But what's really being said there is that any
form of ideal or idea or "mind" or anything not material can always be
coopted as "energy" and thus it can never be anomalous under a
physicalist paradigm. But there's another reason as well why it will
take a long time for a big paradigm shift. There is no end of atheist
incredulity. The physicalist paradigm lends itself to incredulity
because we know it works. We don't know the range of its limitations
because we can't produce evidence under the same paradigm of things
beyond the paradigm, so of course we can exclude any hit of actual
anomaly. Of course we can't expect evidence under the paradigm that
would legitimate anomalies of that same paradigm, then they wouldn't be
anomalies. The incredulity factor always allows one to put it in the
magic pressure cooker and (whish wish) it's gone!
Here's
an example of what I mean. Here's an example of a Saint making miracle
from my miracles page. It's no longer found on the URL it once was, so
the link doesn't work. But it was there:
Society for the Little Flower (Website) FAQ (visited 6/3/01) St. Theresse of Lisieux
http://www.littleflower.org/therese/faq.html#4
"Regarding
St. Therese, in 1923 the Church approved of two spontaneous cures
unexplained by medical treatment. Sister Louise of St. Germain was cured
of the stomach ulcers she had between 1913 and 1916. The second cure
involved Charles Anne, a 23 year old seminarian who was dying from
advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The night he thought he was dying,
Charles prayed to Therese. Afterward, the examining doctor testified,
"The destroyed and ravaged lungs had been replaced by new lungs,
carrying out their normal functions and about to revive the entire
organism. A slight emaciation persists, which will disappear within a
few days under a regularly assimilated diet." These two miracles
resulted in Therese becoming beatified."
The
atheists on carm treated this with total incredulity. It has to be a
lie. First they said I made it up. then I lined to the site and they
could see it was their and howled with laughter. How stupid could I be?
It's a religious site dedicated to that saint to of course it's a lie! I
gave all the evidence on miracles pages about the rules of miracles in
RCC and showed that they use medical evdience, there x-rays of the
lungs and so on. But they insisted this is not good because its not in a
medical journal. So I emailed a member of the committee, a medical
expert who does research for the medical committee, and he vouched for
its authenticity. That's no good, he' on that committee so he's lying. I
brought up the x-rays, well I don't have the x-rays so its' still lie.
I would have to have the x-rays in my hot little hand before it could
actually be accepted. If i actually get the xrays from the Vatican,
which were taken in the early part of the 20th century, (like that's a
fair requirement that I some little guy in Texas, a prot, with no
official connections could get these xrays), if I did have them don't
you think they would still say its a lie? x-rays can be fabricated. So
it's an anomaly and it will always be an anomaly because one may always
doubt.
I recently had a
discussion on my message boards
about my mystical experience arguments (The Trace of God). I was as
clear as anyone could be, and i worked several times to meet the
evidential burden required by the atheist dialogue "partner." But this
guy just played dense. He refused to get it. But I think a Chrsitain
poster named
"Wordgazer" really summed it up best:
FWIW,
I didn't have any trouble following or understanding Metacrock's
reasoning, and I do think he addressed each of Marxiavelli's concerns.
What it looked like to me was that Marxiavelli was looking at things
through his scientific materialist worldview, and was either unable or
unwilling to shift to a different perspective. For example, he seemed to
think Metacrock was using the religious experience argument to prove
one particular set of religious beliefs, and because they didn't do
this, Marxiavelli appeared to think that this trumped all rational
warrant for a belief in anything non-material at all. But Metacrock was
not arguing for Christianity; he was arguing for the interaction
between humans and something Divine that was undefined. What I was
seeing was something that I myself have experienced-- the challenge by
an atheist to prove theism, but only within the atheism box.
Invitations to climb out of the box and look further, were apparently
misunderstood as not answering the questions. There were a few times
that Metacrock got frustrated, but I really don't think he was being
"extremely and unnecessarily aggressive."
We
live in different worlds. The world of the atheist is not the world of
the theist and they don't want to see into my world. They want to
reassure themselves that it's ok to deny my world is valid and to
secure their own world. One can hide a lot of anomalies that way. As
Wordgazer said it's really just a matter of who wants to see what. Of
course they would impune my motives for wanting to see the validity of
my world, but pat themselves on the back and rationalize their biases
as "hard nosed critical thinking." Hard nosed critical thinking that
does not want to see.
This is why the realizing God
(existential phenomenological who ha) is really the only tenable
approach. Until one is willing make a realization, or until one does
make such a realization, the anomalies will always be absorbed into he
paradigm. "Realizing God" is nothing more than a change in the ground, a
shift in consciousness, a paradigm shift. The materialist paradigm is
front end loaded with built-in incredulity as a defense mechanism
against shifts.
But all of this really biols down to
is good old fashioned sin. "5 And the light shineth in darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5). No amount of evdience
will ever shit them and no amount of logic will ever read them.
Now
this doesn't mean that I wont continue the friendships I've made. I
have made freinds with some atheists, and some who are good people who I
really like. I will continue those friendships and we can discuss
anything. But I wont discuss God with them or God arguments. There's no
point. The literal reading of the "great commission" (the Bible doesn't
call it that) says "where ever you happen to be going, tell them the
truth." I did tell them. They didn't want to get it.
Metacrock said...
Originally Posted by Metacrock
More
than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that
their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not
merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ.
About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther
as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant
Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of
Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that
Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish. 
