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Wednesday 16 November 2016

A Wonderful Day in Cambridge

The Reason for the Wonderful Day
I spent a wonderful Saturday in Cambridge recently, at Hughes Hall (one of the colleges of university).  Wonderful, because I was attending a conference called "Beyond Materialism"organised by the Centre for Intelligent Design. It was a gathering of some of the most important western experts in the new science (yes, science) of intelligent design. It was a joy and a privilege to listen to these humble giants. I include among the giants men like Stephen Meyer, Gunter Bechley, Douglas Axe, and women like Ann Gauger.

In a word, ID says that science must always run from evidence to the best explanations. If there are two possible explanations for some phenomenon, then the one that best explains the phenomena is the one we must adopt. This is common sense, and it is true science.

Materialism and ID
Tragically, a strangle-hold theory has become the reigning paradigm in explaining "origins" of all kinds. This reigning paradigm, starting with Darwin, does not arise out of the evidence but arises out of philosophy. Materialism starts with the premise that there is no prior mind or intelligence in the universe. It says that all there is is matter, "In the beginning matter". Materialism - without a jot of evidence or supporting arguments - posits the non-existence of intelligence as a founding principle of exploration and examination. Not surprisingly, if you don't put cinnamon in the cake at the beginning, you don't get cinnamon cake out of the oven.  Materialist scientists don't find evidence for God anywhere because he's not even a possibility in their work, at the start.

On the other hand, ID experts suggests that if we find evidence of intelligence in the universe we should not be afraid to admit it and acknowledge it. Only a bigoted mind would exclude such a common sense approach.

Evidence for Intelligence
Here are four evidences for intelligence in the universe:

(i) The origin of the first cell. More like, "The origin of the first protein." Materialists live in the hope that somehow we will be able to come up with a "just so" pathway from inorganic matter to living cells. Darwin could be excused for such nonsense because he was ignorant of the vast complexity of a single living cell. We who know better, know too that there is no way a cell can come about by chance and law. Now that the time-frame of the earth has been limited to a few billions of years we can do the maths: there is not enough time to come up with one simple useful protein (one of the molecular machines in a cell), let alone a cell with hundreds of interconnected proteins working in harmony with each other.

This is not one of those "one day when we know more" gaps, it is a fundamental, statistical, fact: proteins cannot arise by chance (let alone unbelievably more complex cells). It takes intelligence.....

(ii) The rapid origin of all living things. Gunter Bechley demonstrated from the fossil record that whenever new organisms appear they do so "instantaneously" (in geological terms). The most common example of this is the Cambrian Explosion where some 40 body types appear all of a sudden in the fossil record with no previous ancestors. But Gunter showed us that the Cambrian Explosion is just one of many such explosions, all of which follow the same pattern in the fossil record. How come they appear abruptly? Perhaps........?

(iii) The fine tuning of the universe.  The laws and matter in the universe possess many numbers, constants, numerical values which are finely tuned for life. If you tweak any one of these numbers, by even in some case a tiny amount, the universe cannot support life. Examples of this abound not only in the physical laws of the universe but in the kind of galaxy, kind of solar system and kind of world we live on. It is best to explain the rare phenomenon of the right conditions for life as the mark of a designer who set all the dials to the right value!

(iv) The discontinuity between us and animals. We are not animals (read the pagan writer Raymond Talis, "The Aping of Mankind" if you doubt that). Human beings tower above the animal world in every single activity, bar none. And supremely we have minds. Animals act on immediate sensory inputs plus hard-wired instincts and live existentially in the moment. We are able to imagine a world completely different from the sensory inputs flowing into our brains at any moment. For this reason we can have hope for the future, empathise with others and do all the very different things that mark out human beings.

How come the human mind? There is for sure not one single evolutionary reason for it! Plenty of organisms survive very well without it, and the possession of a mind could easily be a hindrance to survival: doing art on the Savannah while a lion is stalking you.... or maths while your family are hungry.... do not give survival advantages.

The only explanation for the human mind is Another Prior Mind who made our minds in his image.

So ID is seeking to go beyond the iron prison walls of materialism to seek the real explanations for the wonders of the universe.

ID will NEVER win the day
But ID, like all truth will never ever ever win the day. It will never be accepted by "mainline" science. Google ID and you will get this: 

"Intelligent design (ID) is the pseudoscientific view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

The reason ID will ALWAYS be despised (like all truth), is because admitting a Supreme Intelligence, admitting the existence of God acknowledges that we may be accountable to him, perhaps our lives are displeasing to him? Perhaps we need to change our lives? Perhaps we need to submit to him? No way! And so in our rebellion against God we suppress the truth! (Read all about it in Romans chapter 1).

So although ID will for sure overtake all materialistic explanations for origins - it already has - it will, I predict, never, ever be acceptable to pagan science. Indeed what I expect as the modern evolutionary synthesis is undermined is increasingly foolish explanations of where we came from. Why? Because, if you deny what is so obvious, you mess up your forensic logic software and cease to be able to think straight.

Example? In "Aping Mankind" the pagan neuroscientist, a great man, Raymond Talis, after debunking all attempts to put humans and animals on the same footing makes a suggestion to how the unbelievable human mind came into existence......

Wait for it....

.....no, I can't believe that?

That's what he suggests!?

Want to know where the human mind came from?

The opposable thumb! There are simply not enough smiley emojis in thw world to describe how crazy this idea is. Once the opposable thumb was invented by evolution it led to brain developments which resulted in the human minds we now have!

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" is how Paul would decribe such madness.

In the midst of a world of scientific origin-madness and lies, Hughes Hall was an oasis of honesty, sanity and reasonableness. And worship. A wonderful day in Cambridge.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Film Review - The Light Between Oceans


Our messy lives
For my lovely wife's birthday, we went to see the 2016 film, "The Light Between Oceans." Rotten Tomatoes gives it an unfair 59% (compared, for  example with 82% for another 2016 film, The Revenant.)

The film is about Tom, who, trying to forget the experiences of four bitter years spent in the first world war, ends up manning a remote light house loctaed "between two oceans".

Don't read on if you plan to see the film!

The Light between Oceans is a beautiful and moving film about the mess humans can so easily get themselves into. Many of the greatest themes of life in a fallen world are to be found here.....

Beautiful nature is not enough
So Tom ends up on the lonely island of Janus Rock.  Although he is surrounded by spectacular natural beauty he is desperately lonely because inanimate creation is not enough to satisfy or heal his broken soul. He falls in love and marries Isabel (from the mainland) who joins him on the island. 

The beast and the beauty
But all of the joys of this passing life are marred by the fall, and two miscarriages later, Isabel is depressed and down-hearted. One day a small boat is blown onto the lighthouse rocks. On board is a baby and the child's dead young father. Tom knows that the rules of the lighthouse demand he records this event and calls in help, but desperate to make his bereaved wife happy he buries the dead father and colludes with his wife to pretend the baby belongs to them.... 

The union of husband and wife in crime
Truth may not always to be found in a married couple, for love often blinds them and then binds them. Tom's conscience says one thing, his love for his wife says another, and instead of standing up for the truth, he agrees with the deception and thus begins a life founded on a big fat lie....

You can't live a lie for long 
....but conscience won't long abide a lie. When happy grandparents congratulate the couple, it's hard to hide the moral short-circuiting going on in their heads. When the baby is christened, it's hard to hear words that imply the child is their own. Faces contort as consciences are pricked. What is worse, Tom hears about the true story of the child and its father: one day, after a period of bullying, the father took his baby daughter and set off on the open ocean leaving behind his wife. All assumed father and child had died at sea, but Tom upon hearing of the intense grieving of the widow writes her an anonymous note to say that the father was "in the hands of God" and the child was safe. This begins a police search for the baby which will lead to the arrest of Tom and his wife....

Be sure your sins will find you out
Tom and Isabel's sins are found out because of the note Tom wrote. One sin leads to another: Tom in his desire to protect his wife from punishment lies to say he was wholly responsible for the cover-up. And then, when the heat is on, Isabel, out of her love for Tom admits her part in the cover-up; it looks like they'll both be locked away.

Forgiveness "heals"
The true mother forgives the couple and their sentence is reduced and here, at last, is where some measure of redemption takes place in the story.  It seems as though she brings up the baby without bitteness or rancour because many years later as an adult, Grace visits Tom, Isabel having passed away. The death of one father leaves one wife bereaved, but the deceit of a couple, in their desperation to have children, bring misery to four people. Sin spreads, sin has consequences, and what tragic webs of sorrow sin weaves in our lives.

Unwinding the tangled web
Suppose we could go back in time, suppose, for a moment, a wife grieving over two miscarriages is comforted and strengthened by her husband against a temptation to take a baby not her own (for to do what is right is always better than to do what feels best). Suppose the husband lovingly stood up to his wife and reported the missing baby. A grieving mother would have been reunited with her baby, four years of seared conscience avoided and many long years of sorrow in the lives of four people prevented.

It sounds like I think The Light Between Oceans is a real-life story! These themes are so close to the tangled webs we weave that it could very easily be a real life story, from which only the saving grace of God can heal and restore.