Posted by OldtimerToo on May 12, 2004 at 10:22:21
In Reply to: Re: Excellent, excellent! posted by kinda gentler on March 26, 2004 at 12:23:04:
I think that the philosophy of determinism is dangerous, whether it is believed in and acted upon in reference to Christian spirituality (I.E. being led circumstantially by God the Holy Spirit), biology (human anatomy and physiology especially), or any of the paradigms we all grew up with.
Let's stick with what Romans 1:20, as well as Romans 12 says, NO? "Don't be conformed...".
For those who don't know, here's how determinism works.
Cause-and-effect is observatioanlly unavoidable and true. The cause is always greater than its effect, and Thermodynamic observations determine that all physical reality is headed towards a cold homogeneous "soup", hypothetically. Or, "all reactions eventually tend to randomness and disorder"
In other words, ther exists NO DISCERNABLE upwardly (i.e. against "entropic doom") organizing force, especially an IMPERSONAL force.
Chance is a Probability CONCEPT, not a force.
In "E=MC squared", the "C" is velocity, the progression in space of matter OVER time, but TIME cannot be said logically/reasonably, to be a FORCE.
Atheists (as well as Hindu pantheists, and others,by the way) have to concede a "Prime Cause", at least. They assume a finite universe, created by the Big Bang's "Singularity", an entity to which they ascribe DEISTIC qualities(NOT theistic--that would mean the possibility of God's intervention--ie miracles, the resurrection, the truth in Christ, answers to prayer, God speaking to people, etc.)
This entity existed in a realm of "eternity" and created ex nihilo, or out of nothing (and, as Martin Luther said, ""Nothing" is NOT "a little something"").
Isaac Newton said that, if the universe WAS finite, that, given enough time, all matter would clump together in its middle--Immanuel Kant said that you cannot reach God with your mere human brain, and contended that an infinite God COULD produce an infinite Universe (hence no "middle").
Newton said that God lives in Time (with a "BIG T")--the Bible says that God "inhabits eternity".
The "little t" time is part of His creation. Thats' the "time" that E=MC Squared" is part of.
It will end. God will create a new heaven and a new earth. Entropy will end. Fornow, Col 1:17 says that "He [Christ] is, BEFORE all things, and BY Him all things CONSIST [hold together}.
Jesus is about to "change His grip"! Come, Lord Jesus!
Although Scripture said that God "stretched out the heavens", the ONLY acceptable interpretation of visible light (a la Hubble) in atheism is NOT that God COULD exist, and COULD create everything, out of nothing, and as He created an adult Adam and Eve, or COULD ever have created an infinite and "up-and-running" universe where light was simultaneously created AT its destination, AND along the way as photons (with measurable MASS), AND still emanating from its individual stellar source. Like Genesis 1.
Rationalist/atheist/evolution requires HUGE ammounts of baseless faith (credulence). It's bastard child, determinism, insists that time and chance, which never produced ANYTHING, actually did.
Then the belief paradigm demands of its adherents that un UNINTERRUPTABLE chain of events must not only exist, but be completely believed in. That's DETERMINISM, in a nutshell, if not in the terms of formal philosophy; a godless deistic singularity, with most of the attributes of the God of the Bible, originally created everything, and no theistic being exists, so the resultant chain of cause-and-effect cannot be interrupted, etc., etc.
Biological determinism blames everything "on genetics"--just another pattern wothout a pattern maker (God). The 12 step movement, in order to remain funded, similarly says that alcoholism, a "disease", basically "came out of nowhere and GOT me--I'm not to blame--everything I do that's WRONG is either someone else's fault or the DISEASE's fault--I can get away with infantilizing myself and avoiding all responsibility, and the CONSEQUENCES of all my choices. SO, it's NOT SMARTER to believe in the tenets of biolgical deternminism!
I say that "the Emperor has no clothes"!
I'll stick with the Bible; thanks :-) !!!
As well as SOUND philosophy and logic, and stricly OBSERVABLE and REAL science; God's gifts to us in a fallen world!