Love, Babies - and Ghosts

 All of us from birth are accustomed to make observations about the world around us, and look for patterns in things. Once we understand the pattern of something it becomes possible to make reliable predictions about how the world operates. As adults what we regard as the barest skills necessary to function were once breakthroughs in our minds as children. How to satisfy hunger, or relieve our bodies, or communicate a thought probably brings a certain satisfaction to the mind of an infant.

Before that moment of discovery the infant feels at least some form of irritation that causes them to look for a solution. If no solution can be found they will simply broadcast their misery to the whole world in hopes that an answer will come to them. As adults we may find the approach of an infant humorous - but we really are no better as adults. We may have discovered how to satisfy our barest necesseties, but irritants still abound in many varieties that often leave us as helpless as an infant.

An adults irritants are typically of a far subtler nature than those of an infant. But like an infant the source of our irritation may be equally mysterious to our minds. Life may seem like an endless cycle of suffering punctuated by brief respites from grief. What pulls us out of those moments may be as unpredictable as an adult changing an infant's diaper. The infant is forced to sit in discomfort until someone comes to address a need that they don't fully understand.

Love is one of those intangible needs that everyone has - but is difficult to address. When it comes we know that it is good, but beyond that it is difficult to identify as a predictable property in the world. Some would even argue that it doesn't really exist at all in the natural world. To them, "love" is an ultimately self serving behavior tainted with motives of personal gain. When love comes for these people, it is about as mysterious to the natural order of things as a ghost or spirit. Like seeing a ghost, most would immediately dismiss it as an illusion.

An honest self assessment for most would seem only to confirm that hypothesis. If even the very best of our intentions are at least partially motivated by self serving interests, what chances are there it is any different elsewhere? If we come to this conclusion then love and our need for it become objects of cynicism and bitterness in our minds. We begin to despise and deny the very thing we need. The hope for love doesn't die easy though, and even the most hardened minds can't deny a longing for what they don't believe exists.

When the Apostle John wrote that "God is love" (1st John 4:8) he couldn't have described God or our need for Him more perfectly. God, as true love, is entirely alien to the natural order of things. He is deeply and innately longed for by every human being - and yet we can't discern Him in the world. When we as Christians are full of God's Love, it is about as mysterious to the world as a transparent dove flying in their path. If they experience it enough - they can be convinced that there is more to reality than the natural order.

Probably Not

 Imagine you were caught in an other dimensional "limbo" where you could not die and were trapped for eternity, unless you satisfied a single odd condition. In your hand was a single dice, and somehow you knew that if you rolled that dice and landed on the number "5" in sequence one million times, you would be set free. Given those circumstances, would you ever leave that place?

According to the conventional logic presented to us in many science classes and media these days, the assumption we are fed is that any event which can be reduced to a probability, regardless of how remote, when multiplied by an infinite amount of time and chances, will surely occur. But given the above example, even a child's intuition will tell them that they will probably never leave that eternal "limbo".

Why should that be the case? And why, furthermore, should we abandon our basic intuition out of intimidation for a value like "infinity"? Of course, even scientists don't have "infinity" to work with when dealing with questions concerning the origin of all things. But in debates concerning these matters we are always obliged to relenquish that as a given, and so we will do just that.

Part of the assumption that is erroniously made is that for every failed attempt at the sequence of rolls, the chances for a favorable result are now somehow "better" than they were before. Randomness however is not so discriminating a force, and the truth is, the probability for a successful series of rolls is the same after every single failed attempt. In this case, that would be about one out of 6... To the millionth power. So sadly, as you sat there for eternity, every new roll would leave you with those same long odds... Even if you already tried multiplied trillions of times before.

My algebra teacher in junior high once related how he and a group of friends travelled to Vegas thinking that they would make a killing with their new found understanding of probabilities. Sadly, like much of the scientific community, they were duped into thinking that multiplying a probability by time and chance would lead to an inevitable result. Of course as the story went, they went home broke.

Even among scientists though, intuition prevails when it doesn't beg the question of God and our origins. For years, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has combed the heavens for any sign of non random radio signals. It is assumed, correctly I might add, that any statistically non-random signals evoke "order" and potentially "Intelligence". With the exception of those signals generated by pulsating stars and galaxies, up until now all that has been seen is "noise". Funny though, how we can seek signs of "order" among random electromagnetic waves scattered through our universe, and see the DNA of our own cells and reduce it to the product of "randomness".

It really is tragic how some of the most God-gifted minds in the world could be so dim to what even children can so easily understand. We really shouldn't have to invoke the principles of thermodynamics, entropy, and dynamic equilibrium to know that you just don't find Mona Lisa's lying around randomly formed. While randomness can produce temporal bits of order, like 7 or even 8 "5's" in a row on the dice, you can be sure that disorder will once again prevail.

That is, unless of course those "5's" are being intentionally placed in a sequence for you. The marks of "Intelligence" are not that difficult to discern, and if you heed the warning of Paul to Timothy so long ago, you will do well. "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.". -1 Timothy 6:21

Seeing Chaos

 Its not surprising to me that chaos should have such a central role in scientific theory and many belief systems.  The evidence, after all, is lived out every day in most of our lives.  When we look back at past years and the passage of time chances are it defies anything that even remotely looks like "order".  Because chaos is the only constant, the only absolute as it were, it seems natural to elevate its importance in our theories of existence.

We all frame our theories around our experience, whether consciously or not.  Science isn't so much about confirming what you don't see, but rather explaining what you do see.  New phenomena demand an explanation within a current framework of understanding based on previous observations.  We are biased from the very begining of the process, and expect that every new observation will fit into our current understanding of how things are.  

Change, if it ever happens at all, requires a different set of eperiences.  These experiences shift the confirmation bias from one of "chaos" to "order".  Its not so much that any of the evidence around you changes at all, only the bias.  If you believe that chaos rules the universe, all your intellect and understanding will be spent in confirming that bias.  If you believe that order rules the universe, just the opposite will be true.

Its amazing how easy it is for two people to have vastly differing perspectives over an identical set of circumstances.  Each individual may legitimately cite facts, figures, trends and analysis in favor of their position.  But each individual is looking only for that evidence that lends support to their bias.  Any evidence that seems to weigh against their postion is easily dismissed or more likely unseen until their bias changes.

In the middle of hard times, its easy to see the past as an unbroken string of painful memories.  But in the middle of good times, those moments of joy or elation, its easy to see the past through a different set of eyes.  Its pretty sad to think that our perspective can be so volatile and subject to changes in circumstance - but its probably true.  Faith is an exercise of maintaining perspective, whether it be through a paradigm of order or chaos.  If you truly believe in the rule of chaos, you will not allow any semblence of order to ruin your perspective.  But if you truly believe in Order, you will not allow those seemingly chaotic moments to ruin your perspective.

King David of ancient Israel wrote of the LORD, "For with you is the fountain of life: in your light shall we see light."-Psalms 36:9 Without Light, it is impossible to see anything but darkness. JESUS once told a woman who drew water from a well about another kind of water that only He could give.  This water, which He called living water, would be like an inner fountain that would forever satisfy her.  Even with a broken past of five failed marriages, and a wearisome daily routine. (John 4:14)  God gave that woman a new experience - and it forever changed her perspective.

The Invisible Things

"And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.". Paul, 1 Cor. 1:17

 In a dream I rode in a convertible along a quaint countryside road. It was a simple, but beautiful place to be driving. Little did I realize that God was a passenger with me in the car. He spoke to me as if parodizing human perspectives of Himself saying, "People think of Me as the Invisible Man...". At that moment I saw a pair of Groucho Marx glasses hovering in the air in the car, as if to illustrate the ridiculousness of the point. "And yet", he continued, "I make all This...". And then, as if the very fabric of space and time were plucked, a distortion of the very substance of our reality was plucked in the same way you would grab and then release a sheet on a bed. His point was clear: the very substance of our reality was enough to declare Himself as if personally looking Him in the face. That the very material world would have no substance without Him present and holding it all together.

 Scripture tells us that, "..the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made..." -Romans 1:20 At first I sort of laughed at the dream, amused at the funny symbolism used to represent human perspectives of God. But really, how far is that from the truth? When most of us think of God, not only do we think of Him as an invisible being irrelevant to our everyday reality, but we also personify Him in the most foolish way. A cosmic comic, even a fool. We make a mockery of Him, and attach His name to every casual slur.

 And yet, as we are driving on the road of our lives, quaint, but undeniably filled with beauty, we neglect to think about the fearfully and wonderfully made hands turning the wheel. The very miracle of perception itself, to hear, feel, smell, taste and see. To even be conscious of that information, consider and enjoy it. That there is air to breath, that there is a road to drive on, that there is a backdrop to that road as picturesque as a painting, yet you can go there. In a virtual world we would marvel at that kind of amazing capability, and praise the designers of the hardware and software. In our world however, most of us just keep driving along.

 Who really is the fool after all? It's a kind of sickness that plagues us. Almost as if we were plugged into our virtual reality world at birth, marveled at its achievement and filled with wonder for the first few years of our lives, only to forget it was a virtual world at all. That it was designed, and crafted in the most intricate details. When we forgot that truth, we forgot ourselves, as if our spiritual bodies withered on the other side with only a deceived mind active in what we thought was the only reality.

 The apostle Paul spoke of this saying, "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools..." Romans 1:21-22. This strongly implies that the knowledge of God is not discovered, but lost. That we are born into this world already possessing a native understanding of God, but tend to lose it along the way. Recent studies have suggested that this may indeed be true, but that faith can be expunged with sufficient mental discipline. It would seem that Paul would agree with them, but he certainly wouldn't call them "wise".

 Just like any good video game, an experience with the game is an experience with the team who designed it. Their aesthetics, preferences, and world view are all embedded in the games code. We can't say that we know them personally from their art, but we can get a good window into who they are. Based on that understanding we can make predictions and identify their unique signatures in other work. Of course, we could never do that if we refused to believe those games were designed at all.

Christianity And Science

One of my chemist co-workers at Thermo-Fisher Scientific once made the observation, “All I know is that everything evolved… and then Jesus came.” The comment has forever embedded itself in my consciousness because it so aptly illustrates the struggle the scientific community has with what I call “The Jesus Problem”. Evolution is not regarded as a matter of belief among most scientists, but rather a matter of observed fact. This deep rooted view of the world however stands in stark contrast to what also is regarded as the historical fact of Jesus. The historical person of Jesus is hopelessly entangled with supernatural accounts – miracles, resurrection, and claims that shake the common thinking among scientists that matter is the ultimate reality. I would venture to say that most scientists deal with the issue in one of two ways – either ignoring Jesus altogether or ‘compartmentalizing’ – where spiritual or religious matters occupy an entirely different region of their thinking than ‘real life’.

None of these solutions however address the problem in a truly satisfactory way. How can you ‘ignore’ established historical fact and also claim that ‘facts’ are the only reliable guide to understand reality? Or, how can you accept something as ‘truth’ that doesn’t extend to all of reality? Ultimately it only makes sense that ‘the truth’ must encompass and explain all established observations – both ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’. Facts themselves are unbiased and impartial, it is unfortunate however that they are too often segregated and categorized for the sake of maintaining a certain view of the world.

Anyone who claims to be both a Christian and a Scientist must accept that both Christianity and Science represent ‘truth’. If there is no compartmentalization in their thinking, the facts that underlay their understanding of Science must be completely compatible with the facts that underlay their understanding of Christianity. A Christian Scientist must therefore hold the view that the 'facts' regarding evolution are not incompatible with the 'facts' regarding Christianity. Different facts lend themselves to different theories, but the best theories explain and account for the most facts… 

Evolution - Thoughts From a Christian Scientist

The basic driving principle of evolution is the concept of natural selection. Natural selection is the process whereby nature ‘selects’ favorable traits that are passed down to succeeding generations of life. There is nothing spiritual or supernatural about this process, it operates solely on the idea that the ‘most fit’ organisms will survive and propagate their traits to later generations. The changing of species over time by this process is referred to as ‘evolution’. The changing of species over time itself is an established fact that few people would dare to challenge. Anyone who breeds animals uses the principle of natural selection to produce different variants in later generations. The controversy however is not with the ‘principle’ of natural selection, but rather with the idea that the ‘process’ of natural selection could produce all of the genetic diversity that composes life on this planet.

The Christian Scientist would argue that ‘adaptability’ or the capacity for life to respond to differing environmental pressures is a characteristic of ‘design’. For example, if we were to ‘create’ an organism of some sort – the best design for that organism would allow for it to ‘adapt’ to changes in the environment over time. If this adaptability were not present in the original design, the organism would be limited to the type of environment it was created to exist in. If adaptability was part of the original design scheme, it would need to have the genetic potential to change from the very beginning.

Where the Christian Scientist diverges in thought from much of the scientific community is in the idea that evolution is a refining as opposed to a creative force. Evolution could be compared to the knife that carves out a block of wood. The knife really isn’t creating anything – in fact it is taking away from the original block. The end result serves a unique purpose, but further refinement is limited. A good example of this is the many endangered species of big cats. These animals are extremely refined but lack the genetic diversity to change much further, which makes them extremely susceptible to environmental pressures. A block of wood whittled down to a pencil is not a good starting point to make something else!

The assumption that the process of natural selection has produced all life on earth from a single cell is inconsistent with the way natural selection works practically. Going back to the example of people who breed animals – they all are aware that traits are lost and not necessarily gained in the process of selection. The more refined an animal becomes through selection the more limited it is to respond to new environmental pressures. Logically then – what does this tell us about life as we look into the past? It seems to indicate that although past life forms may have been less ‘refined’, they were more genetically healthy than they are today. The logical trend for the future will be that genetic diversity will become more limited as further refinement occurs.

As a Christian the observed reality of natural selection is very consistent with the idea that all life is the product of creation. Life placed on the earth at the beginning of creation was at its optimum or peak in terms of genetic diversity, and over time this genetic diversity is gradually lost through selection. This view is really quite opposite to the commonly held view that time has and will continue to be a force in creating genetic diversity.

Atheism and Mysticism

“The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” –Psalm 14:1

It seems ironic to me that atheists often choose as their god the intellectual byproduct of Christianity.  The scientific method of thinking resulted from the work of Christian theologians who sought to distinguish between material and spiritual elements in nature.  Pagan thinking prior to the 17^th century failed to distinguish between god and nature, and hence all observations of nature were hopelessly entangled with mystical elements.  Science as we know it today did not exist, and the alchemists of the time relied heavily on astrology and spiritual elements they believed to be present in nature.  This type of thinking limited potential advances in technology because it introduced into nature a mystical or irrational component that could not be comprehended through the observation of cause and effect.

Christian thinkers asserted that nature was like a machine created by a rational God who was separate and distinct from nature.  This separation of God and nature allowed for the development of the mechanical philosophy, which was based in the idea that all natural phenomena could be understood as the result of matter in motion.  Under this thinking there was no need to invoke any spiritual or mystical elements to explain nature – God was a rational being who created a rational machine that could be understood rationally through the observation of cause and effect.  The entire basis for rationality and the scientific method was grounded in the assumption that nature was the created product of a rational God.

Contrary to popular opinion, the assumption that the Universe was created by God has always produced better science.  The reason for this is that when God is removed as the creator, the same irrational and mystical component once removed is reintroduced into our understanding of nature.  Nature is no longer the ordered and rational product of a rational God, but is a mysterious entity that must account for its own existence.  Modern science unfortunately is fraught with mystical beliefs that are presented as objective fact.  This trend began with the widespread atheism that spread in the scientific community in the latter half of the 18^th century.  By the beginning of the 19^th century the rationalist movement gave way to romanticism with its renewed interest in magic and the paranormal.

The forefathers of modern evolutionists were the advocates of spontaneous generation at the beginning of the 19^th century.  Because God was removed from the equation as Creator these scientists had to suggest ways that nature could arise on its own.  Any observation in nature was now subject to the same mystical causes that once limited advancements in understanding among the alchemists.  These ‘scientists’ believed that frogs would spontaneously generate from muddy ponds, and that some ‘vital element’ in the air would cause maggots to spontaneously generate from decaying meat.  Like modern evolutionists, their theories were padded with legitimate observations that in reality obscured a mystical cause.

Louis Pasteur was a Christian not willing to accept mystical causes for natural observations and famously disproved spontaneous generation in 1859.  This paved the way for our current understanding of life through the Cell Theory, which states simply that all life must arise from preexisting life.  Since then atheism has always had the tendency to ignore or reduce complexity in life for the sake of maintaining an irrational view of the world.  Through the first half of the 20^th century cells were regarded as being little more than ‘bags of chemicals’ – and now our understanding of even the simplest of cells reveals the ignorance of mainstream science then.  Of course if everything arose from itself at some point or another, how complex can life really be?  Just like anything else, science will only be as good as the assumptions that go into it.