Arguments

Matthew 19 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain

Matthew 19

1 And it came to pass, that when Jesus had

finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee,

and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;

2 And great multitudes followed him; and he

healed them there.

3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him,

and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to

put away his wife for every cause?


There are many times when I've thought, If I knew
then what I know now, I'd have done things
differently. That's one of the challenges of
life, learning from your mistakes. The big
problem is that there seems to be such a strong
headwind opposite your direction. Life throws
at you what you are not prepared for. You spend
too much time fighting the last battle, after the
present has rearranged the nature of the
conflict. Am I the only one who finds the nature
of the Pharisees question to be rather odd? It
appears to be out of context.

One of the more difficult challenges is to
identify social and cultural currents that tend
to work against you, and deliberately avoid
falling into their pull. As I was growing up,
there wasn't much that I was given regarding the
more destructive elements of social and cultural
trends, in the way of warning or awareness. I
didn't realize that there was a struggle going on
for the destiny of men's souls. It's that
struggle that's at the center of much of human
activity. Yet the secular trend is to deny the
reality of reality. The secular view is to
point us in the other direction, to ignore the
condition of our soul, and pretend that it's just
as well to make up rules for life as we go along
in order to accomodate our bad behavior. That's
been the drift of social progress over the course
of my entire lifetime. And it's only as I got
much older that I even became aware of the fact
that times they are a changing, even though I
heard Bob Dylan sing that tune so many times.

Looking around it's easy to see that there are
many distractions with an appeal to pull you in
their direction. Not only is there an internal
struggle against your own personal flaws, but
there is the external struggle against the
implied expectations of the culture that you live
in. You prepare yourself for an encounter with
the last battle you fought, and society begs for
you to accomodate every social ill without an
assessment of its moral character. In the worst
case, there is a failure of personal courage, and
your fears get the best of you. It's at that
point that doing nothing seems like the best
option. Confronting your own fears along with
the fears of society is an exhuasting task.
Watching TV is so much more relaxing.

What has facilitated the rapid rate of increase
in social change, of course, has been the
electronic media. All day, every day we are sent
a message from the media control central. It's
George Orwell's 1984, if you will. The plan of
attack, however, is oblique. Media central or
the Ministry of Truth provide a contiuous
misdirection of information in the form of
'entertainment'. Oh, it's very clever. And it
occurs at every level. That's the point where I
came to the realization that higher education
involves a process of indoctrination, that's
synchronized with the continuous flow of
misdirection from the Ministry of Truth. But I
don't view this as a conspiracy, I see it as an
effort that we generally cooperate with to get
what we think we want. Without our full
cooperation, nothing can happen. What's that I
hear from a political candidate about 'change'?
I ask myself, What is it that he thinks needs to
'change'? In other words, experience tells me
that 'change' is a vague term. Really, who
doesn't want change? But when I say 'change' and
someone else says 'change', I expect that we mean
two different things. When I say 'change', it
means less government, lower taxes and a return
to accountability. Yeah. Right.

At the center of the storm lies the default
social model. That would consist of the beliefs
and assumptions held by all members of society.
It's what used to be known as the social
contract. In the U.S. that would be the U.S.
Constitution and Bill of Rights. But these
agreements have been whittled down over the years
to be replaced by another social model. I'm not
sure what you call the current system. But I am
sure that, given the modern mood, the system is
headed for a nasty encounter with reality. Yes,
there always was and always will be what I think
of as a natural order. You can talk about change
until the cows come home, but the natural order
will always trump 'change'. Not that I really
expect that there will be a sudden acceptance of
reality. That's what the Ministry of Truth is
here to provide -- an alternate view of reality,
so that everyone can agree that all failed
efforts are a result of something unforseen, not
that the model is a failure. As I watch the game
play out, I often get a mental image of film
clips from old Keystone Cops. That's a useful
metaphor of the current social model. It works
in the sense that people have activity to keep
them occupied, but there is no sense of
direction. And to suggest that there is any such
thing as 'direction' is viewed as intolerance.
It should be apparent that the model is flawed.

The point I'm making is not to suggest that 'the
government' is at fault, but to ask just what are
people thinking. Does anyone really believe that
popular culture is healthy? Looks to me like
there is going to be trouble, and unlike the old
westerns that I watched as a kid, there ain't no
cavalry riding over the hill at the last minute
to save the day. I suspect that there will come
a point, if we are not there already, when it
will become every man for himself. That's not a
great social model. Personally, I don't
experience high levels of anxiety over outcomes,
but I can't help but notice that there is a high
level of anxiety in the larger population. It is
expressed in one dimension as a consumption
binge. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper
or read a few news articles on the internet or
drive in traffic to be aware of the general level
of social anxiety expressed in the form of
aggression. To pretend that it's not there
doesn't change anything. The challenge is to
find a way to avoid it.

Thinking that a presidential election will change
anything is a bit far fetched. And it misses the
point of personal responsibility. I try to avoid
personal responsibility as much as anyone else,
but I don't find refuge in placing blame on
everyone else. Blending in with the herd has
limited appeal. Especially when you notice that
the herd is being led to places you don't want to
go.

So what does any of that have to do with
scripture and a discussion of creation vs
evolution? They offer alternate views of the
social model. Creation implies the truth of
scripture as a basis for the social model. The
objection is that the scriptural model does not
allow us to do as we wish. The evolution model
does. It implies that, since we are in a state
of progressing development and adaptation, then
we have to allow people to do as they wish in
order for progress to continue toward some
undefined higher level. That's how fairy tales
are written. Everyone lives happily ever after.
That's not how scripture is written. It says
that there is a day of reckoning that will result
in individual rewards and punishments. There is
no mention of an equality of outcomes. The model
is based on personal accountability. These
models, among other variations, are in direct
competition. They can't coexist, because they
are at odds with each other. They are doctrines
that represent two very different social models.

As soon as you get distracted with all the
details, it is hard to see the forest for the
trees. Still, it's necessary to look at some of
the details in the context of the model that they
represent. Unless they are given context, there
is no way to interpret the details in any
meaningful way. Always try to keep in mind the
context of the model whenever there is any effort
made to examine the details as they come to
light. Then it becomes obvious that the secular
model, is not a model that rejects religion. It
is a model that offers an alternate religion --
unbelief. Sometimes the word used to describe
the modern religious context is pantheism. Again
that is not secular in the sense that it is not
religious. It is a religion that is different
than christianity. In contemporary practice,
secular only means non-christian. It's just
another effort to reject the scriptural social
model, and replace it with anything else that
allows us to do as we please.

So let's see if we can dig into some more detail
from ReMine.

"Naturalism is not the criterion of science.
Intelligent designers and messages can be
legitimate science.

To be scientific, a theory must meet several
criteria.

* A scientific theory must be explanatory
:it must explain the empirical world. It must
explain actual observations...

* A scientific theory must have a self-
consistent logical structure. It must not
contradict itself....

Sir Karl Popper... saw that *falsifiability*
(also known as *testability*) distinguishes
science from non-science...

* A scientific theory must be falsifiable
(or testable). It must be vulnerable to
observations. We must, in principle, be able to
envision a set of observations that would render
the theory false.

If an explanation is invulnerable to testing,
then it is not science...

For example, Copernicus explained that the
planets revolve around the sun. This idea neatly
explained the motions of the planets across the
sky. It also predicted that as the planets
revolve they should appear to go through phases,
like the phases of the Moon. Years later,
Galileo sought to test this idea. He used a
newly developed instrument -- the telescope --
enabling him to see the phases of planet Venus
for the first time. Copernicus' explanation had
made a clear prediction and survived the test,
so it was scientific.

...Astrology is a classic example of a
non-scientific explanation. It claims to predict
human personalities and fotunes, yet no
observations could conceivably refute it. It is
so vacuous that it can accomodate all
observations, therefore it is not science."p32-3

As I understand it, this is the point where
Intelligent Design differs from creationism. It
has to do with the definition of 'science'. They
draw a circle in the sand around the point of
testability.

This is also the point where the conflict between
creation vs evolution lies. As it is promoted
today, the theory of evolution is not testable.
That's why I come to the conclusion that they are
two opposing doctrines. Scripture doesn't begin
with a discourse about testability. It begins
with a statement of doctrine. 'In the beginning
G-d created...' And there isn't any other way
around a discussion of origins except to begin
with a statement of doctrine. The only genuine
question is, Who are you gonna' believe? On the
Jesus Bus, that's a silly question, if you expect
to have a self-consistent logical structure.
There isn't much room to argue about evolution.

Matthew 19:4 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain

4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not

read, that he which made them at the beginning

made them male and female,

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