Zonotrichia Trifecta

Even though there hasn't been a single fall weather front move through yet, there has been a real upsurge in avian activity in our yard. The Townsend's Solitaires have been staking out their winter territories for a couple of weeks now, and we've had Red-breasted Nuthatches and Mountain Chickadees looking like settling in. This week brought the first Juncos, a male Spotted Towhee and an unseen Varied Thrush. White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) are here in numbers, but raising a mist net yesterday led to the discovery of one young each of the rarer congeners, Golden-crowned Sparrow (Z. atricapilla) and White-throated Sparrow (Z. albicollis). Golden-crowneds often pass through, staying for a week in the fall and another in the spring; it's only once every few years, however, that we hear or see a White-throated.*

Here's a photo of the young White-crowned Sparrow, the third member of our Zonotrichia trifecta...

*Well, actually, we hear one twice every day, as its song, "Poor old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody," is the ten-o'clock tone on the bird clock in our living room.

Denial Among Astrophysicists

There was an op-ed article in the NY Times yesterday titled "Alone in the Void." It was by Adam Frank, a well-credentialed professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester. In it, he articulated his (apparently recent) realization that we humans have no hope of ever getting outside our solar system (to escape our own planet or to seed any number of others). What Frank is coming to terms with is the (rather obvious) fact that the technologies that make crossing vast distances of space--in the plethora of television and movie series like Star Trek and Star Wars--are fiction and that the limitations to such travel are not technological or intellectual (and thus susceptible to overcoming) but established by the laws of physics (and thus intractable).

Then today in the local newspaper (The Bend Bulletin), expert solar observer and amateur astronomer Bill Logan writes an article entitled "Why we haven't heard back from Andromeda (or anywhere else)." He, too interacts with the straightforward, intractable physical limitations--this time with communications in mind--imposed by the vast distances between stars and galaxies. Logan's article also mentions such problems as the ephemeral nature of human language and the tendency of intelligent civilizations to self-destruct:

Languages rarely last more than 4,000 years on Earth, so will we understand their [the Andromedans'] message if they answer? Likewise, if we heard an intelligent signal from Andromeda, could we send a message back? Would the civilization in Andromeda still be there?

I should applaud each of these experts for their willingness to temper the fictional conclusions shared by many moderns about life elsewhere in the universe and our future ability to interact with such life. But my overarching reaction is continued amazement at the collective inability or unwillingness (even of astronomers and physicists) to acknowledge the simpler, straightforward explanation that has for decades now garnered all of the empirical support.

Attempting to travel to other parts of space is a futile enterprise, and listening for signals from extraterrestrial intelligent life is a waste of time, for the same, well-supported reason: Earth is likely the only place in the universe capable of supporting intelligent life.

One is likely to get little argument about the claim that the single most significant scientific discovery of the last hundred years is general relativity and the realization that all of the matter, energy, space, and time of the universe had a beginning a finite time ago. But for many, the next most significant advance of that century is the anthropic principle, the discovery that the universe itself (its laws and physical constants) and our more local environment (galaxy system, galaxy, solar system, sun, Earth, moon, other planets, etc.) exhibit hundreds of characteristics that fall within very narrow ranges with the apparent goal of providing for human life on Earth. Even the vastness of the universe--the existence of 100 million trillion stars--is, as it turns out, necessary for the existence of life on Earth (rather than the 'waste of space' postulated by the characters in Carl Sagan's Contact).

The following acknowledgements of the design of the universe for life are now quite dated, which makes me wonder all the more that so many folks opining today seem blissfully unaware of this discovery.

There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all... It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe... The impression of design is overwhelming. (Astrophysicist Paul Davies, 1988)

One would have to conclude either that the features of the universe invoked in support of the Anthropic Principle are only coincidences or that the universe was indeed tailor-made for life. I will leave it to the theologians to ascertain the identity of the tailor. (Cosmologist Bernard Carr, 1979)

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us. (Stephen Hawking, 1988)

As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency--or rather, Agency--must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit? (Astronomer George Greenstein, 1988)

Astronomy leads to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say "supernatural") plan. (Nobel Prize-winning physicist Arno Penzias, 1992)

Now, while these men danced around the theological implications of these discoveries (and some, like Hawking, dedicated the rest of their careers to seeking explanations that would avoid those implications), what they each acknowledged unambiguously is that the evidence suggests that the universe itself and the Earth in particular exhibit characteristics for life support that are unimaginably improbable.

Today, attempts to get around the theological implications of the anthropic principle focus on postulating an infinite number of other universes (each with different physical laws and constants), with the inhabitants of our universe having won the cosmic (actually, trans-cosmic) lottery. But even these explanations do not address the environmental anthropic parameters--the characteristics of our galaxy, solar system, etc. that make life on Earth possible.

While I understand the a-theological motivation to explain away the implications of the anthropic principle, what I can't understand is how so many physicists and astronomers can carry on as though the anthropic discovery had never been made.

What to make of the Higgs Boson

[I've had more than one person ask me what they should make of the news (from last week) about the discovery of the Higgs boson. Here's my response to one of them.]

Hi J_____:

Well, yes, this is pretty exciting stuff. Ever since physicists realized that there were particles smaller--and more fundamental--than protons, neutrons, and electrons, the race has been on to identify the different kinds of these particles. The discovery of them is largely theoretical (they cannot be directly seen), but predictions are made that can be tested in huge particle accelerators (like the Large Hadron Collider, which figures prominently in the recent discoveries).

Successful predictions and classification of a number of these fundamental particles has led to a working model (usually referred to as the standard particle theory), and this model predicts (indeed, seems to depend upon) the existence of a superparticle called the Higgs boson (boson being a class of such particles and Peter Higgs being a leading theoretical physicist who first predicted this particle's existence). It is 'super' because it plays a central role in determining the mass and other characteristics of many of the other particles. The Higgs boson is predicted to be free of either electrical or color charge, and its mass has previously been narrowed down to a relatively small range. It is within this range that the recent particle-bombardment tests have been occurring.

I believe that a news release with a research update was all along scheduled for July 4 (irrespective of what the update would be). As that date neared, rumors flew that the announcement would be that evidence for the HB had been found. (Remember, up until now, its existence was only theoretical.) Evidence would have been very positive, but physicists were doubtful that discovery would be claimed (discovery requiring a greater level of conformity to predictions). However, both sets of researchers obtained the necessary level of conformity to predictions, and the announcement was, in fact, of the tentative discovery of the HB.

All this means is that the standard particle model has gained a much greater level of support. Had the HB eluded physicists (had predictive tests not yielded positive results), then eventually a different model would have been required. Yesterday's news means that physicists have probably been on the right track all along.

Theologically/metaphysically, this discovery doesn't really have much bearing. The Higgs boson--like all of the other fundamental particles, like all matter, energy, time, and space--is a created part of this universe, and functions according to physical laws put in place by the Creator. One nickname for the HB--the 'God particle'--is potentially misleading (giving naturalists/atheists the misunderstanding that discovery of this particle might somehow explain away the need for God). The HB is indeed of central importance (according to the standard model) to the workings of the other fundamental particles, and thus--like God--lies behind everything else. Additionally--again, like God--the HB is difficult to detect; it had (rightfully) attained a sort of 'holy grail' status, its discovery being the virtual proof of the accuracy of the model. But where God is necessary and uncreated, the HB is definitely contingent and created; indeed its contingency is part of its elusiveness.

So again, pretty heady stuff, but without much implication for the larger conclusions of the past 100 years of astronomy/physics... that the universe is the creation of a good, personal, necessary, self-existent, transcendent, superintelligent, superpowerful Creator. With the discovery of the Higgs boson and the further validation of standard particle theory, the cosmological and teleological arguments for God's existence are as strong as ever.

Hope you're well.

Rick

Justice and the Environment

So here's the Vimeo of the presentation I gave on "Justice and the Environment" at the Justice Conference in Portland, Oregon this last February. I had a very interesting and attractive powerpoint presentation showing on the screen behind me, but the cameraman chose to keep the camera on me. Apologies for that.

Rick Gerhardt: “Justice and the Environment – A Worldview Perspective.” from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

Ancient Cuttlefish Ink

Follow this link to a summary of exciting recent research in which the ink of a 160-million-year-old fossil cephalapod was found to be intact. Here's the important bit:

The finding -- in an extremely rare case of being able to study organic material that is hundreds of millions of years old -- suggests that the ink-screen escape mechanism of cephalopods -- cuttlefish, squid and octopuses -- has not evolved since the Jurassic period, and that melanin could be preserved intact in the fossils of a range of organisms.

Of course, my take on this discovery is slightly different than that of most of the folks involved in it. I share their excitement at the truly astonishing half of this--it is wonderful that this pigment could be so well-preserved from so long ago as to be susceptible to analysis. This analysis has already led to valuable insights, and the success in this particular case offers hope that other compounds may be preserved and open to testing from organisms that have long ceased to walk the Earth (er, swim the planet's seas).

The other aspect of this is the recognition that this inky compound is identical to that of modern cuttlefish, that, as the study's coauthor John Simon has it,

It's close enough that I would argue that the pigmentation in this class of animals has not evolved in 160 million years. The whole machinery apparently has been locked in time and passed down through succeeding generations of cuttlefish. It's a very optimized system for this animal and has been optimized for a long time.

This seems to be an unexpected result to the evolutionists involved, but it is, frankly, completely in line with all other relevant evidence and thus no surprise to those who have not been misled to embrace evolutionism.

Truly, this system (not only the inky compound but the entire set of related anatomy, physiology, and behavior) is--and always has been--optimized. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that having such a system is--and always has been--a part of what it means to belong to this group of organisms. To put it in empirical terms, there is no evidence that there ever existed squids with partial ink-screen systems; nor is there any evidence that any cephalod species ever lost its ink-screen system. The really interesting question is this: why would any rational person expect to find any evolution in such a system (as the researchers quoted clearly did)? And the answer is that they have been indoctrinated with a world-view--evolutionism--that has no basis in evidence or reason.

Today's squid--just like the squid of Jurassic times--arose fully-formed, fully-adapted for its time on Earth and its role in the ecology of which it is--or was--a part. The default understanding (throughout human history, and certainly throughout Western history for which we have the record) of such adaptation is a teleological one, one of design. It is only within the last 160 years that it has become popular to deny design and purpose as the explanation for such optimization and adaptation. And the price for such denial is great: it involves both the need to ignore the actual evidence of the fossil record in favor of a mischaracterization thereof, and it involves ignoring the top-down approach to studying organisms that makes anatomy, physiology, taxonomy (and virtually every other discipline) reasonable.

Simply put, the only reason these researchers could be surprised that an optimized system is found both in ancient cephalapods and modern ones is because they have been taught to view science in a design- and purpose-less way (that is, through a neo-Darwinian lens) that flies in the face both of evidence and reason.

Houston RTB

I spent this past weekend in Houston, Texas. I was there as the guest of Larry Karasevich, president of the Houston chapter of Reasons To Believe. I took in an Astros game Friday eve (they beat the reigning world champion St. Louis Cards 5-4). On Saturday morning, I spoke to about 35 folks at the monthly meeting of RTB, taking them through all of the arguments and evidence offered in favor of macroevolution, showing them the fallacies of the arguments and abundance of contrary evidence. It was an ambitious task, but a sharp group (I'll share the audio here when I receive it). Saturday evening, I spoke about apologetics issues and tactics at a dinner meeting of some of the chapter leadership (and spouses) at The Black Labrador (an English pub, chosen to avoid the crowds at other Cinco de Mayo venues). Sunday morning, I preached--at the Fellowship of Champions--on the Resurrection and the role of evidence and reason in the Christian faith. After the service, I did a Q & A for a good number of folks who stayed. A whirlwind trip, but well worth my while.

Multiple Adams and Eves?

[I've posted below the response I gave to an email question about the claim--made by theistic evolutionists at the BioLogos site--that the human species did not begin as a single pair but as a population.]

Dear R______:

Your question was whether science had proved as impossible the claim--made by Christians, Jews, and Muslims--that mankind descended from two original humans, Adam and Eve. In particular, you implied that three methods of assessing genetic diversity (as related in a BioLogos post) prove that humans alive today exhibit too much genetic diversity to trace to a single couple.

First of all, let me point out that there is no question of 'proof' here, in either direction. Science doesn't work that way, though the BioLogos folks may not understand such issues. (I, too, am a biologist, and never during my scientific training did I receive any instruction in the philosophy of science, even a basic understanding of what science is, what it can and cannot do. I believe that my experience is the norm today, and so Venema and Falk can be excused for a naive understanding on this issue.)

On large issues in the historical sciences (such as this one), there will generally be a wealth of evidence available and a variety of methods for assessing this evidence. In addition, there will be a wealth of relevant evidence as yet undiscovered. On such questions, science uses abductive reasoning, arguing to the best explanation of all the relevant available evidence. Where that task is difficult--often because the available evidence leads to contradictory conclusions--the good scientist seeks more, better, and clearer evidence and/or methods. And in such cases (even more than usual), the good scientist remains humble, seeking truth rather than trying to prove a theory he holds a priori. When a scientist takes a strong position despite such contradictory evidence, that dogmatism is usually an indication that he lacks the objectivity that accompanies scientific discovery. This sort of dogmatism is apparent in Venema and Falk's article.

At present, there are two lines of evidence that rather clearly point to this... that all humans alive today can be traced to a single female ancestor (through their mitochondrial DNA) and that all males alive today can be traced to a single male ancestor (through the DNA in their y-chromosomes).

Venema and Falk highlight three methods (of analyzing the genetic diversity of living humans) that temper the conclusion of the two studies above.

What are we to make of this? Each of these sets of evidence and the methods used involve assumptions. And each of these assumptions is itself open to scrutiny, testable (to some degree), and (unfortunately) often held with a degree of unexamined faith by its proponents.

I could stop there, leaving it as an entirely open question as to whether the Bible is believable or reliable on this issue. But more needs to be argued on the side of an historical Adam and Eve.*

For one thing, it seems pretty clear that the assumptions associated with the BioLogos claims are less certain and less well-supported than those associated with the y-chromosome and mDNA evidence. As just one example, a study of the genetics of a population of mouflon sheep refutes some of the assumptions of Venema and Falk's methods (method 1 in particular, but all three generally). In this study, a single pair of sheep was introduced to Haute Island (in 1957), and the descendent population grew to 700 and has subsequently fluctuated between 250 and 700. Mathematical models use to predict the present population's heterozygosity (based on the known heterozygosity of the original pair) underestimated it by a factor of four. Had the models been used as in Venema and Falk's argument--to estimate the number of founding individuals by measuring the diversity of the present population--they would have grossly overestimated. That is, this test case shows that genetic diversity increases (at least in sheep, and over a mere 50 years) in ways currently not understood by the relevant experts. Venema and Falk may simply be unaware of such problems with the methods they espouse; nonetheless, their dogmatism is unwarranted.

Secondly, given the vehemence and certainty with which evolutionists claim the truth of their macro-theory, it is rather odd that when such tests finally became available, the evidence led to a conclusion so similar to the Bible's proclamation. Although theists might argue about the details (one pair or a few thousand), there is no one left still arguing for the competing view of human origins, the multi-regional hypothesis (which claimed that Asian, Caucasian, and African peoples descended from different hominid species in different parts of the world). What is agreed upon by nearly all today is that the genetic evidence shows that all humans alive today are descended from a very small population (which may have even been a single pair) living in or near eastern Africa some 40-60,000 years ago. The scientific evidence leaves Genesis 1 and 2 as viable portrayals of the true situation. And where apparently contradictory evidence exists, the assumptions associated with it turn out to be problematic.

There is no scientific evidence that can prove the Bible to be true and reliable about the descendence of humanity from a single pair. Nor is there any scientific evidence that disproves it. As a scientist, though, I have found overwhelming evidence for the truth and reliability of the Bible with many of its other claims, and that evidence has come both from science and history. More importantly, however, I know from personal experience the truth of its central claim, that the holy Creator of the universe so loved His creatures that He sent His eternal Son to make a way for me, a far-from-holy creature, to have a relationship wit Him. In your continued search for truth, I hope you will seek and find this most important truth.




* The humans to which the y-chromosome and mDNA evidence points would not be Adam and Eve but (more likely) Noah and Eve. Biblically, the bottleneck for males was more recent, since all the males on the ark were related to Noah, whereas the four females on the ark were from different families. Interestingly, this aligns with the genetic data as well. The date for mDNA 'Eve' is earlier than the date for y-chromosome 'Adam' (Noah).

Radio Spot

I had the chance today to do a radio spot on the resurrection of Jesus, its place in church history and in human history. I shared the 'minimal facts' argument (of Gary Habermas) for the historicity of Christ's bodily rising from the dead, and discussed the variance (through history) of the degree to which the church engaged in such an annual commemoration. I was able to squeeze in some theology, some history, and even some philosophy.

This interview (which will serve as the mandatory public service announcement for these stations) is due to be aired Sunday morning on five radio stations in Bend (Oregon). On the four FM stations (95.1, 104.1, 105.7, and 96.9), it will be heard from 7:30 to 8:00, and on the AM station (1340) it will air from 9:00 to 9:30.

Check it out (as you're getting ready to go to church to celebrate this most significant event in cosmic history and to worship its Author).

Creation Care Summit

I'm excited about an upcoming gathering in Portland that will bring together Christians committed to following their Lord in His mandates to be good stewards of His creation. It's called the Creation Care Summit, and will take place on Saturday, April 21 at the Tigard (Oregon) campus of George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Here's a blurb from the Summit's webpage...

Wilderness International, Inc. and George Fox Evangelical Seminary are partnering to provide a forum for evangelical Christians interested in environmental stewardship to explore our Biblical call to care for Creation. Come join us for a time of learning, sharing, and encouragement. Hear from local authors, experts and practitioners on the current issues related to the care of God’s creation from a Christian worldview. Network to build partnerships. Visit the resource table area to gain additional information. Find out how you can get involved in existing Creation Care efforts or be inspired to initiate your own!

You can go here to learn more and to register. I'll be there; I hope you'll join us!

The Crux of Cosmic History

I spoke at my home church, Antioch (of Bend, Oregon) this past Sunday. It's a brief sermon (about 25 minutes) on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth not only in human history but in all of cosmic history. Have a watch/listen!

Rick Gerhardt :: The Crux of Cosmic History from Antioch Church on Vimeo.

Justice Conference

Here's a new promo vimeo for the upcoming (2nd annual) Justice Conference in Portland, Oregon, February 24-25. I'll be speaking at the pre-conference on Friday on the topic "Justice and the Environment: A Worldview Perspective."

What is Justice? from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

Response to Dinosaur Comments

A few months ago, I posted here and on VIMEO a response to a question at church (during our Redux service) about the Bible and dinosaurs. On the Redux VIMEO page, I received two comments (from a Nate Tinner). Here's the first:

I should think that adding up the years of Bible characters (given the extensive genealogies provided in Scripture) would give a moderately accurate creation date. Sounds pretty explicit to me. The dinosaur issue is really a no-brainer, if dinosaurs are indeed animals created with the all the others...

In a previous post here, I tackled in depth the misconception among modern Christians about the Hebrew genealogies, and explained why Nate's claim here is naive and demonstrably false.

As for the "dinosaurs are indeed animals created with all the others," he seems to be misreading (he would say reading literally whereas I would say reading superficially) the relevant creation accounts. Genesis 1 does not portray all animals created at once (in a Narnian fashion) but rather carefully details a chronology of creative events. Moreover, that chronology--while specifically mentioning groups of modern animals--does not tell us even the chronology much less the timing of the creation of dinosaurs, and that for good reason. But perhaps here would be a good place to insert Nate's other comment:

And the Leviathan mentioned in the OT is quite simply a dinosaur (in the sense of "terrible lizard"), given its descriptions in Job (?and elsewhere?)...

I didn't really see that this guy even answered the question. He simply said the Bible doesn't teach about it (no scriptural support given, and his only argument implies that he is an evolutionist and the Bible can't speak to such a modern issue), despite the fact that a literal Genesis interpretation (I don't know or care who his 14 "scholars" are, Judaism has always aligned with a Young-Earth view as far as I know) speaks to the contrary on all points.

That leviathan is "quite simply a dinosaur" is news to me, and to virtually every other Bible commentator today or at any time in church (or Jewish) history. The interpretation of leviathan as referring to dinosaurs is a very modern form of eisegesis, a reading into the Bible a meaning that is not found there. And the reason no Bible reader (prior to the late 1800's) would have been guilty of this hermeneutic faux pas is because prior to that time no reader would have even had a notion of 'dinosaur' to wrongly insert here. Of the 35 centuries since the Hebrew word for leviathan first appeared in what we call the book of Job, only people living in the last two of those centuries (and not even all people living in those two centuries) were aware of the existence of such creatures. Because (and I hate to tear down Nate's little fantasy world here, but) dinosaurs and humans never coexisted; all that humans know of dinosaurs is of their fossil remains.

So readers of Job throughout roughly 93% of the time since Job was written would have had a couple of legitimate options... either leviathan is a largely symbolic creature (the literalness of its description, after all, breaks down at some point) or it refers to the crocodile, an animal that terrorized the people of Old Testament times (as it does to this day). I prefer the latter option, but am not dogmatic about this. What ought to be clear, however, is that the reason that no Bible commentator until recently interpreted leviathan as simplistically as does Nate is because dinosaurs were neither an explicit part of the creation account nor a part of the reality of Job's intended readership.

Nate's other comments are easily addressed. He clearly didn't listen well. I did not refer to 14 'scholars,' but rather to 14 interpretations of Genesis 1 that are held or have been held by Christians committed to the authority and inspiration of Scripture. Nate's young-earth creationism is just one of these 14 views, and one of only two views that lead to a young creation. All of the other 12 allow for or mandate an understanding in line with the evidence from creation itself (of a universe and Earth billions of years old).

I am not an evolutionist at all. Having studied biology all my life, it is plain that evolution is not supported by the evidence. Indeed, I would go so far as saying that the only thing evolutionism has going for it is the straw man option that Nate seems to believe. That is, if the only other option (for explaining the diversity of life on Earth) is the idea that God created everything essentially as it is a few thousands years ago and over the course of a six-day period, then suddenly evolution's intractable evidential problems seem somewhat insignificant. Everything about this universe and Earth testifies to much greater age than a few thousand years, and there is not one half acre of this planet whose geology is explained by a global flood a few thousand years ago.

Fortunately, young-earth creationism of the sort to which Nate ascribes is not a part of true Christianity. This flawed interpretive scheme arose only in the 17th century, and should long ago have been discarded by any serious student of the Bible.

The reliable record of nature reveals a God so much bigger than the puny idol created by young-earth creationism. The true and living God who tells us that "The heavens [reliably] declare His glory" created a marvelous universe that has been unfolding and being prepared for His crowning creation--human beings--for billions of years. He has throughout that time (though not Himself confined by time of any sort) been interacting with that creation, creating new life forms millions of times, even fashioning many of them to participate in the forming of Earth as a suitable place for humankind, which He created as a single pair, Adam and Eve, about 40-60,000 years ago. The Bible is miraculously accurate in its description of creation, even anticipating by millenia the scientific discoveries of the 20th century--including the basic fundamentals of big-bang cosmology, the transcendent beginning (out of nothing) and ongoing expansion of the universe and the discoveries of modern genetics (that all living humans are descended from a single male and a single female from the region of the Middle East).

The great thing about biblical Christianity is that it provides the uniquely accurate portrayal of the world in which we actually live. It is not merely a cultural myth or an evidence-and-reason-free belief system. It is the true understanding of reality, and passes every test of reason and evidence.

Unfortunately, many like Nate are being taught a lot of nonsense about how to interpret the early pages of Scripture. And far too many young people have confused young-earth creationism with what the Bible really teaches. When they come face to face with the varied, independent, and overwhelming evidence and reasons contrary to a thousands-of-years-old universe and a global flood, many of them throw out Christianity rather than merely discarding these modern caricatures of Christianity.

And hence the need for blogs like this one and VIMEOs like the one to which Nate responded.

I Thessalonians 5:21.

Harry Reasoner on Christmas

At a Christmas Eve service we attended, the pastor shared this writing by Harry Reasoner (of 60 Minutes) from 1973. In it, Reasoner suggested three possible ways of approaching Christmas:

One is cynically—as a time to make money or endorse the making of it.

Another is graciously—the appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them.

The third is reverently. If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It's a startling idea of course. My guess is that the whole story—that a virgin was selected by God to bear his Son as a way of showing his love and concern for man—in spite of all the lip service given to it, is not an idea that has been popular with theologians.

It's a somewhat illogical idea, and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It's so revolutionary a thought that it probably could only come from a God that is beyond logic and beyond theology.

It has a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God, and almost nobody has any real idea of what he is like. The truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely comforting and appealing idea. But everyone has seen babies and most people like them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, he moved correctly. If he wanted to know his people as well as rule them, he moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man he moved correctly here, too, for the experience of birth and family-hood is our most intimate and precious experience.

So it comes beyond logic. It is either all falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God, the baby. God in the person of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart, that if it is not true, for Christians nothing is true.

For all my readers who know firsthand that the Christmas story is true, have a Very Merry Christmas. And for those readers not yet certain, hang in there, and do your best to seek the truth in the year ahead.

Hell Unfair? (Part 3)

I've been offering a Christian response to the claim that eternity in Hell seems an unfair penalty for the sins committed in 70 or 80 years in this life. In two previous posts, I supported each of the following:

1) There may be a category fallacy involved in the claim, since time is a part of this universe whereas Heaven and Hell are not.

2) In our own imperfect judicial systems, there is almost never a direct link or correlation between the time involved in committing the crime and the duration of appropriate punishment.

3) A factor that does matter (even in our judicial systems) is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. Where the issue is eternal punishment in Hell, the authority against whom the crime has been committed is the supreme Authority--the Creator of all things, the all-powerful, Holy God who gives life in the first place. He is also the only Authority who can (and does) offer a pardon.

4) The claim of unfairness seems to imply that what gets people condemned to Hell are little sins, the breaking of somewhat arbitrary rules that God set up to keep people from having fun. Actually, according to the Bible, what gets people sent to Hell is utter and wholesale rejection of their Creator and of His loving authority in their lives.

5) The claim also seems to assume that the person who so rejects God will wish--once he finds himself in Hell--that he could change his mind. I find no reason--and certainly no evidence in Scripture--that this is the case. Rejection or acceptance of God in this life is done with eyes wide open, and is a decision foundational to who we are. The person who hates God in this life will rather remain in Hell for eternity than choose to love and worship Him after death.

This brings us to the last point I want to make (though there are undoubtedly other problems with the claim that Hell is unfair). For this one, I want to address a particular form of the claim, directly quoted from an email I received:

Eternal punishment seems a bit harsh for any sins committed in only 70-odd years on this confusing planet, especially the sin of disbelief.

This form surfaces two further, related misunderstandings shared by many who claim that the biblical doctrine of judgment is unfair.

In the first place, this claim mischaracterizes the crime as mere disbelief. This is not the Bible's portrayal. (Again, it's perfectly legitimate to allow the Bible to defend itself in this instance, since it is the biblical doctrine of Hell that is being argued against; it is the claimant who first brought the Bible into the discussion, not I.)

According to the Bible, eternal judgment comes because we reject our Creator and His authority over our lives, choosing instead to live according to our own inclinations (which choice leads to brokenness in all our relationships--with God, self, others, and creation), and then rejecting God's merciful, sacrificial offer of pardon. We hate God and run from Him, and Hell is simply the place reserved for those who want nothing to do with God.

Second, this claim depends upon pretending that there is insufficient evidence for believing in God. And while even we Christians sometimes act as though the evidence is worth quibbling about (with the professed atheist), the truth is far different.

According to the Bible (especially Romans 1:18-32), all men know there is a God. Further, the natural reaction of fallen humans is to suppress that knowledge, run from God, and delude ourselves into thinking we can pretend that He doesn't exist. In our day--where the fallacious rhetoric of the so-called New Atheists becomes best-selling books--we have an entire subculture of people who not only engage in such foolishness but communally approve and encourage such delusion in others.

To put it bluntly, the acquaintance who emailed me is not 'confused' about the evidence (as he claims); instead, he is in a state of open rebellion against God, which leads him to self-delusion about the evidence.

Throughout the history of human civilization--and certainly throughout western history for which we have the written records--as men have looked around them at the starry heavens, at other living things, at the planet on which they live, the logical conclusion to which they have come is that things are the way they are because they are designed. In our generation, the evidence available to us is exponentially greater than that available to previous generations. Our technology allows us to see the birth of gallaxies at the beginning of the universe some 13+ billion years ago. In the other direction (in terms of scale), we can now see the insides of cells and even of the molecules that make up cells. And as each scale of the universe becomes accessible to us, the overwhelming characteristic continues to be that of exquisite design, the evidence of an unimaginably powerful, wise, loving Designer behind it all.

In light of all this, the modern atheist/agnostic project is radically illogical. To see this exquisite design at every level and claim (as do Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and others in our day) that it is an illusion (only 'apparent') is absurd. To act as though the burden of proof ought to be on the people who (in keeping with the majority of people throughout history) see the design in the universe as real is bizarre. And to order one's life on the basis of this type of absurdity is mere self-delusion (of the type that Romans 1 describes).

The evidence for God is not confusing. The evidence for the careful design of this universe is not 50/50. The evidence for purpose and design is not even merely overwhelming. God's creation of this universe left no room for doubt. It is only our own stubborn, proud rejection of His authority in our lives that leads us to fool ourselves into thinking that we can feel justified in questioning His existence.

Thanksgiving 2011

If you're reading this post, the chances are very good that (despite the current economic downturn) you live at a higher level of prosperity than 99% of the people who have ever lived. Although we still face many of the physical frailties common to all humankind, we have access to health care unimaginable to previous generations. The variety and quality of food available to us is astounding, and most of us can, if we want, travel to the other side of the world to visit friends or loved ones, or just to see new sights.

Along with improvements in health and nutrition, scientific and technological advances have also served to make our lives more comfortable, safe, and entertaining. Perhaps more importantly, the advance of scientific knowledge--from all fields from cosmology to genomics--has provided our generation with overwhelming evidence not available to our parents and grandparents of the great love and care God had in preparing all these good things for us. As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this year, our gratitude should likewise be greater than that of previous times, while we share with folks of all generations heartfelt thanks for the supreme gift of relationship with our Maker through His death on the Cross that gave us forgiveness and abundant, eternal life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hell Unfair? (Part 2)

In the previous post I began a response to the claim that

It seems like an eternity spent in Hell is an unfair punishment for sins committed during 70 or 80 years in this life. The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.

In that post, I suggested that this claim involves several misunderstandings that render it fundamentally flawed, and identified three of those:

1) It may involve a category fallacy, since time is a created part of this universe, and eternity and Hell are portrayed as outside of this universe,

2) Even in our own judicial systems, we don't consider the time taken in committing a crime as having much to do with the appropriate duration of punishment, and

3) A factor that we do consider important is the authority or person against whom the crime is committed.

Regarding this third issue, we discussed the fact that the authority against whom our crimes are committed is the supreme Authority, the One who created all things (including the sinner himself) and the only One who could offer (and has offered) clemency. And this recognition surfaces another misunderstanding in the original claim...

4) The claim seems to imply that the crimes that send us to Hell are sins with a lower case 's,' minor indiscretions, in effect just having a little more fun than the next guy by breaking some rather arbitrary rules that God set up for unfathomable reasons of His own. That, of course, is a huge distortion of the Bible's portrayal.

[Note to reader: In many cases (when defending the Christian worldview) it is inappropriate to place much emphasis on what the Bible says. This is because the person to whom you're speaking likely doesn't consider the Bible to be authoritative. And because the Christian worldview is the uniquely accurate understanding of the universe in which we actually live, there will always be good reason and evidence available in its defense (and the Bible can be brought in later as corroborative evidence). In the case before us today (the unfairness of Hell), it is legitimate to bring in the Bible because the person against whom we're arguing did it first. That is, the idea of Hell that is being argued against comes from the Bible. It is the Christian and the biblical portrayal of Hell that the disputant finds unfair. And so it is perfectly justified for me to allow the Bible to defend itself, to demonstrate that the claim being made involves a misrepresentation of Scripture's full picture of eternal judgment.]

Instead, the biblical picture is that every human being is broken and fallen, that our crime is absolute rebellion against our Creator, and that this rebellion has led to our failing utterly to reflect His glory, the purpose for which He created us. We chronically reject His authority on our lives, we run from Him, we deny His existence, we do as we please, all of this with dire consequences for ourselves, for those around us, and for the rest of creation. Just as each individual lie that So-and-So offers is attributable to the fact that So-and-So is a chronic Liar, so our sins are attributable to the much larger fact that we are Sinners.

The crime for which people are condemned to eternity in Hell is not merely the collection of little-s sins that might bring a blush to their face if shared in public--instead, it is the bold, arrogant shaking-of-the-fist in God's face that says "I'll do it my own way; I neither thank you for creating me nor acknowledge your authority in my life!"

And this leads to the next misunderstanding...

5) The claim seems to imply that the person condemned to eternity in Hell will regret his decision, will wish he could change his mind, will himself find the punishment unfair. I see no reason or evidence--and certainly none in Scripture--that would suggest this to be the actual case.

All indications are that the person who rejects God in this life will continue to do so in the next. The person condemned by God to Hell will--despite the torments inherent there--rather remain there than to face an eternity of offering worship and praise to the God he detests.

God has already judged every human being, finding each guilty of treason and deserving of eternal punishment. But, in His great mercy, He has also offered a way of clemency, of forgiveness. He took upon Himself the punishment we deserve, and gave each of us--for all eternity--the opportunity to accept an everlasting pardon. We can either head to the eternal imprisonment we deserve, or we can walk away completely free, not to go 'back to the streets' as it were, but to a room in His house that He has specially prepared for us.

We either say to this merciful Judge "Thy will be done," and find ourselves eternally in Heaven, or He eventually says to us "Thy will be done," and we find ourselves eternally in Hell.

To put it simply, it's an everlasting fool who dares to shake his fist in the face of a Judge like that.

This brings us to a sixth, fatal misunderstanding associated with this claim that the eternality of Hell is unfair. But (since I'll have much to say about that one) I'll save it for another post.

Hell Unfair?

I recently came across a challenge I had heard before about the Christian doctrine of Hell. The challenge goes like this...

It seems like an eternity spent in Hell is an unfair punishment for sins committed in 70 or 80 years in this life. The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.

How should a Christian respond to this? I would respond by pointing out several misunderstandings inherent in this claim that make it fundamentally flawed. (And that's just what I'll do, beginning with this post and running through the next couple...)

First (and this is a relatively minor point), the claim may involve a category fallacy. That is, it seems to treat of eternity as involving the same sort of time as we experience in this universe (only lots more of it). This is, of course, understandable, since as creatures currently confined to this half dimension of time, we have great difficulty imagining other temporal realities. But time--along with matter, energy, and space--is a created part of this universe. And Christian belief (and the biblical portrayal) is that God is transcendent--outside of, unconfined by--the dimensions of this universe. This understanding is powerfully supported by modern cosmology and astrophysics. (Christians have variously understood God either as timeless or time-full, having multiple dimensions of time at His disposal.) Additionally, Christian belief entails Heaven and Hell likewise existing outside the dimensionality of this universe.

So the temporal reality of Heaven and Hell may be completely unlike the time experienced in this life.

Second--and more practically--in our own judicial systems we do not tend to base the time associated with punishment upon the time associated with the crime.

I may go to my job as a cashier at the candy shop, and every other day for two entire years steal $1.00 worth of candy. At the end of that time (a long period of deliberate lawbreaking), I would be guilty only of a misdemeanor, and the punishment would include absolutely no jail time. By contrast, I could conceive of and carry out a heinous double murder in the space of ten minutes; if convicted of these crimes, I might face two consecutive life terms in prison, or worse.

So the claim seems to hinge upon a correlation between the temporality of crime and punishment, a correlation that doesn't even hold in our own imperfect judicial systems.

Third, a factor that does matter in our own systems is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. If I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my wife, it may have ramifications for my marriage and our relationship; but I will not be convicted of any crime, nor will I serve any prison time. If, however, I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my federal government, the charge is treason and the punishment has historically been execution.

In the case before us--the issue of Hell--the authority against whom the crime is committed is the highest Authority possible, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the transcendent Lawgiver (the Source of the absolute moral code), and the Creator of the one sinning against Him. That same Authority is not only the one against whom the crime is committed but--as the supreme Authority--the only one who can offer (and has so offered) clemency.

Let's say I am lying on the soccer field. An opponent offers me a hand up, and I reject it. This is no big deal; maybe I believe he fouled me in the first place, there are plenty of other players who could help me up, and frankly, I can get up under my own power. But in the case at issue (in the claim we're addressing), I have fallen without hope; I am completely unable to save myself, and there is no one else who can help me... except the very Authority against whom I've sinned and who in His great mercy has offered me a single way of salvation. If I reject His gracious offer of a hand up, the consequences of that rejection are understandably severe.

In the next post, I'll identify additional ways in which this claim--that the eternality of Hell is unfair--is fundamentally flawed.

Evidence from Astronomy

I handled the Q & A service at my home church, Antioch, last week. After several questions about biological evolution, someone asked me about the latest astronomical and cosmological research. Here's my answer...

Is there astronomical or astrophysical evidence for evolution? from :redux on Vimeo.

Problems with Scientism

In the Critical Thinking class I'm teaching at Kilns College, we've discussed some bad epistemologies (flawed theories about truth and knowledge). One such bad idea--held by many in our culture--is scientism, the view that the only things we can really know are those things that have been shown to be true through scientific testing.

I come across this view frequently, especially in newspaper articles about science. (There seems to be a whole subculture within journalists of those who--while not scientists themselves--are sophisticated enough to agree wholeheartedly with everything scientists tell us.) The following articulation of scientism comes from an article in the L.A. Times, in which journalist Lori Kozlowski interviews Chris Mooney, coauthor of "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future." The context and implication of the entire article is that whenever the public disbelieves or is skeptical of what scientists say, the public is wrong...

Q: What about the vaccine skeptic movement?

A: It bubbled up originally for legitimate reasons. The mercury preservative thimerosal probably shouldn't have been in vaccines. [Blogger's note: Ya think?] It was taken out for precautionary reasons. Since then, science has come in and we can't detect the correlation between a rise in autism diagnoses and use of childhood vaccines...

So, at some point you have to let go. But that hasn't happened. Instead, there's a conspiracy theory and people have appointed themselves as experts on this.

The people who try to avoid vaccination, who believe this, are not stupid. They're not disadvantaged... So the distrust of science--this is not something a better high school education would have saved them from. (ellipses in original article]

In other words, science tells us that there is no link between autism and childhood vaccinations, and that's the end of the story. People--that is parents--who don't believe science on this one are wrong (though not necessarily stupid). Even those parents who have personal, firsthand experience of their normal child suddenly displaying the behaviors of autism following their being vaccinated are wrong. Because, you see, on the view of scientism, no amount of eyewitness testimony can be brought to bear against science.

Mooney's view here is, of course, absurd, and I'll just give two reasons for now.

The first is that it is self-refuting. The claim "we can only know that which has been tested scientifically" is itself a knowledge claim, and one for which there is no scientific test. It's not a scientific claim at all, but a philosophical claim, and it falsifies itself. It is self-referentially absurd, and necessarily false. No amount of further discovery will make the claim of scientism true. (The people who make this claim--like Chris Mooney--are not stupid; they just don't think very clearly in certain areas. A better high school education--one that taught introductory logic, for example--might have saved them from this basic mistake.)

The second reason for rejecting scientism involves basic common sense. Just think about it--you know many, many things the evidence and reasons for which are not at all scientific. This includes a host of things for which you have firsthand (or even unique) knowledge; you were there and saw it happen. It includes many other things for which your justification for believing it (knowledge is "justified true belief") is sound. Do you know that George Washington was the first president of the United States, that we fought a war in VietNam, that the Romanian revolution took place in 1989? There's nothing scientific about any of that; so history involves a great deal of knowledge that refutes scientism. But so does geography, mathematics, your knowldege of current events. Indeed, unless you happen to be a scientist, most of the things you know how to do at work and at play you learned without scientific testing. Indeed, though there is increasingly DNA testing or other forensic science involved in criminal cases, most trials are decided primarily on eyewitness testimony and other non-scientific evidence and reasoning. I could go on and on, but have probably already belabored the point.

So Mooney's epistemology is demonstrably flawed, and it is this illogical epistemology that is at the heart of his conclusions about vaccination and autism. In other words, those parents who are skeptical of science's claim that there is no link are not involved in making conspiracy theories. Instead they are thinking more clearly about the issue--and with more at stake, since it's their kids' health on the line--than the scientists who have gotten involved. Though these parents may not consciously recognize the self-refutation involved in the scientist's claim, they are right to recognize that negative results from scientific testing do not serve to negate the abundant counter evidence from firsthand experience.

It is our right and duty as parents to carefully scrutinize the claims of science. This is especially true when the scientists involved betray their own failures in thinking clearly, as whenever they articulate the view described in this post as scientism.



(A version of this post originally appeared on this site on September 16, 2009.)

A Good Day at the Butte

The breeze was westerly, and just enough to bring the hawks down the western edge of Surveyor's Ridge. I was at the southern end of that 35-mile-long ridge, at Bonney Butte, a place that concentrates southbound hawks, falcons, eagles, ospreys and vultures in fall. Hiding in a ridgetop blind that melded with the trees, I tried to capture as many of those migrating raptors as I could, banding and taking measurements of each before sending them back on their way.

I captured 17 hawks yesterday, including 9 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 5 Cooper's Hawks, and 2 Red-tailed Hawks. Many of them came in waves, and this kept me hopping, balancing the banding/measuring with trying to capture more at the same time.

The best bird of the day was the female Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) pictured above. She was a second-year bird with orange eyes (in her year of hatch she had yellow eyes, and as a full adult she'll have deep red ones). Her annual molt was nearly complete, with a few brown wing and tail feathers not yet replaced by the striking gray feathers that she'll sport for the remainder of her life. I was glad that Vince and Sarah, a couple from Portland, were there to watch the capture and to see at close hand and to briefly hold this beautiful wild creature.