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February 03, 2010
God, Science, and Beauty
As an avid reader of Free Inquiry magazine, a Secular Humanist publication, I’ve learned over the years how much Christianity is disdained and science and reason are praised. So I decided to do a little open-minded research into the “science” scene to see if I could discover anything that could bury Christianity once and for all. Now I’d like to share exactly what I uncovered in my investigation.
First, let’s look at a colorful comment on science and objectivity from Paul Davies, a popular writer on science, especially physics:
There is a popular misconception that science is an impersonal, dispassionate, and thoroughly objective enterprise. Whereas most other human activities are dominated by fashions, fads, and personalities, science is supposed to be constrained by agreed rules of procedure and rigorous tests. It is the results that count, not the people who produce them. This is, of course, manifest nonsense. Science is a people-driven activity like all human endeavor, and just as subject to fashion and whim. In this case fashion is set not so much by choice of subject matter, but the way scientists think about the world.”
I found Davies’ quote in the introduction to Richard P. Feynman‘s book Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics. Since physics is the king of the sciences, I decided to begin my homework there. Davies names Richard Feynman as the one physicist who stands out among twentieth century physicists!
Yes, there was Paul Dirac, who, according to John C. Taylor at the University of Cambridge, “was one of the finest physicists of [the twentieth] century. The development of quantum mechanics began at the turn of the century, but it was Dirac who, in 1925 and 1926, brought the subject to its definite form, creating a theory as compelling as Newton’s mechanics had been.”
Taylor also summarized Dirac’s philosophy of physics, saying, “Physical laws should have mathematical beauty.” So science includes the concept of beauty in addition to imagination, experimentation, and “guess work” (Feynman).
Another physicist, Steven Weinberg, actually says that modern day “string” theory will “survive in the final underlying laws of physics” because the theory is “beautiful.” (The Taylor and Weinberg quotes are both found in Richard P. Feynman and Steven Weinberg’s Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics.)
If “beauty” plays a role in physics, why then are Christians ridiculed for believing the “heavens declare the beauty [the Hebrew word kabod can be translated glorious, splendor, beautiful, stately, magnificence] of God, and they are a marvelous display of His craftsmanship” (Psalm 19:1)?
Let me explain why I chose Feynman as the focus of my research. According to Davies, there have been three major icons in the realm of physics—Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman. Davies says, “Richard Feynman has become an icon for late twentieth-century physics—the first American to achieve this status.” Davies also believes it “is unlikely that the world will see another Richard Feynman.”
So what did I do? I ordered and read the following works by Feynman: The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist; Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics; Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics; The Pleasure of Finding Things Out; Theory of Fundamental Processes; and The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Apart from the 1001 equations sprinkled throughout Feynman’s work, e.g., (h2/2s)+(nh2/2s’)=(b-1)h2/2R (I think that translates “earth,” but I could be wrong!), I actually began to understand what the world of particle physics is all about. (Don’t worry, though — it won’t go to my head because somewhere I read that if you begin to think you understand it, you really don’t understand it!)
However, since my academic background is philosophy (unfortunately, Feynman does not like philosophers, psychologists, or for that matter, the National Academy of Sciences), I knew there was some challenges ahead, but in all honesty, not exactly what I expected.
Reading Paul Davies alerted me to the fact that Feynman walks, eats, drinks, sleeps and dreams “subatomic particles, atoms and nuclei, molecules and chemical bonding, the structure of solids, superconductors and superfluids” (just a few areas of his expertise), and also the fact that Feynman exhibits another quality lacking in much of science today — when he doesn’t know something, he admits it!
For example, in Six Easy Pieces, Feynman says, “It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is” (p. 71). That got my immediate attention!
If we don’t know what energy is, what do or don’t we know about gravity, magnetism, weak forces, strong forces, dark matter, or dark energy? This line of thinking brought to mind an article in which a Harvard astronomer admitted that we use terms like dark matter and dark energy because we don’t know anything about them. This admission should strike us immediately because the latest word is that over 90% of the universe consists of dark energy!
This knowledge immediately brings to mind an obvious question for the Free Inquiry brethren: if we don’t know such things, how do they know with absolute certainty that God does not exist? In every issue, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens pontificate on why God doesn’t exist, telling their readers they are basing their certainty claims on “science.”
I think Paul Kurtz would be wise to have a little chat with his atheist writers to question them about the source of their “proof.” My wild guess is they get it from from 90 proof Jack Daniels!
After I discovered that energy isn’t yielding up too much information about itself even for Feynman to grasp definitively (and if he can’t grasp it, I’m quite sure Dawkins can’t), I began wondering what else physics can’t tell us.
Here is Feynman in his own words on what we don’t know:
First, we do not yet know all the basic laws [of physics]: there is an expanding frontier of ignorance. (p.2)
Where do the laws that are to be tested come from?(p.2)
The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics . . . actually, we do not have all the rules now.(p. 24)
The calculations that are involved in this theory [quantum nucleodynamics] are so difficult that no one has ever been able to figure out what the consequences of the theory are . . . we do not yet know where it fits. (p. 39)
Everything works exactly the same for the muon as for the electron, except that one is heavier than the other. Why is there another heavier, what is the use for it? We do not know. (p. 43)
We do not know how the universe got started, and we have never made experiments which check our ideas of space and time accurately. (p. 44)
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of sub-atomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task. (p. 44)
We do not know the patterns of motions that there should be inside the earth. (p. 66)
It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of particles inside the nucleus, and we have formulas for that, but we do not have the fundamental laws. We know that it is not electrical, not gravitational, and not purely chemical, but we do not know what it is. (p. 71)
We do not understand energy as a certain number of little blobs. (p. 84)
We do not understand the conservation of energy. (p. 84)
Galileo discovered a very remarkable fact about the principle of inertia — if something is moving with nothing touching it and completely undisturbed, it will go on forever, coasting at a uniform speed in a straight line. Why does it keep on coasting? We do not know. (p. 93)
None of these nuclear or electrical forces has yet been found to explain gravitation. (p. 113)
The gravitational attraction relative to the electrical repulsion between two electrons is 1 divided by 4.17x10 to the 42nd power. The question is, where does such a large number come from? . . . This fantastic number is a natural constant so it involved something deep in nature. (p. 110)
The quantum-mechanical aspects of nature have not yet been carried over to gravitation. (p. 113)
What is the machinery behind the law [regarding quantum behavior]? No one has found any machinery behind the law . . . no one can ‘explain’ any more than we have just ‘explained’ . . . we have no idea about a more basic mechanism from which these results can be deduced. (p. 134)
These “we don’t knows” are from just one book — Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics.
In The Meaning of It All, Feynman says something that should interest Hitchens and Dawkins, Harris and Dennett: “Science cannot disprove the existence of God” (p. 36). To that he adds, “I also agree that a belief in science and religion is consistent.” He insists that science cannot produce “the meaning of life” nor can it tell us “the right moral values.” These must come from somewhere else.
Now if science and physics cannot tell us what or who is behind the machinery of the laws of the universe, then why is it so illogical for Christians to suggest John 1:1–3 for starters? And if science cannot tell us the meaning of life or what is right and wrong, then why is it so illogical for Christians suggest Paul’s epistle to the Romans?
Why doesn’t Feynman get the attention he deserves? My guess is that he’s way too honest for a scientific world hung up on government grants. He would never say global warming is based on “settled” science. In fact, he says, “all scientific knowledge is uncertain.” He would never have agreed with the scientific powers that destroyed the career of Dr. Richard Stemberg for publishing a peer-reviewed article by Steven Meyer on natural selection and mutations in a Smithsonian publication. Since Feynman is never at a loss for words, he probably would have referred to those responsible for such an outrage as “dishonest scientific hacks.”
Feynman also believes that Western Civilization is based primarily on two things: science and Christian ethics — “The other great heritage is Christian ethics — the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual — the humility of the spirit.” This statement would never pass muster at Free Inquiry! (This reminds me of the atheist Bertrand Russell acknowledging that what the world really needs is love, “Christian love.” You can find this quote on Google under “Bertrand Russell Quotes.”)
Feynman is way too conservative for the hierarchy of the National Academy of Sciences. In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, he says, “I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will be fully appreciated that the power of government should be limited; that government ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that that is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the various descriptions of history or of economic theory or of philosophy”(p. 115).
Richard Feynman is not a Christian, but he reminds me of Sir Isaac Newton, who said, “I was like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Would that this were the mindset of Free Inquiry‘s Richard Dawkins!
- Posted at 09:27 am by David A. Noebel
- Join the Discussion (10)
March 07, 2010 // 08:07 pm // #
I have not read Feynman, but I’ll put him on my list. I was struck years ago when I first read “A Brief History of Time” how often Hawkings used the transition that went something like this: “There are two ways we can go from this point, and if we take this path we can avoid the need for a Creator. . .” I understand what Hawkings was trying to do, but it seems to me that Dawkins and Hitchens and their colleagues are actually blind. Your essay points to profound problems for the materialist: First, the stunning complexity of the natural world (it shouldn’t be that way); second, the hiddenness of first causes; and third, (which you don’t actually mention), the existence of libraries of design data in DNA. It is as if at some point scientists confront an abyss where reason fails. What would be expect? God is infinite, we are finite.
April 27, 2010 // 06:22 pm // #
Introduction to Isaac Newton’s book
OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL, AND THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN
By Sir Isaac Newton
London 1733
Reprinted by:
The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
2251 Dick George Road
Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
(c) September, 1991
INTRODUCTION
by Arthur B. Robinson
Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist who has ever lived. It is, in fact, generally accepted that he is probably the greatest scientist who ever will live, since no one, no matter how brilliant, will again be in such a unique historical position.
Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day in 1642 and died in 1727. His most famous work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, was published in 1687.
His discoveries span all aspects of the physical world with special emphasis on experimental and theoretical physics and chemistry and on applied mathematics. He invented virtually the entire science of mechanics and most of the science of optics. During this work, he invented such mathematics as he needed or as interested him including the discipline known as calculus.
Isaac Newton was both an experimental and theoretical scientist. He personally constucted the models and machinery with which he carried out extensive experiments in chemistry and physics. For example, when he invented the reflecting telescope, he first built a brick oven. In that oven he carried out metallurgical experiments to formulate the composition of the mirror. He then made the mirror with which he constructed the telescope.
Of unequaled mental ability during his entire adult life until his death at age 85, Newton’s powers are legendary. It is often told, for example, how later in his life a problem in mathematical physics posed by the great mathematician Bernoulli, was forwarded to Newton from the Royal Society. The problem, to determine the curve of minimum time for a heavy particle to move downward between two given points, had baffled the famous 18th Century mathematicians of Europe for over six months. Receiving the problem in the afternoon, Newton solved it before going to bed.
Although the solution was sent to Bernoulli anonymously, he is said to have exclaimed upon reading it, “tanquam ex ungue leonem - as the lion is known by its claw” in reference to his recognizing Newton’s method.
In addition to his scientific work (Newton would have said as a part of his scientific work.), he devoted a substantial portion of his enormous energy to the study of the Bible and Biblical texts and history. He read the Bible daily throughout his life and wrote over a million words of notes regarding his study of it.
Isaac Newton believed that the Bible is literally true in every respect. Throughout his life, he continually tested Biblical truth against the physical truths of experimental and theoretical science. He never observed a contradiction. In fact, he viewed his own scientific work as a method by which to reinforce belief in Biblical truth.
He was a formidable Biblical scholar, was fluent in the ancient languages, and had extensive knowledge of ancient history. He believed that each person should read the Bible and, through that reading, establish for himself an understanding of the universal truths it contains.
Newton’s strong belief in individual freedom to learn about God without restraints from any other individual or church or government, once almost cost him to give up his position as Lucasian Professor at Cambridge. The matter was resolved when King Charles II made the exceptional ruling that Isaac Newton would not be required to become a member of the Church of England.
Regarding both science and Christianity, Isaac Newton spent his life in intense scholarship, but he left the publication of his work to Providence. Much that he wrote has still never been published.
His (and the world’s) greatest scientific work, the Principia, was published only after his friend, Edmund Halley, accidentally learned of the existence of Part I which Isaac Newton had written 10 years earlier and put in a drawer. Halley convinced him to finish PartsII and III and allow Halley to publish the work.
Only one book of Newton’s about the Bible was ever published. In 1733, six years after his death, J. Darby and T. Browne, published Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.
In 1988, having learned of this book in the rare books card catalogue of the Library of Congress, I asked to read it. I was astonished when, a few minutes later, I was handed Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy. (The book is in excellent condition and has Thomas Jefferson’s initials on pages 57 and 137. Two hundred and fifty years ago it was common practice for printers to label the page signatures with capital letters at the bottom of the actual text. Jefferson would turn to the “J” signature and add a “T” before the “J” and then turn to the “T” signature and add a “J” after the “T.” In this way he identified his personal books.)
With his prodigious knowledge of ancient history and languages and his unequaled mental powers, Isaac Newton is the best qualified individual in this millenium to have written about the prophecies. His study of the book of Daniel began at the age of twelve and continued to be a special interest throughout his life. Moreover, hewrites of the prophecies with a modesty that indicates that he, himself, is in awe of the words he has been given an opportunity to read.
Isaac Newton concluded that it is intended that Revelation will be understood by very few until near the end of history, the time of judgment, and the beginning of the everlasting kingdom of the Saints of the Most High.
Isaac Newton states his belief that these books of prophecy were provided so that, as they are historically fulfilled, they provide a continuing testimony to the fact that the world is governed by the Providence of God. He objected to the use of the prophecies in attempts to predict the future.
On page 251, for example, he writes:
“The folly of Interpreters has been, to fortel times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.”
Through these 323 pages, he traces human historysince the writing of the prophecies. He shows that, according to his scholarship and at his time in the early 18th Century, part of the prophecies had been fulfilled and part remained to be fulfilled. In accordance with his evaluation, this is still true in 1991.
Decorated (as are his scientific works) with interesting asides such as derivations of the exact dates of Christmas and Easter and of the number of years during which Jesus taught, and permeated with a depth of scholarship that no longer exists amongmodern scholars, this book by Isaac Newton may be the most important work of its kind ever written.
The central message of this book for modern readers may not be so much in what it says but in what it is. During his entire life, Isaac Newton continually compared his experimental and theoretical understanding of science with his reading of the Bible. He found the content of these two sources of truth to be so completely compatible that he regarded every word in the Bible to be as correct as the equations of mathematics and physics.
Therefore, throughout this book, Isaac Newton takes each word of the Prophecies to be exactly correct. He never doubts the content. He only seeks to understand it.
He never strays from his determination not to present predictions of the future based upon the Biblical Prophecies. On pages 113 and 114, he does give an identification of the last horn of the Beast and a numerical evaluation of his reign. He also gives the approximate time of the beginning of this reign, but does not add the numbers or make a prediction.
Addition of these numbers, however, places the time of judgment and the beginning of the everlasting reign of the Saints of the Most High approximately in the time period between the years 2000 and 2050.
Are there errors in Isaac Newton’s evaluation of the Prophecies? He would reply that he would not have written this evaluation unless he beieved it to be without error, but that it is the obligation of Christians to study the Bible and to reach their own conclusions.
In recent years it has become fashionable to say that Newton’s laws of motion contained an error (the error of assumption that mass is a constant), and that this was corrected by Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. As Petr Beckmann has pointed out in his book, A History of Pi, this error never existed.
In the Principia Newton writes,
“Lex I. Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.”
“Lex II. Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressae, & fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimatur.”
“Lex III. Actioni contrariam semper & aequalem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse aequales & in partes contrarias dirigi.”
These are the famous three laws of motion. In translation, the second law reads “The change of momentum is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.” Newton defines momentum as follows: “The quantity of momentum is the measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjointly.”
Or, in the symbolic terms of Newton’s calculus, F = d(mv)/dt Newton did not know whether or not mass was constant, and he was too careful a scientist to assume so by placing it outside the differential. During the next 200 years, physicists assumed, for convenience, that mass was constant and began to write F=ma or F=m dv/dt. It is this later day shortcut which proved to be incorrect, not Isaac Newton’s original law.
Isaac Newton said of himself near the end of his life, “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
To Dr. Bentley, he had written, “When I had written my Treatise about our system, I had an Eye upon such Principles as might work with considering Men, for the Belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.”
Isaac Newton’s pebbles and shells formed the basis forthe scientific revolution and the industrial revolution which created our current civilization. This demonstration of the incredible power of his discoveries is, however, itself minor in comparison with their role in 17th and 18th century miracles that serve as a continuing testimony of the literal truth of the Bible and of the remarkable creations of the Lord.
In my own scientific work, I also have continually compared the Bible with the findings of modern experimental science. Like Isaac Newton, I do not know of any verified scientific facts that are inconsistent with the literal truth of every aspect of the Bible.
I am grateful to have had an opportunity to read Isaac Newton’s book about the Prophecies and am publishing this reprint so that others may have this experience.
Thanks are due to the Manley Foundation and Dr. Richard Pooley who helped finance this reprint; to Bruce Tippery who gave essential help with its production; and also to Andy Hopkins whose similar and independent desire to reprint this book is hereby fulfilled.
This reprint has been made as an exact photographic duplicate of Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy. This reprint is dedicated to my wife, Laurelee, whose death in November 1988 delayed it for these past two years, but whose life caused me to undertake it.
As Isaac Newton wrote in the second edition of the Principia:
“The true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being. His duration reaches from eternity to eternity; His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things.”
Arthur B. Robinson
Cave Junction
July, 1991
By Permission
JFB
December 06, 2010 // 04:49 am // #
I recently bought a young rabbit and i keep her inside in a plastic bottomed cage. Lately her urine has been very smelly. I clean the cage every day. The cage has hay on the bottom. Should i use something else or is there a problem with my rabbit. The pet shop told me it was a girl. Could they be wrong and how do i check for myself and how do i tell? I have never owned an inside rabbit before.; Please help i cant stand the strong odour anymore.
December 06, 2010 // 05:21 am // #
INTRODUCTION
Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (65 years) since
I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation
of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and
listened to the light-hearted “peaceniks” and their light-headed
symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating
candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that “Peace is not a
cause - it is an effect.”
In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was an ARman] and I returned to
Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were
issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for
our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.
B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka,
Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.
We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army
divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was
estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the
Japanese homeland.
In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government
refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the
city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.
Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, “I
fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant…” Indeed, they had.
Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning
in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a
natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily
where choice-making opportunities abound. America!
Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature’s pit
bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any
generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never
know what they may invent!
As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I
had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including
Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I
observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had
the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive
for all, but especially for the people of Japan.
When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane
occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great
appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including
the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared
the Gold Star flag, including, I’m sure, my own.
Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and
ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation
between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete
critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault
landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative,
“conventional” warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but
they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have
bought and preserved for them.
The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for
the assertion of virtuous “rights” purchased by the blood of others - those
others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining
apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.
At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal
relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and
description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than
they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle
Dandy knows what that word is.
In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it
behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us
betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the
prime deterrent to earth’s latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of
Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human
beings.
The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The
restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the
fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth’s
choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature’s beautiful blue planet and
the natural premise of man’s free institutions, environments, and respectful
relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men
choose, create, and progress - or die.
Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his
ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, “Know ye not you
are in league with the stones of the field?”
Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War
point-man/follower of The Lion of Judah
2010 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker
Joel 3:14 Psalm 25:12 kjv
Consider: The missing element in every human ‘solution’ is an accurate definition of the creature.
In an effort to diminish the multiple and persistent dangers and abuses
which have characterized the affairs of man in his every Age, and to assist
in the requisite search for human identity, it is essential to perceive and
specify that distinction which naturally and most uniquely defines the human
being.
Because definitions rule in the minds, behaviors, and institutions of men,
we can be confident that delineating and communicating that quality will
assist the process of resolution and the courageous ascension to which man is called. As
Americans of the 21st Century, we are obliged and privileged to join our
forebears and participate in this continuing paradigm proclamation.
“WHAT IS MAN…?” God asks - and answers:
HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH’S CHOICEMAKER
by James Fletcher Baxter (c) 2010 AD
The way we define ‘human’ determines our view of self, others,
relationships, institutions, life, and future. Many problems in human
experience are the result of false and inaccurate definitions of humankind
premised in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.
Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe. The balance is a vast
void of human ignorance. Human reason cannot fully function in such a void;
thus, the intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it
perceives and measures values.
Humanism makes man his own standard of measure. However, as with all
measuring systems, a standard must be greater than the value measured. Based
on preponderant ignorance and an egocentric carnal nature, humanism demotes
reason to the simpleton task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of
appetites, desires, feelings, emotions, - and glands.
Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament, cannot invent criteria
greater than himself, the humanist lacks a predictive capability. Thus, his
man-made criteria rises no higher than eyebrows - and too often, no higher
than pubic hair! Without instinct or transcendent criteria, humanism cannot
evaluate options with foresight and vision for progression and survival.
Lacking foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly
committed to mediocrity, collectivism, averages, and regression - and worse.
Humanism is an unworthy worship.
The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with a functional faith
while not-so-patiently awaiting the foot-dragging growth of human knowledge
and behavior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and validated in
His Word, the Bible, brings a transcendent standard to man the choice-maker.
Other philosophies and religions are man-made, humanism, and thereby lack
what only the Bible has:
1.Transcendent Criteria and
2.Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.
The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival equipment for today and
the future. Only the Creator, who made us in His own image, is qualified to
define us accurately.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by nature and nature’s God a
creature of Choice - and of Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and
definitive characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and respectful relations to
his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom whose roots are in the
Order of the universe. selah
At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum physics indicates a
multifarious gap or division in the causal chain; particles to which
position cannot be assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy
state to another without manifestation in intermediate states, entities
without mass, fields whose substance is as insubstantial as “a probability.”
Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to deterministic forces.
Singularities do not and are therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in
this sense, uncaused. The finest contribution inanimate reality is capable
of making toward choice, without its own selective agencies, is this
continuing manifestation of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it
defers to the natural action of living forms.
Biological science affirms that each level of life, single-cell to man
himself, possesses attributes of sensitivity, discrimination, and
selectivity, and in the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified life
form.
The survival and progression of life forms has all too often been dependent
upon the ever-present undeterminative potential and appearance of one unique
individual organism within the whole spectrum of a given life-form. Only the
uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden Wedge of Ophir,
capable of traversing the causal gap to survival and progression. Mere
reproductive determinacy would have rendered life forms incapable of such
potential.
Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables the present
reality.
Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly developed, and
sensitive perception of variety. Thus aware, man is endowed with a natural
capability for enacting internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the superior
basis of an active intelligence.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. His title describes his definitive and
typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of
experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the
following acts of decision and choice. Note that the products of man cannot
define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choicemaking process and
include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of
value measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of
civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and
traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers.
Creativity, the creative process, is a choice-making process. His articles,
constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither
awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth’s own highest
expression of the creative process.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. The sublime and significant act of choosing
is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity.
Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom,
and bestows earth’s title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.
Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication by man from his
natural role as earth’s Choicemaker, inevitably degenerate into
collectivism; the negation of singularity, they become a conglomerate
plural-based system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness of
diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the selective creative
process, they are self-relegated to a passive and circular regression.
Tampering with man’s selective nature endangers his survival for it would
render him impotent and obsolete by denying the tools of variety,
individuality, perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress. Coercive
attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are contrary to an indeterminate
nature and nature’s indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.
Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just begins with a respectful
acknowledgment of The Creator, The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will
be ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. The rejection of
Creator-initiated standards relegates the mind of man to its own primitive,
empirical, and delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect cannot
ascend and function at any level higher than the criteria by which it
perceives and measures values.
Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria self-denies man the
vision and foresight essential to decision-making for survival and
progression. He is left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive
hind sight, including human institutions characterized by averages,
mediocrity, and regression.
Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric predicament, is
ill-equipped to produce transcendent criteria. Evidenced by those who do not
perceive superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting winds of
the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires, appetites, etc., the mind
becomes subordinate: a mere device for excuse-making and rationalizing
self-justification.
The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such instruments are
tools of the mind and the attitude. The appetites of the flesh have no need
of standards for at the point of contention standards are perceived as
alien, restrictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our physical
nature itself depends upon a maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the
spirit.
It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal and living Creator
to traverse the human horizon and fill the vast void of human ignorance
with an intelligent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the prime
tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard by which he may measure
values in experience, anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary
choices.
Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deservedly displace the
ego-person from his predicament and free the individual to measure values
and choose in a more excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
words of the prophet Amos, “...said the Lord, Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel.” Y’shua Mashiyach
Jesus said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself.”
As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality and submit to the
delusions of humanism, determinism, and collectivism, just so long will they
be subject and re-acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect justice, find
themselves weighed in the balances of their
own choosing.
That human institution which is structured on the principle, “...all men are
endowed by their Creator with…Liberty…,” is a system with its roots in
the natural Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are
necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and nature’s God.
Biblical principles are still today the foundation under Western
Civilization and the American way of life. To the advent of a new season we
commend the present generation and the “multitudes in the valley of
decision.”
Let us proclaim it. Behold!
2010 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV
CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
“I should think that if there is one thing that man has learned about
himself it is that he is a creature of choice.” Richard M. Weaver
“Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and impulses; he can
rationalize his behavior. He arranges his wishes into a scale, he chooses;
in short, he acts. What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
adjusts his behavior deliberately.” Ludwig von Mises
“To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be presumed that the
human being is responsible for his actions and responsibility cannot be
understood apart from the presumption of freedom of choice.” John
Chamberlain
“The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary of the orderly
laws of cause and effect, of probability and of chance, of which man is not
completely informed. It is complementary of them because it rests in part
upon the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator with the power
of individual choice.” Wendell J. Brown
“These examples demonstrate a basic truth—that human dignity is embodied
in the free choice of individuals.” Condoleeza Rice
“Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered universe. They
believed themselves to be a part of the universal order of things. Stated
another way, they believed in God. They believed that every man must find
his own place in a world where a place has been made for him. They sought
independence for their nation but, more importantly, they sought freedom for
individuals to think and act for themselves. They established a republic
dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preservation of individual
liberty…” Ralph W. Husted
“We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching that we can choose
either to accept or reject the God who gave it to us, and it would seem to
follow that the Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
equally free in our relationships with other men. Spiritual liberty
logically demands conditions of outer and social freedom for its
completion.” Edmund A. Opitz
“Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the worse that has
made possible life’s progress.” Charles Lindbergh
“Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the
alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise
of Choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.” Thomas
Jefferson
THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You
visit him?” Psalm 8:4
A: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that
both you and your descendants may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19
Q: “Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man,
that you are mindful of him?” Psalm 144:3
A: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves
this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served
that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in
whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15
Q: “What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that
he could be righteous?” Job 15:14
A: “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way he
chooses.” Psalm 25:12
Q: “What is man, that You should magnify him, that You should set Your heart
on him?” Job 7:17
A: “Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his ways.” Proverbs 3:31
Q: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take
care of him?” Hebrews 2:6
A: “I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have laid before me.”
Psalm 119:30 “Let Your hand become my help, for I have chosen Your
precepts.“Psalm 119:173
References:
Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23 Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12;
61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Psalms 119:1-176
DEDICATION
Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history, a Bible-Believing Christian, an
authority on the Bible’s Book of Daniel, committed to individual value and
individual liberty
Daniel 9:25-26 Habakkuk 2:2-3 selah
“What is man…?” Earth’s Choicemaker Psalm 25:12
http://www.blogger.com/profile/4744267
http://www.choicemaker.net
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
An old/new paradigma - Mr. Jefferson would agree! (Alternative? There is
no alternative.)
“No one is smarter than their criteria.” selah jfb
December 06, 2010 // 05:41 am // #
Carl V. “Sam” Lamb and I served side-by-side as rifle-squad
leaders Fox Company, “Chesty” Puller’s 1st Marines, 1st Marine
Division. He wrote a book about our experiences in the Korean
conflict, 1950-1951. He included my remarks about an incident in
which one of our people threatened to punch-out a fellow squad-
leader who had black skin.
+ + +
THE LAST PARADE
by Carl V. Lamb Page 296 (1951)
James Fletcher Baxter
Sam and I had a lot in common. We both resisted evil. After I
got out of the hospital, ‘Big Jim’ Causey told of driving along
in his police cruiser and hitting a black man in his head
with his pistol. He thought it was funny how the guy sprawled
into the street. When he made this comment we were in a card
game. I didn’t say anything, but then he said he was going to
kick the ____ out of Joe Goggins and I had heard enough.
I said, “If you’re going to try that, you’ll have to go through
me to get to him. I’m willing to give my life for a country
that values each individual. If that isn’t true, I don’t want
to fight for that country - but, it is true, so I’m not going
to let you rob me of the very good reason I may lose my life
tomorrow or next week. If you attack him, you attack me. I
may lose, but I guarantee I will make it very expensive for
you to get to him. Let me know what you decide.”
He got up from our card game and said, “I’ll have to think
about it.”
I said, “Let me know. I’ll be here.”
He came back a little later and said, “You’re right. I was
wrong.” I thanked him for his manliness.
Joe Goggins came to me later and thanked me. He had wet eyes.
+ + +
(7/16/10)
Shortly after the above event, Causey was sent home on a
medical emergency for a family member. On the way, he
made a stop at a Naval medical facility stateside and ran into
my brother, Sgt. Howard “Barney” Baxter, 5th Marines, with
Chosen Reservoir frost-bitten feet. My brother said Causey
told him what had happened, and that it had “changed his life
forever.” Never again would he do “the collective thing” of race
abuse. He saw the value of each individual, regardless of race,
station, or gender. He even forgave himself and became a worthy
and honorable U.S. Marine.
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WWII & Korean War
semper fidelis
pointman/follower of The Lion of Judah
INDIVIDUAL VALUE - Gift of Y’shua JESUS
by James Fletcher Baxter
The Old World method of measuring human value was,
and still is, by the group. Whether tribe, clan,
city-state, color, ethnic, or gender, the Old
World, ancient and modern, measures by the plural
unit. Individuals had and have no value of them-
selves but only as they were and are part of a
collective.
When Y’shua Jesus died on the cross, the veil of
the Temple at the Holy of Holies parted from the
top down. The individual believer in the congrega-
tion had, for the first time, a face-to-face, one-
on-one relation with his Creator. The Creator,
Himself, had validated each individual for the
first time.Thus, the Individual became the corner-
stone for later human value measuring systems:
socio-political, philosophical, religious, educa-
tional, economic, etc., henceforth and forever.
Western Civilization, America, English Law, civil
Rights, the ‘democratic’ process, etc., all sprang
from that single event. (Greco-Roman ‘democracies’
were 95% slave throughout their entire histories.)
Biblical principles are still today the foundation
under Western Civilization and the American way of
life.
Many social systems attempt to borrow ideas of
“democracy” without the basic premise in The Indi-
vidual. Such a system is only superficially and
temporarily ‘democratic.’ The cornerstone of the
democratic process is The Individual and the
cornerstone of the value of The Individual is
Y’shua Jesus! It is not possible to have one with-
out the other. There is only One Source - there is
no other.
It is additionally interesting to note that all
value measuring systems are based on the single
definitive unit of the system. Ex: Number, Time,
Distance, Weight, Heat, Money, Angle, Volume, etc.
Only humanism makes the abusive error of measuring
human value by the plural unit and attempts to
build social structures, relations, and institu-
tions thereon. Such man-made systems can only be
abusive and oppressive because in reality there
are only individual persons. Groups or collectives
are merely convenient verbalizations about indi-
viduals. They are not reality.
I have yet to see a ‘group.’ All I have ever seen
are individuals.Have you ever seen a group - or is
it a verbal convenience? Reality is only in the
individual person. And, such a validation never
derived from a human source without the initiative
of the Creator. (The French Rationalists of the
18th Century favored the fruit - but rejected the
branch, tree, and root.)
Today, wherever Y’shua Jesus is rejected, the
group or collective is still the basic way of
measuring human value - or human non-value.
We thank the Lord God for revealing His validation
of each individual person. We thank Him for creat-
ing each person uniquely, in His image, and call-
ing each one to a courageous ascension by Y’shua
Jesus, who said, “I AM the Way…”
Praise the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
His Son of Man, Y’shua Jesus.
Reference: Exodus 25:30,40 Hebrews 9 Matthew 27:51
Mark 15:38 Luke 23:45 KJV
Jim Baxter
Teacher, 5th Grade - 30 wonderful years!
vincit veritas
pointman/follower of The LION of JUDAH
December 06, 2010 // 05:52 am // #
MIND Over glands
The defenders of homosexuality continue the oxymoron
contradiction of attempting to use the mind to justify the
rule of carnal glands.
Thinking Americans still don’t give ‘a tinkers-dam’ what
homosexuals do with their body-parts. An individual or
a society which is by law and tradition committed to the
natural human hierarchy of mind over body will not, how-
ever, ever sanction glandular rule over the human mind.
Undisciplined human desire can induce distorted perception.
The disturbed personality or inverted character can be
considered to be cognitively confused. This description is
confirmed in the 1930-40’s work of English psychoanalyst
Roger Money-Kyrle, who indicates that it is more accurate to
recognize such a condition as the result of distorted perception.
Neurosis, psychosis, stunting of growth, etc., are all, from
this perspective, cognitive diseases contaminating not only
perception but thinking, learning, remembering, valuing, and
decision-making and choice.
Money-Kyrle affirms that scientific truth is not attained by a
trendy, anti-judgmental fashion, confession of inadequacy,
abdication, or collective majority-vote. There is no excuse for
professional ignorance willfully maintained.
By definition, a standard that is flexible is not a standard at all.
The human mind requires a standard of comparison that is
invariable. A criterion must be greater than the value measured
in order to supply value-meaning in a predictable direction of
survival and progression. The mind thus equipped is enabled
to maintain a natural dominion over the body and its appetites.
The very survival of the body itself, therefore, depends upon this
maintained intellectual authority.
Our posterity cannot respect what it does not perceive, and it
cannot perceive that which has been abandoned or inverted to
an appetite of physical expediency by the equivocal person.
With confidence in the laws of human nature, we can know that
in the clash between carnality and intellect, the ‘man of the mind’
will always prevail.
That is nature and GOD’s way and intent all along.
No one is smarter than their criteria. selah jfb
I agree with analyst Money-Kyrle: Homosexuality is a distorted
result of distorted perception. I would not accept such a one in
my rifle-squad foxholes in combat.
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WWII & Korean War
Teacher - 30 years
pointman/follower of The Lion of Judah
Romans 8:6 + + +
Lewisville
May 02, 2011 // 09:26 pm // #
The most common argument of the scientists and atheists for denying the existence of God is that there is no proof for the existence of God. Another reason why it is difficult to believe God is that every religion or sect has their own concept of God and different methods of worship.
May 30, 2011 // 02:06 am // #
If “beauty” plays a role in physics, why then are Christians ridiculed for believing the “heavens declare the beauty [the Hebrew word kabod can be translated glorious, splendor, beautiful, stately, magnificence] of God, and they are a marvelous display of His craftsmanship”
November 16, 2011 // 10:22 am // #
Sono impressionato, ho bisogno di dire. Davvero non spesso ho incontrato un blog che è ogni educativo e divertente, e mi permetta di informare, tu hai colpito il chiodo sulla testa. Il vostro concetto è eccezionale, la difficoltà è una cosa che la gente non sufficiente si parla in modo intelligente circa. Sono molto felice che mi sono imbattuto in tutto questo nella mia ricerca di qualcosa al riguardo.
December 05, 2011 // 07:21 am // #
Questo è stato alcune cose interessanti qui su Grazie http://www.summit.org per pubblicarlo.