Philosophy

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

The Fossil Evidence for the Evolution of Man

Posted by Henry under Science , Evolution , Intelligent Design , The Origin of Life , The Origin of Life , The Origin of Man , The Origin of Man , Naturalism
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The Fossil Evidence Proposed as Man’s Evolution

(The Roof of the House of Cards)

 

In considering the fossil evidence for evolution,  evolutionists, are faced with their most daunting obstacle. I am speaking of the appalling lack of intermediate fossils to link species together in a uniform and smooth progression. Here and there they find a seeming candidate, which they shove between two species, but if evolution is the gradual almost imperceptible change they tell us it is, then we should have just as many intermediates as we have samples of the resulting species. No such thing exists and this is especially so in regards to the supposed evolution of man.
 Soon after Darwin’s theory became popularized by Huxley, anthropologists began the search for mans’ ancestry in the fossils. The search to find the link to our supposed ancestral apes became the search for the ‘missing link’.
Fueled by the zeal to find the corroborating evidence for this new theory, anthropologists went searching for the fossils that would prove evolution with an undaunted optimism, and with the certain assurance that soon the evidence would be so overwhelming that it would forever shatter the scientific plausibility of special creation. But after all these years of searching evolutionists are hard pressed to create a consistent lineage that shows this supposed evolution of man.
Instead we find the existence of the physical attributes that earmark homo sapiens appearing abruptly in the fossil record with no intermediate development of these characteristics to evidence their supposed evolution. Even the evolutionists readily admit this cunundrum:

 

“Out of nowhere, our sharp chin, weak brow, and high forehead appear in the fossil record. These particular features are utterly unpredictable on the basis of what preceded them.” (The New Evolutionary Timetable, by Steven M. Stanley, Basic Books, Inc. New York, 1981, pg.151) (Emphasis mine)

 

Man appears abruptly in the fossil record and all consecutive attempts to create an ancestral lineage have been eventually discredited and overturned as new fossil evidence has risen to the surface.

 

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

The Grand Unification Theory (The String Theory)

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Science , Evolution , Intelligent Design , The Origin of the Universe , The Origin of the Universe
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Sat 12 Nov 2005

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Science , Evolution , Existentialism , Intelligent Design , The Origin of the Universe , The Origin of Life , The Origin of the Universe , The Origin of Life , The Origin of Man , The Origin of Man , Naturalism
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Sat 12 Nov 2005

The Existentialist Bias of Modern Science

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Science , Evolution , Existentialism , Intelligent Design , The Origin of the Universe , The Origin of the Universe
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Sat 12 Nov 2005

Real Time and Imaginary Time? Get Real!

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Science , Evolution , Intelligent Design , The Origin of the Universe , The Origin of the Universe
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Real Time and Imaginary Time? Get Real!

 

There are two elements evidenced by science that are incompatible with the existentialist philosophy; 1-a beginning and 2- the insurmountable preponderance of evidence that points to design. The idea of the Primordial Singularity, which stipulates that the universe had a beginning is antipathetic to the naturalists that would much rather have no beginning so that they would not have to explain where the beginning came from. The static universe was much more palatable to the naturalist than a universe with a beginning. This, coupled with our modern discoveries about the nature of matter and its unique intrinsic properties, has created other problems for the naturalist. Modern science has convincingly shown that a very narrow envelope or parameter must have been deliberately chosen prior to the creation process in order to create life out of the explosion that ensued. If it were not chosen and this narrow parameter was achieved by blind random chance, then it would have been a miracle of the first order and more miraculous than even the most ardent believer could imagine.
 The statistical improbability that the universe could have developed in order to allow for life to exist (in comparison to the wide range of possibilities that could have evolved, if the universe had been made only by random processes) has resulted in an insurmountable difficulty for the evolutionist. Not only did our universe have a beginning, which removes the immense time frame necessary for evolution to have a chance statistically, but also the overwhelming evidence points to its intricate and sophisticated design, which suggests that it was intentionally engineered in order to harbor life and this inescapable realization has caused a deep anxiety amongst the existentialists. Therefore, there has been a subliminal and sometimes quite overt antipathy and a tendency to attempt to do away with the notion of a beginning since this is an unavoidable inconsistency with the atheistic presupposition. And for the same reason the idea of the design of the universe is purposely downplayed and the aspects that could be construed as chaotic and random have been underscored deliberately.
It is a mystery to me how modern scientists can leap over mountains and trip on a blade of grass! Not too long ago, even the eminent Stephen Hawking proposed, almost half-heartedly, a new possibility for the existence of the universe in order to remove this embarrassing admission that the universe had a beginning. In a conference organized by the Jesuits of the Catholic Church, he proposed the possibility that space-time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning; no moment of creation. Although, for the most part, Hawking has forced the scientific community to face the implications of Einstein’s Theory, as of late, maybe from the pressure to conform to the paradigm of his profession, he has attempted to find a way to explain away the singularity. In order to make his new suggestion possible Hawking has resorted to the idea that the universe could be finite “in imaginary time”, but without boundaries or singularities. He must resort to imaginary time because real time excludes the results he wishes to end up with. Thus he resorts to semantic gymnastics, which does nothing but point to the glaring self-deception involved, as another postmodern man leaps across the line of despair.

 

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

Religious Existentialism and Tielhard de Chardin

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Religion , Existentialism , Occult , Naturalism
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Religious Existentialism and Tielhard de Chardin

      The 20th Century brought the existential philosophy into the realm of theology and radically changed the vast majority of Christian denominations. The New “existentially- based theology” created rifts and splits in veritably all the major denominations.
      This New Theology has permeated, not only all Christian denominations, but also it has managed to make inroads into the Jewish religion, as well as the Islamic faith.  If an individual were to listen to a Neo-orthodox (religious existentialist) talk, there would be very little in the verbiage or language used that would differentiate him from a more orthodox individual.  The difference is not in the words, but in the content or meaning they assign to those words.  They may talk about the “Cross of Christ” but mean something completely different from what a traditional Christian would understand by these words.  Traditional Christianity, when speaking of the Cross of Christ, speaks of the universal God stepping into time and space, becoming incarnate and willingly sacrificing his human life upon the cross for the express purpose of fulfilling God’s demand for judicial satisfaction for sin.  Not His sin, for He was sinless, but the sins of the world.  By His substitutionary death and through His shed blood, the penalty of sin was met.  On the third day He resurrected from the dead, declaring His power over death and sin and heralding His divine license to forgive.
The Neo-Orthodox would use these Christian phrases only as connotative, or symbolic words devoid of historical reality.  Their express purpose is to use emotive phrases, which create a religious feeling, without adherence to the true meaning or content of the words.  They do not believe in a uniformity of causes in an open system, but rather have abrogated their theological position to the existentialist camp.  They believe in the divided field of knowledge; belief in God is not achieved through a rational process, it is a mystical faith.  Belief in God is simply a blind leap of faith, faith in faith.  It is not faith in the historical and verifiable person of Christ. Therefore, when they speak of the “cross of Christ”, they are not referring to a real space-time historical event, but to a universal, or generalized feeling of sacrifice for the welfare of humanity.
      Their use of “God words” is only for emotive effect; there is no attempt to discern content.  Religion is allocated to the irrational unverifiable sector of the divided field of knowledge. 
In essence, these individuals are simply nothing more than atheists, existentialists, and or pantheists, which cannot live in the harshness and sterility of their lower story (by this I mean the rational sector of the divided field of knowledge). Therefore, they leap by blind faith into the irrational sector, while still maintaining by strict definition a closed system.           

 

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

American Existentialism

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Existentialism , American Existentialism
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Sat 12 Nov 2005

Viennese Existentialism (Logotherapy- Victor Frankl)

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Existentialism
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                    Viennese Existentialism (Logotherapy- Victor Frankl)

 

“He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”
                                                                           Nietzsche

 

Drawing upon European existentialist philosophy, and Freud’s psychoanalytic methodology Victor Frankl developed a unique form of existential analysis, which he termed Logotherapy. Having experienced the horror of the Nazi concentration camps, Frankl became intensely aware of the need of man to have transcendental meaning in life in order to provide for him the hope necessary to garner a will to live amidst great suffering.
The unimaginable misery and suffering experienced by his Jewish brothers in Auschwitz brought to focus and crystallized in their minds the things that really mattered in ones life. Gone were all the insignificant trappings, which we ignorantly think are necessities in life and there completely naked of the trivialities of life, man understood the very essence of what really matters in life. Without a higher meaning to our existence, there is no will to live in such pain and squalor. Frankl wrote:

 

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

Swiss Existentialism- Karl Jaspers

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Existentialism , Swiss Existentialism
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Swiss Existentialism- Karl Jaspers

 

             Swiss existentialism also begins with a humanistic and rationalistic framework.  The mechanism of authentication, however, differs from the German and French existentialists.  Karl Jaspers proposes that authentication comes from what he refers to as a “first order experience”. Again the framework is the same only the content varies.

 

“Most people do not know the work of Karl Jaspers in Switzerland, as well as that of the French or German; but, he is an exceedingly important man.  He is German, but now teaches at the University of Basil.  He lays a great deal of emphasis on the need to wait for a non-rational ‘final experience’, which would give meaning to life.  People who follow Jaspers have come to me and said: ‘I have had a final experience’.  They never expect me to ask them what it was.  The simple fact is that if I ask such a thing, it would prove that I was among the uninitiated.  The fact that it is an existential experience means that it cannot be communicated.  It is not possible to communicate content with regard to the experience which they have had…”   (Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, IVP, Downers Grove, Illinois, 1968, page 23)

 

        We must be careful not to discount the validity of experience itself, for it is our accumulated experience that allows us the opportunity to interface with reality. But, we are not the mere sum of our experiences any more than the sum of our experiences is the measure of reality. Our soul, who we are, our identity, interfaces with reality; by this I mean true truth. And so our experience then, provides a mechanism, from which to understand this reality.

 

The criteria then for the authenticity of our experience is, whether or not it conforms to true reality, which stands on its own independent of our experience.

 

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Sat 12 Nov 2005

French Existentialism – Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre

Posted by Henry under Philosophy , Existentialism , French Existentialism
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French Existentialism – Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre

 

      Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre are regarded as the main proponents of French existentialism.  They also began from the same humanistic, rationalistic framework, as their German counterpart Heidegger. 
      Jean Paul Sartre claimed that our world was absurd and ridiculous.  Nevertheless, our authentication comes from our will to act.  The direction or content of one’s action is immaterial.  What is of import is simply that we will or choose to act.   By acting we authenticate our existence and define who we are. 
      By allowing each individual the choice, which authenticates him, one can successfully avoid choosing those things, which he does not like.  And thus, this becomes a very popular view, seeing that it absolves one from individual moral accountability.  However, it has two major failings:

 

1.      To begin with, it is impossible on a personal or individual level for any man to live consistently with the implications of this philosophy throughout his life. That is they can only be consistent with the implications of their existential position in selected areas of their life.
2.        Secondly, not only as an individual, but also collectively as a society, we cannot function in a community, with such an existential presupposition; to do so would result in anarchy and the abrogation of justice and equality to the common man.

 

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