Worldview – Divine Council

Atheism

Is Secular Humanism a Religion?

By Guest Post May 1, 2019

by John Staddon

It is now a rather old story: secular humanism is a religion. A court case in 1995 examined the issue and concluded, rightly, that science, in the form of the theory of evolution, is not a religion. In 2006, the BBC aired a program called The Trouble with Atheism which argued that atheists are religious and made the point via a series of interviews with prominent atheists who claimed their beliefs were “proved” by science. The presenter, Rod Liddle, concluded that Darwinism is a religion. That is wrong, as 18th century philosopher David Hume showed many years ago. Science consists of facts, but facts alone do not motivate. Without motive, a fact points to no action. Liddle was half-right: both religion and secular humanism provide _motives, explicit in one case, but covert in the other.

What is religion? All religions have three elements, although the relative emphasis differs from one religion to another—Buddhists are light on the supernatural, for example.

The first is the belief in invisible or hidden beings, worlds and processes—like God, heaven, miracles, reincarnation, and the soul. All these are unverifiable, or unseen and unseeable, except by mystics under special and generally unrepeatable conditions. Since absence of evidence is not, logically, evidence of absence, these features of religion are neither true nor false, but simply unprovable. They have no implications for action, hence no bearing on legal matters.

The second element are claims about the real world: every religion, especially in its primordial version, makes claims that are essentially scientific—assertions of fact that are potentially verifiable. These claims are of two kinds. The first we might call timeless: e.g., claims about physical properties—the four elementary humors, for example, the Hindu turtle that supports the world, properties of foods, the doctrine of literal transubstantiation. The second are claims about history: Noah’s flood, the age of the earth, the resurrection—all “myths of origin.” Some of these claims are unverifiable; as for the rest, there is now a consensus that science usually wins—in law and elsewhere. In any case, few of these claims have any bearing on action.

The third property of a religion are its rules for action—prohibitions and requirements—its morality. All religions have a code, a set of moral and behavioral prescriptions, matters of belief —usually, but not necessarily—said to flow from God, that provide guides to action in a wide range of situations. The 10 Commandments, the principles of Sharia, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, etc.

Secular humanism lacks any reference to the supernatural and defers matters of fact to science. But it is as rich in moral rules, in dogma, as any religion. Its rules come not from God but from texts like Mill’s On Liberty, and the works of philosophers like Peter Singer, Dan Dennett and Bertrand Russell, psychologists B. F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud, public intellectuals like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, and “humanist chaplains” everywhere.

In terms of moral rules, secular humanism is indistinguishable from a religion.

It has escaped the kind of attacks directed at Christianity and other up-front religions for two reasons: its name implies that it is not religious, and its principles cannot be tracked down to a canonical text. They exist but are not formally defined by any “holy book.”

But it is only the morality of a religion, not its supernatural or historical beliefs, that has any implications for action, for politics and law. Secular humanism makes moral claims as strong as any other faith. It is therefore as much a religion as any other. But because it is not seen as religious, the beliefs of secular humanists increasingly influence U.S. law.

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Christianity

8 Faith-based Films Worth Your Time

By Guest Post April 27, 2019

by Jesse Carey

“Christian” movies don’t exactly have the greatest reputation among film watchers. Christian cinema’s apocalyptic thrillers, morally concerned family films and social-issue stumping dramas have often been criticized for being a little too preachy for non-church goers, lacking the subtlety of their Hollywood counterparts.

Of course, there’s nothing that makes a movie (or any other piece of pop culture) “Christian,” but films with overtly Christian messages have in some ways, become a sub-genre of their own.

Here’s our look at eight movies with Christian messages that will restore your faith in redemptive films.

Believe Me

Believe Me follows the exploits of a group of college guys who attempt to pay off their student loans by crafting a fake, charity:water-type nonprofit and keeping the donations for themselves. Along the way, they discover they’ve got a gift for crafting the sort of highly emotional, faux-substantive Christian “worship” experiences that grease the pockets of the faithful, but they also start to come to terms with their own hypocrisy. Watching the dudes learn to perfect their Christianese is a stinging riot, but Believe Me has a lot more on its mind than just laughs.

Amazing Grace

The 2006 film about William Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade in Britain works on several levels: It’s a gripping historical drama; it’s a compelling story about social activism and it’s a moving testimony to the power of faith and reliance on a higher calling.

Blue Like Jazz

The film adaptation of Donald Miller’s best-selling memoir may not have captured the same breakaway success as the book, but the movie remains a pretty charming indie. Unlike many traditional “Christian” movies (or films that are targeted to Christian audiences), Blue Like Jazz isn’t afraid to embrace the complexity of faith, coming of age and thinking about God. Like the book, the movie enjoys asking questions and exploring doubts, but ultimately, finding truth.

Into Great Silence

In 1984, filmmaker Philip Gröning asked Carthusian monks in a remote French monastery if he could make a documentary about their lives. Sixteen years later, the monks agreed. The resulting documentary is a wordless, but gripping, look at the lives of the reclusive monks who have devoted themselves to God and the Bible. What’s captured on camera is like a time-capsule from a group of men dedicated to prayer, and it soon becomes clear why their order’s motto is “The Cross is steady while the world is turning.”

The Mission

Based on actual events, the 1986 drama starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons is an emotional story of redemption, forgiveness, persecution and devotion. Set at a Jesuit mission in the South American jungles during the 1700s, the movie is about fighting injustice and how grace can be used to overcome the most powerful forces of might. It’s a hard-hitting movie featuring one of the most iconic scores in history. Don’t miss it.

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Philosophy

The Taoist View of the Universe

By Guest Post April 9, 2019

by Alan Watts

At the very roots of Chinese thinking and feeling there lies the principle of polarity, which is not to be confused with the ideas of opposition or conflict. In the metaphors of other cultures, light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and the positive with the negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes throughout much of the world.

To the traditional way of Chinese thinking this is as incomprehensible as an electric current without both positive and negative poles, for polarity is the principle that plus and minus, north and south, are different aspects of one and the same system, and that the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system.

Linear Ideology

People who have been brought up in the aura of Christian and Hebrew aspirations find this frustrating because it seems to deny any possibility of progress, an ideal which flows from their linear (as distinct from cyclic) view of time and history. Indeed, the whole enterprise of Western technology is “to make the world a better place” – to have pleasure without pain, wealth without poverty, and health without sickness.

We have been interfering with a complex system of relationships which we do not understand, and the more we study its details, the more it eludes us by revealing still more details to study. As we try to comprehend and control the world it runs away – from us. Instead of chafing at this situation, a Taoist would ask what it means. What is that which always retreats when pursued? Answer: yourself.

Idealists (in the moral sense of the word) regard the universe as different and separate from themselves – that is, as a system of external objects which needs to be subjugated.

Taoists view the universe as the same as, or inseparable from, themselves so that Lao-tzu could say, “Without leaving my house, I know the whole universe.”

This implies that the art of life is more like navigation than warfare, for what is important is to understand the winds, the tides, the currents, the seasons, and the principles of growth and decay, so that one’s actions may use them and not fight them.

In this sense, the Taoist attitude is not opposed to technology per se. Indeed, the Chuang-tzu writings are full of references to crafts and skills perfected by this very principle of “going with the grain.” The point is therefore that technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.

From Progress to Process

Our overspecialization in conscious attention and linear thinking has led to neglect, or ignore-ance, of the basic principles and rhythms of this process, of which the foremost is polarity.

In Chinese, the two poles of cosmic energy are yang (positive) and yin (negative), associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland.

Thus the art of life is not seen as holding to yang and banishing yin, but as keeping the two in balance, because there cannot be one without the other.

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Earth

Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A Destructive Globalist Belief System

By Guest Post February 13, 2019

by Brandon Smith for Alt-Market.com

Over many years of investigating the mechanics of global events and the people behind them I have become perhaps a little obsessed with one particular subject – the source and motivations of evil. This fascination does not stem from a simple morbid curiosity, but a strategic need to understand an enemy. Much like an exterminator needs to understand the behavior of cockroaches to be effective, I seek to understand the behavior and nature of organized evil.

One very important fact that must first be made clear in people’s minds is that evil does indeed exist. Establishment propaganda has spent immense time, effort and capital attempting to condition society into believing that evil is nothing more than a social construct – an opinion. Evil is supposedly in the eye of the beholder; a product of religious conditioning. This is a falsehood. Just like concepts of beauty, concepts of evil are actually inherent in our psyches from birth. The “eye of the beholder” is irrelevant.

Two particular areas of human psychology support this fact:

First, as the work of Carl Jung (and by extension anthropologists like Joseph Campbell) exposed, all human beings no matter where in the world they are born, from the most isolated tribe in the Amazon to the largest metropolis in America, carry the same archetypal symbols in their psyche. That is to say, we ALL have the same psychological elements in our minds regardless of environment.

This fact alone is so overwhelming to modern man that some people refuse to even acknowledge it as a possibility. We have been trained like lab rats to see only one path through the maze; we have been told over and over again that everything is “relative”; that each person is entirely a product of environment and that we all start out empty as “blank slates”.

The vicious attacks on Carl Jung by the establishment (including lies that he cooperated with the Nazis) tell me that Jung was very close to the mark. He had stumbled upon something very dangerous to the establishment; something that could derail their conditioning of the public.

Second, the undeniable existence of the human conscience suggests that we are born with an understanding of duality. Meaning, just as Jung discovered, our psyches contain inherent concepts of good and evil that influence our decisions and reactions. Jung referred to evil, or psychologically destructive impulses, as the ‘personal shadow’ and the ‘collective shadow’.

The vast majority of people have an intuitive relationship with good and evil. They feel anxiety when confronted with evil actions or thoughts, and they feel personal guilt when they know they have done something evil to other people. Some might call this a “moral compass”. I would refer to it as part of the soul or spirit.

In any case, there is a contingent of people in the world that do not have it – a small percentage of the population that is born without conscience, or that finds it easy to ignore conscience. We’ll get to those people in a moment, but first, we should probably define what evil is.

Evil is first and foremost any action that seeks to destroy, exploit or enslave in the name of personal gain or gratification. Unfortunately, evil actions are often misrepresented as advantageous for the group, thereby making them morally acceptable. The needs of the many supposedly outweigh the needs of the few, and thus evil is rationalized as a means to a “positive end” for the “greater good”.

In most cases, however, destructive actions do not end up serving the interests of the majority, and only end up giving more wealth and power to an elitist minority. This is not a coincidence.

Evil begins with the denial of the existence of conscience, or the denial of the existence of choice. Each person is born with a capacity or freedom to choose. We can listen to conscience, or we can ignore it. We can do good, or we can do evil. Evil tells us the choice is relative and that morality is relative; that there is no difference between a good choice and a bad choice, or, that the evil choice is the only choice.

Beyond ignoring conscience, we must also define the motivation that drives evil. Psychology would suggest that destructive self serving actions stem from an obsessive desire to obtain or control things we cannot or should not have. Interestingly, this is also what some religions teach us, but let’s stick to a secular examination.

As mentioned earlier, there is a group of people in the world who do not see good and evil the way most of us do. Their psyche functions in a completely different way, without the filter of conscience. These people exhibit the traits of narcissistic sociopaths. Full blown high level narcissistic sociopaths represent around 1% to 5% of the total human population, and most of them are born, not made by their environment. Also, 5% to 10% of people hold latent traits of either narcissism or sociopathy that generally only rise to the surface in an unstable crisis environment.

I have written extensively on narcissistic sociopaths and the globalist establishment in numerous articles. I have also outlined how such people, contrary to popular belief, are not isolated from one another. They do in fact organize into groups for mutual gain.

There is an ideology or system of belief that argues for the exact opposite of what conscience tells us is “good”, and that system is Luciferianism. In fact, luciferianism appears to be the source influence for most existing destructive “isms” in our society today (including socialism and globalism). It is my theory that luciferianism is a religion or cult designed by sociopathic narcissists for the benefit of sociopathic narcissists.

It is sometimes difficult to identify the true “sacraments” behind luciferianism because, for one, luciferians refuse to admit that the system is a religion at all. They prefer to call it a philosophy or methodology, at least in public. The system also seems to encourage active disinformation in order to dissuade or mislead non-adherents. The historic term for this religious secrecy is “occultism”. I would call it “elitism”.

There are some foundational beliefs that luciferians do openly admit to. First and foremost, the goal of luciferianism is to attain godhood. That is to say, they believe that SOME human beings have the capacity to become gods through the accumulation of knowledge.

I have written about the insanity of the goal of godhood in the past, outlining how quantum physics and Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Proof make total scientific and mathematical observation and understanding of the universe impossible. But mathematical reality does not stop luciferian circles from destructively chasing that which they cannot have. By extension, scientific knowledge not tempered by discipline, wisdom and a moral compass can lead to catastrophe. Material knowledge is invariably abused by those seeking godlike power.

The notion of self-worship is a core trait of sociopathic narcissists; Luciferianism just codifies it as if it is a virtue. Another problem with the idea of becoming a god is that one inevitably develops a desire for followers and worshipers. What is a savior, after all, without a flock? But how does a human being gain a flock and become more a god? Through force or through trickery?

Second, luciferians claim they seek to elevate the power of the individual in general. In the minds of many people this doesn’t sound like a negative at all. Even I have argued for the importance of individualism in the midst of societal controls. That said, any ideology can be taken to extremes.

The pursuit of individual gratification can be pushed too far, to the point that the people around us begin to suffer. Because of the elitist nature of luciferianism, they are not necessarily seeking the elevation of ALL individuals, just certain “deserving” individuals. There is a tendency to view non-adherents as “inferior”; stupid people that should be sheared like sheep by those who are chasing a superior dream of personal godhood.

This attitude can also be seen in the common actions of narcissistic sociopaths, who have no qualms about conning or exploiting people around them as resources, feeding off others like parasites.

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Apologetics

More than 1,000 scientists sign ‘dissent from Darwinism’ statement

By Guest Post February 12, 2019

by Brittany Slaughter

Earlier this month, a long list of Ph.D. scientists who “dissent from Darwinism” reached a milestone — it crossed the threshold of 1,000 signers.
“There are 1,043 scientists on the ‘A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism’ list. It passed the 1,000 mark this month,” said Sarah Chaffee, a program officer for the Discovery Institute, which maintains the list.“A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism” is a simple, 32-word statement that reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

Launched in 2001, the list continues to collect support from scientists from universities across America and globally. Signers have earned their Ph.D.s at institutions that include Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania. Others on the list earned their doctorates at Clemson, UT Austin, Ohio State, UCLA, Duke, Stanford, Emory, UNC Chapel Hill and many others universities. Still other signers are currently employed as professors across the nation.

Those who sign it “must either hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of the other natural sciences; or they must hold an M.D. and serve as a professor of medicine,” according to the institute.

The group points out that signing the statement does not mean these scholars endorse “alternative theories such as self-organization, structuralism, or intelligent design,” but rather simply indicates “skepticism about modern Darwinian theories central claim that natural selection acting on random mutations is the driving force behind the complexity of life.”

According to Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer, the signers “have all risked their careers or reputations in signing.”

“Such is the power of groupthink,” he wrote. “The scientific mainstream will punish you if they can, and the media is wedded to its narrative that ‘the scientists’ are all in agreement and only ‘poets,’ ‘lawyers,’ and other ‘daft rubes’ doubt Darwinian theory. In fact, I’m currently seeking to place an awesome manuscript by a scientist at an Ivy League university with the guts to give his reasons for rejecting Darwinism. The problem is that, as yet, nobody has the guts to publish it.”

In interviews with The College Fix, some of the list’s signers explained why they were willing to go public with their skepticism.

“[Darwin’s theory] claimed to explain all major features of life and I think that’s very unlikely. Nonetheless, I think Darwinism has gotten to be kind of an orthodoxy, that is it’s accepted in the scientific community unthinkingly and it’s taught to kids unthinkingly,” said Michael Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University.

“Getting a list of scientists who point out that they don’t believe the orthodoxy can kind of open up some minds hopefully,” he said.

“It is clearly a growing trend with biology to think that Darwin missed a whole lot of biology and cannot explain a good deal of evolution,” Behe added.

Regarding how his colleagues view the list, Behe said, “Most of my peers are unaware of it, but those who are aware of it don’t like it one bit. They think that anybody who would sign such a list has to have a dishonorable motive for doing so.”

Taking a stand comes with a risk. Scott Minnich, an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho, said he has many times been accused of being “anti-science.”

“I signed this list when it first came out because of this intellectual deep skepticism I have that the random unintelligent forces of nature can produce systems that outstrip our own intellectual capacity,” he told The Fix.

Minnich went on to quote the writer C.S. Lewis: “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Law Giver.”

IMAGE: Gajus / Shutterstock

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Apologetics

6 Non-Awkward Questions That You Can Use to Start a Spiritual Conversation With Anyone

By Guest Post February 5, 2019

by Erik Manning

Most Christians know that they ought to be sharing their faith. I mean, there is the whole “make disciples of all nations” thing that Jesus said. (Matthew 28:19) But knowing and doing end up being two different things for many believers. When Christians hear the word evangelism, there’s a sense of anxiety that springs up for many.

Asking a friend “hey buddy, do you know Jesus?” can be an awkward thing. It’s only more awkward to spring that question on a total stranger. There’s a certain yuck factor, as you don’t want to come across overly salesy or be lumped in with some cult.

Our society is growing increasingly secular. We have to be aware of the cultural background in which we’re preaching. I’m sure in some cases that if you ask if someone knows Jesus, you might get the reply that they used to play soccer with him. We may want to consider backing up a little bit. Instead of going right for the “do you know Jesus?” we should ask some worldview questions.

A worldview is how one interprets the world around them, like their philosophical lenses. In other words, how they answer some of the big questions in life – origins, morality, meaning and the like. The nice thing about worldview questions is it helps us to locate someone. It gives you a starting point that becomes a more natural transition to the gospel. You’ll see as I provide some examples.

Without further adieu, here are some of my favorite “launch pads” into gospel conversations. I’ve included short videos with more in-depth explanations if this is new to you:

1. Are there moral facts? Does real right and wrong exist?

Everyone – and I mean everyone – has a moral opinion about something. Just sign into Twitter for like 2 seconds to see this in action. You’ll see what I mean. We live in an age of moral outrage. The words homophobe, misogynist, racist and bigot are thrown around like confetti. Tolerance and acceptance are the highest virtues according to many in our society.

These are often the same people who say that no culture is better than another. But if a culture practices terrible things – say female circumcision – then I think we recognize that we’re right to condemn such practices. No one is a consistent moral relativist. Certain things, like female genital mutilation, are wrong.

The heart of the gospel is that we’ve sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) That we recognize there are moral facts and we all fall short of them cries out for an explanation.

2. Is everything ultimately material in nature?

I like this question because if they say no, they’re at least open to spiritual things. If they answer with a yes, now you can follow up with some questions that should make them think.

We already talked about morality. Moral facts aren’t physical facts, because if all that exists is unintended nature, then there’s no way things should be. People hurt, main and torture each other. It is that way. But there is no way things should be. But surely that’s counterintuitive. Why should we doubt our moral experience any more than we doubt our other sense-experiences?

But there are further problems for the materialist worldview. If everything is matter, then our beliefs are all the product of natural processes that are beyond our control. Thinking that matter is all there is then is a just a product of a deterministic system. If the thorough-going materialist is right, it’s only by accident, not some intellectual virtue. In other words, materialism destroys knowledge.

But if thoughts, knowledge, and reason aren’t material things, then the idea of the spirit or soul comes into play.

3. What would you do if you had a week to live? And what do you think happens to us after we die?

OK, so the last two questions were super-philosophical. This one shoots straight for the heart. I like asking what they’d do if they found out that they had a week to live because now you’re going to see what’s important to them.

So many of us would put the smartphone down, spend time with our families, mend any fences that need mending and do something meaningful with our short time left. Life is fleeting. Blaise Pascal said:

“Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.”

In our modern world, everything is so sanitized. We live in denial of death and waste our time on the trivial. Once we’ve asked this question, maybe they’ll be open to sharing their thoughts on life after death. This can turn into a golden opportunity to share the gospel with them.

4. Is there any single ‘true’ religion?

It’s a popular thing to say that there is no one true religion, that they’re all basically saying the same thing. This is called religious pluralism. It the tolerant thing to say in our politically correct world. It’s also what makes Christianity not so PC.

But various religions aren’t teaching the same thing. Christianity says Jesus was God. Islam says he’s a prophet. Judaism says he was badly mistaken or a deceiver. Many Buddhists say there’s no god at all. Hinduism says there are many gods. Clearly, they’re not all teaching the same things!

The other knock on this view is that it’s just as dogmatic as the dogma it opposes. The pluralist implicitly suggests that their view is privileged, that they can see what others are blind to – namely, there is no one true religion! This is the kind of person that needs to hear the uniqueness of Christian truth claims. That leads me to my next question:

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Worldview

49 Former NASA Scientists Send A Letter Disputing Climate Change

By Guest Post February 4, 2019

by Gus Lubin

Some prominent voices at are fed up with the agency’s activist stance toward climate change.

The following letter asking the agency to move away from climate models and to limit its stance to what can be empirically proven, was sent by 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts.

The letter criticizes the Goddard Institute For Space Studies especially, where director Jim Hansen and climatologist Gavin Schmidt have been outspoken advocates for action.

The press release with attached letter is below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Blanquita Cullum 703-307-9510 bqview at mac.com

Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.

H. Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit Plants Need CO2, noted that many of the former NASA scientists harbored doubts about the significance of the C02-climate change theory and have concerns over NASA’s advocacy on the issue. While making presentations in late 2011 to many of the signatories of the letter, Steward realized that the NASA scientists should make their concerns known to NASA and the GISS.

“These American heroes – the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there – are simply stating their concern over NASA’s extreme advocacy for an unproven theory,” said Leighton Steward. “There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”

Select excerpts from the letter:

“The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
“We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
“We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”

The full text of the letter:

March 28, 2012

The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001

Dear Charlie,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

(Attached signatures)

CC: Mr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for Science

CC: Ass Mr. Chris Scolese, Director, Goddard Space Flight Center

Ref: Letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, dated 3-26-12, regarding a request for NASA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims that human produced CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change.

/s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years

/s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years

/s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years

/s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years

/s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years

/s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years

/s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years

/s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years

/s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years

/s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years

/s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years

/s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years

/s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years

/s/ Anita Gale

/s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years

/s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years

/s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years

/s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years

/s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years

/s/ Thomas J. Harmon

/s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years

/s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years

/s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years

/s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years

/s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years

/s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years

/s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years

/s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen

/s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years

/s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years

/s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years

/s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years

/s/ Tom Ohesorge

/s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years

/s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years

/s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate,40 years

/s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years

/s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years

/s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years

/s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years

/s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years/s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years

/s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years

/s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years

/s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years

/s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years

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Atheism

Former Atheist & Philosophy Professor Edward Feser On How Studying Philosophy Convinced Him of God’s Existence

By Guest Post January 30, 2019

By James Bishop

Philosopher Edward Feser perhaps has one of the most well articulated and detailed testimonies I recall having read (which at this point is quite a few). Feser is a professional philosopher after all, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Nonetheless, in this short post I have attempted to summarize Feser’s journey while also attempting to outline some of the key moments that had taken place within it. I am confident that this summarized testimony will be helpful to those who don’t necessarily have the time to read through the 7000 word testimony on Feser’s own website. However, I do encourage reading the full testimony for there is much in the details not included here.

As a way of biography, Feser is a well-known philosopher in the profession having penned numerous academic articles on several subjects ranging from the philosophy of mind to metaphysics. He is the Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. He has authored numerous books including Aquinas, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, and The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. Feser was also once an atheist naturalist until he converted to Christianity.

Feser explains that he was a convinced atheist naturalist for a period of 10 years in the 1990s and that his transition away from it “was no single event, but a gradual transformation.” He was brought up Catholic but ultimately lost his faith while a teenager around the age of 13 or 14. His atheism stayed with him well into his university years as a passionate philosophy student. While at university he discovered a new interest in existentialism and existentialist philosophers, particularly Soren Kierkegaard. This interest led him to discover other existentialists such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Kaufmann of whom he both appreciated but especially Kaufmann in particular. In the more modern philosophical climate, the atheist analytic philosopher J. L. Mackie proved appealing to Feser, and he considered Mackie’s book The Miracle of Theism to be a solid piece of philosophical work. Feser remarks that Mackie’s book was “intellectually serious, which is more than can be said for anything written by a “New Atheist.”” Philosopher Kai Nielsen would also appeal on issues of morality and religion. According to Feser,

What really impressed me was the evidentialist challenge to religious belief. If God really exists there should be solid arguments to that effect, and there just aren’t, or so I then supposed… Atheism was like belief in a spherical earth — something everyone in possession of the relevant facts knows to be true, and therefore not worth getting too worked up over or devoting too much philosophical attention to.

However, when he examined analytic philosophy in some more detail during the course of his studies it would, before long, bring his “youthful atheism down to earth.” The genesis of Feser’s transition away from atheism came about when he first began to look into the philosophy of language and logic. Over the several following years, during which he weighed information and arguments presented in his course materials, he reasoned that the existing naturalistic accounts of language and meaning failed to satisfy,

I already knew from the lay of the land in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind that the standard naturalist approaches had no solid intellectual foundation, and themselves rested as much on fashion as on anything else.

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Catholic

Why Thomas Aquinas Stands the Test of Time

By Guest Post January 29, 2019

by Casey Chalk

The 2016 data breach of the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, garnered much attention from Catholics. They took umbrage at an email exchange discussing the possibility of a “Catholic Spring” aimed at fundamentally changing their identity and beliefs. In that conversation, John Halpin, a Catholic and fellow at the Center for American Progress, noted that many “powerful elements” in conservatism are Catholic. He speculated that “they must be attracted to the systematic thought,” and added, “they can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about.”

I’m not sure Halpin knows “what the hell” Thomistic thought is, but I certainly wish he—and all Americans—did. Thomism, 745 years since the great theologian’s death, remains perhaps the best philosophical system available to the West.

As I’ve argued elsewhere at TAC, we are all philosophers in the sense that we all develop, either consciously or subconsciously, a system of thought for evaluating ourselves, the world around us, and what counts as truth. We make choices, form opinions, and offer arguments, all based on philosophical presuppositions. When we go with “what works,” we channel the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey. When we seek to maximize sensual pleasure and minimize pain, we are drinking from the well of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism. When we act off of scientifically verifiable data, we are the intellectual heirs of empiricist David Hume. Those who believe morality can be changed by will honor the memory of Friedrich Nietzsche. And those who reduce human persons to their economic output have embraced the thinking of Karl Marx.

There are fundamental problems with all of these philosophies. One error that unites them is a belief, either explicit or implicit, in materialism, or the idea that man (and reality) is reducible solely to what is material, what can be sensed, and what can be empirically studied. Even that which separates man from all other animals—his intellect and will—are explained away as physical properties. Yet without an intellect and will, appeals to an essential human dignity quickly collapse. We are all just a bunch of colliding atoms in a universe of colliding atoms. It’s just that our atoms are a bit more evolved and sophisticated than everything else.

Thus do all these philosophical systems tend to dehumanize man and overemphasize certain goods at the expense of others. For example, pace the pragmatists and utilitarians, of course we should prefer things that work over things that don’t work and pleasure over pain. But sometimes what “works” isn’t immediately perceptible to our senses. Additionally, the greatest pleasures in life sometimes require great sacrifice and suffering. Making decisions based on empirical data is a good, but not all things worthy of our attention can be empirically derived (e.g. the arts, human love, knowledge of eternal truth). There is something to Nietzsche’s argument that knowledge can be an instrument of power, but his claim that reality as we know it is simply an artificial creation of our minds unravels when one asks whether his own presuppositions are really real or just perspectives he has created and thus just as ephemeral as everything he attacks. Marx was right to recognize that man’s economic output contributes to his dignity and value—but it certainly isn’t the sum of his worth.

Who can save us amid this messiness? I would offer Aquinas. His philosophy doesn’t get as much attention as other philosophers, and certainly not as much as those of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment. When Americans think of Aquinas, if they ever do, they’re more inclined to think of his role in Christian theology, especially his contribution to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Perhaps if they’ve taken introductory theology or philosophy courses, they’re aware of his famous “Five Ways,” or proofs of the existence of God, which prominent New Atheist Richard Dawkins sought to take to task (and failed) in his bestselling book The God Delusion.

Yet Aquinas is a philosopher par excellence who is worthy of our attention. He stands tall on his own merits as the one who “was able to provide the principles,” to quote French philosopher Pierre Manent, for political communities governed by reason and grace. Yet his value also lies in the larger intellectual project of which he is a part. By this I mean that Aquinas, in a way that was perhaps unprecedented in the 12th and 13th centuries, consolidates the wisdom of the Western tradition into a coherent whole. He draws upon an impressive variety of sources. Certainly Holy Scripture and earlier theologians like Augustine, John of Damascus, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Anselm loom large in his work, though he is also incredibly well-versed in the history of philosophy.

It was Thomas who “baptized” Aristotle by appropriating significant chunks of his philosophy, including such concepts as act and potency, hylemorphism, the four causes, essence and existence, transcendentals, and being. Even Aquinas’s proofs for God’s existence, as many Thomists have noted, are drawing upon Aristotelian premises. He also builds his philosophical system upon the shoulders of Plato, Cicero, Boethius, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Ghazali, Maimonides, and John Scotus Eriugena. This enterprise reflects conservatism at its best: studying, honoring, and incorporating the very best of our intellectual forebears, while carefully and humbly critiquing where they went astray.

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Believers

Transcript: The Post-Christian Future, Part 2 — Michael Heiser

By divinecouncil February 19, 2018

This third transcript is Part 2 of the presentation Michael Heiser gave in 2013 to Future Congress 2. It’s entitled “The Post-Christian Future, Part Two, Pop Culture as High Priest of the Post-Christian Religious Worldview.

Part two is ~8500 words and includes 40 slides. All the material (and excerpts, below) is owned and copyrighted by Dr. Heiser and please consider supporting his work in creating, presenting, and posting such presentations on Youtube.

The excerpts, below, are 1/8th of the entire transcript. They are not a summary of the presentation.

Pop Culture as High Priest of the Post-Christian Religious Worldview

MH is Michael S. Heiser

MH: What I’m going to focus on is talking about the post-Christian culture post-Christian condition. And then sort of zero in on how in the post-Christian world what you’re going to see, as far as the morphing of Christianity. And I’m not saying that the morphing is going to be good. In fact, I’m suggesting that the morphing is not a good thing. And it’s really going to morph into something that’s actually very old. And we’ll talk about that at that point. So this is going to be sort of, hey here’s what I think it’s going to look like. And it’s not really just opinion because I’m going to show you what people are saying right now okay, the Futurists scholars and religious studies scholars and pop culture that sort of thing. And we will comment on it as we go.

MH: Techno-utopian values. The usual suspects, here: progress, purposeful evolution, human power over nature, material or technological advancement as the key to success in the future world, all that sort of stuff. Freedom really translates to don’t give me any rules or any dogma so I can be free — happiness and hedonism right in their presentation. The singularity, something we’ll talk about momentarily.

MH: But I want to zero in on this document: “A Cosmist Manifesto,” this one here, and here are the ten points. I’ve abbreviated the annotations for the cosmos manifesto, but here are the ten principles, ten points humans will merge with technology to a rapidly increasing extent. It’s a new phase of the evolution of our species.

MH: You might be thinking cyborgs here, which is one think about it. But if you know anything about nanotechnology that’s an invisible integration. That’s something you never see, but it has the potential. Once you have control over every atom in your body I mean you know every molecule you can change the human species as we know it. And this is going to be and is now, I mean, you can buy whole books on the ethics of nanotechnology. I’ve read a couple of them this year again to get my head into the sequel to the novel. And they’re talking about things like elimination of disease, optimizing the human DNA for its various potentials, and they’re really ultimately talking about immortality because you’re dying cell by cell and every cell is made of molecules and at you know that sort of thing. Well if you can control and release nanobots into the body so to speak that instantly repair cellular loss you have potential immortality other than somebody you know shooting you in the head or something like that I mean you get the idea. You will not age you will not decline as a physical specimen. So this is how it’s going to be cast, but this is the sort of merging they’re talking about, too. It’s not just what we would sort of think of as a cyborg.

MH: So what’s the theological cost? Well, we become divine apart from God’s plan of glorification.

MH: It redefines salvation only in terms of the end, glorification, rather than it dismisses the means which is the cross and the whole reason for it which is sin.

MH: I drew this from my series I did on The Da Vinci Code, someone out there may have seen.

MH: So, what is Gnosticism? The basics. Well, the Gnostics believe that there is something they refer to as the true God or the light or pneuma, which is spirit. And isn’t God a spirit, doesn’t John 4 say that? God is a spirit; he’s pre-existent, God is preexistent, uncaused, and perfect? Sounds pretty biblical, so far.

MH: Gnostics imagined the true God of being both male, the Father, and also female. And the reason they thought this was because everything else that exists is produced by this God.

MH: Now, in terms of cosmology, the highest Aeon is called, in Gnosticism, the Logos. Is that a familiar term? Okay, this is the highest son of the true God, the Logos. The first aeon, the first emanation, the first act of the father, he is the entire likeness and image of the true God. And these are Gnostic statements okay. He’s the form of the formless, the body of the bodyless, the face of the invisible, the word of the unutterable and all these things. And he actually possesses the knowledge of all the eons. He is unquestionably superior. He’s the top dog, the top Eon.

MH: Now, the Logos right here again is the top, and together the law goes with the true God, the father and mother element in the true God, form the Triad. Let ‘s just call it a Trinity and be done with it. It’s not the same as a Trinity. If you know your trinitarianism, this is not same. But they’re using the three language.

MH: Last point: there’s a whole scholarly book. This is University of Chicago Press this, and this is a dense read, it’s a scholarly book called mutants and mystics science fiction superhero comics and the paranormal. And guess who wrote it? Our friend Jeffrey Kripal. He has an entire chapter if you’re into UFOs this will be shocking to you. his entire last chapter is on Whitley Strieber and communion. The whole purpose of the book is to show how comic books, and specifically the alien theme, has been a useful and wonderful and delightful vehicle for transmitting the truths of Gnosticism. I mean, they’re not secretive about this. It’s just, here it is, you know?

MH: I highly recommend that you read this. He argues that much of the recent popular culture of the u.s. Comes from what we used to be called the paranormal. He has a third book called authors of the impossible where he as an academic says academic scholars ought to own up to the fact that paranormal stuff is real. And he’s arguing in favor of paranormal stuff within the account.

MH: He even goes into Madame Blavatsky. None of this is new. The whole alien thing is just rehashed Gnosticism slash occultism slash theosophy slash whatever, fill in the blank, for a technological society. That’s all it is. And this is what’s going to reach the masses.

MH: And what I’m telling you this whole presentation comes down to this: the adaptation is going to be led by people who know what they’re doing and will control the vocabulary and teach others. They will teach others to mine the vocabulary and morph the theology, and it’s only going to take a generation before that becomes the articulation of what Christianity is.