Thursday, August 7, 2008

Extraterrestrial Life: What Does the Bible Say?

I was trying to come up with funny, sarcastic title for this post, but the best thing I could choose was the title of the actual article in Good News, A Magazine of Understanding, that I am going to shit all over.

This article, needless to say, makes a mockery of everything I believe about information, science and religion. In turn, I will make a mockey of everything this article pretends to offer about information, science, and religion.

This "article" is broken into sections, which are themselves broken into broken ideas. The first section is called, "Comparing Science and the Bible." How can you compare science and the bible, you ask? Strap yourself in, because this explanation is about to kill you. The argument goes as follows: The bible contains a type of knowledge that science cannot measure or even comprehend. Take the example of Jesus' divinity.

"Understanding Jesus Christ's identity as the Son of God is not scientific; it is not in the flesh-and-blood realm, proven through a microscope or telescope. This kind of knowledge is beyond science. In His conversation with Peter, Jesus affirmed that only God reveals this kind of knowledge. This revealed knowledge is the missing component in man's desire to understand his place in the universe. Without it, man will forever be left with a string of unanswered questions and endless possibilities."

Basically, God's affirmation of the fact that he is the source of truth is proof that he is the source of truth. If the source of truth said something, wouldn't it be true by virtue of the fact that the source of truth affirmed it?

I don't even need to mention that this line of thinking is dogmatic, because that's self evident. I also don't need to mention that this dogmatic line of thinking is not conducive to the pursuit of knowledge. And of all things, I need to mention least that anyone who makes this case for a self-affirming truth stands at the feet of the most gaping tautology known to the human intellect.

But this article is apparently aware of this counter-argument, although that awareness doesn't translate to much. In order to draw a distinction between cults who falsely claim to be the source of truth and God, who "really" is the source of truth, this jackass says, "All groups have fallible human leaders, while the Bible contains the very words of God Himself. As Timothy 3:16 tells us, "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Its authority is unassailable, whereas speculation of individuals remains just that-speculation." So how does this article distinguish between false prophets and real prophets? The two divide along the lines of...well they don't really divide at all. I swear there was an argument in there somewhere... Oh well. Oh right! The proof that the bible is the true word of God rests once again upon the mere assertion that it is so!

This is what we call a false dichotomy- a distinction drawn arbitrarily between two things because doing so accomplishes an ulterior motive.

The second subsection, entitled, "The Bible Has Answers," is a pitiful attempt to pass off biblical descriptions of non-human entities as information on aliens, or as the article puts it, "extraterrestrial intelligent life." The article refers to these beings; "They have appeared and spoken directly to humans. The Bible records the existence of many millions of angelic beings who are "ministering spirits" to mankind in fulfillment of God's purpose." Believe it or not, this is the most substantial piece of information that the article offers. The biblical equivalent of aliens is angels.

The last, and I use this word VERY lightly, "important" part of the article is titled, "The Bible vs. Evolution." It actually addresses a point which I wrote about in an earlier post, the concept of Theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is the belief that "God made matter and then allowed evolution to shape life." He, and I use this word VERY lightly as well, "progresses" to say, "Theistic evolution is not the simple bridge between the spiritual and the physical worlds many would like. There are simply too many conflicts. The Bible, for example, reveals that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), not by evolutionary happenstance."

As if this whole article was not building up to a denunciation of evolution, this writer claims that one cannot hold a "hybrid" position that accepts that the process of evolution controls live, but that God controls the process of evolution. I happen to agree, but most likely for a different reason. David Treybig, the pinhead who wrote this article, has already established his "argument" that the bible proves God exists, God's existence proves the bible is true, and therefore everything in the bible is true. Consider two things. One- the bible's correctness is proof of God's existence as well as the evidence of its own inerrancy. Two- the bible's claims turned out to be incorrect according to proven, documented, scientific evidence. We can thus conclude that the bible is not a source of truth. Since the entire tautology depends on the truth of each segment for the entire thing to be true, disproving one segment causes the entire argument to collapse. The bible is false, therefore God is not the source of truth, therefore the bible is wrong about God existing, therefore the bible is wrong about God existing, and so on into infinity.

No comments: