Photo Credit: NASA, B.D. Moore and J.J. Hester
(Arizona State University)
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WORD PAGE NW TRANSLATION PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION(S) Auschwitz 7 ahsh'vits Buddha 7 boo'duh, bood'uh Freud 8 froid, froit Gauguin 5 goh-gan' Gautama 7 go'tuh-muh, gou'- Hume 8 hyoom, yoom Einstein 6 ien'stien Nietzsche 8 nee'chuh, nee'chee Polynesia 5 poluh-ne'zhuh, 'shuh Tetsuo 8 teh'tsu-oh Yamaori 8 yah'mah-oree ( Pronunciation KEY )
Warning:
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Photo Credit: mystudios.com
From the Cleveland Museum of Art link here, we can take note that Paul
Gauguin stirred controversy within his own home as well as in public.:
http://www.clemusart.com/educatn/trc-news/slidepac/14.html
Gauguin was 43 when he created the painting "Where Do We Come From? What Are
We? Where Are We Going?". So it was likely during a time of reflection now often
called "the midlife crisis". Of course, he only lived to be 55, so perhaps he
sensed within himself that his years were already short. This link contains an
explanation of the painting by Gauguin:
http://www.mfa.org/handbook/portrait.asp?id=272&s=6
Here is a painting named "L'Appel" ("The Call") he made the year before he
died. The interprentation of what it meant also created controversy:
http://www.clemusart.com/educatn/trc-news/slidepac/15.html
End of Gauguin links. It should be relatively safe to reset your browser image settings.
Dr. James A. Trainham, Director of Engineering Research and Development at DuPont, stated in a Commencement Address on May 21, 1995 at the University of California - Berkeley that "the total sum of all human knowledge is doubling every ten years and the rate is increasing." Human society as a whole is busier than ever, preoccupied with just about every conceivable subject there is.
Although Albert Einstein is most noted for devising the special and
general theories of relativity in 1905 and
1916 (he 'asked for' Isaac Newton's forgiveness, for replacing the theory of an
absolute universe with that of relativity, and that gravity and acceleration are
one and the same phenomenon), he received the Nobel prize for his work on the
quantum theory of light packeting (photons), that our universe if made up of
tiny chunks of energy (quantum theory, which seems counter to relativity which
promotes light as a wave particle rather than a packet, but Albert seemed to
have this resolved mentally). When he and particle physics associate Leo Szilard noted that ice boxes in private homes were
being replaced by dangerously designed refridgerators, they came up with a safer
design out of concern for public health. Einstein was comfortable around
children, in fact seemed to enjoy their company. It is reported he has ogled a
beautiful lady on occasion, also promoted political pacifism, answered the
question "Why is the sky blue?" in a paper entitled such, and died alone with
only his nurse around, who could not understand his last words because she did
not understand German.
Here is a link to a page where you can listen to
Albert Einstein explain the famous E = mc2 formula.
"Today, some 3,500 years after Moses recorded Job's statement, man has walked on the moon, invented cars and computers, and investigated the atom and the cell. Yet, despite all such technological advances, we are still 'short-lived and glutted with agitation.' It is true that in developed countries the life expectancy has increased dramatically over the last century. But this is mainly the result of improved health care, more efficient hygienic measures, and better nutrition. For example, from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the 1990's, the average life span in Sweden rose from 40 to 75 years for men and from 44 to 80 years for women. But does this mean that man's urge to live longer has been satisfied?""No, because even though in some countries more people live to see old age, the words Moses wrote years ago still apply: 'In themselves the days of our years are seventy years; and if because of special mightiness they are eighty years . . . , for it must quickly pass by, and away we fly.' (Psalm 90:10)
-- WT 1999, Oct. 15, pg. 3 "Our Quest for a Longer Life"
The quote in this ¶ is by a Neurologist/Psychiatrist/Author/Professor (U. of Vienna) Viktor Frankl M.D., Ph.D., (1905-1997) from his most famous book, "Man's Search for Meaning". He survived Auschwitz and three other Nazi concentration camps from 1942 to 1945, while his parents and other members of his family died in the death camps. He transformed his suffering in Nazi concentration camps into insights for a lifetime study of man's quest for meaning. Some say that he was a "great humanist, scientist, and world citizen," who's work had been underestimated.
Proverbs 16:4 brings out that, "Everything Jehovah has made for his
purpose
",
which includes mankind. So being denied the knowledge of what that sense of
purpose is can be a large contributor to personal lack of motivation, and even a
desire to no longer remain alive. (Job 7:15) I find it interesting that the
Hebrew word ma`aneh (root word: `anah: answer, hear, testify, cry,
witness, etc...) used in Proverbs 16:4 can also mean "answer". (Note Proverbs
16:1, Micah 3:7). So it's almost as if "Everything Jehovah has made for his
answer
", which in light of scriptures such as 1Kings 18:37; Job chapters. 38
&
41; is a rather lofty and honorable position for anyone (Psalm 3:4) who actually
finds themselves having an answer from God, or even better, being a part of His
answer. (Contrast with Psalm 18:41; Micah 3:4) There can be no higher sense of
purpose than that which is brought out by Proverbs 16:4. Proverbs 27:11,
although extremely important to answer, is merely ancilliary to the original
reason for which all things were made to purpose, or answer. (Ecclesiastes
12:13)
Siddh'artha Gautama lived 500 years before Jesus was a human on earth. (As a side note, for this reason and the greater mound of evidence [Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny, Bible, etc...] on the side of Jesus, I find it interesting that many Bible skeptics readily accept that Buddha ["Enlightened One"] had existed, yet deny that Jesus did.) As part of his quest for meaning to life, he left his family behind and went to live in the desert where he lived off of scant amounts of food while assuming painful positions. The enlightment he sought yet escaped him. In fact, Buddhism is a search for enlightenment, so Gautama's efforts continue through his followers. But I have to ask this, "what if the enlightnment is finally found?" Does the search continue? or end?
Religions in general, including Christendom as a whole, offer a sense of warm-fuzzy acceptance, unlike the cold dictates of Scientific method. Extreme religionists (and sociologists for that matter) go so far as to promote science as a hoax or simply another form of belief system as opposed to being objective observation and collection of facts (despite the evidence of technological progress), or as something inherently contrary to nature and Godliness. This is one reason why a chasm exists between religion and science, even though both seek the same thing: our purpose. An example of the ongoing conflict is =» here. «=
No where is the gap between religion and science wider than on the subject "destiny of human life", with "how we arrived" a very close following. Often though, the latter is much more publicized because there is more available evidence from the past (ie: stratification of dirt, fossils, etc...) for scrutiny, and resultant arguments over intrepetation, whereas the other offers less of what can be "scientifically" inspected.
Atheists and some agnostics consider religion to be a "virus of the mind". Religionists on their death beds wonder if they've pleased God enough for him to remember them. I wonder what atheists think at such a time; "I wish I'd at least have invented god," perhaps? Some have attemped this, via theories of intelligent visitors from space having seeded the planet with our eventual design in mind, and other such foolishness. (Note the last ¶ of Appendix B, þ 48) At any rate, the creed of any "non-intelligent creation" follower, if any, would be an mis-application of Clifford's axiom: "It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence."
| Clear critical thinking: | Overextension of Clifford's axiom: | |
|---|---|---|
| "Wow, this software program is amazing, I want to find out who wrote it." | "Wow, this genetic code is amazing, I wonder how it just happened to get written by chance?" |
Science is not a capable source for moral judgement. Anyone who has ever tried to draw moral lessons strictly from the fatalistic interpretation the laws of nature have proven to be on troublesome ground. Evolution in particular seems to suffer from this, which has been used to justify Nazism, Communism, and many other evils, not to exclude bigotry.
One thing that bears out, is that Albert Einstein was right when he said,
"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
"
Religion, rather than providing a sense of lofty purpose to it's members,
instead ends up
gives them the taste for distrust and overrighteous indignation, whereas science
offers self-serving egotism.
Charles Darwin was somewhat of an embarrasment to his family, never quite finding success in the area of education nor usefulness to society, waiting mostly for his inheritance to arrive while, well, having fun. In fact, he was sent on the two year voyage of the "Beagle" after his third failure at schooling, and was told that "anything you please may be done." At best he was only to bring home materials for the better educated anthropolgists and biologists. Even this task he was not well suited for, since his attention to written detail and drawing skills were lacking. However, as with any useless youth full of self-import (although not so young anymore, he still acted in such a manner), and with some important outside assistance, Darwin began publishing his theories in 1844, leading eventually to, and past, the infamous book entitled "Origin of Species". This book triggered a renewed promotion of the idea that the universe is impersonal and godless in activity. Was this the greatest prank on clear and critical thinking ever pulled by a human? Perhaps so.
"It is the very hardest book to read, to full profit,
that
I ever tried.
" --Sir J. Hooker (English botanist, 1785-1865), discussing
the
book "Origin of Species"
Sigmund Freud was born four years before the U.S. civil war, and left the home of his birth an avowed atheist despite Jewish upbringing. He suffered from psychoneurosis (possibly due to his cocaine use?) and twice destroyed all of his own personal documents, something a cautious scientists should never do, and as he would have learned during his work in Ernst Brücke's research laboratory. Many have heard of his main collaberators, fellow Austrian Alfred Adler, and the Swiss psychiartrist Carl Jung, who eventually developed independant theories on psychology. Many of his theories have proven false, but that "god is an illusion" seems to stay popular despite the crumbling track record of his other theories. To his credit however, Freud changed the way patients were treated, brought about a new field of study that has helped many, and forced doctors to have to contend with the 'human formula' in their practice (or have a better 'bedside manner').
Friedrich Nietzsche is the madman who, in his book The
Gay Science, first cried out, "Whither is God? I will tell you. We
have
killed him - you and I.
" This lead to the opportunist philosophies that
"if
God is dead, then everything is permitted" (or "if God is dead, then nothing is
forbidden") leaving a void ripe for nihilism. Doctrines devised by
"enlightenment thinkers" in attempts to undermine any valid knowledge of the
existance of God flourish under this reasoning.
This seems to be the right place for the requisite:
"God is dead." --Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead." --God
§
What were the results of the so-called Enlightenment, or Age of Reason? One terrible fruit of rational thinking is discussed in The Watchtower article, "The Roots of Atheism" (w94 12/1 4-5). [I find this paragraph particularly interesting]:
How ironic that Christendom spurred on the growth of atheism! "The Churches were the soil of atheism," writes theology professor Michael J. Buckley. "The Western conscience found itself deeply scandalized and disgusted by confessional religions. The Churches and the sects had devastated Europe, engineered massacres, demanded religious resistance or revolution, attempted to excommunicate or to depose monarchs."
§
Even beyond this, Christendom has sold out their faith by changing their expression of faith in a Creator-God based upon Biblical terms, to a faith in God that is expressed in terms of evolutionary theory. In short, their claim sends the message that God renounces his control over creation, which makes the creation a partner, no more than that, the significant player in the 'on-going' creative process. However, such 'sell-out' thinking is not limited only to Christendom:
Shinto is the worship of ancestors. So it's not a far stretch for one who professes such a faith that "gods are nothing but humans", although what Tetsuo Yamaori is not exactly in line with popular Shintoist doctrine, as the book "Mankinds Search for God" explains:
"As Shinto rituals concentrated around shrines, each clan enshrined its own guardian deity. However, when the imperial family unified the nation in the seventh century C.E., they elevated their sun-goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, to be the national deity and central figure of the Shinto gods. (See box, page 191.) In time the myth was propounded that the emperor was a direct descendant of the sun-goddess. To fortify that belief, two major Shinto writings, Kojiki and Nihon shoki, were compiled in the eighth century C.E. Using myths that exalted the imperial family as the descendants of gods, these books helped to establish the supremacy of the emperors."
-- þ 192 ¶ 8
§
Questioning orthodox religion could just as easily have led to a person's searching out what the true religion was instead of turning [one] to atheism, and in fact it did, with C.T. Russell and others, but they were in the minority as compared to those who adopted atheistic beliefs. The result grew to damaging proportions and can be held to blame for many of the ills that plagued mankind duing the 20th century. First to come to mind is Communism and related governments, and belief in evolution, which promotes the idea of a person's having no accountability to a higher power and adopting a me-first, top-dog-wins attitude.
Some people say they believe only in what they can see. Years ago I heard an
experience about how an elderly sister with very little education handled a
highly educated person (I seem to remember he was a professor in a college or
something) who disparaged her belief in God by saying he believed only in things
he could see, and since he'd never seen God, then God didn't exist. I don't
remember exactly how she said it, but somewhere in their discussion she said
something to the effect that he didn't have a brain. He ruffled up and said that
of course he had a brain. She asked him if he had ever seen his own brain? He
had to admit he hadn't. She reminded him he had already said he didn't believe
in anything he couldn't see, 'so that means you don't have a brain, doesn't it?'
[Note: this thought illustration has now found it's way into
many a variety of stories, from students during a Professor's discourse, to a
little children outwitting professed atheists. But this should do little to
understand the basis of the foolishness of blind adherance to a fool's
principles.]
The following related thought is from the Awake! article, "Do You Doubt God's Existence? Do You Know Why?" (g85 7/8 9-11):
Actually, things caused by forces unseen to the human eye are happening around us all the time. While you are thinking about what you are now reading, complex thought processes are going on in the more than 10,000,000,000 nerve cells of your brain. Advanced technology can measure brain waves, even represent them to the human eye by projections made on a screen or a strip of paper. But WHAT you are thinking cannot be made visible. Every word you speak, every conscious movement you make, is the result of a process invisible to the human eye. On the basis of this observation, what would be the logical consequences of sticking to the principle: "I believe only what I can see"?
A few other "facts" that have changed are:
Science can never really prove anything, but merely our learning is a summation of past observation and experiences. However, by applying the principle of Occam's (Ockham's) razor (or principle of parsimony/simplicity) we can deem that past observations will reflect future actions and reactions. It never really proves all possible occurances, merely the likely outcome. From this, unwitnessed historical occurances can also be validated, but not verified. This is a principle missed by most thinkers, including many scientists themselves, but it is important because an outside event might impact the results.
For instance a golfer might be quite skilled at putting the ball within two feet of the hole on a regular basis. (We all wish). On his next swing the expectation is the same, however a bird interrupting the flight path of the ball at the wrong moment could disrupt the expected result. So it is, with events from the immeasurable past, outside influences are possible. Which throws measurements wildly off in some cases. A mathmetician would have to formulate an algorithm that would take into account the expected fight path of the golf ball, the random chance of a bird, wind resistance, etc... in order to fully capture the understanding and potential of the event. So far no mathemetician has been that good yet, although some very close approximations based upon repeatable experimentation have been developed (and are in regular use for video games as well as research and study).
Conclusion /nm./:
(human) the extent of available knowledge.
(God) a completion. (Genesis 2:1)
David Hume was an 18th Century Scottish Philosopher who proposed in a set of
eight rules which included that "any thing may produce any thing. Creation,
Annihilation, Motion, Reason, Volition; all these may arise from one another, or
from any other Object we can imagine.
" (Hume's 'Natural History of
Religion,')
I'll keep that in mind the next time I need to deposit money in the bank...
Here is a [sort of] biography about him by a contemporary
and personal aquaintance of Hume. I find the last line interesting even though
he admired Hume, which states, "The present is an age of irreligion; the next
will, probably, be an age of bigotry.
" The man never fully knew just how
right
he was, with deadly violent prejudisms, two world wars and a host of other
badnesses. David Hume once stated in dialogue that one could find "no ingenious
manufactures amongst [Negroes], no arts, no sciences" (Awake! 1983, Aug. 22,
þ 6), such was the level of his tunnel
vision thinking and bigotry.
Here is a link where the citizens of Littleton, Colorado wonder why warning signs by school shooters were missed, especially after similar situations at Springfield, Oregon; Jonesboro, Arkansa; West Paducah Kentucky; and Pearl, Mississippi had already occured.
And here is another link where officials at a poultry firm ignored warnings which lead to water pollution.
It's no surprise that people so often lend themselves to ignore obvious warnings. According to common experience, failure to have a sufficient level of personal and relational understanding with a situation, object, or person will bring about a motiviation of rejection, or a benign response at best. Thus having a truly personal relationship with Jehovah, going beyond the intellectual capacity to understand that He exists and what He offers is for our own benefit, is the only hope for being a part of the future. Jehovah should be our friend.
"Is having a personal relationship with God the really important thing?""It certainly is important. Merely attending religious services in a formalistic way cannot take the place of it. But we need to be careful. Why? In the first century, there were people who thought they had a good relationship with God but whom Jesus showed to be badly mistaken. (John 8:41-44) The apostle Paul wrote about some who evidently were zealous about their faith and obviously thought they had a good relationship with God but who did not understand what was really required in order to have God's approval. -Romans 10:2-4.
"Could we have a good personal relationship with God if we treated as of little importance his commandments? One of these is that we regularly assemble with fellow believers. -Hebrews 10:24, 25.
-- Reasoning From the Scriptures, þþ. 327-8, "Religion"
If a person were being truly honest with themself, they would have to at least look into this briefly as a potential theory to investigate. It is common practice for peer scientists to scrutinize findings and discoveries in order to verify them. The ones to whom we offer the wonder future promised by God find themselves in a similar situation. They must choose to accept or reject the words of the Bible upon either empirical discovery, or uninvestigated opinion. Which is more sensible?
One of the seemingly simplest tasks of a logician would be to prove that there is no God. However, such an effort is humanly impossible, as a negative can never be proven until each and every single possibility has been grasped and disproven. Better to start in the direction of proving God is real, as in this proof an infinite number of proofs would not be required, but that a finite amount would suffice. Such amount that would be convincing, however, is dependant on what is sufficient for each individual, as even the disciple Thomas required a little more evidence than did John. (John 20:28; compare John 20:8)
The risks of a dynamic evaluation are nothing, the gains are everything. (1John 2:25)
Here is an interesting article that I think is a wonderful overview of what we are going to cover in the book study consideration of the book "Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?"
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