I don’t believe you understand logical positivism from your statement about the Bible. Positivism began in the late 19th century, Ernst Mach was an early father, A.J. Ayers another. It involves two things. First, the only irrefutable facts of nature are expressed by differences in pointer readings on a scale. Second conclusions from these pointer readings are valid only if they have mathematical relationships to each other. Ancillary points they made are: All philosophical statements are meaningless and should be avoided in scientific discourse. No metaphysical statements should be made. They’ve had a real tough time living up to this. Stephen Hawking in his new book, “The Grand Design”, avows himself a positivist. Yet commits philosophy by postulating a modeled reality (Very Plato-like!), and compounds his (positivistic) heresy by making the mother of all metaphysical statements. (God is not necessary…). Seems like to me ignorance is not limited to the Bronze age!
BTW: Recently the Pres. Of the Royal Society has stated Baron Rees of Ludlow,President of the Royal Society,the UK’s most prestigious scientific body,the Master of Trinity College,Cambridge,and the Astronomer Royal,says ‘we shouldn’t attach any weight to what Hawking says about God.’
(URL: http://protectthepope.com/?p=1406)
About what I can know: I can basically know who I can trust because of their relationship to me. Humans are as faulty as I am in this area, so I need to be very careful who I take into a trusting relationship. I think I can trust Jesus Christ because of what His story tells me about Himself. 1. He came to earth to reconcile me to a being that has every reason to be angry with me for my own failures. I believe I need redemption—a word that misses most atheists. Redemption involves something like defense in court.
Here’s a scenario that I’d like to write a play about—something done by a narrator, like in “Our Town.” Regardless of what you think about the Bible and Christianity it’s the story of Christian belief. A narrator sits on a single chair and begins, “I was awakened from my drugged stupor in an alley by the police sirens. In my foggy brain I said, “They must have found the old beggar I killed for his cash for my drugs. I started to run, but a young guy caught me.” So I was in a cell awaiting trial. The other inmates said I had a real hanging judge who particularly tried to protect poor people. A would probably get the death penalty.
Into the cell walks the public defender, he says I should plead guilty and ask for mercy. I defiantly say “No way! I’ll get out of this my own way.” The inmates inform me that this defender guy knows my judge—in fact he’s the judges son! At the trial I do plead guilty. The judge says, “The penalty is death.”
My lawyer speaks saying, ”Judge, your honor, I’d like you to pardon this young man.” The Judge says, “Counselor, I want to see you in chambers.” The lawyer goes behind the dais and is in there for a long time. I’m really scared about what’s going on. Finally, the door opens, my lawyer staggers out, beaten, and bleeding. Walking with a limp he comes over to me, and the bailiff says, “All rise for the verdict.”
I stand by my lawyer, shaking with anxiety. If this judge would let that happen to his son I had no chance at life at all. The Judge says, “Your crime deserves death. However, that has been paid for. You are free.” I’m so startled I can’t believe it. The bailiff comes over and uncuffs me. I’m so happy to have those cuffs off! I hear the judge say, “Court adjourned!” He gets up to leave, when my battered attorney says, One more thing, Father.” The judge says softly, “What is it son?” The attorney says, “I want to adopt him.” The judge says, “Yes, my son. He’s yours.”
Take it or leave it. This is the Christian story! We have a defense attorney who never loses a judgment case. I can trust him with myself. I don’t know this as a fact of science or in a logical positivist way, but as something I’ve experienced all my life. I can’t prove my love for my wife that way either. Bunches of flowers don’t work either. I’ve got to dwell with her in trust to show it.
As for modeled reality and science, Science has two kinds of philosophies, modeled reality that Hawking used to escape the fact that positivism was deserting him in his book. The kind of positivism he employs is one that he, himself describes as “top down” thing. If we can construct a theory from instances we already know, particularly by mathematical means the theory ought to be true.
By contrast, bottom up thinkers, exampled by Polkinghorne has the aphorisms 1. What actually occurs trumps all theory and planning. 2. What evidence can you show that it might be true? I’m a bottom up thinker because it fits most well with my experimentalist background. To me, this idea is the foundation of science, as history of science shows. Theories depend on the viewpoints you bring to the phenomenon. An aphorism that I occasionally get after successful execution of G03W—a quantum program—is “Kinetics=fact Mechanism= fiction”. The OT writer had experience as the grist for their writings. Included in their experiences were gods who demanded sacrifice of their first born boy babies. One odorous practice in the early Canaanite society was to ceremonially roll their sons down a chute into a blazing furnace in the valley of Hinnom. Certainly this was child abuse. What would you give as a penalty for such people?
The early Bible years were awfully tough on women and children. The stated biblical reason for God’s judgement was that man (as a species) had become evil. Case closed, they were evil.
As for Tipler: Why have you not read all of Tiplers work? I watched the process of his conversion carefully. Upon publication of his “Physics of Immortality” I saw an interview (I think I remember it was on CBS.) in which the interview asked Dr. Tipler, “So have you become a Christian?” Tipler visibly bristled at this and replied, “No I haven’t.” The interviewer asked, “Why not?” Tipler’s brusque reply was, “Because the resurrection of Christ has not yet been properly attested to.” This is also stated in his first book, somewhere around p 330 I think. His second book indicates that he has become a Christian and it attests to the resurrection of Christ. Sounds to me as though he acquired additional evidence. How’d that happen?
Just to make it clear to you I don’t believe, nor do I accept everything in his book as attestation. The story to this point reminds me of Ludwig Boltzmann and his development of statistical mechanics. Recall that in his era the very existence of atoms was very controversial, so much so that it could cost someone his academic job to promote belief in them. The actual “sanctification” of atomic theory was accomplished by an obscure little guy in the Swiss post office named Albert. The omega theory may be just like that.
On certain occasions science eats its young. Tipler makes it clear in the last part of his second book, if you bothered to read that far, that he is presenting conjecture, but the conjecture is of a particularly valuable sort. In fact he has Karl Popper’s ideas about verification (testability) and falsification of theories well in hand in his books. What he presents in both books is the ability for verification and/or falsification of theories of the universe and theology about God and Jesus Christ. What many do not take into account among his critics is that Popper clearly states that verifications of a theory must rest on the outcomes of a risky experiment. A risky experiment is one that puts the entire theory at risk, depending on a + or – outcome. He presents entirely risky experiments, in many of his presentations, which could be verifiable by performing what he describes, including finding the body of Christ, or finding the particle tracks in the rocks around the tomb. This latter risky experiment has an additional risk to it in that finding those kinds of tracks in rocks known to be from the tomb area would verify the mechanism Tipler postulates for how Christ got out of the tomb
You seem to have a great deal of ignorance about Tipler, probably because you’ve not bothered to look up anything about him. The Omega point is not due to him, but to Beckenstein, who is widely lauded in Susskin’s book on black hole science. Both men were students of Wheeler (the original black hole guy). I might remark that these originators of the grist of the theories are not vilified, but Tipler is. His critics seem to be quite savage, even brutal in mockery. They all seem to miss one essential thing in criticizing his work. I’ve found it, but I wonder if you’re sufficiently open minded to see what is missing in all their critique. I’ll give you clues: 1. Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, “ Silver Blaze”. 2: It’s something about what Tipler is. 3. It has nothing to do with what he has written. Find what it is and I’ll discuss it with you. I do believe heavily in “discovery learning”.
About me: I became Christian on June 6, 1942 at age five in a blue berry patch on my Granpa Dagley’s farm near Beaverton Mich. We were there because of WW2. I remember the Pearl Harbor announcement on Dec. 7, and shortly thereafter one drive the 127 miles to the coast and watch Nazi U-boats sink our tankers. We only had “flimsy aircraft carriers” in the Pacific, and the mind set was that with our battle fleet sunk in the mud at Pearl the entire west coast was open. We came to the farm so my dad could look for work in Flint. Willow Run was close. Everybody over five feet tall was very frightened, this made an impression on me. I was a rather “bad boy child” full of curiosity and much inclined to mischief. I gave my parents many bad turns and was appropriately corrected. Nobody was confident the war would turn out right for us, and on that day my mom talked to me about Jesus. I knew right away I had issues with my own badness so I accepted the offer of Jesus to forgive my sins. I was a different boy, but not very perfect after that.
I became a scientist after our move to Wheaton, Ill. In late 1945, where I first studied stars, reading most of the astronomy books at Wheaton College library. I gave up on astronomy when my homemade reflecting telescope would not work. I’d tried using Dad’s Old Fashioned root beer bottle bottoms to grind my reflecting mirror. A consolation prize was trip to the organic chemistry prof at age 10 when he showed me what should have happened in a Tollens test in a very clean test tube. I saw myself in the silver plating out on its side walls. I’ve been captured ever since.
My ability to connect my budding science with my faith began sometime earlier than the experience above. It was quite experimental. First, was Midway. Before Midway we’d all prayed for some kind of victory that would show the country might win. We did not know of the victory at Midway for some time after it, though we knew right away about Doolittle’s raid. It seemed to me that the news was a direct answer to everybody’s prayers. (There are no atheists in foxholes made a big impression on me too. My second grade teacher’s husband was a Marine shot in the head at Tenaru ridge on Guadalcanal. He could show us his scars. This made a big impression.) It seemed like every time we seriously prayed for something it happened, particularly when people’s lives were involved. My observation at that time was that God was a very experimental God who wanted to know what was important to us.
In college at Wheaton I was the poor guy who had to work. Fortunately there were always jobs for me. Often I had to pray for one, but they always seemed to turn up. I sort of got the idea that God did love me, and had something good for me. I prayed frivolous prayers too. One humorous one was in quantitive analysis where I prayed for help to get my titration endpoints right. That did not happen, and I got low grades for that set of experiments that in quant because I systematically over stepped. It got no better in Phys. Chem. because I was always screwing up the kinetics experiments in my project due to over stepped end points. It turned out, when I took my physical for my first summer job as a graduate to work at Campbell Soup company as a quality control temp to titrate tomato puree, that I was partially color blind to the shades of red of the indicator end point, thus it looked hopeless. They hired me anyway because an issue came up about the entire quality control system. I was given the task of making a method to check it. My answer was to do the determinations with an electrical titration. My work that summer showed them that their titration method was no darn good due to the protein content which made the end points anywhere it liked. My conclusion personally was that the failure in quant prepared me to look at what I actually was good at, that was inventing pathways to get at data.
In grad school this trait stood me well. I was introduced to quantum theory in a remedial p-Chem class because I failed the diagnosis test for P-Chem. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I was enchanted with barrier tunneling of particles. Roughly, their ability to extend their wave functions beyond a non-infinite energy barrier. The prof. showed us what that meant in a dynamic way. He pointed out that the walls of the classroom were merely energy barriers, and that there was a probability that you could walk right through one. He’d walk over to a wall, and bump his torso into it and say, “Well, not this time, but I’ll be able to walk right through it one try sometime in the future when my wave function will penetrate that far.” This was quite dynamic to me because I saw how really extra ordinary common things really are. Then I became acquainted with the two slit experiment, where a quantum particle could be in two places at one time. At that time the Aspect experiment had not yet occurred, but the EPR thought experiment was well known.
I was convinced by these physical indications, that there was something extraordinary going on in the universe. It still makes sense to me that it might be a Who that is doing extraordinary things in the universe, so we ought to expect extraordinary things when we see those things. I’m not the only scientist who thinks this way at all. Take a look at John Polkinghorne’s writing. I wonder why very few people go after him, as they have with Tipler?
I’ve continued reading thee literature assiduously on these subjects, and have realized that many science people have a systematic bias about any of this material being connected with a Creator God. BTW, have you investigated what Einstein said about Bohr and his (Now standard doctrine) about quantum theory? “Subtle Is the Lord God….” By Pais the authorized biographer may give you a clue. It isn’t the famous “God does not play dice with the universe.”
In conclusion, I’ve never seen any reason to break away from a pre-scientific indoctrination. My personal faith has always served me stoutly in hard times. God allowed me to meet my wife, then an RN student. Forty five years later it was greatly confirmed to me ( I actually knew this long ago.) that she was exactly the one I needed. I’ve suffered a very serious heart attack, wherein I needed a valve replacement, and a blood clot, that everyone missed, dug out of my atrium. The combination gave me what is called a fatal tachycardia. I coded twice on the surgeon’s table. It seems to me that God still has given me time to do things. I’ve recently had a research paper published in Can. J. Chem. That will change minds about the alpha-effect.
It’s like Polycarp aid before his martyrdom “Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” I’ve got 11 more years to go, but my feelings are the same.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that we cannot possibly know anything with complete certainty. I don't think I make this claim anywhere in my article. In fact, I'm not making any claims at all. It's the Bible that claims to have absolute knowledge of the world! It's you who claims to have privileged information about the universe by believing in Christianity.

All I'm trying to do is expose the claims made by the Bible (a book brimming with absolutist commandments and logically positive statements) for the Bronze-age ignorance that they are.

I don't dispute that your experience in science is vast, and you're probably one of the many Christians who doesn't interpret the Bible literally. But the mere fact that you are a Christian implies that you have a kind of "certainty" that Christianity is true. How do you reconcile your certainty about Christianity with your philosophical conviction that nothing is truly knowable?

As for "modeled reality," science provides a model of reality based on observations of the world. The Bible, on the other hand, provides a model of reality based on the bizarre ramblings of ancient middle-Eastern barbarians (whose model of reality was based on fear, greed, and war).

I have read some of Tipler's work, and can see why it's widely regarded as pseudoscience. Even if we suppose that the "omega point" theory has some validity, why would it imply that Christianity is the one true religion (and not any of the thousands of other religions that have come and gone)?

To me, it seems like Tipler (and perhaps you) are one of those people who have a great passion for science, but simply don't have the desire or willpower to break free of their pre-scientific indoctrination. So they begin weaving these intricate Rube Goldberg contraptions of logic that sound profound, and might even use the language of science, but are really just as vacuous as the religions they're based on.

I would love to know what precisely turned you towards Christianity on the date you mentioned. (the Battle of Midway?)

I look at this statement and consider its claim . When , Who , The Action , What resulted .
This is the process of reason which can be used to ensure the validity of a statement that appears to be missed by most .
The beginning of time would be close to the singularity of the big bang as time is relative until this moment when the laws of physics become bent and warped to keep it simple , using maths we can calculate this . God is the Who in this statement ,in this context it is an entity which later in the text is directly compared with the image of man although divine . The action was to create the result which was the heaven and earth , which in the case of the earth came into existence many millennia after the big bang , which in its self would suggest the whole statement is inaccurate , the existence of a man like being also impossible as the evolutionary development of such a being before even the earth's existence would be impossible , in fact it was the power of gravity which triggered the big bang , a non conscious energy constant not a bearded old man who is real interested in who I may or may not be sleeping with . This makes the whole statement not a metaphor as some may suggest but a complete unsupportable non truth , its false , a lie , not real , catch my drift .

Isn't it funny that religious people can always spot the nonsense in other religions but when it comes to their own it is not nonsense but truth. Other holy books are tripe but their holy book is the word of a God. Christians are atheists to all the other gods for the same reasons that atheists are. Atheists just go one God further and when they find no evidence for the Christian God and see the same fantastical stories in religions that predated Christianity and how the Christians stole those stories and many pagan celebrations and beliefs and subsequently incorporated them into their Christian dogma they find it easy to spot the lie.

I am very concerned about people indoctrinated into any belief system before they have acquired critical thinking tools. All religions do this. Why? Because they know that if religion waits until a person is in their twenties when they have acquired some measure of critical thinking and don't believe everything adults tell them, like a helpless two year old does, many if not most would never believe the fantastical stories that the poor helpless child's mind is stamped with. As you can see from the posts on this site, the Christian meme complex is hard at work protecting itself from those who would expose it for the fraud it is. It is very hard to dislodge the Christian meme complex once it has dug into a person's mind. This is not due to the truth of it's propositions but because by the time a person actually gets old enough to have developed some level of skepticism (Which a child does not have)they have already been indoctrinated and part of that indoctrination was to be skeptical of all those who would say, your dogma is not true. Also, by now, doubt is a sin which can literally cause you to be damned and since the Christian deity can literally know your every thought all doubt must be quashed immediately or risk hell fire and damnation. It's a perfect scam loaded with guilt for thinking, fear of thinking, and fear of ostracism by friends and family if one would even suggest to them that the whole thing is a sham. All religions do this but few have been as successful at mind control as Islam and Christianity. Once you get in (and you had no choice)it is nearly impossible to have the courage to get out, so people perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to authenticate their holy books nonsense by arguing in circles about its interpretation and the ancient bronze age thinking found within its dusty pages. The earth is not flat! That should be enough to tip off any one with any measure of critical thinking beyond that of a five year old, if religion had not gotten to them first.