With Silent Awe: A Short Critique of Creationism and their Detractors

Sometimes I find both sides of this argument of creationism versus evolution tend to abuse logical fallacies to prove their point. I do not buy the logic of "either you believe in God or you don't" because it is a fallacy.

Why should I take sides regarding belief and faith with regard to religion?

Like the existence of God, evolution is a matter of belief, for belief that evolution did occur is based on the archaeological evidence, but is actually based on faith in the scientific method. However, the scientific method fails to prove the existence of God because it requires belief in something outside the realm of science, which excludes use of the scientific method.

A Christian would have to base his faith on a fallible source called the Bible, much of which is exaggerated to the point of miraculous — the feeding of thousands as Jesus makes his Sermon on the Mount. As well, logical fallacies are often used to make a point, but on close examination they do not stand to reason — the Cretan tells lies.

This may be why the prudent Christian when faced with such challenges by non-believers claims Christianity is outside the realm of scientific argument and only has to do with the spiritual realm.

Within that realm, ANYTHING is possible. Within the realm of science, the scientific method requires evidence based on collection of data. Merely having faith in the face of lack of evidence is not proof of anything significant.

If we take the Bible as a collection of mytho-poetic prose designed to appeal to some of humanity's spiritual needs, then it becomes useful to the few people who believe. Yet the detractors who side with Christians would then object to calling the prose "myths".

In the case of the Bible, myth is defined as hidden truths revealed by consulting the compendium. This is why a good Bible cross references each chapter and verse against other chapters and verses.

Yet a rational mind that has faith in the scientific method makes the false conclusion that myths have only one definition as a fairy tale that does not hold any truth at all.

Obviously then, if it deals with the spiritual realm, then for atheists, the Bible is devoid of truth. This too is false.

Truth is not based on evidence; it is based on what the mind knows to be true i.e. if an atheist deems the spiritual realm to be unknowable because he really has no experience in dealing with it then, rather than saying so, he concludes that a Christian's experience with the spiritual realm is subjective and thus tainted. Because of his lack of experience, the atheist assumes that the spiritual realm is unknowable.

What the atheist sometimes does instead of stating this, is to mock the Christian's experiences.

However, a Christian's subjective experience of the spiritual realm is his story and is real to him. For the only way to view it is not with derision but with the same respect you pay to your grandparents when they tell you about a time before you were born, WITH SILENT AWE.

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Originally posted: December 22, 2012 12:19 AM

The Short Meditation on the Metaphysics of Non-Duality

Dualism affects the Western mind so much it rejects the truth that good and evil depend on what man creates.

The epitome of dualism is "Either you are for us or against us" which is a logical fallacy since picking sides has dire consequences.

The non-dual approach says, "Who cares is One is not equal to Zero?" They merely represent the Absolute (1) and the void (0) but are in themselves both a duality and a continuum.

Non-dualism does not reject duality, but renders good and evil a subset of the Absolute.

Thus the ultimate truth is that what man creates may be either good or evil. For duality is an exception of limited value.

For example, objectivity is at the core the brief focus on what subjectivity is not. The mind still is subject to the whims of the body i.e. the emotional content of subjectivity.

Thus objectivity is an artifact of logical thought as opposed to subjectivity's ties to the heart-mind and its emotional content.

What ties objectivity and subjectivity together is the mind's ability to view such abtract concepts in terms of wholes.

Thus objectivity is associated with our observation of the world, while subjectivity is associated with introspection on the inner world of the mind.

Ergo nobody has a clearly objective mind, as objectivity is part of the consensual reality shared by everyone.

Indeed, the objective mind has no body since it exists outside the body and its subjective mind.

Yet this apparent duality fades when one looks for the objective mind. Indeed, the objective mind is related to the concept of single-minded focus (samadhi) of Buddhist philosophy.

Thus non-duality encompasses both duality and itself, just as basic goodness includes both what man creates and whether it is good or evil.