Fundamental Questions

The pursuit of Fundamental Questions has engaged Philosophers, Theologians and latterly Scientists since man started to think. Although were you to ask some of my customers there is precious little evidence of thinking to mark most human beings. We do seem to get distracted and carried away with nonsenses.

CERN science reverence to pagan gods.

The first two sorts of chap  (and it has usually been chaps) for most of history have been unpaid or at least not a drain on the taxpayer. The same cannot be said for scientists. They wrench vast amounts of money from the pockets of taxpayers be they wage earners, merchants, manufacturers or tradesmen, all of which show something for their efforts.

Yes its big alright but does it do toast?

But we are assured that they seek the answers to Fundamental Questions, with much the same claim to sincerity and accuracy as feminists to Equality.

But I wonder about their way of questioning and whether they ask the right ones.

I have not ever heard a Physicist or a Cosmologist ask "Whom does the Grail Serve" for instance.

The physics supremos, of whom we count the thousands upon thousands in their lairs, love to break stuff in search of their Grail. They smash matter down to its smallest bits and then smash those bits, searching amid the rubble for the elusive answers to Life, the Universe and, well the Theory of Everything that is left intact. At huge cost.

But maybe they are about to get around to the proper Grail issue, late, like the young Parzival. God is on their agenda. Just.

Which Gummunt says "NO" to a scientist? It is a rarity to have anyone completely deny the action of Dihydrogen Monoxide on Iron, although the less scientific will call it 'rust' rather than Tri-ferric Tetroxide as any decent chemist would. And the study of rust may actually have a practical purpose.

The Theologian has had rather less good fortune or funding and philosphers rarely have any agreement even amongst themselves. Not for either are Billion on Billions of bucks spent nor underground temples built.

Whizz them particles around, chaps, Smash 'em to bits. 
The God particle is bound to be in there somewhere.

God?

A scientist mentioning God?

When they have all the toys in the world to play with and distract their minds? 

The Atheists will be up in arms. Well, most. They argue, vociferously that there is no God, with far more vehemence than any rebel scientist denying the existence of water.

Atheists are counting on the Physicists and the Cosmologists to prove that there is no God. And they are being severely let down. 

It is not a good time to be an Atheist.

Jonathon Van Maren was saying just last night about 'secularists' / atheists and theologians, especially the day-to-day Christian chap such as I, not being able to talk to one another anymore.

Secularists claim to have placed their faith in “reason,” when in reality this is simply another way of saying that they have placed their faith in themselves. They will only believe in what they can understand. 

 https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/atheists-arent-even-trying-any-more...and-why-thats-terrifying

The problem is that the Religion of Reason is a circular feedback loop: Reason cannot in and of itself prove that reason is rational. 

One must have faith that it is. 

The secularist must believe that his brain, supposedly created by chance and programmed over millions of years of natural selection to react instinctively in certain ways, is capable of independent thought. 

A rather ludicrous notion, when you think about it.

He was saying vis a vis wider issues....

Simply put, secularists cannot understand why Christians act the way that they do, because their perception of reality is fundamentally different. For the secularist, there is only the physical. Things are what they are. 

For the Christian, the metaphysical is as real as the physical, and these realms interact on every level.

The theoretical physicist, David Bohm would agree with this, but heck, even his peers dissuaded him from speaking up about it. 

A miracle may strike a Christian with awe, but the Christian possesses a worldview that allows him to understand what a miracle is—the Creator intervening directly in the created order in a visible way. A secularist insists that the miracle could not have happened, pointing out that the natural order does not function that way—in essence, accusing a miracle of being…a miracle.

As I said to one university student in debate: 

“Any god that can fit within the confines of your skull is a god too small for anyone to worship.” 

He was offended by this statement—a true secularist. As Chesterton wrote: “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” 

It’s important for us to realize that secularists and Christians don’t just believe different things, but see everything differently. In the secularist world, there is no Heaven, no Hell, no angels, no devils, no world unseen—or at least, no world that could not be seen.

Adding to that, of course, this means there is no soul, no good, and no evil. 

This is a fact that no secularist truly wants to confront: I remember my psychology professor calling off our seminar a half hour early after I asked her repeatedly to give me one philosophically coherent reason that rape was wrong in a world that slouched into existence by accident. Besides a few feeble appeals to subjective “social contracts” and the like, she could not. 

For there to be any objective moral law, there has to be a Lawgiver.

The chasm between the world as Christians see it and the world as secularists see it is deep, dark, and wide. That is why the presently raging culture wars so often seem as if the two sides are simply yelling into the abyss—because these battles mean very different things to the opposing armies.

Mind you, cracks are appearing in the certainty of the firmament.   Bob Flanagan piped up......

STEPHEN HAWKING ADMITS INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS ‘HIGHLY PROBABLE’

The English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, surprised the scientific community last week (last year now) when he announced during a speech at the University of Cambridge that he believed that “some form of intelligence” was actually behind the creation of the Universe.

Presenting himself before students at the University of Cambridge, the world-famous scientist declared that his years of research on the creation of the cosmos have led him to isolate a strange scientific factor which he says is in many ways contrary to the universal laws of physics.

This strange phenomenon which he names the God factor, would be at the origin of the creation process and would have played a great role in determining the actual form of the Universe.

 http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/stephen-hawkins-admits-intelligent-design-is-highly-probable/

I rather think God will be amused and perhaps a little delighted. It took a while for the Prodigal Son to get tired of wasting his talents, after all. 

Stephen has a long way to go but heck he has cracked tough theoretical nuts before, and changed his mind too.

The world renown scientist admits the near death experience of his brother, who was clinically dead for 43 minutes after a heart attack last october, radically changed his view on the nature of human consciousness and the Universe as a whole.

“My brother has always been a role model for me. His rational, cunning and no non-sense mind has shaped my personality into the person I am today and has led me into the study of the fascinating world of physics. But since his accident last October, he has come back a changed man” he recalled.

“He has told me of the existence of a sentient being, of another world we mortals are unaware of, he has told me of God” he told the crowd, visibly surprised at such affirmations.

“Modern science relies on the perception that consciousness lies within the human brain, but what my brother experienced during his clinical death, I cannot explain. Does consciousness lie outside of the human body? Is the human brain just a receptor, capable of receiving the “consciousness wave” as AM/FM radios receive radio waves? These are questions modern science has not yet answered and could redefine our view of the Universe and modern physics completely” he acknowledged.

The change in the 'level' of the questions bodes well. 

Who knows, he or his following professional colleagues may yet formulate the right questions and receive a surprising answer.

It ain't going to be 42.  

And the right answer will not smash but heal.

I shall pour Stephen a drink next time he drops by. Jonathon and Bob are still happily working on theirs.

Pax.