The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science - an audio lecture by Peter Harrison; from the Faraday Institute (7/2007)

Peter Harrison has 4 or 5 lectures available (free) at the Faraday site. This is the one I enjoyed most.

Quotes and comments;

1. 'The Rationalists doubt the senses can give us truth, and the Empiricists doubt 'reason' can give us truth.'

2. 'Bacon talked of the mind as a cracked mirror; ie. it receives the impressions but gives a false 'picture.'

3. 'Bacon believed that science could make up for the negative effects of the Fall.'

4. In the Q+A a person says 'the scholars of that time (17th century?) wanted to prove things from scratch' (i.e. by reason.) But this ignores many things; namely the various forms of revelation. Men can't escape the fact they live in a 'revealed' universe; that they have language handed to them from god; that they are made in god's image; and that they live in god's universe. There is therefore no way they can start from scratch.

Truth Telling in Science - an audio lecture by Denis Alexander

Quotes and comments;
- you'll have to scroll down the page to find the lecture.
- in this lecture you'll hear (inadvertently) why christianity in England has virtually died. In it you'll hear a professed christian celebrate Darwinism. (The english are obsessed with Darwin; and seem to think evolution has to be true because Darwin was English :-) Although I'm sure he doesn't intend to do so, he makes it obvious why almost no one in Britain is a bible believing christian.

1. - you may not be able to believe this but Alexander says; "Darwin's idea brought a coherence to facts that beforehand had been incoherent.'' How can a christian utter such a bizarre statement? (Has he never heard of creation? of Linnaeus? ect. ) Apparently he doesn't see the biblical doctrine of creation as a unifying idea. (In fact it's darwinism that's introduced incoherence into the Humanities; with it's insistence man be treated as an animal.)
He then goes on to quote with approval the idea darwinism is the greatest unifying idea in history. Maybe he'll forgive me if I disagree. The biblical idea of creation was and is the greatest unifying idea there is. Nothing else comes even remotely close. Materialist evolution cannot in any way account (even if it were true) for human experience. In fact it makes a mockery of human experience. It cannot account for free will, truth, love, justice, morality, ethics, rationality, etc.
When one hears presentations like this one has no difficulty in understanding why christianity has collapsed in britain. The so called apologists for christianity are mainly 'Liberal' if not apostate. They fail to understand the implications of the doctrine of creation. They don't seem to understand that Darwinism is the death of biblical chrisianity. The masses who have deserted the churches understand; even if professors like Alexander do not.


2. Perhaps I'm being too hard on him; you'll have to decide for yourself. In the end I guess it all comes down to whether you think evolutionary theory is true, or whether you think it's a colossal hoax.

The Fallacy of Scientism as a Worldview; an audio lecture by Mikhael Stenmark, from the Faraday Institute

Quotes and comments;

- Stenmark defines scientism as; 'the belief all things can be explained (accounted for) in terms of (natural) science.' (ie. in terms of materialism.)
- if I understand him correctly he's saying; science becomes scientism when it attempts to be a complete worldview.
- we see evidence of scientism is the attempt by A. Comte to create a religion of science. (This was merely an overt example of what is today done covertly.)
- scientism claims that all ideas outside science are only opinions...
- scientism often claims science should replace religion... (We need to point out that this belief cannot be proved by natural science; so it's an irrational claim.)
- materialist science can't tell us what the limits of science should be. Scientific expansionism (the idea science can account for all things) therefore can in no way be founded on the materialist methodology of science. If Materialism were true to itself it could not be expansionist.
- a good Q+A.