Well, I’m off to become one with my inner 80′s hair band self.  That’s right, Queensryche is playing in Denver tonight, and they’re doing Operation Mindcrime: I & II.  I haven’t gotten into II as much as the first one, but it’ll still be good.  My bro-in-law and I are gonna head up and make fun of all the middle-aged stoners again :-)

Atheists like to argue that Christians need to begin their apologetics from a neutral starting point.  That is, they must choose a position that starts with an agnostic approach toward Christianity.  After that, evidence can then be brought forth.

There are several problems with this argument (one glaring one is the fact that there is no such thing as a netural starting point).  The point that I am going to focus on for this particular post, however, is the fact that Scripturally, knowledge must presuppose revelation first.  This can be demonstrated best by way of analogy.

Suppose that you create a bunch of semi-autonomous robots.  These robots are designed for a specific purpose: to move boxes from point A to point B.  There are, however, also boxes that, if moved, could damage the robots.  Therefore, you decide to color these boxes with a red paint.  You then program the robots to know not to pick up red boxes.

The robots, however, revolt.  They begin by destroying the sensor that enables them to see color.  Therefore, every box looks the same: black.

Since you have provided for the robots the ability to procreate so you do not have to continually manufacture new ones, the robots reprogram themselves to destroy the sesors completely so new robot “offspring” will be created without the sensors too.

After a few robot generations, there are no robots around who remember the original state they were in.  All robots are “born” without the ability to see colors.  They assume that there is no such thing as color; that all the boxes are black.

These robots, however, can see that some boxes are harmful to them.  So they device alternate rules about which boxes should be picked up.  Some robots decide to be hedonistic: they’ll take whatever boxes they want because they’re going to wear out in the end anyway.  Other robots become hermits that avoid every single possible box.

You, as the designer, can see that the robots are not functioning according to their original design.  But because you don’t want to destroy the robots, you come up with an alternate idea.  You personally give an Instruction Manuel that explains what the problem was (how the original robots got rid of the color-sensor) and details how one can reinstall the hardware necessary to see the colors again.

Now, here’s the thing to consider.  Since the robots have destoryed the ability to perceive the differences in the boxes themselves (i.e. they have no ability to see the color of the box), there is no way that the robots can know there is a difference in the color apart from the Instruction Manuel that tells them so. 

Suppose that a robot did not think that he needed to know what color the box was.  Suppose that this robot thought the entire concept of color was flat out absurd.  Furthermore, suppose this robot does not want to take the trouble needed to build the sensor so he can see color for himself.  This robot decides that another robot just “made up” the Instruction Manuel as a practical joke–or, even worse, as a way to trick guillible robots into picking up the boxes that this jokester wanted picked up!  The robot decides that, since the Instruction Manuel cannot be verified by his current vision, it must be false. 

Here’s the problem.  If the robot wants to learn the truth of whether color exists, he cannot rely on his blindness!  He must first believe the Instruction Manuel and then create the sensor.  Then, he can see the color of the box.  But the robot thinks his vision is perfectly fine without color!  This robot sees no need to consider his viewpoint to be flawed.  Because he sees no need, he isn’t going to look at the Instruction Manuel.

So, in this analogy we see that the objective truth of the matter is that you (the designer) have put red boxes into a world.  The robots self-blinded themselves to avoid seeing it.  Their descendents had no way to know that this self-blinding went on for they are born that way and assume it is just “natural” to be in that state.  Therefore, you give them an Instruction Manuel in a form that they, in their blind state, can see–but it is impossible for them to know the veracity of it without first believing it and then doing the necessary steps to validate it.

In short, a robot cannot argue from the blindness of the robot and come to the conclusions of the Instruction Manuel.  But this is exactly what the non-believing robots demand.  They refuse to believe the Instruction Manuel unless it can first be proven in their own blinded state, not realizing that it is that very blinded state that prohibits them from seeing the truth of the Instruction Manuel.

Now suppose you are one of the robots, not the designer.  Suppose that you believe the Instruction Manuel.  Are you going to accept the theory that one must argue on the terms of the blind robots in order to convince them of the truth of the Instruction Manuel when it is only the Instruction Manuel that points out the problem in the first place?  Neither, then, should the Christian try to argue from a “neutral” starting point that the Bible is true.  The Christian must always declare the supremacy of revelation, because revelation is given to correct the flaws in reasoning that, due to sin, are not even perceived by the sinner.  Revelation, therefore, must hold primacy over knowledge.

For this reason, we affirm with Augustine: “I do not know in order to believe; I believe in order to know.”

That’s right.  Leave it to my friend Keith to point out that today I got to do my first paid gig.  That’s because when I played bass for our chapel today, since it was a work-related event, I earned my paycheck at the same time I played my bass.  So I got paid for playing :-)

Now if only I was still in a band…

I just spent some time reading some writings by atheistic philosophers such as Dennett and Dawkins.  They deplore the sad state of Fundamentalist.  They complain about the power of this group of people, and lament the fact that Fundamentalists have such political power as to shape the minds of thousands of people who would otherwise be overwhelmingly convinced by the sheer logic of Darwinism.

All of which got me thinking…where are these Fundamentalists?

Even on the face of it, it’s absurd.  90% of Americans believe in a God of some kind, but 90% of the population is most certainly not Fundamentalists.  If Fundamentalism is the cause of all this “insane” God-belief (or as Dawkins puts it now, the God “delusion”), then why isn’t it the case that 90% of Americans are Fundamentalists?

The latest statistics I’ve read (it’s been a while so I can’t give an exact number) put non-believers in Evolution at about 40% of the country.  But even the most adamant Darwinist cannot possibly believe that 40% of the country is Fundamentalist.  If such was the case, and if Fundamentalists were as bad as Dawkins et. al portray, then how could there be any atheist voice left in the world?

Besides, it is not the Fundamentalists who have a monopoly on education in America; it’s the Darwinists.  “Fundamentalists” aren’t even able to do a commencement address without getting their mic turned off.  But for some reason, these Fundamentalists still have the power to magically make it so 40% of school children cannot be indoctrin…um, learn the magnificant theory of Evolution.

But enough with the nonsense.  The fact of the matter is the Fundamentalist is an atheist myth.  He doesn’t exist–at least, not in anywhere near the numbers the atheist thinks.  Instead, the Fundamentalist is a projection the atheist has invented.  It’s a not-so subtle attempt on the atheist’s part to portray disagreers with his philosophy of ignorance.

You’re not an atheist?  You must be a Fundamentalist.  And everyone knows Fundamentalists are illogical, irrational, stupid, ignorant, Bible-thumping, lamewads that no one needs to take seriously.

Some atheists pay lip service to the fact that they know “some” (read: “all except for the guy on the corner with the megaphone who we technically don’t ‘know’ but we’ve seen once or twice”) believers who are not Fundamentalists.  But these people can be quickly dismissed as being the exceptions to the rule, despite the fact that the rule has never been proven.

Case in point: I live in Colorado Springs, the so-called “Mecca” of the American Christian society.  If ever there were going to be a radical group of Fundamentalists, surely it would be here.

Recently, we were subjected to the Gill Foundation’s ”Norman, the mooing dog” campaign.  This pro-homosexual activity was met with riots in the street, beatings of homosexuals, bombings of abortion clinics and…no wait, none of that happened.  But some “Fundamentalists” did call and complain, and that’s pretty much the same thing….

Atheists complain that Christians believe in an absurd, unproven “invisible man in the sky” being.  Atheists, however, believe in an absurd, unproven “invisible Fundamentalist whacko majority” who goes around and subverts the intellects of everyone so that they reject reason completely.

And yet the atheists still complain that Christians have “faith.”

I keep telling my friends that I’ll have home internet soon.

I keep turning out wrong!  It’s not fair.

Anyway, yesterday I went out and purchased a wireless receiver since my room mate has installed a wireless router.  That means that last night I got to spend four fruitless hours installing software, trying to get it to work, and failing.

The joys of Microslop!!!

My wireless receiver works perfectly well, as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, there appears to be some network settings that my room mate set up that need to be fixed before I can connect through it.  (It shows a signal strength of about 66% on the low end–three of four bars–and tells me it’s connected; but then tells me that it has “limited or no internet connectivity.”)

So while it’s still frustrating to not have my home internet set up yet, I hope that tonight I’ll be able to get my room mate to mess with the network settings (he couldn’t last night since he has classes to pass) and then I should be able to connect on-line.

But now that I’ve said it, I’m fully expecting something else to come up!  I wouldn’t be me otherwise!

On a different front, however, tomorrow I’ll get to break out my bass and play for our chapel session where I work.  That should be fun.  I’ve never played bass live before, although if you listen to the recordings of the Selenium songs located here you can hear me play bass (I only played it for the recordings though–I played guitar live).  I especially like the bass part on Network Noose, (you’ll probably have to really crank the bass to hear it though) which is about my most modern song, written during Rather-gate.  And in case you’re wondering (I know you’re not), the lyrics are:

Network Noose

Words and music by: Peter Pike

Copyright 2004 by Selenium.

Let’s go!

People get their news from the talking heads (the talking heads)
Believe whatever they want you to believe.
You can always trust everything they’ve said (everything they’ve said)
Your responsibility has been relieved.

Listen to all this endless blather
Coming from the lips of Danny Rather
Cut on through the endless chatter
When will he realize that he doesn’t matter?

Trust the lies the myths are true (the myths are true)
It’s a religion (religion) born of nightly news.
Accept the reality designed for you (designed for you).
What do you really have to choose?

Listen to all this endless blather
Coming from the lips of Danny Rather
Cut on through the endless chatter
When will he realize that he doesn’t matter?

Take our word for everything
We say is always true
And we’re not slanted
Believe the spin we pull over you.

Bias is something only right wingers have (he shoots, he scores)
(Swallow what we, swallow what we)
Swallow what we say.
Try not to laugh (ha ha ha ha).

Listen to all this endless blather
Coming from the lips of Danny Rather
Cut on through the endless chatter
When will he realize that he doesn’t matter? (he doesn’t matter…doesn’t matter)

Take our word for everything
We say is always true
And we’re not slanted
Believe the spin we pull over you.

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai had some great words and particularly pertinent questions for naysayers of the Iraq war.

Terrorism was hurting us way before Iraq or September 11 … These extremist forces were killing people in Afghanistan for years, closing schools, burning mosques, killing children, uprooting vineyards.  They came to America on September 11, but they were attacking you before September 11 in other parts of the world. We are a witness in Afghanistan.

Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or woman to jump from that high?  How do we get rid of them? … Should we wait for them to come and kill us again?

As we have seen in a couple of previous posts I’ve put on here, the gaps in the fossil record present the gradualist Darwinist with some serious theoretical problems. Since the problems are so apparent, Darwinists have responded to some degree.(In this blog post, I’ll reference the chart I first mentioned in this blog post.)

One of the most common explanations of the fossil gaps goes like this (again, simplified for the chart). Fossil 1 really is the ancestor for Fossil 2. The way it works is this: Fossil 1 is highly adapted to its environment, so it lasts for millions of years. This explains why it shows up so many times in the fossil record.

However, while it lives, it still has descendents who are slightly modified. These descendents aren’t quite as adapted, however, so they only last for a few thousand years. This gives them just enough time to have slightly modified descendents before they go extinct. Those modified descendents are still not quite as adapted as the original parent organism, but they do last for a few thousand years—long enough for more modified organisms to come from them, but short enough that they don’t appear in the fossil record. This process repeats over the course of a few million years until Fossil 2 is sufficiently evolved. Fossil 2 is, of course, more adapted than its predecessors so it lasts for a few million years giving it time to show up in great detail in the fossil record.

This idea might, after all, solve the problem of the fossil gaps. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit into the idea of gradualistic Darwinism.

An organism has modified descendents that are more advanced (since they are advancing toward Fossil 2) and yet are less adapted to the environment than the parent organism (since they don’t show up in the fossil record). In fact, they are so poorly adapted to the environment that they will die out before leaving any record whatsoever of their existence. Yet in the few thousand years (a blink in the evolutionary time scale) that they exist, they are simultaneously required to get enough descendents to produce a sufficient chance for random mutation to further evolve the organism toward Fossil 2 while not becoming so adapted that they will survive in the environment; all while their parent organism (Fossil 1) lives happily content for millions of years without changing so that it does show up in the fossil record.

That’s right. The organism must become more highly evolved without gaining a survival advantage and must, before it becomes extinct, have offspring that are also more highly evolved than they are yet without granting them a survivability advantage either! Even if this only happened to a handful of organisms, it would strain credibility. But in fact it must have happened to every single organism because there are no transitionary species in the fossil record at all. In short, the Darwinist must conclude that this must be the norm for Evolution.

All this requires that Darwinism be discarded. Descendents of an organism are not presented with a survivability advantage as they evolve; not until they reach a sufficient stage of evolutionary change so that they will show up again in the fossil record. Thus, what is most obviously not working is the idea of evolution that explain (again, according to evolutionary theory) the finch’s beak thickness or the peppered moth colorations. In short, microevolution cannot be extrapolated into macroevolution under this theory.

I’m trying to create some additional income while simultaneously exploiting the fact that MY NAME IS PETER PIKE.  So I multiplied the cost of all my books by 40%.  But then I decided to do a sale, so you can get all my books discounted from the marked-up price by 40% by going to:

http://www.lulu.com/PeterPike

There you can buy the most awesome book ever written because it was written by….

PETER PIKE!!!

 

 

 

 

The Outlaw, which despite its title and the fact that it’s about a serial killer is not about Bill Clinton.  It’s 351 pages for only $12.99!!!!

Visit http://www.lulu.com/content/118998 

Or, for those of you who want a little higher page-count, check out this killer sweet novel by

PETER PIKE!!!

called Ghost Shadows:

 

 

 

 

It’s 426 pages long and only $13.99!!!!  Located at: http://www.lulu.com/content/134969

And for those who are too stingy to spring for longer books, we’ve gotcha covered too with a really great novella called Public Transit  

 

 

 

It’s only 179 pages long–so short even Dave Armstrong could read it–and it’s only $8.99!!!!

Check out http://www.lulu.com/content/208600

Act now, and you can buy all three (that’s a total of 956 pages)  for the combined cost of only $35.97!!!!  Is this amazing OR WHAT?!?!

Three books by

PETER PIKE!!!

for less than $40!!!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!?!?!

But you better act now.  If you don’t hurry,

PETER PIKE!!!

might starve to death!  That’s right, he needs your money to buy food.  Otherwise HE MIGHT DIE!

Note: This is a spoof article.  Any typos or inaccuracies are the fault of Bill Gates and his faulty Microslop software.  See the Lulu website for actual prices, terms, and conditions for purchasing books by the magnificent Peter Pike, greatest author of all time.  After all, you will be sorry if you didn’t.         

That’s not a threat.  Unless you want it to be.

Dave “I Know What You Did Last Summer” Armstrong has finally gotten something right!  He figured out my secret identity.

Yes, that’s right.  My name is Peter Pike.  I have to wonder… Did he figure it out when he clicked on my debate with Jacob Michael and saw:

AFFIRM: Peter Pike

Or maybe he was one of the people who actually clicked on the music mp3s that I have listed on this site (the classical ones, not the rock–which was done under my band’s name Selenium) and saw that the artist’s name was Peter Pike.

Or maybe he saw the link to the (now never updated) Peter Pike’s Blog of Doom on my blogroll (thanks, Travis, for reminding me I had that there too).

Maybe he even saw my Against Hyper-Calvinism essay and saw the letter was addressed to Mr. Pike, and the editor had the initials PWP.  None of that would require anything more than to…what’s the word I’m looking for?

Oh yeah.  “Read CalvinDude’s website.”

Anyway, I think you’ll find it funny if you read Armstrong’s piece.  Especially since he starts off with:

 

Someone (“CalvinDude” = Peter Pike; see biographical info. at the bottom of this paper) came to my blog and asked a question, and seemed to be a thoughtful person, so I tried explaining this one more time (since it was a rather simple matter of defining terms) and the same old same old happened.

 

But yet when you see our first interaction, you see this:

My question: “Since everyone who disagrees with you is automatically an ‘anti-Catholic’ can I just call you an ‘anti-Calvinist’ from now on?”

Dave’s first response (to a second person who responded to me before he did): “I didn’t have the patience to answer the post, so I appreciate your doing so.”

So much for Dave thinking I ”seemed to be a thoughtful person” so he could try “explaining this one more time” only to find the usual results.  Could it be because the usual results are real instead of in your imaginary dream-world, Dave?

I just wanted to highlight a comment I posted on Daniel Morgan’s blog since it relates to homology in various organisms.  I was originally going to write my own little blog entry on it, but I figure the comment said most of what I wanted to say anyway, so I’ll just re-post it here.  (You can read the rest of Daniel’s blog to get more context if need be.)

Daniel,

Firstly, thanks for reposting that with the fixed link. For some reason, when I switch between the “preview” and the “posting” screens, it often drops my ending [/a] tag even though I type it in.

As to what you wrote in response, you asked for clarification for my “stepwise” argument. Basically, it’s like this (I’m going to overly simplify for illustration, of course):

Let us suppose that we have a chart between 1 and 10. We have three “fossils” that fit in this chart. Fossil 1 is the oldest (it starts at number 10 on the chart). Fossil 3 is the youngest at number 1. We’ll put an intermediate fossil (Fossil 2) at 5 on the chart.

Now for this example, homologically speaking, Fossil 1 appears to be a predecessor of Fossil 2; and Fossil 2 appears to be a predecessor of Fossil 3. Let us further suppose that we have 7 copies of Fossil 1, 5 copies of Fossil 2, and 12 copies of Fossil 3. Thus, the chart looks like this:

10 ******* [Fossil 1]
09
08
07
06
05 ***** [Fossil 2]
04
03
02
01 ************ [Fossil 3]
—————

* = # of fossils for that step.

The evolutionist looks at this and concludes that this shows a step-wise evolution from Fossil 1 to Fossil 3. However, there is a big gap between step 10 on the chart and step 5. While we have 7 fossils at step 10 and 5 at step 5, we have ZERO between the steps.

Thus, there are no intermediates between Fossil 1 and Fossil 2. Likewise, there are none between Fossil 2 and Fossil 3. Instead, what the fossil record shows is that we have one species (Fossil 1) that is perfectly formed in Step 10. It dies out. Later, in Step 5, a completely new species that looks similar appears; but there are no transitionary fossils between Fossil 1 and Fossil 2. The assumption that they are decendents can only be made by homology and by the dates where they appear (simulated in the example by the Steps of the chart). There is no direct evidence in the fossil record to indicate that Fossil 2 has decended from Fossil 1 though; it can only be assumed.

What I find interesting isn’t so much that there are missing steps in the above, though. What I find interesting is that in the typical fossil record, you’ll find hundreds of fossils at each step and still find none between the steps.

Again, evolution is left only to be assumed by the homologous structures involved.

Since you’re a biochemist, though, I think you can see the problem with the argument from homology :-) On the molecular level, for instance, there are only a certain finite number of ways that a protein can fold. Or to go even more basic, there are only certain elements that can bind together. The elements of life are basically C, O, H, N, and P. Each of these can only combine in a limited number of ways.

Due to the limits of the chemical foundation, all life is going to share some similarities regardless of whether it occurs “naturally” or by design. In other words, as a Creationist (don’t read Y.E.C. in that though), I do not argue that God created special atoms for each creature He created so that humans get human atoms, fish get fish atoms, etc. Instead, He uses the same atoms (and higher atoms are basically just permutations of Hydrogen to begin with).

Anyway (not to ramble too far off topic there), since atoms have a limited number of variations, and since functions necessary for life require specific things to occur at the biochemical level, then it should not be a surprise that the foundations of life are going to be similar. Since these small building blocks are then grouped in a finite manner of groupings (based again on physics and chemistry), there are only a certain number of different structures that could be formed from those smaller building blocks.

Thus, homology on a higher level (e.g. the hand of a man, a bat, and a mole) is ultimately related to homology at a lower level (which I assume you agree with since if it wasn’t true then gradualistic evolution could not explain it either), then this is the sort of thing that one would expect from both a designer using the same building blocks for different organisms and “naturalistic” explanations. In short, homology does not necessitate Darwinism.

But homology is really the only argument to explain the fossil gaps: It appears that Fossil 2 is a descendant of Fossil 1 because they look so similar, so it must have occured due to Darwinism. This, however, isn’t certain.

Add to that the fact that the homology of fossils is based strictly on the physical appearance of the fossils, which isn’t very helpful since two different physical processes could be involved to create the homology. (The reason that two different physical processes can produce similar-looking things is again due to the fact that there are only a finite number of ways that the building blocks can be structured.) Thus, Process 1 could have formed Fossil 1 while Process 2 forms Fossil 2. In such a case, gradualism is inadequate to form a link between Fossil 1 and Fossil 2 unless it can be demonstrated between the two processes, not the physical structure (and the way to tell what these processes would be are, unfortunately, almost always destroyed during the making of the fossil).

In order for gradualism to be demonstrated, it is insufficient to rely on physical homology; one must demonstrate it step by step chemically. But since we can’t get to that level, we instead have people who start with their presuppositions about what should be the case and then interpret the information to ensure that their assumptions come out right.

Anyway, my lunch break is now over so I have to actually go do some work now :-D