CHAPTER 1

A TIME TO CHOOSE

Two teen-age girls were driving home from work together on the “Golden State Freeway” one Friday evening in central California near the small town of Coalinga on March 11, 1995.  It had been pouring rain for almost a week but they were probably unconcerned as they were traveling on a modern, well-lit highway, not the old weathered county by-ways that netted the farming community around their homes.  Maybe they were discussing what time to leave Monday morning on their weekly commute back to Fresno where they attended college together.  Or maybe they were just listening to the radio.  As they came to a bridge over a dry wash they had crossed many times before, their car suddenly left the highway and sailed into empty space.  The overpass had been washed away minutes earlier by a flashflood.  No one will ever know their last thoughts because they plunged into a raging torrent of water and drowned.  Their bodies weren’t recovered until Sunday, by which time seven other people perished in the same way, quickly and without warning, four of them members of the same family.  

We can be sure of two things: One, it was not what any of them expected that night and two, regardless of our differences, we all share a common fate.  Sooner or later each of us will die, many without any warning whatsoever. 

Our life is like a short and fast burning fuse, lit at birth.  It is consumed in a heartbeat, blown out like a birthday candle.  If the age of the universe in which we live were condensed to one year, we would measure our lives in split-seconds.  The recorded history of mankind would barely fill the last hour. 

During that "hour" humanity has, for the most part, conducted itself as if life had meaning.  At least as far back in history as the ancient Egyptian dynasties, and certainly by the time of the Greek philosophers like Plato and ethicists like Confucius, men were seriously attempting to behave as if they were fulfilling a loftier purpose than mere survival, and hopefully they were right.  If not, devoting one’s life to serving others, or making the ultimate altruistic statement by dying so another human being might live, earns one the same eternal fate as a homicidal rapist who simply avoids being captured, a repugnant scenario, as most of us believe there is some sort of ultimate justice and a purpose for our existence that hinges on virtue.  If there is even the remotest possibility that such a concept has merit, we should bend over back-wards, not only to discover that purpose, but also to discover if there may be consequences for failing to fulfill it.  And we don't have forever to remain ignorant or apathetic about that possibility.  Yes - we do have the rest of our lives, but for all we know, like the two ill-fated friends from Coalinga, that could be no more than a day or two.  In any case, life is short, even in the best of circumstances, so time is of the essence. 

Some folks have the dubious luxury of obtaining knowledge of their appointed “time” in advance, like prisoners on death row.  But that awareness doesn't necessarily provide them with any special insight into the eternal. It can only instill an urgent need to discover if the phenomena of self-conscious existence continues in some unknown way after their execution.  Most condemned prisoners, if they ignored such things previously, develop a sudden interest in metaphysical truth and the cosmic significance of their behavior, particularly the behavior that earned them a death sentence from their peers. The uncertainty of life should prompt the same intensity within all of us.

An accidental brush with death also motivates men to that level of fervor - their experience seemingly providing them with the intuition that death is actually the first step in an infinitely long journey.  They re-evaluate their lives by making some hard decisions about what they believe and whether it provides a sufficient foundation for the bridge between here and eternity.  As for the rest of us, if we are not ready to cross that bridge today, we should immediately evaluate our beliefs and find out why.  The crossing may be just the type of thing that by its very nature, like a devastating earthquake or fire in the middle of the night, makes last minute preparations futile.

 Primarily because of their naturalist assumptions about reality, millions end up drawing the only logical conclusion their limited philosophy allows - that there is no link between eternity and present day moral responsibility - meaning however much time they have remaining on earth could be spent without any concern for the hereafter.  If those who claim the omniscience to endorse that idea are not spending their lives in gross self-indulgence, they are certainly wasting their time.  Their ability to respond in a self-sacrificing way to emotions like compassion, guilt and humility would be, if not an impediment to survival, at least an infringement upon their pursuit of happiness, which in the case of a pure naturalist can only be realized by surviving in comfort.  They would do well to effectively manipulate the inherent characteristics of their nature that society generally encourages them to suppress like lust, greed and savagery, because the ruthless employment of those attributes would provide far greater material and carnal indulgences.

        If plants and animals, the earth and its solar system, galaxies and the fundamental particles making up all the matter in the entire universe, living or dead, is really all there is and death is simply a return to dust and the end of consciousness forever, why practice virtue in any of its guises?  Why ask anyone else to?  A naturalist imposing any sort of moral imperative on himself or his fellow men is no less hypocritical than an adulterous minister preaching chastity.  Pure naturalists, if they are honest with themselves, should be deriding the pursuit of morality. Obeying the law of the land to avoid punishment is understandable but why feed a stranger anonymously or adopt an unwanted child?  Our answer is that we do these things because we intuitively suspect, or have been convinced by others, that our present life style affects our eternal future somehow, so to be on the safe side we cultivate virtues.  Hence when asked how we view our eternal fate, we confidently affirm our basic goodness, meaning we not only imagine a link between morality and eternity but we also conceive of a god, of one sort or another, to whom we are eternally accountable in some way.

      Throughout history human beings have primarily maintained theological ideas relative to their existence but beginning in the middle-ages with the enlightenment, although the naturalist view has been around since the beginning of recorded history, it began to gain momentum.  As we begin another millennium, naturalism is now staggeringly well represented, at least quantitatively.  Pure naturalists deny the idea of virtue categorically, saying, ‘eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’. They believe the physical universe represents the sum total of reality. (Some naturalists believe conscious beings participate in some sort of universal life force or mind that is supposedly part of the natural order but pure naturalists do not believe in any sort of god, emergent or transcendent.)

     Atheists (pure naturalists) admit that nothing, from their perspective, can be labeled absolutely good or evil.  Human behavior, rather than having a moral value attached, would be viewed much in the same way a wolf pack views the behavior of one of its constituent members.  The terms good or bad would be mere words describing behavior deemed by the pack to be socially acceptable or unacceptable.  In other words, the "wolf pack" standard would prevail and the structure of ethics and law within the pack would be framed to promote the survival of the pack. Survival, and the success or failure of that pursuit by the pack, would be the only valid gauge of behavior, survival being good and the failure to survive being bad.  In a universe without a god, a scenario could easily be rationalized wherein the torture of children for information about the “pack’s” enemies would be considered good if the pack’s enemies were competing for the pack’s territory and food.  It would be good for the pack if it was losing a war of survival and the information helped turn the tide of battle.

But generally mankind senses, with that peculiar moral antennae known as a conscience, that torturing children is always wrong, even if it promotes our immediate survival.  And most professing atheists will agree, especially if their children are about to be tortured.  In fact, most professing atheists behave like the rest of mankind, seeking virtue and generally behaving as if they've been wronged when preyed upon, one indication of the inconsistency of their avowed belief system. The point is, men intuitively grasp the concept of intrinsic goodness and badness and evaluate their lives on those terms, even those who claim to be pure naturalists.

 On the other hand, those who believe in a god typically adopt a lifestyle designed to affirm their own personal goodness relative to the standard defined in their religion of choice. It may be important to know which perspective is correct.  In fact, it may be crucial and if it is, a personal journey of discovery, a quest for metaphysical truth is certainly in order.

At the outset of such a quest it is appropriate to ask oneself a fundamental question.  Has strict naturalism, which basically postulates that the universe and everything in it has a natural cause, or has the naturalist new age view that the universe and god are one in the same, been embraced simply because those views do not impede one’s life style?  After all, at the bottom of the ledger summing up any belief in the preeminence of the natural order lies the privilege of living within one’s own moral standard of choice.  In other words, being a naturalist allows one to make up his own rules. And that also applies to the “universe is god” belief system as there is certainly no difficulty in adhering to the standard of a god who can’t actually reveal itself in some way.

Would alternate presuppositions require a change?  If so, then one must be ready to change.  The baggage of self-serving assumptions cannot be carried into an honest search for truth.  On the other hand, certain assumptions are necessary.  For example, a desire to know the truth about one’s eternal fate assumes the existence of eternal life. But how can someone know if a presupposition is valid? 

In addition to being supported by evidence upon investigation, it must at least be reasonable and non-contradictory.  So if a presupposition conforms to the process of logic and reason and an alternate presupposition doesn’t, the reasonable one should prevail.

This means purely naturalist presuppositions must be viewed with skepticism.  Naturalists assume we are here strictly as the result of random natural forces, meaning the rational thought process elicited from brain cell networking is, through the deterministic process of cause and effect, a natural product of chaos and disorder, the initial condition of the planet.  Any conclusions drawn from a presupposition that attributes the origin of the very process of inference and deduction to its antithesis, the mindless chemical reactions of colliding matter, should be viewed with caution.

In his book, “Miracles”, C. S. Lewis offered an in-depth argument that exposed naturalist assumptions as suspect.  He showed that a pure naturalist must assume an unbroken chain of cause and effect to explain every event and points out that because any particular thought is an event, it must be strictly determined by prior thoughts. Naturalism, therefore, an epistemological state of mind regarding the truth of reality, is a thought or a thought process depending upon a prior chain of thoughts for its existence. But thoughts can be erroneous regarding truth, as witnessed by prejudicial thoughts, hallucinations and so forth. Truthful thoughts depend on the thinker having the mental latitude of employing the logical thought process of inference. He must be able to infer grounds for believing something to be true through an act of free will and a deterministic chain of sensory reactions to stimuli could never achieve a truthful belief except through accident or coincidence. Therefore the knowledge that strict determinism is correct is suspicious because it does not allow for the freedom of inferential thinking. So later in this book, as we entertain certain conclusions drawn from naturalist assumptions, we are doing so to give naturalists a fair shake of the dice, so to speak, because their basic premise seems to be contradictory. 

A prospector seeking nuggets of truth should not only be wary of suspect presuppositions but should also examine himself critically and purge any resistance to change that may exist in the form of apathy, pride or selfishness.  Those aspects of his nature will not fare well in confrontation with a body of truth that he can be sure is not determined by his personal preferences.  If what he discovers goes against his grain, he must accept it none-the-less.  He can’t legislate said discovery out of existence any more than he can ban the law of gravity because he would rather jump over the valley than walk through it.  He should be continuously antagonistic towards any state of mind resisting openness.  He must reckon with the possibility that he may discover a source of moral authority requiring accountability and if so, he must resolve not to shy away simply to avoid having his ego infringed upon.  Participating in a journey that concludes with the discovery of a purpose for existence may shake his comfort zone somewhat, especially if that purpose does not suit his immediate desires, but if he is ultimately confronted with unavoidable truth, there is a reward. It begins with freedom from ignorance.  To live in theological darkness wondering “why” and “what” is simply, in the parlance of a prisoner, “doing time”.  The means for a richer and more meaningful existence on earth will certainly follow if the truth about eternity can be discovered. 

Those of us who accept the challenge seek to break free from a prison of ignorance preventing any real confidence in the future.  We certainly do not want to become like convicts who serve long or numerous prison sentences and experience the tragic phenomenon of becoming “institutionalized”.  They spend so much time in an institution they become comfortable and secure behind bars, afraid of liberty, and if released on parole seek solace in being re-incarcerated.  Prison is where they left the “family” supporting their beliefs and attitudes and because freedom becomes an unwelcome challenge, they yearn for the status quo.  Many released convicts automatically return themselves to bondage, even at the risk of dying in jail.  We must avoid becoming institutionalized by a belief-system offering psychological comfort only. 

The most formidable barrier to achieving true mental liberation is, paradoxically, the one facet of our nature most demanding of it. It is the human ego, that part of our sub- consciousness dedicated to self.  The possession of an ego is one of our unique qualities as a species.  We have a self-image and our egos tend to serve and exalt that image.  Our egos reject the idea of submission.  If the truth seems in any way objectionable because it requires humility, then it has collided head-on with our ego.  In this book we will be asked, based upon the type of evidence accepted in a court of law, to honestly appraise our convictions and consider the possibility that we have been wrong.  Our egos will insist otherwise. 

This can be especially true for the cultural elite, those who appear to have all that life could possibly offer. They are understandably content with their status but the motivation is lacking to consider the notion that their conclusions about life's ultimate meaning may be wrong.  They may be convinced that their affluent earthly status represents an eternal stamp of approval on their metaphysical belief system. But that is not necessarily so and this fact remains. Death is not only unavoidable but is possibly the portal into another realm, so without being able to see through the opening, we can’t be sure that a secure and comfortable life here will extend beyond the threshold.

Apathy is another obstacle in a journey of exploration, usually one that prevents us from taking even the first step.  We procrastinate about discovering the truth because we are intellectually cozy where we are.  But failing to respond to the challenge that we may have been badly mistaken is a gamble.  We are wagering that our standard of behavior will correctly fulfill life’s real purpose and will be accepted as good on the scales of eternal justice.

As in any game of chance, there would seem to be varying levels of risk. The “eat, drink and be merry” crowd is apparently betting that an absolute moral standard of behavior is non-existent.  The real “high rollers” may vaguely accept the concept of right and wrong as truthful - in other words they nonchalantly recognize an absolute moral standard but think they can violate it indiscriminately and never suffer the consequences. At first glance it would seem that theists or deists, men who believe in a god, run the least of amount of risk if they make any effort at all to behave morally.

But gamblers rely on calculated guesses or instinct and neither is a perfectly reliable gauge of truth.  If they were, there would be no losers.  In the “games” of life, losers sometimes have a chance to recoup their losses but if philosophical gamblers trust their instincts or guesses about a code of behavior designed to secure a warm welcome in the hereafter and are wrong, there may not be another chance.

If our instincts are suspect, maybe we can trust the opinions of society. Not hardly! In fact the temptation to give up the search for truth rather than sort through the bewildering array of social-metaphysical systems is our next obstacle.  Society presents us with a myriad of views regarding what happens after death and why, or whether there is an after, and they are as divergent a bundle of “isms” as there are men to promote them.  We must simply grit our teeth and sort them out.

Our families have been molded into one of these “isms” out of cultural, economic or political expediency or necessity and we have probably become a product of the belief system to which we were primarily exposed.  A party line communist would no doubt deny the existence of a god just as those born in the middle east are probably Muslim and worship Allah.  Chances are a westerner was raised in a Christian, Jewish or agnostic home and will exhibit beliefs reflecting his roots. The poverty of third world nations nurtures a wide range of beliefs, or vice versa, ranging from Voodoo in Haiti to the Hindu cults of India.  Depending primarily on where one has been raised he may be Shintoist, Buddhist, Taoist and so on, ad infinitum.

Throughout history we have presented each other with a host of contradictory belief systems and then fought over who is right, more often than not to the death.  All of these systems can not be correct however. On a planet containing five billion plus people making up divergent societies containing a variety of contradictory beliefs about god, some of us have obviously been raised to believe a system that is false. 

          The basis of logic is the “law of non-contradiction”.  It says something can’t “be and not be” at the same time and in the same circumstances.  This means if someone emphatically says there is a boneless ham in the refrigerator and their spouse just as emphatically says otherwise, they have contradicted each other.  The law of non-contradiction says both of them can’t be correct at the same time.  Wisdom would dictate looking in the refrigerator, in other words seeking out which statement is true, before either relying on the ham for dinner or running to the market.

Does the particular social philosophy we embrace warranty that its answers on the subject of eternity are correct?  If so, who stands behind the guarantee?   If the coroner arrived today, would our belief, or that of the society we were raised in, secure us eternally?  It may be convenient to blindly trust in that notion but prudence would dictate looking in the refrigerator instead, after we confront one more obstacle - peer pressure.

Very few of us are willing to risk alienating friends and family in search of a truth which might disagree with what we were taught, especially when it was probably them who taught us. Doing so invites rejection and may place us in direct philosophical opposition to those we love or respect. It is common to be ostracized for voting for the wrong party, adopting a radically different life style or a host of other reasons.  Sometimes continual pressure is exerted to return to the old way of thinking and behaving.  But there is a good reason for being mentally prepared to go against the grain because what our family and friends taught us may have been grossly erroneous.  Death is the epitome of finality, at least here, but what happens after may be forever.  The fuse is burning and could be snuffed out in a moment.  That should be enough motivation to risk a few raised eyebrows.  To become victimized by peer pressure regarding one's eternal destiny is a little more serious than being talked into smoking pot or joining the family business.     

A good procedure for fulfilling the goal of discovering metaphysical truth is one we use frequently.  Everyone has participated in a search, whether it was for a missing piece of clothing, a lost child, a navigator lost at sea or just the right house.  The “process of elimination” is the common method utilized meaning until we find what we are looking for, we continue sorting through various possibilities.  When the object of our search is found, we stop because there is no reason to continue.  It is assumed that what we are looking for can be recognized when we stumble across it. It is no different in a search for truth.  Some false beliefs will be eliminated and the truth, if it can be found at all, should be recognizable upon discovery. 

Our search is motivated by the additional assumption that eternal truth is not just recognizable but can be known with full assurance. If that is not a fact, not one man in 6000 years of recorded history has ever known anything really meaningful and the planet has been populated from its inception with liars, fools and/or metaphysical ignoramuses, who all went to their graves in darkness.  That is a dismal prospect because we would have to be included, so for now we will consider it false.  

  We would rather assume someone has already found what we are looking for and has presented it for inspection, in the same way a specific home for sale is presented by a real estate broker.  Otherwise we are plunging into a jungle of “isms” as original explorers and, like gamblers, they have a marginal success rate.  We have lots of history behind us and, presumably, at some point during that history the ultimate revelation was made.  That revelation will stand apart and should pass any logical truth test we can devise.

   Caution should be exercised in selecting a guide, however, as the experience of being misled by a would-be “do-gooder” can be agonizing.  'It's just down the road - anyone can find it...',  is usually advice received just prior to becoming more lost than before. 

Sometimes men lead others astray unintentionally, but far worse are those who dupe others purposely in the pursuit of profit, power or some other selfish goal. But the correct path should be well lit with verifiable evidence and sound logic and the further we travel down that path the easier it will become to follow, a valid message being continually highlighted by one confirmation after another. 

For example, mankind has been led down numerous trails of scientific discovery in the search for truth.  Scientists have proposed scores of theories regarding the heavens, healing the human body, the structure of matter, and so on.  In Galileo's day it was said the sun revolved around the earth.  Prior generations believed the draining of contaminated blood promoted physical healing. Until recently the electron was thought to be a particle, the smallest in the universe. 

As the search for truth continued, more evidence surfaced highlighting legitimate avenues of scientific pursuit.  Trails that became dead ends because of erroneous theories were abandoned and backtracked if necessary.  Scientists discover truth by allowing the ever-increasing light of scientific investigation and evidence to guide them and the same results should be expected in our quest. 

 So here we are.  We know death is inevitable and admit that there may be something after.  It is possible the conduct of our lives may affect what happens after we step through the opening into eternity.  We have an undetermined but possibly short amount of time to find out.  It is probable that whatever is true regarding the unknown is discernible by a thorough and open-minded search.  The earthly reward for discovering the truth will be freedom from ignorance but we have many obstacles in our path.  We have confidence the correct path will become easier to follow as we continue.  The wrong way can only end in ignorance and we die with no assurance of our fate.  We must avoid being misled.  At the conclusion of our trek lies the truth about eternal life.

CHAPTER 2

THE FIRST STEP-PHILOSOPHY

Someone said the most difficult step in an arduous journey is the first one.  We have taken it but the second step places us in the thick of a philosophical jungle, blinded and lost.  As we brandish our machetes, hacking through the undergrowth, we catch glimpses of clearings and plunge ahead.  Each one offers an opportunity to rest our souls and nourish our spirits but we persevere, checking the map to be sure we are on the right path because we only have a limited supply of water (our life).  We can't set up a permanent camp (the status quo), as the water in these apparent resting places has been poisoned (false belief systems).  Someone hung a sign in one of the clearings.  It reads:

You are entering the oasis of – Reason & Logic

 Population- millions upon millions

 Stop here, your eternal needs will be met.

Hopefully our quest for truth will not end like the often told story of the youth who braved stormy seas, choking desert heat, raging rivers and ice covered mountains to reach the snowy peak in Tibet where the wise old sage resided.  He was reputed to be the ultimate source of truth.  After many months of wearying travel the young man finally sat before the ancient philosopher.  With beating heart he asked the question he had held locked in his mind for as far back as he could remember:  "What is the meaning of life?" 

The old man looked up slowly and gazed deeply into the eyes of his youthful inquisitor.  He raised his hand and gently scratched the back of his head and answered the admirer who sat before him in breathless anticipation.  "Your guess is as good as mine", he said.       

The road leading to truth is dotted with one philosophic billboard after another. How can we know which one advertises reality?  After a while we can begin to empathize with the old man on the mountain.

We must first understand that philosophy is simply an academic endeavor and that it interprets evidence and then postulates truth using various tools, such as logical inference. It is primarily concerned with discovering and analyzing the fundamental assumptions that govern our ways of understanding and acting in the world.  It may fail or succeed in its interpretation or perception, depending upon how well the philosopher works. Philosophy is an enterprise, like science, for discovering the truth.  Scientists put forth theories and laws describing what is considered to be true in the material realm but philosophers embrace the entire panorama of human thinking, giving us schools of thought on nature and other less objective spheres of influence such as metaphysics, ethics, economics and sociology.     

From the perspective of eternity, some philosophies are purely academic and neutral as far as having any profound effect on our lives, even though they may represent truth.  In the grand scheme of things, it will not matter much whether the Japanese corporate production philosophy was superior to the American version. We are not concerned with those, but instead with false belief systems, the acceptance of which may place us in eternal peril.

Let's say a young man traveling in Asia, but raised in Texas as a strict materialist, was persuaded by an Englishman in Bangkok to accept an ancient form of Greek hedonist philosophy practiced by the Cyreniacs, who believed that the “pleasure of the moment” is the only human good.  He then proceeds to live his life according to his newly adopted philosophy. During his travels he befriends a young girl in Nepal and seduces her. 

“Love em and leave em”, he says to himself the next morning as he extends his thumb in hopes of hitching a ride to another village.  The approaching vehicle stops and he is pleased.  Later that day, to no avail, he pleads for mercy as the girl’s father and her uncles drag the young man from the truck he thought was his temporary salvation and savagely beat him to death. Their philosophy of ethics considered the dishonoring of a maiden an offense of horrific proportions, punishable by death. 

The young Texan’s “mode of thinking” cost him his life. If we live according to a distinct philosophy of life, we had better be certain it meets our specific need. To illustrate this further, we can use an example from today’s world.

Consider socialism or capitalism.  They are both economic philosophies with doctrines and conclusions about how, and upon what basis, material wealth should be distributed.  Each system fulfills certain needs for certain individuals.  A poor man incapable of working because of a physical impairment would probably have his needs better met through socialism and an entrepreneur would fare more profitably in a capitalist society. Both men may have their financial needs met by one of these economic philosophies but it is certain neither man will have his eternal needs met. The usefulness of economic philosophy ends at the morgue.

In our search for truth it is the philosophies dealing with eternity we are concerned with but the dangers are the same. We do not want to choose a belief system that fails to meet our needs. And of course a false one would not only fail us eternally but may even imperil us.

Numerous philosophers have postulated the existence of a god and whether or not that god's existence should concern us. But even those who have been inducted into the philosophical “hall of fame” sometimes leave us with a big question mark in our minds.

Descartes is considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy.  He said,  "I think, therefore I exist."   That is certainly philosophical but so what?  Who needs Descartes to confirm their existence?  (In fairness to Descartes, he was considering the mind-body problem, an age-old philosophical debate about whether the mind is strictly deterministic or transcendent.)  We would be better off knowing why we exist and what is required during that existence.  Even more important, upon what evidence are the postulates founded if someone chooses to explain the why and the what?

Descartes also said, "The idea of a perfect being could not originate in the mind of an imperfect being, therefore God exists."  Now he seems to be getting somewhere but he may be insinuating that we are perfect and if so, he is obviously interpreting the evidence of human behavior incorrectly. Or he may be saying that the idea of a perfect being was placed in our minds by a perfect Creator. That makes more sense. Philosophy is making sense of the evidence. Because there is overwhelming evidence that we are not perfect, he must have meant the latter.

Bertrand Russell, another renowned philosopher said,  "After reflecting on a lifetime's pursuit of understanding life's enigmas, philosophy proved a washout to me." So sad! He either could not make sense of the evidence or he refused to accept what the evidence revealed. Descartes' conclusion that God exists was no less a washout if that was the extent of his discovery.  Knowing God exists but not knowing how to communicate with him is no better than not knowing if he exists. If a child drinks some bleach from under the sink, it will not help to simply know the Poison Control Center exists.  We must be able to communicate with it about how to save the child.  

   The Greek philosophers, considered by some to be the greatest mortal minds ever, also formulated postulates about God. Socrates said, "There can be no happiness in life greater than communion with God, the Creator of the universe.  Call Him truth, beauty or goodness, no one can explain Him, but man through reason can approach Him."  Plato said,  "The visible is only a shadow of the invisible, and communion with God is the highest state of the human soul." 

To them God was not personal and they talked about communing with God the same way some people today speak of communing with nature, which is just as realistic as 'speaking to a wall', and just as fruitless.  It is impossible to commune with something that can’t communicate in return. Commune carries with it the context of shared consciousness. Attempting to share consciousness with something impersonal will only stimulate the imagination. Those who claim to do so stretch the realm of semantics.

If Socrates and Plato thought they were communing with the unknowable god to whom they paid lip service, their philosophy is futile. Both of them said truth (God) can be approached through dialogue, argument and reasoning, which may be true, but to approach something is one thing - to embrace and communicate with it is another.  Without a response from the god they were attempting to understand, they could not be certain of anything.  Any conclusions drawn during their approach were pure speculation.

   Aristotle said,  "The beauty, order and harmony of the universe is an expression of the will of God.  The structure of the universe is the work of a great Intelligence.  Law reigns everywhere."   His statement regarding the “will of God” might lead us to suspect that he considered God personal in some way - but he didn’t.  To Aristotle, God was aloof.  His statement that law reigns everywhere, however, is absolutely true.  The universe is obviously governed by law, seemingly moral as well as natural, but Aristotle's statement is useless unless he further discloses how that law is administered, especially the moral variety.  We know there are laws in Singapore but if we travel there, we want to know specifically what constitutes a violation of that law, for our own protection.  The American teen-ager who spent 6 months in a Singapore prison and who received two bloody welts during a public flogging for spray painting graffiti on cars will never forget the importance of not only being aware of the existence of law, but of also knowing the consequences of violating that law.

It is this apparent existence of a universal moral code or law within the consciousness of man that has prompted many philosophers since the ancient Greeks to postulate the existence of a personal/transcendent God who will hold us responsible for adhering to that code. It is called theism. Other philosophers have postulated that God does not exist, atheism, and that our moral consciousness is the result of an evolved survival instinct. Another sub-set of metaphysical thinkers labeling themselves as new age philosophers, but who actually espouse an ancient belief system called pantheism, say the universe, and all that it contains, is divine by nature.  And then there are deists, who say God is transcendent but impersonal.  Last there is paganism, a primitive metaphysical philosophy deifying everything from the moon to trees and which still influences a vast portion of the global population.  These, then, are the types of philosophies that concern us. They are the ones whose premises claim to determine our eternal fate. Unfortunately, we can’t just relax and believe whatever “ism” is popular, because they contradict each other, which means they can’t all be true. So if theists say God is personal, deists say God is aloof, atheists say there is no god and pantheists say that everything is god, including us, when we reach the end of the road, some "_____ists" are in for a surprise, possibly unpleasant. 

So let's analyze some thinking propounded by these philosophies. To begin, consider this simple proverb.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is an ethical statement and originated from someone's philosophy of morals. This statement is normally understood to mean that if one's motives for "doing unto others" are unselfish, that the doing is good. By definition, all ethical statements make judgments about the goodness or badness of specific human behavior. If the ethic assumes that some actions are good, it further implies that some actions are bad.  Doing unto others to eliminate competition or to get something in return, in some ethical philosophies, would be considered bad. But good and bad, as intrinsic ethical universal values, would not even exist in a godless or atheistic universe, according to theistic philosophers. Here is one way they see it.

They start by observing mankind and note that universally he seems to have a "moral sense", that is a conscience. They also note that the universe generally seems to reflect harmony rather than chaos. They point to natural forces like gravity and electromagnetism, which seem to work perfectly together, counteracting and supporting each other in a way that allows atoms to unite into molecules, and so on. They examine the environment and note that all species of life function together in an ecosystem. They observe that individual life forms have the sensory awareness to locate and fulfill their needs and that the environment provides those needs. Our senses do not lie. They tell us when we are hungry and they aptly assist us in locating food - which is there. There are no life forms analogous to men with 20/20 vision groping in a world of dark caverns. In other words, if we can see, it is because we need to see and there is something to see. That is harmony. So theists say if mankind universally perceives good and evil, then good and evil must exist.

Further, mankind would not ultimately perceive behavior promoting its own survival as heinous, such as government regulated genocide as a means of population control, if it were not actually so. In a godless universe, one in which behavior would be judged solely by the criteria of survival, a species would never reach a point where it viewed conduct supporting its own continued existence to be ethically corrupt.  Even though the history of man has been riddled with civilizations that, under differing circumstances and geography, developed what we now consider to be degenerate customs, such as the mass ritual sacrifices practiced by the Aztecs, the ultimate verdict is always condemnation.  If the earth, and its only moral inhabitants, were not created and influenced by a moral god whose standard condemned such practices, history would not witness their universal censure. The fact that humanity, as a whole, now considers as evil certain practices and behavior patterns that would actually promote its very existence, means that there is a moral code whose standard transcends mere survival.  We sense down deep that it would be unthinkable for the United Nations to promote genocide, the World Health Organization to encourage isolating the sick and letting them die or the world religious leaders to encourage the daily sacrifice of infants.  But in a godless universe, one in which survival is all- important - why not?  If the universe reflects harmony but is godless, why would it manifest, through one of its member life forms, the anomaly of a universal code whose creed is rooted in the sanctity of life? The fact that such a code apparently exists harmonizes far better with a god-regulated universe.  The existence of a god makes more sense then, because the universe seems to be harmonious from whatever perspective it is observed.

That is an example of how philosophers work. The evidence presented is a universe “in sync” and the universal nature of man's moral sense, his conscience, and how it seems to be grounded in a respect for life that surpasses mere survival. It is one of many arguments for theism. In order to counter this particular argument, atheists would need to show that man does not have a universal conscience and/or that the universe does not reflect harmony. Their position is difficult because we all recognize the sweeping nature of man's deep rooted moral sensitivity and scientists will tell us the universe is very predictable and use terms like “finely tuned” to describe it.

Philosophers not only argue in favor of certain viewpoints but also attempt to discredit opposing viewpoints. Consider the following analysis and critique of what many theists consider to be flawed thinking within certain new age philosophical camps.

Pantheism, now cloaked as new age philosophy, is a more subtle approach than atheism to the idea that men are not accountable to a personal/moral God. New Age philosophy is a trend we have seen emerge in a major way in the western hemisphere since the so-called enlightenment of the sixties.  Adherents to this view render God as being superfluous by deifying man.  They believe that man has the potential to reach a “pinnacle of understanding”, that it is simply a matter of tapping a reservoir of inner goodness contained within.  This idea was borrowed from ancient religions of the Orient, primarily Hinduism.  The belief is that each person's inner goodness is part and parcel of a universal force.  The force supposedly exists in everything, including inorganic matter.  We are all capable of becoming as God, it is said, and through karma will achieve a divine state.  Through karma, evil is rooted out and punished over many lifetimes and this is eventually supposed to have a total cleansing effect on the immortal soul.  This philosophy admits to a transcendent moral standard but assumes its enforcement will occur through karma.

   Theists point out that to presume numerous lifetimes are available to “get it right” may be eternally risky.  The possibility of an immutable death sentence contained within the moral law to which an individual spiritually assents is being ignored.  

Suppose someone commits a murder and refuses to accept his guilty status, but insists on maintaining his innocence, believing justice will ultimately be served through karma in another life. He risks suffering the penalty of eternal execution at the end of this lifetime.  In fact, for all he knows, because he has no way of effectively communicating with the impersonal life force he calls god, eternal execution may be the penalty for failing to give pocket change to a beggar.  Furthermore, turning one self in to the authorities and expressing sorrow for a murder may not furnish any more karmic absolution than keeping the entire unsavory incident a secret to avoid condemnation by one’s peers.  How is one to know?

Humanism is a counterpart modern thought system that says truth is relative.  It says goodness can be achieved through our ability to reason and this capability enables us to determine right from wrong.  The correct determination is always based upon current circumstances.  Relativists do not accept an absolute moral standard.  The common denominator between the two new-age viewpoints is the rejection of a discernible, unwavering standard of morality. In other words, under both systems the individual is the ultimate source of the moral standard under which he chooses to live.   

New age pantheists accomplish this by adopting a system necessarily built upon by the opinions of ordinary men and postponing the moral accountability an absolute standard may demand at the end of this lifetime.  Relativists avoid moral liability by saying circumstances determine the moral code, effectively negating any accountability on the relativists part as they have assumed the role of judge.  The placement of human beings on the good side of the line dividing good and evil, at least potentially, is also intrinsic to relativist thought, making that notion common to both belief systems.  Any philosophic foundation built upon that crumbling stone is in jeopardy, however.  We will see why shortly.

   Relativists who consider individuals to be the ultimate arbiters between good and evil are trapped in a dilemma of their own creation.  They begin by saying there is no absolute moral standard.  In so doing they state absolutely that absolutes do not exist.  If they admit to one absolute moral law as a way out, they must then decide where it originated.  If they say it originated with man, they are admitting that any individual has the capacity to make an absolute moral determination.  They must be willing to accept five billion absolute versions of the truth, which is absolute nonsense.  It is a frustrating philosophy.

To concede the existence of one moral absolute is to concede that it was not established by a mere man. Then who or what could have established it? That question leaves relativists a little nervous and if it doesn’t, it should.

  When pressed, in order to avoid admitting to a moral absolute, relativists will insist that nothing is absolutely and universally wrong.  But what do they teach their children regarding genocide or incest?  What do they tell the remaining children when the baby of the family has been kidnapped and tortured for fun?

             When confronted with this, a relativist will say that society establishes what is considered right, for the “greater good”, thinking that delegating the determination of moral authority to society gets him off the hook.  But societies are governed by power, which is typically attained through toughness, wealth or shrewdness.  Those attributes do not give individual societies any greater inherent capacity than individuals to establish moral truth and a relativist will agree quickly when the greater good philosophy labels him and his family a candidate for ethnic cleansing, maybe because he’s a Jew, a Kurd or a Negro.

            If we live in a society where truth is considered relative, then every individual member of society and every individual society has the same potential capacity to determine if something is right.  All opinions not only count but are inherently valid, including Hitler’s and the Nazi society.  That means his and their experiment quite possibly was in the best interest of society, as it served the greater good. After all, Jews controlled the economy and were not interested in full employment for the German people, but rather their own interests, and the gas chambers certainly aided in the effort towards zero population growth.  That statement, abhorrent though it may be, is one example of the obvious evil that can result from any relative truth scenario allowed to run its course.

Regarding the new age belief that God is an impersonal force, that force is described as a “universal consciousness” of which we can avail ourselves through spiritual awareness techniques and symbols of one sort or another like meditation, channeling, pyramids, crystals and yoga. But again, what about Hitler and the Nazis?  Maybe the universal consciousness they tapped into in order to derive their standard of values for humanity was valid?  Who is divine enough to say otherwise?  We are in the same boat we were in with relativists.

Basic inner goodness is a concept both new-age thinkers and relativists readily embrace, the prior believing that goodness is inherent and we need to simply discover it, and the latter believing its existence can be tapped through our ability to reason.  But an honest self-appraisal will reveal that we are filled with lust, hostility, greed and jealousy.  We fall well short of possessing a basically good nature.  In fact, the idea that we are good, as a species, is ludicrous.  We are not even morally neutral.  If we were, the laws of probability demand that somewhere in history a civilization would have arisen not displaying evil in any form.  It has never happened.

The American Indians and the Pacific Islanders, for example, were people living in a natural paradise until they were colonized, but they practiced ritual cannibalism, male chauvinism and territorial aggression long before they suffered any influence from the outside.  They had laws punishing murder, theft and adultery, meaning those moral transgressions took place often enough to be legislated against.  Those kinds of laws are common to primitive tribes all over the world.

We need an absolute moral standard to keep us in line. We seduce our friends, kill each other and lie about taxes, portions of which must be set aside to build more prisons, equip armies with weapons of destruction and provide care for abused children.

And we must ask the most important questions of all.  Who is the authority regarding the truth of what these philosophies profess and what credentials are being offered granting that authority?  What evidence have those in authority exhibited supporting their contentions?

One form of theism, which we will examine later, claims to have such credentials and evidence. But prior to that we need to probe science as another means of revealing truth. As we do so we will see more and more logical arguments pointing to theism as a sound eternal philosophy.  But a sound philosophy is only like a good compass.  It can point in the right direction but it can’t carry us to our destination. G. B. Hardy, in his book Countdown, summed up the overall value of presenting a philosophy without supporting evidence. 

"The philosophers have been noble and artful in logic, ethics and aesthetics, but as they reach into the metaphysical to establish eternal values they become like us, with all the confidence and security of one who cannot meet his mortgage payment.  They become mere doodlers with words." 

Let's see if scientists can effectively take the baton from philosophers.

WHAT ABOUT SCIENCE?

CHAPTER 3

On the streets of a working class Los Angeles suburb one winter morning in the first year of the 21st century stood a dirty man in baggy, tattered clothes, leaning on a shopping cart.  He was very still and bent at the waist, head tilted forward, possibly dosing.  In the cart were bottles, bags, cups, chunks of metal and other things that fill the dumps of the world. It was cold and raining and he was soaked.  Maybe he wasn’t slumbering, as he appeared to be, but was staring at his possessions in despair, beyond caring, even about survival. Maybe he was sick or under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  He was obviously penniless and without a place to call home, like thousands of others who live on the streets and under bridges all over America, the very nation recognized around the world as a bright and shining light in the ongoing scientific edification and development of mankind. 

One might ask if America or science had failed this man.  Possibly a case could be made that America had, because it has a minimum responsibility to its citizens, but the question regarding science is valid only if science is expected to be his savior. In other words, the question is proper only if science is held responsible for the condition of mankind.  And, of course, it can’t be.  It’s just a method used to discover how the world works.  The responsibility for utilizing scientific discoveries, or any other body of knowledge, in a beneficial or detrimental way lies with men in general, whether they are scientists or accountants. If some architects found that cutting and overlapping shingles in a new geometric pattern did a better job of keeping out rain, their ingenuity would not make them responsible for people who became sick because their technologically antiquated roofs leaked.  But strangely, the query as to whether science has culpability for the social ills of our society seems appropriate. Why is that? It is because the scientific industry has set itself up as the arbiter of truth for planet earth. With placid acquiescence from those of us with other interests, scientists readily accepted the role of metaphysical spokesmen. We reverently accept and embrace our scientist’s description of reality, ironically, when its deep enigmas and mysteries are more evident than ever before. Scientists have been elevated to the level of secular priests, a position they seem to relish, and we trust them explicitly to expose and explain the secrets of our universe. But do they really deserve such status?

At first glance - sure - why not?  We must admit that science has taken us on a journey of discovery that is remarkable, indeed, and the amount of knowledge we have about the laws governing nature is astonishing. Scientific inquiry has exposed many basic natural facts and that information has been ingeniously utilized to make life easier and safer, at least for some. So because of its exalted status, and on the basis of some very good work in the past, maybe we should expect science to be suggesting fixes for the troublesome social issues which persistently plague us, like homelessness.

Scientists, however, simply because they are men, are every bit as fallible as mankind in general.  They suffer from professional pride and jealousy.  They react to peer pressure and have been known to sacrifice principles and integrity for fame or money. And they make mistakes. Therefore, as a simple matter of fact, scientists do not possess the innate privilege or the unblemished expertise to hold their brotherhood aloft as the supreme fountain of truth - but they do - and we have allowed it.  Unfortunately, they now use their position of epistemological preeminence to insist upon a metaphysical commitment to pure naturalism as the only proper paradigm for discovering facts and applying them. Simply put, they say everything must have a natural cause and any other proposition, intelligent design as a factor in the origin of life, for example, is beyond the realm of science and therefore ineligible as a truthful description of reality. 

It’s as if the nation’s forensic community, as it practiced its occupation by evaluating evidence regarding various causes of death, insisted that investigations into all human death be conducted with the underlying assumption that fatalities only occur because of accident, old age or sickness.  To postulate suicide or murder, that is, “death by design”, would be to invoke an unacceptable premise. Similarly, although the last decade has finally seen a growing voice of dissension within scientific ranks, as a matter of course, scientists ridicule the point of view that many of the complex structures found within the universe reflect intelligent design, like carbon based life forms, for instance. They do not even allow for such a notion within their investigative parameters. That type of close-mindedness is an abuse of the position of distinction and eminence society has naively conveyed upon scientists.  It has also allowed some slanted and limited interpretations of natural phenomena to become embedded in our culture, as we will see.

Scientists holding positions of widespread cultural influence, from Darwin to Sagan, have been reluctant to admit that their profession has restricted itself in its ability to compile knowledge by adopting a limited philosophical view. We would be better served if “science” stepped down a rung or two and allowed for some open minded thinking while disengaging itself from the abstract and speculative interpretations of data employed by some of its prominent members. We can’t blame scientists for the plight of street people but we should be able to rely on them for an honest pursuit of truth.  If scientists mandate that certain candidates for truth are unacceptable just because their personal naturalist presuppositions exclude them, we’re depending on the wrong people.

They must be willing to at least investigate an alternate premise if the evidence justifies it. The design inference is presently overwhelming in the fields of cosmology and biology but the scientific establishment refuses to consider it publicly. As a general scientific rule of thumb, naturalist hypotheses should always be considered first, but if evidence contradicting those ideas later becomes available, the ideas must be challenged. Regarding the origin of life, however, a case in point, the scientific establishment has resolutely rejected any suggestions that intelligent design be considered as an explanatory factor.  Scientists categorically refuse to even consider any such challenge to their naturalist commitment.  Not only for those of us who wait in toe-tapping anticipation for new scientific truth but for society at large, that is very bad.  It is bad because generally society and the institutions comprising it, like universities, governments and judicial systems, historically hold tenuously to archaic assumptions, scientifically motivated or otherwise, long after they have been repudiated because of new and updated data. The edifices of human society are cumbersome and transformation resistant by nature and by the time new information forces a reevaluation of old theories, a generation’s ideas have already been erroneously forged and tempered.  An example of this can be seen today in the field of genetics.

Within the last decade scientists have uncovered evidence rendering the guidelines societies have typically used to distinguish human races as archaic and inaccurate.  Here is an excerpt taken from a scientific article appearing in the Los Angeles times in April of 1995, reporting on current gene research.

"For centuries people have sorted each other by skin color. Now many scientists say that on a genetic level, race is meaningless.  Researchers acknowledge important hereditary differences between people but say race does not explain them.  Instead, human genetic variation is a measure of distance - how far people have migrated from their original African homeland, adapting to new conditions along the way."

The same article explained that genetic mapping shows the migratory process as having begun from a common human ancestor about 120,000 years ago.  Here is another description of similar research, also concluded recently, as reported in “Physical Anthropology, 6th edition”, a trade publication.

“…we reported on new comparative studies of the human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan Y chromosome. The reconstructed mutation rates suggested that all modern humans had a common male ancestor around 270,000 years ago. Two new studies propose new dates for a common male relative for all modern humans.

The first study estimates that a common ancestral human Y chromosome existed at around 188,000 years ago.1 This date is consistent with estimates for "Mitochondrial Eve." The second study places the data of a common ancestral human Y chromosome at a much more recent date of 49,000 to 37,000 years old.2 Although the dates given by these two studies for a common ancestor to all modern humans differ, the authors of both of the new "molecular Adam" studies and those of the “Mitochondrial Eve" studies see their work as evidence for the replacement model of the origins of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.”

The “replacement” model referred to in the above quote opposes the traditional model, which postulates that humans evolved separately from different locations beginning millions of years in the past. The traditional model fits more easily into standard naturalist dogma, which is why it was adopted, but the studies referred to above provide new information and overturn that model.  In a nutshell, social attitudes about race, as expressed through such widely divergent human institutions as governmental agencies and private clubs, have been shaped by conclusions that are now being proved erroneous. Those conclusions, of course, were drawn from strict naturalist assumptions regarding human origins and the origin of life itself.  This is what occurred. 

For the last 130 years the scientific establishment has forbade the consideration of any but a natural origin for modern man, a view implying that man’s appearance must have taken a very long time.  It must have taken a long time because man is so vastly superior (language ability, tool making ability and subjective reasoning ability) to his closest relative in the animal kingdom, apes and chimpanzees.   We know such abilities do not appear overnight from breeding cows, dogs, cats, corn and all other species of life.  It takes many, many generations to achieve a significant morphological change in any living thing.  Therefore, because all primates supposedly evolved from a common ancestor, millions of years of divergent evolution must have been necessary to explain the drastic differences we see in modern apes and modern men. 

A search for the various links between this common ancestor and modern man was begun.  Many hominid fossils from around the world were discovered.  Using scientific techniques, they were dated to be anywhere from 7 million years old to 100,000 years old and each new fossil was hailed as a link to our evolutionary past.  At first it appeared that the series of hominids represented by fossil finds supported the original assumption of a long, gradual evolutionary path from some ancient species of primate to modern man. It was a short leap to the conclusion that the fairly significant differences in appearance between various groups of modern humans resulted from diverging lines of human evolution beginning millions of years in the past when various hominid populations became geographically isolated. This assumption also made it easier to classify, as ancestral to modern man, the hominids of differing ages and types being found on different continents. Because naturalism was the only lens through which the appearance of modern man was allowed to be viewed, any idea other than the one described above was rejected.  (And especially the millenniums old theistic creed that all modern men are descendents of a single family whose arrival was influenced purposely.)

But scientists found themselves painted into a politically incorrect corner because the logical conclusion from their hierarchy of assumptions is that levels of evolutionary development will vary significantly within any species subjected to millions of years of mutation and adaptation in isolated groups.  Of course, because men are nothing more than primates to begin with, they are included.  The next obvious syllogistic step in this perilous chain of thought is that certain races, that is, groups of people distinctly different in physical appearance, are not as far along on the evolutionary scale as other races.  Because that is really the unavoidable conclusion of any series of premises allowing divergent and isolated evolution for mankind beginning millions of years ago, scientists avoid the topic of race like the plague, at least lately.  In the past they have been at the forefront in assuming humans can be sorted as to their level of development by physical appearance. The history of science is laden with studies on the relative intelligence of races and their proneness to specific behavioral patterns and those studies would not have been made if it were not assumed that profound differences would be discovered.

This left the door wide open for the suggestion that technological adaptation conveys greater value on a particular ethnic group than environmental adaptation because technological adaptation is somehow further along on the evolutionary scale. In other words, people who have produced steam engines, looms and great ships are more evolved than people who live in thatched huts.  People like Adolph Hitler stepped very boldly through this door and took the next obvious step. Hitler’s kind claim that some races deserve greater survival status than others and that inferior races should be eliminated or separated, for the betterment of the species. Now we see that the ghastly but inevitable conclusion drawn by racial supremacists was based upon a series of faulty assumptions.  All races have a recent and mutual gene pool. No human being is