…First, explanations that rely on the inexplicable are not explanations at all. They have the form of explanations, but they do not have the content. Yet, psychology experiments reveal that people are often satisfied by empty form. For instance, when experimenters approached people who were standing in line at a photocopy machine and said, “Can I get ahead of you?” the typical answer was no. But when they added to the end of this request the words “because I need to make some copies,” the typical answer was yes. The second request used the word “because” and hence sounded like an explanation, and the fact that this explanation told them nothing that they didn’t already know was oddly irrelevant.
In another study, experimenters approached people in a library, handed them a card with a $1 coin attached, and then walked away. Some people received the card on the top, and some received the card on the bottom:
Although the two extra questions on the bottom card —- “Who are we?” and “Why do we do this?” — provide no information whatsoever, they do give one the sense that puzzling questions have been posed and then answered. The results of the study showed that the people who received the bottom card were, in fact, less curious and less delighted twenty minutes after receiving it than were people who received the top card because only the latter felt that something wonderful and inexplicable had happened. In short, what William Paley did not realize is that statements such as “God made it” can satiate the appetite for explanation without providing any nutritional value.
Read the full article for additional examples of how our brain sees agency in random events.
Why are We Happy?
Another example of how many of our projections of how we would react to events turn out to be wildly wrong is a TED talk by Gilbert titled The Surprising Science of Happiness:
Or, for those that prefer reading, there is an interactive script of Gilbert’s speech. (If you click on any phrase, it takes you to that part of the video):
From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. This almost floors me — a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.
And of course, in psychological studies, there is the infamous Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment, neither of which I’ll get in to, but you’re welcome to follow the hot links for more information
The overall point though is this: how our brains actually work and make decisions is not nearly as logical as we’d like to think it is. We’re all subject to these strange decision processes, and are largely unaware of them.
Here’s a 2002 video of U.S. Representative from Indiana Mike Pence denying evolution on the House floor. Pence quickly reveals that he, like many creationists, doesn’t understand the meaning of the word theory. Pence does on to ask that other “theories” of beginnings be taught — you know like Biblical creationism. Pence is being disingenuous here when he says he want creationism to be taught alongside evolution. He wants no such thing, as he makes clear towards the end of his speech. Pence believes Genesis 1-3 is scientific fact, not just one theory of origins among many. His grand hope is that everyone will one day know that evolution is false and creationism is true.
First, partisans don’t listen to facts, and their opinions are difficult to change even with hard evidence. Second, political opinions are generally not based on fact at all, they are based on emotions. In The Political Brain Westen writes: “The results showed that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to ‘reason’ to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints as they do it.” By “trace,” Westen means using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what’s happening in the brain. The researchers found that subjects confronted with negative information about their party or candidate initially feel the unpleasant emotion of distress. It doesn’t last long. Very quickly, the brain uses faulty reasoning and false beliefs to counteract the negative feeling by reaching a false conclusion. The brain then produces positive emotion — a reward for having reached an illogical decision.
The bottom line, according to Westen, is that the “the political brain is an emotional brain.”
And another similar article, (I think looking at the same underlying research), discussing confirmation bias is The Political Brainby Michael Shermer, appearing in a Scientific American article from 2006.
An unreached people group in Southeast Asia gave their lives to Christ when their leader apparently dropped dead and came back to life after a group of believers prayed.
David Platt, president of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, recounted the “modern-day resurrection” story during the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee meeting on Sept. 19.
A local Southeast Asian Christian who was brought to faith by some Southern Baptist missionaries took a group of friends and began evangelizing in the remote village, Baptist Press reports.
Villagers responded by bringing idols, necklaces and amulets associated with their occult worship to be burned, Platt said, relaying the account of an IMB worker.
It is reported that shortly after the burning ceremony, the village leader was found dead.
The villagers said they believed they angered the local spirits by giving up their possessions. They asked for their ritual objects to be returned to them.
The Christians, discouraged by the request and the news of the leader’s death, traveled to where the leader was laid and prayed over his body “that God would show His mercy to the people in the village, that God would show His glory and His love to that people who were so close,” said Platt.
“This Asian believer tells our missionary,” Platt said, “that as they were praying there over the man, all of a sudden the man coughed. Everybody in the house got really still. And the man coughed again. People came rushing over, and the village leader started breathing. People started helping him up. Everybody’s looking at these Asian believers like, ‘What happened?’
“They decided this was as good a time as any to share the Gospel,” Platt stated. “So they shared the Gospel, and in the days to come, people started coming to faith in Christ and that village starting burning their idols.”
Platt later admitted that the man might not have really been dead. Why then, did Platt, CHARISMA, and other Christian “news” sites report this as a modern-day resurrection from the dead? There’s zero objective, verifiable evidence that the “dead” man was brought back to life. Isn’t it far more likely that people THOUGHT the man was dead and that, coincidentally, he coughed at the very moment the missionaries were praying over him?
One thing is for certain, the missionaries used this sham resurrection to manipulate scientifically illiterate locals, going so far as to lead them to think that, through their prayers, the Evangelical God had brought the chieftain back to life. This kind of mumbo-jumbo magic show only works in countries populated by people with little to no understanding of science. You know, like the United States.
If these missionaries can really pray dead people back to life, why not bring their show back to America so their magic powers can be closely observed and documented. S-h-i-t (spoken in the voice of Senator Clay Davis on The Wire), I would be happy if they just plied their miracle-working power on the sick and crippled. Again, I would want the “healings” scientifically verified.
Perhaps David Platt and his fellow stone-age Southern Baptists should spent some time learning that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. If Platt wants non-tokers of Fundamentalist weed to believe this story, he is going to have to provide scientific evidence for his claims. Until then, I am with Clay Davis: s-h-i-t.
Just today, Ken Ham, the CEO of Answers in Genesis, released another screed about the supposed outlawing of Christianity by secularists. Ham wrote:
Little by little, the secularists have been outlawing Christianity from the culture. Through misinformation, bullying, and intimidation, they have been succeeding. And because so many Christians have been so secularized by the public education system, they have largely not put up a fight.
And if this trend keeps happening, do you want a picture of where America is headed in the future? Just look at England.
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Warning! What is happening in the United States has already happened in Britain. That’s where America is heading.
I would say the decline is happening for the same basic reason: God’s people didn’t stand on God’s Word from its beginning. In this era, the compromise between evolution/millions of years and Genesis began in England and spread around the world. Really, what’s happened to the church throughout England is actually the outworking of a church that has compromised God’s Word with man’s fallible ideas. Furthermore, the church has largely handed over the education of generations to the state.
This same compromise is rife in the church in the United States. At the same time, generations of children in America have been educated in schools that have increasingly outlawed anything Christian.
I believe this is why the Lord has raised up ministries like Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, and the new Ark Encounter. God is using these outreaches to equip Christians to stand against the secular attacks of our day and to challenge (in a very public and bold way) non-Christians with the truth of God’s Word and the gospel.
God has allowed AiG to build the Creation Museum and the Ark because I believe there are many godly people who will take a stand on the authority of the Word of God.
While we still have the freedom to boldly proclaim the message of God’s Word to the world, I pray you will support us in prayer to do whatever we can to embolden God’s people and reach millions with the saving gospel. I urge you to help us to stand against those who would try to completely outlaw Christianity from the culture.
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If God’s people don’t contend for the faith, we will see Christianity outlawed even further in our culture! I implore you to stand up for your faith. In a very public way (with an increasing number of scoffers trying to stop us), AiG is contending for the faith through many ministries like the Creation Museum and now the Ark Encounter.
Is Christianity being outlawed? Of course not. Christians are free to worship whenever, however, wherever, with whomever. Christian public school students are free to individually pray and read the Bible in school. Evangelicals are free to send their children to Christian schools or home school them. Christians are even free to build monuments to ignorance such as the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. Evangelicals are free to evangelize their neighbors and stand on street corners preaching the gospel. Christianity is freer here in America than any other country on earth. Christian ministers get special tax exemptions/deductions, as do the churches they pastor.
Despite freedom of belief, worship, and practice that all Christians (and non-Christians) enjoy, charlatans such as Ken Ham continue to say that their brand of religious Fundamentalism is under attack. Ham says secularists are trying to ban Christianity. Knowing everything that I have mentioned above, how can Ham continue to lie about this? The very fact that Ham can build a damn wood boat on dry Kentucky land and say it is a testament to God’s saving grace is proof that secularists are NOT trying to ban Christianity. Most secularists don’t care about with whom, where, and how people worship their respective deities. Simply put…WE DON’T CARE!
We do, however, care about Evangelical (and Catholic and Mormon) attempts to breach the wall of separation of church and state. We do care when Evangelicals ignore the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, saying that God’s law trumps man’s law. We do care when Evangelicals attempt to sneak creationism and its gussied-up sister, intelligent design, into SECULAR public school classrooms. We do care when Evangelicals wrongly assert that America is a Christian nation and that the Bible should be the law of the land. And most of all, we do care when Evangelicals attempt to hijack local, state, and federal government for their own purposes.
Secularists stand resolutely against ANY attempt to merge church and state. We are students of history, knowing that when church and state are one, freedoms are lost and people die. If anyone is a threat to America and human freedom and liberty, it is theocrats such as Ken Ham. Does Ham want more or less freedom for those who do not share his religious sentiments? Less! Does Ham support the wall of separation between church and state? Does Ham think people should be free to live godless, heathen lives? Does Ham think consenting adults should be free to do sexually as they please? Does Ham support fairness, justice and equal protection under the law for all? No, on all counts. It is Ham and his Fundamentalist horde who want to rob Americans of their freedoms, not secularists. The real enemy, Ken, is You!
This is the one hundred and eighteenth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip from a sermon preached by then U.S. Representative from Georgia, Paul Braun at the 2012 Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet in Hartwell Georgia. Braun, by the way, is a medical doctor, proving yet again that Fundamentalism has the power to make smart people dumb as rocks.
This is the one hundred and fifteenth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip from dinosaur denier Eric Dubay. Dubay is a flat-earther and a consummate conspiracy theorist. You can check out his blog here. Let me give you an excerpt from Dubay’s blog:
QR – If the earth is indeed flat, then where does it start and end, and why don’t we fall off it?
I could similarly ask NASA and modern astronomers, “if outer-space is indeed real, where does it start and end, and why can’t we go beyond that?” Antarctica is not the tiny ice-continent found confined to the underside of astronomer’s globes, but is rather a gigantic ice wall/plateau 200 feet tall that surrounds the Earth and holds the oceans in 360 degrees around us. How far the Antarctic ice extends southwards and whether it terminates in an edge, barrier/firmament, or whether it is infinite is currently unknown and unknowable to the public thanks to the Antarctic Treaty which prevents ordinary people from independent exploration of Antarctica.
QR – What happens to the oceans at the ends of the earth?
The oceans are all connected, are completely flat (it’s called “sea-level” for a reason), and are held in by the surrounding Antarctic ice wall/plateau. How far the Antarctic ice extends southwards and how it terminates are still unknown to the public at this time.
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QR – Where does the atmosphere start and finish?
This is another question which even NASA refuses to answer. They claim that at some undetermined height, “gravity” becomes weaker and weaker until it magically gives way to “outer-space” which is a vacuum which allow astronauts to free-float forever without falling back down. First of all, it is physically and philosophically impossible for “infinite non-gravitized vacuum space” to exist adjacent to and not separated in any way from non-vacuum, gravitized atmosphere. Secondly, no amateur rocket, balloon, or other technology has ever been able to reach this alleged height where instead of falling back down to Earth like a skydiver, people are able to simply free-float. This is because astro-nots are not in outer-space at all and are simply filming the free-floating effect using camera tricks, green screens, wires, dark pools, and so-called “zero-g planes.” The reality is as the old adage states, “what goes up, must come down,” and not because of “gravity” but because objects always rise/fall based on the relative densities of their surroundings. A helium balloon rises upwards because it is lighter than the oxygen, nitrogen and other elements in the air surrounding it. A rock drops right to the ground because it is denser than the air surrounding it. That is all. The helium balloon doesn’t mysteriously escape “gravity” while the rock is subjected to it, but rather, as was known for millennia before Newton’s silly theory, objects naturally rise/fall towards their own density.
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QR – There really is some compelling evidence that the Earth is flat and that we’ve all been deceived for centuries. In your opinion who is pulling the wool over our eyes and, more importantly, why?
The Jews, Jesuits, Freemasons and other embedded secret societies in the current New World Order establishment have been lying about the Earth and many other subjects for centuries.
The following video is thirty minutes long. I know 99.9% of you won’t listen to all of it, but I hope you will listen to the first five minutes. You will learn everything you need to know about Eric Dubay.
Note: Without ever mentioning Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, these Evangelical leaders use the culture war dog whistle to let Evangelicals know that Hillary Clinton must be defeated.
One vision includes a nation where free speech and religious liberty are constitutionally protected, bedrock principles. The other continues along a path where such principles are quickly jettisoned with the latest turn of the sexual revolution.
One vision aspires, as a first priority, to use our nation’s military as a fighting force to keep America and the world safe from bad actors. The other would continue using the armed forces as a social experimentation lab, where the LGBT agenda takes precedence over troop readiness and morale, and where placing women in ground combat roles supersedes obvious gender differences.
One vision would seek to build a federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, that interprets the Constitution as an enduring document for the nation, with timeless guiding principles for civil government. The other would appoint liberal-progressive judges to federal courts who believe the Constitution is a “living, breathing document” that bends with the times and with evolving moral standards.
America is not going to cease to exist as the land mass that it is. What is at stake is the republic as we know it, freedoms that we have enjoyed.
It’s been open [assault on religious freedom] It’s been frontal. It’s been unrelenting … The weight of the government is being used to quarantine faith within the four walls of the church, and that is not religious freedom.
It is the church— armed with the Gospel—that can fix hearts. It is the Gospel that transforms lives. It is the church through the witness of the Holy Spirit that can preserve a culture. But without the space to do that openly in public, it’s difficult. And elections in our country determine that.
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, Two Visions. Two Americas.
The sexual revolution weakened the exclusivity and commitment required for lifelong marriage. Spiritual apathy and apostasy have also been major contributors. America no longer lives by an eternal moral code given to us by the Word of God.”
Also, the radical feminist movement, based on hostility toward men, weakened the marital bond. Related to it was, and is, the legalization of abortion through nine months of pregnancy. Raising children is what this ancient institution is all about. And, finally, the judiciary has created politically correct interpretations of the law that are destroying the traditional family unit. Uppermost among them is same-sex ‘marriage’—imposed by five members of the Supreme Court on 50 million people who voted against it.
James Dobson, former President of Focus on the Family, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, Two Visions. Two Americas.
We live in a time when we have gone from living in a post-Christian nation to living in an anti-Christian nation. That is completely contrary to the founding principles of our country.
Penny Nance, Concerned Women of America, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, Two Visions. Two Americas.
We are sacrificing our children, nearly 60 million now, on the modern-day equivalent of the altar of Molech, which God called detestable on more than one occasion. We are mainstreaming same-sex marriage, transgender toilets. It just seems that the sewer cover has been removed and everything is now up in the streets.
Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, Two Visions. Two Americas.
The next president will select between two and four justices who will reign over the cultural issues of our nation for the next 30 years. The average Supreme Court judge serves 26 years. In the next 30 years, what happens in this election is going to have an incredible impact on my children and grandchildren. And the impact will be most likely felt more because of what happens in the Supreme Court than anything else that happens in the government.
David Jeremiah, pastor, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, Two Visions. Two Americas.
In just 10 weeks, our nation will select a man or woman who will become the 45th president of the United States of America. Whomever we elect will take the helm of a nation that has grown increasingly hostile and intolerant of the very foundation and principles upon which it was so nobly founded—the Christian faith and Biblical values.
That’s why I believe this election is the most significant since Abraham Lincoln was chosen to guide a divided country through a bloody and protracted civil war.
For if the forces of evil that are allied against the free exercise of our faith succeed—and they have done severe damage already—then I have no doubt that the nation we love will devolve into moral anarchy more quickly than we can imagine.
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Same-sex marriage zealots have launched an all-out war on traditional marriage, which is defined in Scripture—and virtually every civilization in history—as a union between one man and one woman. Human sexuality itself is being completely redefined by elite sexual revolutionaries who seek to impose their warped views on society, resulting in fierce battles over such things as transgender bathrooms—supported by none other than the president himself.
The same anti-Christian forces are seeking to strip funding from Christian colleges to keep them from educating students with a Biblical worldview. Business owners across the nation have been forced to close their doors because they refused to participate in same-sex ceremonies due to their religious faith.
The skirmishes over moral standards have turned into pitched battles over the last decade and now have become an all-out war on religious liberty. Think of the moral degeneration that has transpired under our current president, who has helped lead the fight to promote ungodly sexual behavior while failing to protect basic religious liberties.
What if that depraved trajectory continues over the next few decades? Can you imagine what our great nation, whose foundation was laid by a moral and religious people, will look like? The next president will appoint several Supreme Court justices (three of the current eight are 77 or older), so this election will profoundly affect generations to come.
That’s why this fall we must take pains to examine where the candidates for our nation’s highest elected office stand on the critical issues that face our troubled nation.
Will they do everything they can to protect the life of the unborn child? Will they fight for the religious freedom that is guaranteed under the Constitution? Will they fully support the rights of men and women of faith to act in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs?
Will they defend our nation against Islamic terrorists who have slaughtered and killed innocents across our country in the name of their god? Will they call the enemy—radical Islam—by its name? Will they work to strengthen our military so the United States of America can continue to be the dependable guardian of the free world?
Will they defend the Biblical sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman, and do all they can to protect the family unit? Will they continue to lead us down the road of irresponsible socialism, where the Biblical injunction for hard, honest work is ignored? Or will we embrace a resurgence of vigorous entrepreneurship and industry that has been a hallmark of our nation since its founding?
Will they appoint judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts who respect and uphold the safeguards of the U.S. Constitution? Judges who refuse to interpret the law based on decadent ideology and liberal political agendas that are directly opposed to the fundamental tenets of religious freedom? Franklin Graham, Editor in Chief, September 2016, Decision: The Evangelical Voice of Today, The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime
The words that are on the sign [God said it, I believe it, That settle it] I had only shared a few days before with an Atheist on a Blog but in his foolishness he had rejected them, they are my heart focus and even if I did not believe what God said, it would still be settled, it is His Truth.
At the time I felt sad for this Atheist and the other one on the Blog that I was visiting, with having been one myself for almost 30 years and knowing the confusion and despair it brings, well at least I was an Atheist in my head but not my heart or I would still be one today.
I had been deceived by a Teacher at School and by my Mum too that I came from an Ape and that Jesus and the Bible were just made up but Jesus rescued me years later and confirmed with evidence the Truth of the Scriptures and that we did not evolve from an Ape or any other Animal, see link below.
I also felt anger at the way these Atheists mocked God and rubbished His Truth in the Scriptures, they also put me and others down when we shared the confirmation in them of God’s reality but of course they don’t understand His Truth because they don’t have The Holy Spirit (1Corinthians2:9 -16) so His words are foolishness to them and yes this is because they are foolish like I had been for many years.
When I was sharing with Atheists on an Australian wide News Website a few years ago, God gave me the Scriptures below, yes there are some we can reach but some we never will, so we need to be careful we don’t become polluted by their foolishness.
Proverbs 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Proverbs 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
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We do not have to fear those who claim God is a delusion and who Mock Him and us, or teach error, they will find their foundation is very shaky and will eventually fall in a heap and like the Moth eggs that become worms and eat our clothes, their understanding of reality is without God’s Truth and so is full of holes, their delusion brings despair and heartache, this is their choice, it’s not God’s will that anyone suffers or perishes, meaning to be separated from Him in Hell in the Lake of Fire that burns Eternally. All we can do before it’s too late is Pray that when they do see God’s reality in His Creation, they will not reject Him but God will not force them to repent, He does not want Puppets, without repentance they will reap what they sow.
An important new survey by Pew Research asks why people who were raised in religious homes but who now identify as religious “nones” – having no religious affiliation – decided to leave the faith of their childhood.
The results were varied, but according to the survey, “Half of ‘nones’ left childhood faith over lack of belief, one-in-five cite[d] dislike of organized religion.”
Of this half (more exactly, 49 percent) of “nones” who say they no longer believe, many “mention ‘science’ as the reason they do not believe in religious teachings” while others “reference ‘common sense,’ ‘logic’ or a ‘lack of evidence’ – or simply say they do not believe in God.”
Of the 20 percent who cite their dislike of organized religion are “some who do not like the hierarchical nature of religious groups, several people who think religion is too much like a business and others who mention clergy sexual abuse scandals as reasons for their stance.”
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What is God’s solution to this growing problem of religious “nones”? It can be summed up in three words: truth, encounter, and consistency.
Specifically, I’m referring to biblically-based, academically-sound truth that answers the questions and refutes the lies; divine encounter, as in a real, life-transforming experience in God; and a consistent, Christian witness full of integrity and authenticity.
Of course, even with all this, there will be people who disbelieve and reject the faith, just as there have been in every age. But as we do a better job of disseminating the truth, as we help people come to know the Lord for themselves (as opposed to simply knowing about Him), and as we live out our faith without hypocrisy, many of these “nones” will return to God, while some will genuinely come to Him for the very first time.
With regard to truth, I am convinced that the more scientific discoveries we make, the more we must realize that there had to be a Creator. As expressed by the British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
There is today a robust field of Christian apologetics focused on the questions of the origins of the universe and the claims of Darwinian evolution, and it includes highly-respected scientists and scholars who affirm unequivocally that all the evidence points to the existence of an intelligent Creator. There is also a growing body of learned Christian philosophers who are responding with clarity to the great moral questions of human suffering and apparent divine indifference.
Along with this are the many solid teachers and professors and authors who are providing sound responses to the wide-ranging attacks on the reliability of the Scriptures and the exclusive claims of the gospel.
So, there are answers to the many questions that are being raised on university campuses and on the internet. We just need to do a better job of getting those answers out, thereby helping many of these “nones” regain their lost faith (and helping others not to lose their faith in the first place).
— Michael Brown, God’s Solution to the ‘Nones’ Who Have Left the Faith
