The More You Know

It is one of life’s idiosyncrasies that the more you know, the less you believe. Paradoxically, the less you believe, the less you know.

It has its up side. A young child is very gullible – and can be made to believe almost anything. It would not be good or fruitful to remain in such a state. As children learn that many things are not the way they once believed, such as Santa Clause not being quite the fellow portrayed in popular culture, a certain skepticism takes hold. That can be very healthy if it triggers real inquiry and rigorous standards. But it can easily degenerate into a reflexive cynicism that doesn’t believe anything. The easiest people to manipulate are those whose vanity exceeds their wit and those who don’t believe anything. The former can be persuaded to believe anything so long as it is packaged as their idea, accompanied with the sparkly wrapping paper of gross flattery. The latter can be convinced of anything provided it hints at dark secret knowledge and smears people who are telling the truth.

What if the attainment of objective knowledge was used to refine belief rather than to abandon it? Actually, it once was this way. Contrary to modern myth, the scientific method was originally adopted as a means of understanding God’s handiwork. Sir Francis Bacon, an Anglican, was Chancellor of England under King James I – and the primary developer of the scientific method. He adopted it as a means of “glorifying God and illuminating Scripture.” George LeMaitre, a Catholic Priest, came up with the Big Bang Theory. Gregor Mendel, a Catholic monk, discovered the fundamental principles of heredity and is recognized as the father of modern genetics. Danish Catholic Bishop Nicolas Steno made critical contributions to geology, famously proving that fossils and crystals formed and hardened before the rock surrounding them did.

In fact, until the mid-1800s. almost all scientists were driven by their faith to illustrate the handiwork of God and discover its rules through science. The war between science and God that we think has always existed only began with the rise of materialist philosophy, which is a grift and a fraud.

Materialist philosophy excludes, by definition, anything that cannot be explained through material means as “unscientific.” When you exclude the miraculous from the start and refuse to take note of, much less examine, it, it is easy pretend it does not exist. What started with men establishing rules of evidence to illuminate God’s natural handiwork degenerated into the exclusion of anything those rules could not explain – which most definitively was not what scientific founders intended.

This has given rise to a host of myths in modern society. For example, did you know that Darwinian evolution was decisively discredited by the first half of the last century? Everything Darwin said the fossil record would show proved wrong. What is pushed now is neo-Darwinian evolution, a movement that largely began in the 1960’s based on the idea that Darwin was fundamentally right, just wrong on the details of how it happened. After 60 years of trying, the neo-Darwinians have discovered some things that help explain adaptation and genetics, but nothing that upholds the theory of evolution.

I remember in third grade we had a cool poster on the “evolution of the horse.” It started with a kind of weird tiny, little animal and, after five or six iterations, Voila! the modern horse. I was fascinated by it. Imagine my shock when, years later, I discovered that there never was such a thing as that tiny animal that was supposed to be precursor to the modern horse. Without an overt disclaimer and playing at being objective science, the poster was an imagination of what the horse’s ancestors might have looked like if evolution were true. If they were just going to make it up out of whole cloth, you would think they would have thrown a hippogriff in there somewhere.

You probably have never heard this, or any of hundreds of other such sciency myths modern scientists promulgate to protect their ideal of materialistic, human supremacy. Many scientists have said that some Christians deny evolution because they fear it would disprove God. The truth is that scientists suppressed knowledge of the objective fallacies of both Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory because they fear it would force them to concede the possibility – even the likelihood – of God.

Even if you think you are immune to such things, you have been affected. A lot of dumb people think they can play smart on the cheap by spouting pseudoscientific myths they don’t understand but the culture has embraced. For many folks it is intimidating.

I am a little puzzled by people who are deeply focused on miracles, signs and wonders. It seems to me that if you know God, it is a matter of course that He would do these things, as awesome as they are when seen. Over time, I have come to think such a focus may be a totem against the disbelief lurking in many people’s silent hearts because of the denuded culture we have long occupied.

The materialist virus has even infected many religious authorities and thinkers. One need only to start with the execrable “Jesus Project” of two decades ago. It pretended to be a scholarly study of whether Jesus ever existed historically and, if so, what He actually said.

The first part is pure sophistry. It is well established, by ancient Roman and Jewish historians as well as Christians, that Jesus was a genuine flesh-and-blood historical person, whether or not He was actually God. The second goal was to separate His reputed sayings from His actual sayings. They started by dismissing anything that was miraculous or made claim to Divinity. Sheesh! If you decide you will not notice any stampeding cattle, you can pretend they are not there as they storm towards you, but that will not prevent you from being trampled.

The point is, the deeply errant philosophy of materialism has infected our whole culture for over two centuries. The truth is that a little scientific knowledge and a little theology will shake your belief. A LOT of both will cement it. It just takes too great a leap of faith to overlook the growing canyon of things science cannot explain except with sophist and circular arguments.

This is important because we face some serious existential problems on the immediate horizon. You need to be able to walk with confidence. I know a lot of theology – and a lot more science than I let on (playing dumb on a field that is not your public specialty is of enormous value in separating out the frauds from the serious people in that field – and you can do it without ever letting them know unless you need to). God is…and the actual scientific method is a wonderful means of exploring His handiwork. But when you cannot clearly see the path ahead of you and the distraction of the howling wind and waves threatens to cause you to sink, remember…God IS.

If you are shaken, behave as if you know God exists and loves you. Do it long enough and it will become real. And then, every hurdle you overcome will help give you confidence in that reality. God IS – and serious, deep investigation bolsters it.

As for me, I was a lot more outraged and disillusioned by the phony horse poster than I was by the realization that Santa Claus is actually an ancient Russian Bishop.