Dumb and Dumber

How the West Was Lost

The dominant--indeed, established--religion of our day is materialistic atheism.  Put into doctrinal form, its profession of faith is as follows:

All that exists is matter: there is nothing else.
Matter exists by chance.

Naturally, these two proposition result in a rather barren, empty existence.  It is impossible to make any  meaning of one's life, let alone the cosmos.  It is hard to believe anything when everything is supposedly irrational.

In order to cope with the resultant crisis, folk just invent things.  Consequently, most in the West live in a make-believe world--one made up to impart the appearance of sense, meaning, significance and rationality.  It can be described as living in a make-believe world viewed through Alice's looking glass.

One pop manifestation of this make-believe world is a near universal belief in luck, or the "stars".  From the Christian perspective it comes as no surprise at all that our popular culture is deeply wedded to astrology--the belief that astral bodies providentially govern some, if not all, things in the world.

The Fall and Rise of Idolatry

Philosophers' Noisy Talk

In the fourth century AD, Athanasius (one of the great early church fathers) described the impact upon idolatry from the time of Christ's coming down to his day (circa 325AD).  He argues that the coming of Christ amongst men drove out superstition and idolatry in the Roman Empire and the Mediterranean nations.

Idolatry amongst the Gentiles was real, pervasive, and local.  Every town had its shrines and deities.  Athanasius witnessed the decline and decrepitude of the established religion of idolatry.  But what caused it?

When did people begin to abandon the worship of idols, unless it were since the very Word of God came among men?  When have oracles ceased and become void of meaning, among the Greeks and everywhere, except since the Saviour had revealed Himself on earth?

When did those whom the poets call gods and heroes begin to be adjudged as mere mortals, except when the Lord took the spoils of death and preserved incorruptible the body He had taken, raising it from among the dead?  Or when did the deceitfulness and madness of daemons fall under contempt, save when the Word, the Power of God, the Master of all these as well, condescended on account of the weakness of mankind and appeared on earth?

When did the practice and theory of magic begin to be spurned under foot, if not at the manifestation of the Divine Word to men?  In a word, when did the wisdom of the Greeks become foolish, save when the true Wisdom of God revealed Himself on earth?  In old times the whole world and every place in it was led astray by the worship of idols, and men thought the idols were the only gods that were.  But now, all over the world men are forsaking the fear of idols and taking refuge with Christ; and by worshipping Him as God they come through Him to know the Father also, Whom formerly they did not know.

The objects of worship formerly were varied and countless; each place had its own idol and the so-called god of one place could not pass over to another in order to persuade the people there to worship him, but was barely reverenced even by his own.  Indeed no! Nobody worshipped his neighbour's god, but every man had his own idol and thought that it was lord of all.  But now Christ alone is worshipped, as One and the Same among all peoples everywhere; and what the feebleness of idols could not do, namely convince even those dwelling close at hand, He has effected.  He has persuaded not only those close at hand, but literally the entire world to worship one and the same Lord and through Him the Father.

Again, in former times every place was full of the fraud of the oracles, and the utterances of those at Delphi and Dordona and in Boeotia and Lycia and Libya and Egypt and those of the Kabiri and the Pythoness were considered marvellous by the minds of men.  But now, since Christ has been proclaimed everywhere, their madness too has ceased, and there is no one left among them to give oracles at all. . . .

And what is one to say about the magic that they think so marvellous?  Before the sojourn of the Word, it was strong and active among Egyptians and Chaldeans and Indians and filled all who saw it with terror and astonishment.  But by the coming of the Truth and the manifestation of the Word it too has been confuted and entirely destroyed.

As to Greek wisdom, however, and the philosophers' noisy talk, I really think no one requires argument from us, for the amazing fact is patent to all that, for all that they have written so much, the Greeks failed to convince even a few from their own neighbourhood in regard to immortality and the virtuous ordering of life.  Christ alone, using common speech and through he agency of men not clever with their tongues, has convinced whole assemblies of people all the world over to despise death, and to take heed to the thing that do not die, to look past the things of time and gaze on things eternal, to think nothing of earthly glory and to aspire only to immortality.  [Athanasius, On the Incarnation.  Translated and edited by Sister Penelope Lawson.  (New York: Macmillan Publishing House, 1946.), p.75ff.] 

Idolatry still exists in places around the world.  But when the Christian Gospel of Christ takes hold, idolatry is the first and abiding casualty.  The reverse is also true: if a civilisation rebels against the gentle yoke of Christ, it is not long before superstition and various idols make a comeback.  Consider how many "scientists" have become reverently superstitious about Evolution, seeing its hand, influence, control, and explanatory power everywhere.  Consider how our Most High Priests of scientism gravely propound an infinite number of parallel universes to warrant the complexity of the one in which we live.  For Stochasticity to have a chance of producing such an exquisitely balanced and fine tuned universe, there must needs be an infinite number of other universes where the emergence of life is impossible or has failed.  These nonsenses and contradictions are uttered most gravely and reverently by the most superstitious of all.

The Delphic oracle--the alleged voice of Apollo himself--was a charlatan's purse (and at root everyone knew it).  It survived for so long because of the wilful credulity of those who needed such things to make some kind of superstitious sense of the world. The coming of the Gospel eradicated that need.  But deny or ignore the Gospel and gross ignorance soon makes a return.

The distance between our modern superstitious scientists and the devotees of Delphi is less than a cigarette paper. 

It's a Mad Materialist World

Superstition and Avatar II

Is the world ultimately personal or impersonal?  The Christian position is clear, without ambiguity.  If a hair falls from one's head or a sparrow dies, such apparently random events are indeed ultimately personal in the sense that they are at the will, command, and direction of a person--the Living God.  When a hair falls from one's head it is from the Lord.  When the sparrow dies, it is by the Lord's will and command.  Even what appears to us to be the most random act is actually not; it is infinitely personal. 

The lot is cast into the lap,
But its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33

Modern man has a diametrically opposed view.  His confession of faith is that the world is ultimately random and impersonal.  Since there is no person behind it all, the universe is thoroughly and ultimately impersonal.  What is just is.  And what exists is just matter, or more precisely, matter, energy and motion.  That's it.

The Overreach of Stupid Science, Part VI

The Persistence of Philosophy

[Part VI of  The Folly of Scientism by  Austin L. Hughes

Originally published in The New Atlantis ]

The positivist tradition in philosophy gave scientism a strong impetus by denying validity to any area of human knowledge outside of natural science. More recent advocates of scientism have taken the ironic but logical next step of denying any useful role for philosophy whatsoever, even the subservient philosophy of the positivist sort. But the last laugh, it seems, remains with the philosophers — for the advocates of scientism reveal conceptual confusions that are obvious upon philosophical reflection. Rather than rendering philosophy obsolete, scientism is setting the stage for its much-needed revival.

Advocates of scientism today claim the sole mantle of rationality, frequently equating science with reason itself.

Drip, Drip, Drip

 Experts as Augurs

An old saw has it that an expert is a drip under pressure.  Nevertheless our modern world loves experts--demands them, in fact.  The modern expert has taken the place of the ancient soothsayer, or rune reader.  The most worthy and vital contribution that experts are required to make is predict the future.  This is why they function in our Unbelieving culture as the modern equivalent of augurs. 

Most of their predictions are stupid superstitions, appealing to the more base human emotions of fear and greed.  The more lurid the prophecy, the more valued.  The status of "expert" buoys up its certainty and credibility.  As G. K. Chesterton astutely observed, when men stop believing in the Living God, they do not believe in nothing;  they begin to believe in everything.  Credulity characterises an Unbelieving culture, such as now dominates the West. 

There is an irony in this.  The West prides itself on its knowledge, its scientific rigour, its evidence-based governments.  In reality it has become suborned to superstitious speculations gilded with a veneer of academic rigour and research.  The role of the expert in our world is to provide the gilding. 

In a recent article in The National, Robert Matthews takes a much needed sceptical look at experts and their auguries.  It turns out that the more famous the expert, the worse his predictive abilities. 

Here We Go Again

Computer Models Have a Lot to Answer For

We have been reprised once again of the follies of relying upon computer models. Apparently it was the pesky models which led officials to shut down air traffic throughout Europe as a result of Iceland's volcanoes erupting. The disruption and the costs, of course, are prohibitive. Well worth paying, however, if the risks and dangers were genuine.

According to a recent report in the Financial Times, it was more a case of virtual reality, rather than genuine reality which has shut down air traffic.

The computer models that guided decisions to impose a no-fly zone across most of Europe in recent days are based on incomplete science and limited data, according to European officials. As a result, they may have over-stated the risks to the public, needlessly grounding flights and damaging businesses.

“It is a black box in certain areas,” Matthias Ruete, the EU’s director-general for mobility and transport, said on Monday, noting that many of the assumptions in the computer models were not backed by scientific evidence.

European authorities were not sure about scientific questions, such as what concentration of ash was hazardous for jet engines, or at what rate ash fell from the sky, Mr Ruete said. “It’s one of the elements where, as far as I know, we’re not quite clear about it,” he admitted.

Sound familiar? It's deja vu, all over again, as Yogi Berra would put it.

How can such complete faith be put in virtually nothing, or at least in the profoundly unsubstantiated? What happened to the so-called rigour of hard science? It never existed. But it's even worse when the age becomes deeply superstitious--as ours has become. In a recent article entitled This shutdown is about more than volcanic ash, sociologist Frank Furedi hits the nail on the head.

Whatever the risks posed by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, it seems clear that the shutting down of much of Europe’s air space is not just about the threat posed by clouds of ash to flying passengers. We live in an era where problems of uncertainty and risk are continually amplified, and where our fearful imaginations can make these problems seem like existential threats. Consequently, unexpected natural events are rarely treated simply as unexpected natural events – instead they are swiftly dramatised and transformed into ‘threats to human survival’.

We have termed this phenomenon the Culture of Catastrophism. But it is important to realise that this is not just espoused by a few superstitious folk on the lunatic fringe. It is now mainstream. Furedi goes on to explain how it actually works.

I am not a natural scientist, and I claim no authority to say anything of value about the risks posed by volcanic ash clouds to flying aircraft. However, as a sociologist interested in the process of decision-making, it is evident to me that the reluctance to lift the ban on air traffic in Europe is motivated by worst-case thinking rather than rigorous risk assessment. Risk assessment is based on an attempt to calculate the probability of different outcomes. Worst-case thinking – these days known as ‘precautionary thinking’ – is based on an act of imagination. It imagines the worst-case scenario and then takes action on that basis. In the case of the Icelandic volcano, fears that particles in the ash cloud could cause aeroplane engines to shut down automatically mutated into a conclusion that this would happen. So it seems to me to be the fantasy of the worst-case scenario rather than risk assessment that underpins the current official ban on air traffic.

Risk assessment has become risk avoidance. The best way to avoid risks is to shut everything down and live in a cocoon. It is to retreat into the safety of the bunker or the cave.

Tragically, this failure of nerve in relation to the volcanic ash is the inevitable outcome of the institutionalisation of worst-case policymaking. This approach, based on the unprecedented sensitivity of contemporary Western society to uncertainty and unknown dangers, has led to a radically new way of perceiving and managing risks. As a result, the traditional association of risk with probabilities is now under fire from a growing body of opinion, which claims that humanity lacks the knowledge to calculate risks in any meaningful way. Sadly, critics of traditional probabilistic risk-assessments have more faith in speculative computer models than they do in science’s capacity to use knowledge to transform uncertainties into calculable risks. The emergence of a speculative approach towards risk is paralleled by the growing influence of ‘possibilistic thinking’ rather than probabilistic thinking, which actively invites speculation about what could possibly go wrong. In today’s culture of fear, frequently ‘what could possibly go wrong’ is confused with ‘what is likely to happen’.

When individuals turn against God they may succeed in going through life with brazen arrogance and ill-founded boldness, being protected by the lawfulness and security of the surrounding culture. When a whole culture turns away from God, fearful superstition is the inevitable outcome. Decisions have to be made about things way beyond control or knowledge. The result is fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown and the attempt to avoid bad outcomes is the essence of a superstitious mind. Fearful superstition has now become the dominant culture of the day.

Worst-case thinking encourages society to adopt fear as of one of the key principles around which the public, the government and various institutions should organise their lives. It institutionalises insecurity and fosters a mood of confusion and powerlessness. Through popularising the belief that worst cases are normal, it also encourages people to feel defenceless and vulnerable to a wide range of future threats. In all but name, it is an invitation to social paralysis. The eruption of a volcano in Iceland poses technical problems, for which responsible decision-makers should swiftly come up with sensible solutions. But instead, Europe has decided to turn a problem into a drama. In 50 years’ time, historians will be writing about our society’s reluctance to act when practical problems arose. It is no doubt difficult to face up to a natural disaster – but in this case it is the all-too-apparent manmade disaster brought on by indecision and a reluctance to engage with uncertainty that represents the real threat to our future.

Contrast this present condition of our culture of Unbelief with the reasoned calmness of Belief when faced with minatory uncertainty:

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

When Unbelief dominates a culture--as it does in the West--institutionalised fearful superstition is inevitable. It has always been the case. And so it has come to pass. This, too, will not change until we repent and return to the all wise, all governing God, Who has revealed Himself in Holy Scripture. Only then will our present fearful culture of  superstition dissipate.

Living in Fear and Dread

Wicked Flee When No-one Pursues

When a modern individual turns away from the Living God, usually all that he is left with is a confrontation with the natural world. According to the dominant world view of our culture the only reality is physical matter which is ultimately "ruled" by blind, brute chance. So the world of nature which confronts the Unbeliever is a minatory and intimidating world. It is a world which lacks rhyme or reason, sense or purpose. It is a world in which the individual has no significance or place. There is no natural order per se. Any apparent natural order is neither my ally nor friend.

It should come as no surprise, then, that our culture is paralysed with phobias. Michael Crichton, in his book State of Fear, describes it thus:

Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see -- germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion -- a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages.

The more a culture turns away from the Living God the more superstitious it becomes. Nature is hostile. Dread rules. Catastrophes lurk on every hand. It becomes more like the Dark Ages every day. Athens is indeed going backwards into the future.

"Those who hate me, love death," says the Lord.