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Attack Catholic Truth – Part II

The anti-theists are playing philosophical poker in today's Sunday Telegraph (22/1/06), with the “modern” philosophers “trumping” the ancients (Letters). Apparently Aristotle's First Cause argument has been “demolished” forevermore on the basis that we might as well suppose the physical universe to be uncaused as God. What is missed here, however, is that the reason Aristotle (and Thomas Aquinas) postulated the existence of an uncaused Cause is precisely because to say that “the universe”, or any part of it, self-exists is not warranted by our experience of material things (see footnote 1 and related links). If, for example, we were to suppose the existence of permanent fundamental particles, or superstrings, of which everything else that ever was has been composed, these fundamental objects would still have a limited nature. They would no more constitute a legitimate materialist terminal point of inquiry than, say, celestial bodies. Far from being rational, the atheist suggestion of matter's self-existence seems to have more in common with the conception of a sun-god, Helios, and his sister Selene, the moon, from Greek mythology, than with what “the great twentieth century philosopher” Eric Voegelin recognised to be the “aetiological problem” of Greek philosophy. Furthermore, the fact that God is unseen does not make the inference of His existence mere “say so”. As Stephen Hawking observes, “no one has ever seen a superstring either”¹. Then again, why bother attempting to develop an argument in the traditional fashion – proceeding logically from the known to the unknown – when all it takes to get published in The Sunday Telegraph is a puerile, self-contradictory “argument” that argument itself is not possible (Letters, 29/1/06)? To be fair to The Sunday Telegraph, however, they did accept this correct point (Letters, 12/2/06).

For every one correct point, however, it seems that three “refutations” are required (The Sunday Telegraph, Letters, 19/2/06). These correspondents presumably accept that Christ's Resurrection had no physical explanation. Notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary, the fact that a person could die and rise again would seem to confirm the existence of a Source of Being outwith the material universe, i.e. the uncaused Cause postulated by Aristotle (pace the followers of Kant, one of whom writes again today – see first link in paragraph above). That they do not accept anything other than “independent [i.e. non-Gospel] evidence” for the existence of Christ echoes a position observed by nineteenth-century Harvard law professor Simon Greenleaf. (Needless to say, he was “the greatest law professor that ever lived”.) Citing, amongst other things, the rule of law that “every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown”, Greenleaf notes “the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have ever been treated by [unbelievers] . . . in requiring the Christian affirmatively, and by positive evidence . . . to establish the credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a single [non-Christian] writer . . . to outweigh that of any single Christian”. (As it happens, one such non-Christian writer, the Roman historian Tacitus, noted in his Annals that “Christus . . . suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus”.) In order to evaluate a fair, “far higher standard of proof” for the Evangelists, it would be helpful if the Sunday Telegraph's correspondents could describe what would constitute such a standard. To the writer who wishes an end to the debate between the rational (Christians) and the superstitious (the-universe-happened-just-like-that atheists), what would he prefer? A debate about something everyone agrees on? Politics, perhaps? Thankfully, argument has been allowed to continue (26/2/06).

Saturday's New Scientist asks, “Why are we humans so willing to commit to religious beliefs [such as the Gospel miracles] we can never hope to verify?” (“How evolution found God”, 28/1/06; emphasis added). The Gospel miracles are past events. We determine their truth, not through a present-day experiment (as “Doubting Thomas” could), but, as discussed above, through the examination of witness testimony². New Scientist also wonders, “at what stage did our ancestors start believing in gods” (“What's it all about?”, 28/1/06). To find out how we can hope to verify this question about past events, we have to subscribe to the magazine. Another view, however, is that seeming double standards should be displayed for free. In any case, it is not as if miracles are purely a matter of history. A better subject for New Scientist to study might be the latest proclaimed miracle from Lourdes, reported recently in The Remnant (31/12/05).

2/2/06 – This letter to The Times (see third letter on page 1) makes no point that has not been covered already. It merely serves to illustrate the “endless stream” part of the “endless stream of anti-Catholic agitation and propaganda” referred to above. The Times might at least have shown some of the “fairness and balance” espoused by its sister American T.V. channel, Fox News, and published a counter observation that atheism is the belief-system of the mindless buffoon. Perhaps a newspaper caricature of the atheist, to go along with those of Buddha and the Christian deity (The Times, World News, 2/2/06), might be a picture of Tommy Cooper answering the question, “How did the universe come about?” – “Just like that!”. Not only did The Times not provide such balance, but today The Independent and The Daily Telegraph have added to the one-way propaganda (4/2/06). Thus the former published a letter with the unqualified assertion, “Religion corrupts logic”, to which the only appropriate response is, “Prove it”, (see fifth letter), while the latter published a correspondent's claim that there is no “hard evidence” of a god, to which one could reply with equal cogency, “Atheism is not warranted by the facts” (see third letter). (These are all just examples of attempting to suggest a proposition merely by stating it in a confident manner.)

Et cetera, et cetera

Further examples of this point may be found here: New Scientist, Letters, 11/2/06 (risible fantasies predicated on begging the question about the truth of Christianity).

Having discussed the academic elements of the dispute between theism and atheism it is important to address the incessant propaganda which presumes to claim science as the exclusive property of the latter (example is from 5/9/06). The torrent of such falsehoods that appears in ostensibly neutral publications makes it necessary to tackle this issue head-on as follows: Atheism is a ridiculous proposition, and the fact that this rabbit-out-of-a-hat origins of the universe fantasy has become, for all practical purposes, the fundamental belief of our political system is a source of national scandal and shame.

(Return to category headings)

2Another dimension to this issue is Liberals' apparent confusion of observed facts with the explanatory power of the scientific method. Take, for example, this reported recent observation of parthenogenesis in the animal kingdom (12/1/08). According to New Scientist, this must be something readers “can never hope to verify”. The implication is that we cannot describe it as a fact. Yet this obviously does not accord with our common understanding of the term, “fact”. In the context of the Gospels, nineteenth-century Harvard law professor Simon Greenleaf had this to say on the subject of observed miracles:

“[I]n almost every miracle related by the evangelists, the facts, separately taken, were plain, intelligible, transpiring in public, and about which no person of ordinary observation would be like to mistake. Persons blind or cripple, who applied to Jesus for relief, were known to have been crippled or blind for many years; they came to be cured; he spake to them; they went away whole. Lazarus had been dead and buried four days; Jesus called him to come forth from the grave; he immediately came forth, and was seen alive for a long time afterwards. In every case of healing, the previous condition of the sufferer was known to all witnessed the act of Jesus in touching him, and heard his words. All these, separately considered, were facts, plain and simple in their nature, easily seen and fully comprehended by persons of common capacity and observation. If they were separately testified to, by different witnesses of ordinary intelligence and integrity, in any court of justice, the jury would be bound to believe them; and a verdict, rendered contrary to the uncontradicted testimony of credible witnesses to any of these plain facts, separately taken, would be liable to be set aside, as a verdict against evidence. If one credible witness testified to the fact, that Bartimeus was blind, according to the uniform course of administering justice, this fact would be taken as satisfactorily proved. So also, if his subsequent restoration to sight were the sole fact in question, this also would be deemed established, by the like evidence. Nor would the rule of evidence be at all different, if the fact to be proved were the declaration of Jesus, immediately preceding his restoration to sight, that his faith had made him whole. In each of these cases, each isolated fact was capable of being accurately observed, and certainly known; and the evidence demands our assent, precisely as the like evidence upon any other indifferent subject. The connection of the word or the act of Jesus with the restoration of the blind, lame and dead, to sight, and health, and life, as cause and effect, is a conclusion which our reason is compelled to admit, from the uniformity of their concurrence, in such a multitude of instances, as well as from the universal conviction of all, whether friends or foes, who beheld the miracles which he wrought. Indeed, if the truth of one of the miracles is satisfactorily established, our belief cannot reasonably be withheld from them all. This is the issue proposed by Dr. Paley, in regard to the evidence of the death of Jesus upon the cross, and his subsequent resurrection” (Testimony of the Evangelists).

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	Attack Catholic Truth – Part II
	The anti-theists are playing philosophical poker in today's Sunday Telegraph (22/1/06), with the “modern” philosophers “trumping” the ancients (Letters). Apparently Aristotle's First Cause argument has been “demolished” forevermore on the basis that we might as well suppose the physical universe to be uncaused as God. What is missed here, however, is that the reason Aristotle (and Thomas Aquinas) postulated the existence of an uncaused Cause is precisely because to say that “the universe”, or any part of it, self-exists is not warranted by our experience of material things (see footnote 1 and related links). If, for example, we were to suppose the existence of permanent fundamental particles, or superstrings, of which everything else that ever was has been composed, these fundamental objects would still have a limited nature. They would no more constitute a legitimate materialist terminal point of inquiry than, say, celestial bodies. Far from being rational, the atheist suggestion of matter's self-existence seems to have more in common with the conception of a sun-god, Helios, and his sister Selene, the moon, from Greek mythology, than with what “the great twentieth century philosopher” Eric Voegelin recognised to be the “aetiological problem” of Greek philosophy. Furthermore, the fact that God is unseen does not make the inference of His existence mere “say so”. As Stephen Hawking observes, “no one has ever seen a superstring either”¹. Then again, why bother attempting to develop an argument in the traditional fashion – proceeding logically from the known to the unknown – when all it takes to get published in The Sunday Telegraph is a puerile, self-contradictory “argument” that argument itself is not possible (Letters, 29/1/06)? To be fair to The Sunday Telegraph, however, they did accept this correct point (Letters, 12/2/06).
	For every one correct point, however, it seems that three “refutations” are required (The Sunday Telegraph, Letters, 19/2/06). These correspondents presumably accept that Christ's Resurrection had no physical explanation. Notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary, the fact that a person could die and rise again would seem to confirm the existence of a Source of Being outwith the material universe, i.e. the uncaused Cause postulated by Aristotle (pace the followers of Kant, one of whom writes again today – see first link in paragraph above). That they do not accept anything other than “independent [i.e. non-Gospel] evidence” for the existence of Christ echoes a position observed by nineteenth-century Harvard law professor Simon Greenleaf. (Needless to say, he was “the greatest law professor that ever lived”.) Citing, amongst other things, the rule of law that “every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown”, Greenleaf notes “the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have ever been treated by [unbelievers] . . . in requiring the Christian affirmatively, and by positive evidence . . . to establish the credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a single [non-Christian] writer . . . to outweigh that of any single Christian”. (As it happens, one such non-Christian writer, the Roman historian Tacitus, noted in his Annals that “Christus . . . suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus”.) In order to evaluate a fair, “far higher standard of proof” for the Evangelists, it would be helpful if the Sunday Telegraph's correspondents could describe what would constitute such a standard. To the writer who wishes an end to the debate between the rational (Christians) and the superstitious (the-universe-happened-just-like-that atheists), what would he prefer? A debate about something everyone agrees on? Politics, perhaps? Thankfully, argument has been allowed to continue (26/2/06).
	Saturday's New Scientist asks, “Why are we humans so willing to commit to religious beliefs [such as the Gospel miracles] we can never hope to verify?” (“How evolution found God”, 28/1/06; emphasis added). The Gospel miracles are past events. We determine their truth, not through a present-day experiment (as “Doubting Thomas” could), but, as discussed above, through the examination of witness testimony². New Scientist also wonders, “at what stage did our ancestors start believing in gods” (“What's it all about?”, 28/1/06). To find out how we can hope to verify this question about past events, we have to subscribe to the magazine. Another view, however, is that seeming double standards should be displayed for free. In any case, it is not as if miracles are purely a matter of history. A better subject for New Scientist to study might be the latest proclaimed miracle from Lourdes, reported recently in The Remnant (31/12/05).
	2/2/06 – This letter to The Times (see third letter on page 1) makes no point that has not been covered already. It merely serves to illustrate the “endless stream” part of the “endless stream of anti-Catholic agitation and propaganda” referred to above. The Times might at least have shown some of the “fairness and balance” espoused by its sister American T.V. channel, Fox News, and published a counter observation that atheism is the belief-system of the mindless buffoon. Perhaps a newspaper caricature of the atheist, to go along with those of Buddha and the Christian deity (The Times, World News, 2/2/06), might be a picture of Tommy Cooper answering the question, “How did the universe come about?” – “Just like that!”. Not only did The Times not provide such balance, but today The Independent and The Daily Telegraph have added to the one-way propaganda (4/2/06). Thus the former published a letter with the unqualified assertion, “Religion corrupts logic”, to which the only appropriate response is, “Prove it”, (see fifth letter), while the latter published a correspondent's claim that there is no “hard evidence” of a god, to which one could reply with equal cogency, “Atheism is not warranted by the facts” (see third letter). (These are all just examples of attempting to suggest a proposition merely by stating it in a confident manner.)
	Et cetera, et cetera
	Further examples of this point may be found here: New Scientist, Letters, 11/2/06 (risible fantasies predicated on begging the question about the truth of Christianity).
	Having discussed the academic elements of the dispute between theism and atheism it is important to address the incessant propaganda which presumes to claim science as the exclusive property of the latter (example is from 5/9/06). The torrent of such falsehoods that appears in ostensibly neutral publications makes it necessary to tackle this issue head-on as follows: Atheism is a ridiculous proposition, and the fact that this rabbit-out-of-a-hat origins of the universe fantasy has become, for all practical purposes, the fundamental belief of our political system is a source of national scandal and shame.
	(Return to category headings)