When you analyze things in life you have to be very careful not to allow your world view to stack the data in your favor. This is extremely difficult to do. People (humans) have a natural tendency to want things to go their way. I know I struggle with this constantly. People just want to be right within their own world.
Global Climate Change Scientists were discovered to be doing this very thing in 2009. A fudge factor in code, is a way of stacking the data in order to help influence results to turn out the way you think they should.
One needs to be extremely careful as well to not believe they’ve seen all the data. I believe most of us (at least those of any years of maturity) have heard someone say:
“At my age I’ve seen it all.”
I always want to say “Really? Because God is INFINITE. In ALL directions. Which means he is infinitely big and infinitely small. Infinitely loud and infinitely quite. Infinitely colorful and infinitely monochrome. God is more than we can possibly imagine, more than we can fathom, more than we can ever possibly know. And you have seen it all? I think not.” We can spend an infinite amount of lifetimes and never fathom the depths of an infinite God.
King Solomon put it this way in Ecclesiastes 8:16 – 17 pointing out that a wise man may think he knows the works of God, only to find out that he does not.
Jesus Christ himself said that we must be humble like children in Matthew 18:2-4. I believe he made this particular comparison because children are mostly full of wonderment. They are growing, exploring, learning, discovering, depending, needing, wanting, and trusting. As we get older we become wise and our wisdom leads us to be less dependent, less needy, wanting more than we need, less trusting, and growing less, exploring less, learning less, and discovering less. We are no longer dependent upon God, but rather upon ourselves and we give God a call whenever we think we need him (which is never because we are certainly wise enough to figure our own way out of situations).
Do not ever think you have seen it all, because God has more than your lifetime can fill that he wants to show you.
And thus, having not seen it all, be careful as to how you try and stack the data from what you have seen and do know.
We all have to make choices in life. And we are all responsible for those decisions and there are consequences to what we do. But we do have a choice in how we analyze the data.
When you leave God out of the picture, you stack the data to influence your particular world view. When you become humble, like a child, you begin to realize and understand the incredible gifts of knowledge that God has blessed you with. You want to know him more, you want to explore, you realize how little you have and you want more.
Funny thing about data analysis, I may generally interpret the data to support any particular view I have. I believe Weather Scientists the world over are doing just that today. They couldn’t possibly interpret the data in an unbiased way at this point because they have stacked the data so heavily in their favor, they have tainted the data pool beyond the point of recovery.
There is one area though where the data will always be sound and firm. There is one area where you cannot stack the data, where the data cannot be falsely interpreted, and where conclusions will always be validated.
And that area of study is with God. There is a catch though, God may only be accepted on Faith and not by Sight. Yes, that is disconcerting to some. Some are screaming right now that Faith is not Science. And yet Science exercises faith each and every day.
When we seek after God, with all our heart, and with all our strength, and with all our mind, and with all our soul, he will reveal himself to us. Because he is God. God actually wants us to discover him, to explore him, to know him. And thus he will ensure that any who truly seek after him as a child in wonderment, they will find him.
Those that say there is no God and that they have never found God or evidence of God, have simply stacked the data. They have never truly sought after God to begin with. They have been loading up all their data and applying their fudge factors to the data to get it to say what they want it to say.
I’d like to encourage us all (myself included) to start exploring the riches of God today as if we know absolutely nothing about him. It would be great if we all became little children and all gazed at the world in wonderment once again. It would be great if we all stopped believing in how wise we are, and how experienced we are, and how much data we’ve amassed over our lifetimes.
If we simply stopped stacking the data in our lives, let go of our biases driven by our world views, and began exploring things without an agenda, who knows the types of changes we could really see effected in the world around us?
At a particular point in my career, I was advised by those around me that certain descriptive words were taboo and should never be used. . . .
I imagine if you’ve made it past today’s title you are probably here because my question has evoked some type of emotional response or curiosity. . . .
Funny you should say this, and then proceed to do the exact opposite.
You were on a good track here. I agree with the direction in your first three paragraphs. And while I appreciate your candor and self-awareness in saying that you struggle with this (I think we all do), I did not expect you to succumb so quickly.
By paragraph four, after saying we shouldn’t allow our world view to warp our perception of reality, you quickly veered off track and into “God is INFINITE”, and then proceed with a discussion that’s all personal world view and no data.
While I respect your right to hold whatever beliefs you want, your argument that data is “sound and firm” in the study of god is completely wrong. In fact, nothing could be further from actual data, and from truth.
There is a reason why religion is religion and science is science, and that reason is evidence. There is no evidence (a.k.a. data) to support the existence of any god, ever. Every testable hypothesis that any religion has ever asserted has been disproven, and accordingly religions have evolved to be a collection of carefully crafted untestable assertions.
The only reason to believe any religion is faith. And faith is just another way of saying you choose to believe something when you have no good reason to do so.
So if you want to talk religion talk about faith, and if you want to talk science talk about data and evidence, but don’t mix the two. In doing so you run the risk of being lumped in with the Intelligent Design folks, who are engaging in a deliberately dishonest misuse of scientific terms and ideas to promote their religious propaganda. I’m not accusing you of that, but asking, please don’t be like them. Acknowledge when you are making leaps of faith.
Regards,
ItTheAtheist
Dear ItsTheAtheist,
Thanks for reading my blog! And thanks for joining in on the discussion (also thanks for inspiring today’s post).
I can understand your misinterpretation of things, if indeed, your religion is Atheism.
However, I don’t recall actually mentioning any religion (at least not specifically – although a general sect may be implied), rather I was engaging in a Theological discussion.
My example, which you take issue with at the start, is that my hypothesis of a God (if there is one) is that he would be infinite (to assume otherwise would not make much sense). So my Theology has a hypothesis of an infinite God, and indeed I do see plenty of evidence of that in the universe around me.
Neither did my analogy “veer of course” as you put it (although I might see how your world view might take it as such). My analogy was actually directed at Theists, not Atheists, and when one considers it from the Theist point of view it makes perfect sense.
The point was that Theists tend to limit God, when God is unlimited. And they do this in much the same way that Global Climate Change Scientist think they can build an all encompassing model based upon limited data and limited understanding. We’ve only just begun to explore, and my point was that we (Theists) should not be thinking we’ve worked out the entire model when we haven’t, lest we fall into the exact same track as our Global Climate Change buddies.
And my assertion about God and data is absolutely 100% right on (at least where my Theology is concerned). If there is a God (and we should be clear, that in this case we are ascribing to that God the attribute of creator), then it would only stand to reason that he defined the model. And thus the laws, principles, interactions, and properties of that model. And it would also stand to follow that any study of that model would, in fact, be revealing a little bit about the creator of the model, i.e. God.
I don’t want to get to far afield here because these are all excellent discussions for future posts, however I do need to point out that you mix two different terminologies (which you also claim others are doing). Religion is properly “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. ” while Theology is “the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God’s attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity. ” Theology IS the Science, and I most certainly can “mix” the two (unless you are talking about Religion, and then things just get weird, in most cases). My arguments were Theological ones, not Religious ones.
Concerning Religion however, Faith is certainly NOT the only reason to believe any religion. That is a complete misunderstanding of both Faith and religions. Atheists make leaps of faith all the time, and yet you want to limit me from doing the same? Strange argument. I never make “leaps of faith”, my Faith is grounded, strong, and secure. I do acknowledge when I am exercising Faith, now if I could only get Atheists to do the same.
As far as the Intelligent Design folks are concerned, I am sure there are some that are “engaging in a deliberately dishonest misuse of scientific terms and ideas to promote their religious propaganda”, but I am also equally as sure the majority of them are not. Just as I am sure that the majority of Atheists are not out to do the same. Lets not build stereotypes here. I’m sure we can all stand on our own set of understandings.
Thanks for the comments and keep reading! Perhaps your friends and family would like to join in as well.
Sincerely,
LRPSP.COM