{"id":708,"date":"2015-12-21T11:36:55","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T18:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2015-12-14T22:37:41","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T05:37:41","slug":"are-the-new-atheists-living-in-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/21\/are-the-new-atheists-living-in-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the New Atheists living in denial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[From a 2013 <\/a>Examiner.com article]:<\/p>\n

A while back I was searching through the last of the books being sold dirt-cheap from the now-defunct Borders bookstore. I happened upon a curious title and purchased the book<\/a> immediately: What We Believe But Cannot Prove.<\/p>\n

The sub-title describes this collection of short essays as written by “today’s leading thinkers on science in the age of certainty”\u2014including Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. It is a good book for Christians to use in apologetics. And it is a good book for Adam Frank, a op-ed contributor at the New York times.<\/p>\n

His recent essay<\/a> “Welcome to the Age of Denial” laments an American society that is “ambivalent, even skeptical, about the fruits of science.” In typical New-Atheist fashion, he highlights his concerns by naming creationists (among other examples) as evidence of a “manufacturing doubt” that is not based upon scientific evidence.<\/p>\n

In point of fact, “what has been lost is an understanding that science\u2019s open-ended, evidence-based processes\u2014rather than just its results\u2014are essential to meeting those challenges.”<\/p>\n

Apparently, Mr. Frank’s faith in science as “essential” to today’s problems is based upon some scientific evidence the rest of his scientific community does not have. Consider what lessons he and his true-believers in materialistic science could learn from this book.<\/p>\n

For instance, the chair and professor of neurobiology at University of California, Davis, Leo Chalupa, offers one unproven belief: “Science provides the best means of attaining this ultimate goal [discovering the known physical world]”<\/p>\n

Or consider the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University, Susskind, who asserts:<\/p>\n

“I am absolutely certain that the laws of large numbers–probability theory–will work and protect me. All of science is based on it. But I can’t prove it, and I don’t really know why it works.”<\/p>\n

Mathematician and director of Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Language and Information, Keith Devlin, baldly declares:<\/p>\n

“If it’s rock solid certainty you want from a proof\u2026[there is] nothing at all we can prove to anyone else…The best we can do is come up with something we believe but cannot prove to our own satisfaction.”<\/p>\n

A most illuminating statement is made by another true-believer, Mr. Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and columnist writer for Scientific American:<\/p>\n

“In conclusion, I believe but cannot prove that reality exists and science is the best method for understanding it, that there is no God…Of course, I could be wrong.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sample of unproven scientific beliefs should give Mr. Franks serious pause. Or rather, he and those who agree with him should reconsider who truly is living in denial.<\/p>\n

[A review of an atheist book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, here<\/a>]<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[From a 2013 Examiner.com article]: A while back I was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[63,33],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-society","tag-atheists","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":710,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}