Is beauty for its own sake an argument against Darwinism?

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 5, 2019

Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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Here’s another new vid, for the John 10:10 project, from Illustra Media:

Charles Darwin once wrote that the sight of a male peacock’s tail made him physically ill. Why? Because he knew that the gratuitous beauty so prevalent throughout the living world points unmistakably to intelligent design, foresight and plan. Explore the artistry and stunning implications of natural colors, patterns, and ornamentation in the animal and plant kingdoms that exist for a purpose beyond mere survival.

Note: Darwin went on to develop his theory of sexual selection, to explain such phenomena as the peacock’s tail. While it became dogma that sexual selection explains the peacock’s tail, it’s not clear that the peahen actually cares as much about it as the Darwinist does.

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

See also: Can sex explain evolution?

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Comments

Drc466 at 45
Let me see if a logical argument helps PK et. al.:
LOL, you are dealing with atheistic materialists. Logic and/or reason are of no help. The very lives that that they themselves lead is a testament to the fact that the law of non-contradiction is of no importance to atheistic materialists. Nobody, especially including atheists, live their lives as if atheistic materialism were actually true.
The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3
Here are several leading atheistic materialists admitting that it would be impossible for them to live their lives as if their atheistic materialism were actually true:
Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get." An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, "The impossibility of free will ... can be proved with complete certainty." Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. "To be honest, I can't really accept it myself," he says. "I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?",,, In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots -- that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one "can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free." We are "constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots." One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html
Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be 'intolerable' for him to live his life as if his atheistic materialism were actually true
Who wrote Richard Dawkins’s new book? – October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html
Thus, the very lives that atheists lead, i.e. proclaiming that atheistic materialism is true and yet living their lives as if Theism were true, is a violation of logic. Specifically, it is a violation of the law of non-contradiction: Simply put, if it is impossible for you to live your life consistently as if your atheistic worldview were actually true then your atheistic worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.
Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/
Thus Drc466, although I admire you for reaching out to atheists with logic, since atheists apparently see no problem living their very lives in direct violation of the law of non-contradiction, I’m afraid logic is simply of no use for atheistic materialists. To give an example of just how bad the problem of logic and reason is for atheists, this atheistic professor of philosophy used reason itself to try to argue against the very existence of reason:
"Think of the irony: a professor of philosophy, who is paid only to reason, uses reason to argue against reason. Welcome to the bowels of atheist metaphysics. It would be funny if it were not so dangerous to our culture and to our souls" - AN ATHEIST ARGUES AGAINST REASON And thinks it is the reasonable thing to do MICHAEL EGNOR MAY 24, 2019 https://mindmatters.ai/2019/05/an-atheist-argues-against-reason/
Such self contradictory antics by atheists would be comical if the consequences for their eternal souls, in their rejection God (and therefore in their rejection of reason itself), were not so drastic.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Verse and quotes:
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” of note: ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html “Atheists can give no reason why they should value reason, and Christians can show how anyone who believes in reason must also believe in God.” Cogito; Ergo Deus Est by Charles Edward White Philosophy Still Lives Because God Isn't Dead
Supplemental note,
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: For Clark, thoughts merely appear out of matter, which has no properties, by the laws of physics, for generating thought. For Clark to assert that naturalistic matter as described by physics gives rise to the mind, without immateriality of any sort, is merely to assert magic. Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
bornagain77_{October 9, 2019
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Bob O'H:
The most likely way to have a perfect game is for one side to be performing poorly, which is hardly beautiful.
What? Perhaps if the game is also a blowout. But even then it is a beautiful thing watching one team with a mastery of all aspects of the game, if only for one game.ET_{October 9, 2019
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hazel:
My understanding is that evolution is a natural process caused by a complex interplay of natural causes, with some elements random in respect to the consequences they have on the outcomes of those processes.
And for ID, evolution is an artificial process caused by intelligently designed mechanisms such as "built-in responses to environmental cues", with some genetic accidents, errors and mistakes creeping through to muck things up a bit. That said, mainstream evolution is all about evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. That is what ID opposes.ET_{October 9, 2019
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Pater K:
I am still amazed every time someone refers to evolution as a random process.
Right, it is just blind, mindless and without purpose. Every genetic change is said to be an accident, error or mistake. These then get culled with some getting passed down. The issue is getting the right changes to accumulate. But first they need to happen and get past the proof-reading and error-correction processes. Natural selection is a process of elimination and non-random only in a trivial manner- not every individual has the same chance of being eliminated. It is still just contingent serendipity. That is unless you consider evolution by means of intelligent design...ET_{October 9, 2019
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My understanding is that evolution is a natural process caused by a complex interplay of natural causes, with some elements random in respect to the consequences they have on the outcomes of those processes. My understanding is that all historical processes are like that, from the biggest views of human history to each of our daily lives. For a mundane example, the people that I saw at the grocery store today are random: their presence at the store had no causal connection with my presence there. However, it could be (it's too soon to tell) that running into this one guy that I don't see very often, or in a social context, and discussing some mutual interests, might lead to some important developments in my life that otherwise wouldn’t happen. In this sense, every day of our lives contains random elements that at least at times significantly change the course of future events. This is, I think, the sense in which evolution has random elements in the context of larger causally connected natural chains of events.hazel_{October 9, 2019
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@Drc466 #45 I am still amazed every time someone refers to evolution as a random process.Pater Kimbridge_{October 9, 2019
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@John_a_designer said "They are arguing that there is no true and “objective” basis for our universally shared experience." I am not arguing anything of the sort. There IS a true and objective basis for our shared experience of beauty - it's our shared DNA, brain structure, development, and culture that leads us to have similar experiences. This is the reason that all beavers like to build dams. The reason most cats like to have their jaws scratched. The reason most dogs wag their tails. "Universal truth claims need to be grounded in facts which are irrefutably or objectively true" Do you have theological beliefs that have passed that stringent test?Pater Kimbridge_{October 9, 2019
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Let me see if a logical argument helps PK et. al.: Assumptions: 1) Beauty is a subjective opinion 2) The amount of "beauty" an object has is determined by the observer 3) The only currently known for a fact observers that comprehend and apply the concept of "beauty" are humans. 4) A consensus view of the overwhelming majority of humans is that "beauty" exists in the natural world, in great abundance (i.e. on the balance, there are far more "beautiful" plants and animals and natural features in the world than "ugly" ones). Hopefully both sides of the argument can agree with the above 4 assumptions (mostly - in any statement of opinion, there will be quibbles regarding edge cases and semantics). Whether the 4 truths above provide a case for ID and against evolution depends on your answer to the following assertions: 1) Unguided evolution is not as likely to evolve plants/animals that humans would consider "beautiful" as it is to evolve plants/animals that are "ugly". 2) The overwhelming presence of plants/animals possessing the (human-defined) base characteristics of beauty thus indicate purposeful design by an entity possessing similar concepts of beauty. As stated above, while beauty itself is subjective. there are definable characteristics (color palette, symmetry, organization, etc.) that are common for objects deemed beautiful. The fact that this is true is self-evident - after all, artists, web designers, movie makers, modeling agencies, marketing agencies, etc. make their living by creating beautiful designs/art/etc. Furthermore, common sense and empirical experimentation also tells us that random processes do NOT generate beauty. Again, simple experimentation such as writing a computer program to randomly fill a screen, or randomly pick colors for a web page, or random mixing of paint colors, effects of natural phenomena such as wind, rain, flooding, etc., provide ample evidence for the non-beautification by random processes. The ID case is then, simply this - random processes are known from empirical evidence and experimentation not to produce effects that have the basic elements of "beauty" as perceived by the only known evaluators of beauty - humans. Therefore, one would not expect that the Darwinian Synthesis version of evolution would generate plants/animals having those elements. Therefore, Darwinist expectations do not match reality, and the significant presence of subjective beauty in nature signifies intelligent design. At the end of the day, this is really just another probability argument. Of all the possible arrangements of physical attributes such as color, pattern, symmetry, size, etc. that plants and animal could take, how large is the subset that humans would deem "beautiful"? What are the chances that random mutation would produce such an overwhelming number of animals possessing those characteristics, given all the possible (ugly) alternatives? (P.S. The inability of random mutation to produce beauty is empirically evident from the known instances of genetic mutation in living animals. Inbreeding that results in mutated genes, for one example, invariably produces animal mutations that are "less beautiful" in terms of the common characteristics of beauty, such as symmetry/color. And before someone shrieks "dog-breeding produces beautiful dogs!", that kind of in-breeding selects for subsets of good, un-mutated genes already existing in the DNA, and is not an example of evolutionary mutation)drc466_{October 9, 2019
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As has already been pointed out by several others, those who believe that our experience of beauty is just a subjective perception are making a self-refuting argument. They are arguing that there is no true and “objective” basis for our universally shared experience. Okay, but the premise our shared human experience of beauty is only a subjective perception is a universal truth claim about our perception of beauty. But how can subjective opinions and beliefs about anything be universal? Frankly, I don’t see how they can. Universal truth claims need to be grounded in facts which are irrefutably or objectively true. Personal beliefs and opinions are not sufficient grounds for making such a claims. Doubling down by being argumentative doesn’t do anything to advance the so-called argument. By the way, I am not arguing that this makes the ID’ist case. Personally I don’t think that they necessarily the have a strong argument here. I am only arguing the atheist-materialist argument undermines itself, so it’s a nonstarter that’s DOA. Dogmatically doubling down on such arguments is not only irrational, it’s absolutely foolish.john_a_designer_{October 9, 2019
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ET - I'm sure ther a re a few MLB teams for which the same argument could be made. The most likely way to have a perfect game is for one side to be performing poorly, which is hardly beautiful. Hilarious, maybe, but not objectively beautiful.Bob O'H_{October 9, 2019
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Bob (and weave) states
I guess you can think your thoughts are illusions if you want, but Hang on, WHY AM I DISCUSSING THIS WITH AN ILLUSION?
HUH??? WHAT??? For crying out loud, it is your very own atheistic worldview that, if true, would render the entire concept of you being a real person illusory. For instance, Jerry Coyne, via his Darwinian worldview, has publicly stated that he believes he is a ‘meat robot’ and also stated that his sense of self is a ‘neuronal illusion’:
“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20 The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant:,,) Read more here: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 “What you’re doing is simply instantiating a self: the program run by your neurons which you feel is “you.”” Jerry Coyne https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/eagleton-on-baggini-on-free-will/
In what I consider a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion, the Atheist himself also ends up claiming that he himself does not really exist as a real person but that he is merely a neuronal illusion.
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html
Here are a few more references that drive this point home,,,
Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: “You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren’t any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That’s why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, “You know, I’m not really here”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994 “The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak.” [A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide To Reality, Ch.9] “I’m not arguing that consciousness is a reality beyond science or beyond the brain or that it floats free of the brain at death. I’m not making any spooky claims about its metaphysics. What I am saying, however, is that the self is an illusion. The sense of being an ego, an I, a thinker of thoughts in addition to the thoughts. An experiencer in addition to the experience. The sense that we all have of riding around inside our heads as a kind of a passenger in the vehicle of the body. That’s where most people start when they think about any of these questions. Most people don’t feel identical to their bodies. They feel like they have bodies. They feel like they’re inside the body. And most people feel like they’re inside their heads. Now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense.” Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0 “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor
Besides he himself becoming an illusion, the atheist’s entire worldview, as was pointed out in post 34, also dissolves into pure illusion.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must hold beauty itself to be illusory. Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Bottom line, atheistic materialism is a completely insane worldview!bornagain77_{October 9, 2019
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MLB, Bob.ET_{October 9, 2019
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ET - if a team of clones of me were batting in baseball, it would definitely be a perfect game, and definitely wouldn't be beautiful.Bob O'H_{October 9, 2019
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ba77 @ 37 -
So you are not saying that beauty is not illusory, you are just saying that it has no real existence beyond my own subjective personal perception of it? UH HUH! But that would render beauty illusory, i.e. not objectively real.
I guess you can think your thoughts are illusions if you want, but Hang on, WHY AM I DISCUSSING THIS WITH AN ILLUSION?Bob O'H_{October 9, 2019
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Is a perfect game in baseball something we perceived in our heads? What about a crystal-clear double rainbow? Both. Objectively. Beautiful.ET_{October 8, 2019
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"I am just saying it is a perception, and only a perception" So you are not saying that beauty is not illusory, you are just saying that it has no real existence beyond my own subjective personal perception of it? UH HUH! But that would render beauty illusory, i.e. not objectively real. You can't have it both ways. Beauty is either objectively real or else it is not, i.e. it is illusory. Bottom line, per post 34, your atheistic worldview is completely insane!bornagain77_{October 8, 2019
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BA77
What Pater Kimbridge is trying to say, although he does not say it explicitly, is that he believes beauty to be illusory.
No, he is saying that it is subjective. Not the same thing. I like liver, my wife doesn’t. Those are subjective opinions, neither are illusory. If you can provide an example of something that is objectively beautiful, in fewer than 10,000 words, I would love to discuss it.Ed George_{October 8, 2019
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@BA77 said "What Pater Kimbridge is trying to say, although he does not say it explicitly, is that he believes beauty to be illusory." Not exactly. An illusion is something wrongly perceived. I am not saying it is rightly or wrongly perceived. Qualia cannot be judged as right or wrong. I am just saying it is a perception, and only a perception.Pater Kimbridge_{October 8, 2019
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Pater Kimbridge states:
@BA77 #32 So it’s all in your head. I agree completely.
What Pater Kimbridge is trying to say, although he does not say it explicitly, is that he believes beauty to be illusory. Which, given that we all experience beauty, is quite an extraordinary claim for him to make. Add beauty to the growing list of things that most people consider to be real and yet Darwinian atheists, i.e. reductive materialists, are forced to consider them to be illusory. As I have pointed out several times now, assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must hold beauty itself to be illusory. Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
To make this dilemma of pure illusion all the more devastating for the reductive materialist, i.e. for the Darwinist, due to advances in science, especially due to advances in quantum mechanics, it turns out that atoms themselves are found not to be the solid indivisible concrete particles, as they were originally envisioned to be by materialists, but it turns out that the descriptions we now use to describe atoms themselves, the further down we go, dissolve into “abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,,”
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: according to the Greek atomists, if we kept on dividing things into ever-smaller bits, at the end there would remain solid, indivisible particles called atoms, imagined to be so concrete as to have even particular shapes. Yet, as our understanding of physics progressed, we’ve realized that atoms themselves can be further divided into smaller bits, and those into yet smaller ones, and so on, until what is left lacks shape and solidity altogether. At the bottom of the chain of physical reduction there are only elusive, phantasmal entities we label as “energy” and “fields”—abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy, (as Darwinian materialists originally presupposed) but is ‘abstract’ immaterial information itself
“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College – a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics. “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” (48:35 minute mark) “In the beginning was the Word” John 1:1 (49:54 minute mark) Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT https://youtu.be/s3ZPWW5NOrw?t=2984
Thus, in irony of ironies, not even the material particles themselves turn to be are ‘real’ and concrete, (on the materialistic definition of what is suppose to be ‘real’ and concrete), but the material particles themselves turn out to be, at the very bottom, “abstract” immaterial information. This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the dilemma because, as Bernardo Kastrup further explains in his article, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to the Mind of God!
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: “To make sense of this conundrum,,, we must stick to what is most immediately present to us: solidity and concreteness are qualities of our experience. The world measured, modeled and ultimately predicted by physics is the world of perceptions, a category of mentation. The phantasms and abstractions reside merely in our descriptions of the behavior of that world, not in the world itself.,,, Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.,,, As I elaborate extensively in my new book, The Idea of the World, none of this implies solipsism. The mental universe exists in mind but not in your personal mind alone. Instead, it is a transpersonal field of mentation that presents itself to us as physicality—with its concreteness, solidity and definiteness—once our personal mental processes interact with it through observation. This mental universe is what physics is leading us to, not the hand-waving word games of information realism. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/
Or to put it much more simply, as Physics professor Richard Conn Henry put it at the end of the following article, “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.”
The mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Excerpt: “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.” – Richard Conn Henry is a Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf
Verse:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Final note, this world of pure illusion that the materialist finds himself in reminds me very much of this poem from Poe
A Dream Within a Dream BY EDGAR ALLAN POE Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
bornagain77_{October 8, 2019
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@BA77 #32 So it's all in your head. I agree completely.Pater Kimbridge_{October 8, 2019
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PK links to a site which states:
"E. T. Jaynes used the term Mind Projection Fallacy to denote the error of projecting your own mind's properties into the external world."
A yet, as was pointed out in posts 28 and 29, beauty being a property of the immaterial mind is exactly what the Christian's claim is. To repeat,, " Beauty,,, can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this `idea’ of beauty were not found in the mind in a more perfect form."
Beauty and the Imagination - Aaron Ames - July 16th, 2017 Excerpt: Beauty… can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this ‘idea’ of beauty were not found in the Mind in a more perfect form…. This consideration has readily persuaded men of ability and learning… that the original “idea” is not to be found in this sphere (Augustine, City of God). https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2017/07/beauty-imagination-aaron-ames.html
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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZTRiSNmeGQK8AkdN2/mind-projection-fallacyPater Kimbridge_{October 8, 2019
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BA77, Beautiful take down.....can I say that? ";^) I wonder if he'll understand.Latemarch_{October 8, 2019
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But the claim from many leading materialistic scientists and philosophers that ‘consciousness is just an illusion’ is a blatantly self-refuting claim. It is the denial of the very thing that enables anything else to be real for us in the first place. As David Bentley Hart states, “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.”
The Illusionist – Daniel Dennett’s latest book marks five decades of majestic failure to explain consciousness. – 2017 Excerpt: “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.” – David Bentley Hart https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-illusionist The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant:,,) Read more here: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0
Thus PK, and Darwinists in general, in their sheer inability to explain where subjective experience comes from in the first place, find themselves in quite the conundrum in their claim that beauty is purely subjective and is merely 'in the eye of the beholder.' Unwittingly, PK, in his claim that beauty is purely 'subjective', has inadvertently conceded the necessity of immaterial mind, particularly qualia, for any coherent definition of beauty, and/or reality, to we may try to put forth. None of this should be surprising, the immaterial conscious mind itself is the necessary prerequisite, of all possible prerequisites, for any coherent definition of reality that we may try to put forth. Here are few quotes from the main founders of quantum mechanics that drives this point home:
“No, I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Planck (1858–1947), the main founder of quantum theory, The Observer, London, January 25, 1931 “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” Schroedinger, Erwin. 1984. “General Scientific and Popular Papers,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden. p. 334. “The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,” could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists." – Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, pp 167-177.
In conclusion, beauty must necessarily find its origin in God:
The Reason Why God Is the Beauty We All Seek – Sept. 4, 2019 Excerpt: God loves beauty. As Thomas Aquinas asserts, God “is beauty itself”[1] St. Anselm argues that “God must be the supreme beauty for the same reasons that He must be justice and other such qualities.”[2] As the contemporary theologian Michael Horton so aptly states in his book The Christian Faith, “God would not be God if he did not possess all his attributes in the simplicity and perfection of his essence.”[3] The reason why we gravitate toward beauty is because God created us in his image.,,, In a chapel sermon titled, “Can Beauty Save the World,” Albert Mohler explains, “The Christian worldview posits that anything pure and good finds its ultimate source in the self-existent, omnipotent God who is infinite in all his perfections. Thus the Christian worldview reminds us that the “transcendentals”—the good, the true, and the beautiful—are inseparable. Thus when Psalm 27 speaks of the beauty of the Lord, the Psalmist is also making a claim about the goodness of the Lord and the truthfulness of the Lord. While we distinguish God’s attributes from one another in order to understand them better, we must also recognize that these attributes are inseparable from one another.[19]” Mohler goes on to state, “Our job as Christians is to remember the difference between the beautiful and the pretty,” because pure beauty is found in goodness and truth.[20] When we gaze upon ascetically pleasing objects or witness kind deeds in this world, we are at best seeing imperfect versions of the pure beauty that can only be found in God. https://www.beautifulchristianlife.com/blog/reason-why-god-is-the-beauty-we-all-seek
Bible verse
Psalm 27:4 One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
bornagain77_{October 8, 2019
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PK states,
Beauty cannot be an inherent, objective property of an object or entity, when the beholder must be considered.
Actually, in that statement PK is more truthful than he realizes or, as an atheist, he intends to be. Whilst objects can certainly contain beauty, beauty is, like information, an immaterial property that is transcendent of any particular material object that may contain the property of being beautiful, and therefore it necessarily follow that beauty can only be truly appreciated by an immaterial mind. In fact, PK has stated that 'the beholder must be considered' and also stated that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', which is just another way of saying that beauty must be appreciated by the subjective experience of the immaterial mind of a beholder. From which it necessarily follows, since the property of beauty is transcendent of any particular material medium, and that beauty can only be truly appreciated by an immaterial mind, that beauty must find its origin in the immaterial Mind of God. Specifically, "Beauty,,, can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this `idea’ of beauty were not found in the mind in a more perfect form."
Aesthetic Arguments for the Existence of God: Excerpt: Beauty,,, can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this `idea’ of beauty were not found in the mind in a more perfect form. http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/williams-aesthetic.shtml
Again, PK was far more truthful than he realized when he stated that "the beholder must be considered." Where PK, and Darwinists in general, go off the rails is, unsurprisingly, when they try to explain where the subjective experience of the 'beholder' comes from in the first place. Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework simply have no clue how it is possibly for the material brain to generate the inner subjective experience of qualia:
Qualia Excerpt: Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
The specific mental attribute of qualia is simply forever be beyond the scope of any possible materialistic explanation and/or any possible physical examination. As Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself.
11.2.1 Qualia - Perception (“The Hard Problem” ) Philosopher of the mind Frank Jackson imagined a thought experiment —Mary’s Room— to explain qualia and why it is such an intractable problem for science. The problem identified is referred to as the knowledge argument. Here is the description of the thought experiment: “Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'. (...) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?" Jackson believed that Mary did learn something new: she learned what it was like to experience color. "It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism [materialism] is false.” https://www.urantia.org/study/seminar-presentations/is-there-design-in-nature#Emergence
As David Chalmers has pointed out in 'the hard problem of consciouness' with the philosophical zombie argument, for all we know, the person we are talking to, or even the person that we are examining with all our scientific instruments, could hypothetically be a philosophical zombie who has no inner subjective conscious experience whatsoever and that the philosophical zombie we are examining may just robotically be giving us correct answers that seem appropriate to any situation that we may be asking the philosophical zombie about.
David Chalmers on Consciousness (Descartes, Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo
Again, materialists simply do not have any realistic clue how anything material could ever generate the inner subjective consciousness experience of qualia. Here are a few quotes that make that point clear.
"Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness." - Jerry Fodor - Rutgers University philosopher [2] Fodor, J. A., Can there be a science of mind? Times Literary Supplement. July 3, 1992, pp5-7. “Every day we recall the past, perceive the present and imagine the future. How do our brains accomplish these feats? It’s safe to say that nobody really knows.” Sebastian Seung - Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist - “Connectome”: "Those centermost processes of the brain with which consciousness is presumably associated are simply not understood. They are so far beyond our comprehension at present that no one I know of has been able even to imagine their nature." Roger Wolcott Sperry - Nobel neurophysiologist As quoted in Genius Talk : Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries (1995) by Denis Brian "We have at present not even the vaguest idea how to connect the physio-chemical processes with the state of mind." - Eugene Wigner - Nobel prize-winner – Quantum Symmetries "Science's biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all. About all we know about consciousness is that it has something to do with the head, rather than the foot." Nick Herbert - Contemporary physicist "No experiment has ever demonstrated the genesis of consciousness from matter. One might as well believe that rabbits emerge from magicians' hats. Yet this vaporous possibility, this neuro-mythology, has enchanted generations of gullible scientists, in spite of the fact that there is not a shred of direct evidence to support it." Larry Dossey - Physician and author
As Professor of Psychology David Barash states in the following article, an article which happens to be entitled “the hardest problem in science?”, “But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.”
The Hardest Problem in Science? October 28, 2011 Excerpt: ‘But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.’ - David Barash - Professor of Psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-hardest-problem-in-science/40845
In fact, the hard problem of consciousness, i.e. qualia, is such a hard problem for reductive materialists to try to explain that many leading materialistic scientists (and philosophers), will often end up claiming that ‘consciousness is just an illusion’ and that it does not really even exist at all.
“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20 “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER - Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection - 2004 There Is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought Philosopher Peter Carruthers insists that conscious thought, judgment and volition are illusions. They arise from processes of which we are forever unaware By Steve Ayan on December 20, 2018 Excerpt: Peter Carruthers, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, is an expert on the philosophy of mind,,, ,,, in 2017, he published a paper with the astonishing title of “The Illusion of Conscious Thought.”,,, Carruthers explains,,,, "I believe that the whole idea of conscious thought is an error. I came to this conclusion by following out the implications of the two of the main theories of consciousness." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-no-such-thing-as-conscious-thought/ The Consciousness Deniers – Galen Strawson – March 13, 2018 Excerpt: What is the silliest claim ever made? The competition is fierce, but I think the answer is easy. Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience.,,, ,,, I need to comment on what is being denied—consciousness, conscious experience, experience for short. What is it? Anyone who has ever seen or heard or smelled anything knows what it is; anyone who has ever been in pain, or felt hungry or hot or cold or remorseful, dismayed, uncertain, or sleepy, or has suddenly remembered a missed appointment. All these things involve what are sometimes called “qualia”—that is to say, different types or qualities of conscious experience. What I am calling the Denial is the denial that anyone has ever really had any of these experiences. Perhaps it’s not surprising that most Deniers deny that they’re Deniers. “Of course, we agree that consciousness or experience exists,” they say—but when they say this they mean something that specifically excludes qualia. Who are the Deniers? I have in mind—at least—those who fully subscribe to something called “philosophical behaviorism” as well as those who fully subscribe to something called “functionalism” in the philosophy of mind. Few have been fully explicit in their denial, but among those who have been, we find Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and the generally admirable Daniel Dennett. Ned Block once remarked that Dennett’s attempt to fit consciousness or “qualia” into his theory of reality “has the relation to qualia that the US Air Force had to so many Vietnamese villages: he destroys qualia in order to save them.” One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn’t really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/ Free Will: Weighing Truth and Experience Do our beliefs matter? - Mar 22, 2012 Excerpt: “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – is a Professor and Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab Director at UCLA Department of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-brain-social-mind/201203/free-will-weighing-truth-and-experience
bornagain77_{October 8, 2019
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PK@26
Beauty cannot be an inherent, objective property of an object or entity, when the beholder must be considered.
Plenty of examples @5 and @6 as well as logical arguments for objective beauty. And your response continues to be proof by assertion. Philosophers have argued about this for centuries. There are actual arguments (not particularly compelling in my view) for only subjective beauty. Come on PK you're not even trying.Latemarch_{October 8, 2019
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@Jcfrk101 #22 Likewise, the Mona Lisa only has meaning, and potentially beauty, for someone able to recognize it as a human face, and for whom that particular face is appealing. Beauty cannot be an inherent, objective property of an object or entity, when the beholder must be considered.Pater Kimbridge_{October 8, 2019
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Of related note. A common description of heaven in Near Death Experiences is 'indescribably beautiful':
Near-Death Experiences: Glimpses of the Afterlife First-Hand Accounts of Coming Back from the Great Beyond Excerpt: A Place of Beauty and Love Descriptions of the afterlife are often of an unimaginably beautiful land of color, light, and music. ,,, The landscape observed during an NDE is usually described as garden-like. Jennine Wolff of Troy, New York, recounted her near-death experience from 1987: "Suddenly I was aware of being in the most beautiful garden I've ever seen...I heard celestial music clearly and saw vivid colored flowers, like nothing seen on earth, gorgeous greenery and trees." Yensen went on to detail the landscape he witnessed as follows: "In the background were two beautiful, round-topped mountains, similar to Fujiyama in Japan. The tops were snowcapped, and the slopes were adorned with foliage of indescribable beauty...To the left was a shimmering lake containing a different kind of water—clear, golden, radiant and alluring. It seemed to be alive. The whole landscape was carpeted with grass so vivid, clear and green, that it defies description. To the right was a grove of large, luxuriant trees, composed of the same clear material that seemed to make up everything." Throughout these recounted experiences, the elements of color and sound are prevalent. Sound is described as "beautiful," "invigorating" and "harmonic." Color is seen as extraordinarily vivid in the grass, the sky, and in flowers. https://www.liveabout.com/near-death-experiences-glimpses-afterlife-4076597 The Beauty of a Heavenly Meadow Excerpt: I found myself standing in an absolutely beautiful green meadow. I knew then what was going on. I knew once again who I was, that I had died. My amnesia period was over with. I stood there in this gorgeous meadow and I remember that the light there was different from the light here on Earth. Though it was not that brilliant white light in which I was involved, it was a more beautiful light. There was a goldenness to this light. I remember the sky was very blue. I don't recall seeing the sun. The colors were extraordinary. The green of the meadow was fantastic. The flowers were blooming all around and they had colors that I had never seen before. I was very aware that I had never seen these colors before and I was very excited about it. I thought I had seen all colors. I was thrilled to death of the beauty that was incredible. In addition to the beautiful colors, I could see a soft light glowing within every living thing. It was not a light that was reflected from the outside from a source, but it was coming from the center of this flower. Just this beautiful, soft light. I think I was seeing the life inside of everything. https://www.near-death.com/experiences/exceptional/jayne-smith.html 'I crossed over': Survivors of near-death experiences share 'afterlife' stories - April 3, 2015 Excerpt: For many, the question of what happens when we die is a mysterious one — a TODAY survey found that 55 percent of people are absolutely certain there is an afterlife, 37 percent are not certain, and 8 percent are certain there isn't an afterlife.,,, According to Moorjani, the author of the new book "Dying To Be Me", she was reunited in that state with her late father, who told her to turn back. “He said that I've gone as far as I can, and if I go any further, I won't be able to turn back,” she said. “But I felt I didn't want to turn back, because it was so beautiful. It was just incredible, because, for the first time, all the pain had gone. All the discomfort had gone. All the fear was gone. I just felt so incredible. And I felt as though I was enveloped in this feeling of just love. Unconditional love.” Citing an “incredible clarity where everything started to make sense,” she said she decided to return to her body because she believed “it would heal very, very quickly.” It did. “Within four days, my tumors shrunk by 70 percent, and the doctors were shocked,” she said. “And I kept telling everyone that, ‘I know I'm going to be okay. I know it’s not my time to die.’” https://www.today.com/health/i-crossed-over-survivors-near-death-experiences-share-afterlife-stories-t12841
And whereas, atheists have no compelling evidence for all the various extra dimensions, parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth to try to 'explain away' the creation and fine-tuning of the universe, Christians, on the other hand, (as is shown in the following video), can appeal directly to the higher dimensional mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity and General Relativity to support their belief that God upholds this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in a heavenly dimension and in a hellish dimension.
Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo
As well Christians can appeal to advances in quantum biology to support their belief in the reality of our immortal souls:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
Verse
2 Corinthians 12:2-4 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
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Thanks for the corrected link LateMarch.bornagain77_{October 7, 2019
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