Nicholas Humphrey pokes fun in stating:
…let’s take pity on the Baptist teacher who has become wedded to creationism, and let’s give her a vacation. Let’s walk her round the Natural History museum in the company of Richard Dawkins or Dan Dennett-or, if they’re too scary, David Attenborough-and let’s have them explain the possibilities of evolution to her. Now, offer her the choice: the story of Genesis with all its paradoxes and special pleading, or the startlingly simple idea of natural selection. Which will she choose?
Do you see the point now? This alleged champion of science is presenting an atheist bias based false dichotomy peppered with inaccuracies.What does Daniel Dennett have to do with natural history?
He is a philosopher (or misosopher) and not a biologist, anthropologist, paleoanthropologist, etc.
Ah yes, but he is an activist atheist and so his opinion is supreme in all arenas.What does Richard Dawkins have to do with natural history?At least this time we are dealing with a biologist / zoologist. Yet, he is an atheist activist who, in part, accepted the Darwinian theory of evolution as implying atheism as a much appreciated byproduct (if not as a centerpiece). He accepted the theory as a child because it was taught to him and he realized that it was the one stone with which to kill two birds: 1) the question of how life came about (a topic about which Darwinism has nothing to say) and 2) getting rid of God. Even his allegedly scientific writings are clearly a mixture of actual observation and atheist propaganda.
Moreover, Natural History museums are not infallible and have, through the decades presented much evolutionary myth as fact. Yet, this brings us to an important point; virtually anything you see in a Natural History is subject to change since at any moment the removal of one shovel full of dirt may find something that completely overturns any given display. “Great!” saith the evolutionist of a certain sort “Indeed, we are perfectly willing to dump any theory which is overturned by new discoveries.” Indeed, that is the point; let us not pretend that particularly in such soft scientific areas as the interpretation of fossils we are dealing in fact but in the our best guess thus far.But now for the choice: the story of Genesis with all its paradoxes and special pleading, or the startlingly simple idea of natural selection.This is falsely dichotomous and a category mistake. The story of Genesis deals with origins: the origin of the universe, plant, animal and human lives while the idea of natural selection, which the Baptist teacher has no reason to doubt (at least when presented in an actual scientific manner) deals with subsequent changes. Natural selection has absolutely nothing to say about orignins.While certainly and purposefully playing off of religious terminology; Nicholas Humphrey provides another taste of what I referred to in part 3 as atheist neo-Paganism,
Those who have been walking in darkness have seen a great light. The aha! of scientific revelation.
He follows up with other sentiment that one would imagine have nothing to do with unbiased scientific methodology, “the power of Darwinian theory,” and what science provides is “economical, elegant, beautiful.” Indeed, considerations such as esthetics are considered under the umbrella of what is scientifically accurate and so now elegance and beauty are not in the eye of the beholder but are scientific determinations: Nicholas Humphrey finds cosmic accidents powerful, economical, elegant and beautiful and so they are-and so they are science.Nicholas Humphrey rightly notes,
Science doesn’t cajole, it doesn’t dictate, it lays out the factual and theoretical arguments as to why something is so-and invites us to assent to them, to see it for ourselves.
Indeed and how could it? Science is a method and has no volition. Yet, while science does not cajole or dictate scientists do and they cause others to lose their jobs and reputations for contradicting the orthodoxy de jour. This is because they are mere mortals and must be restrained by the very scientific methods upon which their conclusions are supposed to be based. Indeed, science lays out the factual and theoretical arguments as to why something is so-and invites us to assent to them, to see it for ourselves. And if you conclude that the factual and theoretical arguments do not equate to the atheist co-option of science then you are disqualified and/or excommunicated.Following, Nicholas Humphrey engages in further fallacious misrepresentations and self-serving allusions:
Religion makes no pretence of engaging its devotees in any process of rational discovery or choice. If we dare ask why we should believe something, the answer will be because it has been written in the Book.
As an example of this he references “the second century Roman theologian, Tertullian” who stated “For us curiosity is no longer necessary after Jesus Christ nor inquiry after the Gospel.” And “It is certain because it is impossible.”
Obviously, Tertullian was referencing the Gospel and not a scientific endeavor. Nonetheless as I looked up his statements in order to ascertain the context from which Nicholas Humphrey had ripped them I found that, of course, they came from Tertullian’s work De Praescriptione Haereticorum-On the Prescription of Heretics. Tertullian was juxtaposing the supposed philosophy of the various Gnostic groups and others; he mentions “those who talk of a ‘stoic’, ‘platonic’, or ‘dialectic’ Christianity. We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor for inquiry after the gospel,” with that which the Christian held to be true: or worldly wisdom vs. Godly wisdom.
I was going to argue, as I will now, that somehow Christians managed to overcome this supposed obstacle to science stated in two sentences by one man from the second century AD and actually went on to establish the very methods and fields of science upon which atheists such as Nicholas Humphrey claim to premise their atheism and besmirching of the supernatural (about which science has nothing to say). Interestingly, whilst searching for the Tertullian texts I ran across the article Science and Faith: An Anglican Perspective, which end by stating:
For the most part, the dominant tradition in the church did not follow Tertullian (“We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor for inquiry after the gospel.”), but followed the path of Augustine and Anselm (“I believe in order to understand.”). Scientists follow the same path (faith seeking understanding), placing their faith and trust in the ultimate rationality and intelligibility of the universe in order to understand it.
Let us now backtrack and note that it is utter falsehood that “Religion makes no pretence of engaging its devotees in any process of rational discovery or choice.” Of course, if by religion he means some sort of oppressive self-appointed-infallible hierarchical he may be right but let us understand him as referencing theism or supernaturalism in general. From Buddhists inviting people to try meditation to the Baha’i Faith‘s invitation to conduct an independent investigation of their claims religion is saturated with such engagements.The Bible states, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).The Bible praises the Bereans for being skeptical of Paul’s preaching and double checking what he claimed (Acts 17:11).
The Bible has the honestly skeptical Thomas asking for evidence when other had seen it and he had not (see the post here).
The Bible is saturated with dates, places and events which encourage exploration along with encouragement to seek wisdom, truth, loving the Lord with all of our minds, etc.To merely say that “If we dare ask why we should believe something, the answer will be because it has been written in the Book” is tantamount to stating that “If we dare ask why we should believe something about Darwinian evolution, the answer will be because it has been written in the textbook.” Oh no, it is not merely in a textbook! Indeed, and it is not merely in “a book” either. After all, why did it come to be written in the book/textbook? It was experienced, mused upon, sought out, witnessed, etc., finally written and subsequently further experienced.Moreover, millions upon millions of people have claimed to have personally experienced what a book states: let us say any book that, for example, describes experiences with God. Millions upon millions of people regardless of chronology, geography or theology have claimed to have experiences with God. The only way for the Nicholas Humphrey school of atheism to conclude that they were all wrong (for whatever reason: hallucination, lie, mistake, etc.) would be to presuppose that there is no God with whom to have an experience. But the only way to come to such a conclusion would be to presuppose that God does not exist. Thus, no one has experiences with God because there is no God and one way to know that there is no God is that no one has ever had an experience with God.Nicholas Humphrey continues by presenting us another fallacy in proposing a choice between,
two paths to enlightenment-between basing your beliefs on the ideas of others imported from another country and another time, and basing them on ideas that you have been able to see growing in your home soil.
This is merely confused. After all what does it matter whence and when comes the truth so long as it is true: this is an ad hominem or genetic fallacy.In juxtaposition to his various fallacious statements about books, religion and parochiality he states,
…teaching science isn’t like that, it’s not about teaching someone else’s beliefs, it’s about encouraging the child to exercise her powers of understanding to arrive at her own beliefs.
Again, this sounds very nice indeed and yet, the child could not engage upon the scientific endeavor without having the teacher teaching someone else’s beliefs such as you should not be religious but should study “science” and become an atheist. And again, if the child exercises her powers of understanding to arrive at her own beliefs in the form of theism what then? The Nicholas Humphrey school would be there to belittle, besmirch and attempt to destroy reputation and career.
Let us now jump ahead for just a moment before getting to the real motivator behind Nicholas Humphrey proposal. Note that after arguing that no adult can lay out the course of a child’s life, except Nicholas Humphrey and his elites, he expresses the very same typical, natural, normal, human wish of a parent for their child: what I want for them:
…what I would want for my daughter (now two years old) because I think it is what she, given the chance, would one day want for herself. But it is also what I would want for her because I am too well aware of what might otherwise befall her.
So, what about Nicholas Humphrey own child? She is except as she will follow the course laid out for her by her father since he claims that this is what I want because I think and I want because I know better than she because I am the parent, she is the child and I want her to choose what I want her to choose.Now to the very bottom line, the very premise, the ultimate bias, the purpose for the push for forcefully stopping parents from teaching their children as they please and turning them over to atheist schools of indoctrination.Nicholas Humphrey stated that part of his purpose is the “mollification of the Gods.”In referring to religious upbringing he had lamented that “the truth is that the effects of well-designed indoctrination may still prove irreversible” we will now see that when it comes to atheist upbringing in the guise of “science” education he actually hopes that “the truth is that the effects of well-designed indoctrination may still prove irreversible”:
_this means that by her own efforts at understanding she will have become a scientific conformist: one of those predictable people who believes that matter is made of atoms, that the universe arose with the Big Bang, that humans are descended from monkeys, that consciousness is a function of the brain, that there is no life after death, and so on. . . But-since you ask-I’ll say I’d be only too pleased if a big brother or sister or school-teacher or you yourself, sir, should help her get to that enlightened state. [ellipses in original]
This, by the way, was the reason for the Big Brother imagery throughout theses posts.
The mocking tone is meant to depict those who would mock him but the point is that he considers that an enlightened state amounts to accepting absolute materialism-Nicholas Humphrey’s worldview is the only viable one and the one that he seeks to shove down the throats of the world’s children while their parents are forcefully held at bay. This is not merely to do with the rise of atheism in American but an Alluminati campaign to elicit the rise of atheism all over the world via indoctrination.
Let us end with some actual hidden camera footage of Nicholas Humphrey’s school of atheist reeducation at work:
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