Author Archives: Troy

The Fallacy of Neutrality

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Neutrality is actually a fallacy. That’s because “neutrality” is a position.

A person who decides to be neutral is taking a position of neutrality, therefore, they are not being neutral.   They are relying on a self-refuting logical argument. Not only that, they are implying that every philosophy that takes a position is wrong, usually while convincing themselves that it is an expression of tolerance!

It is not unusual to hear people assert that they come to scientific evidence neutrally, but this a denial of the obvious fact that everyone takes a position.  Evidence can’t talk (even though some say it speaks for itself). Evidence requires a method of interpretation or else the “evidence” is just a set of objects without significance.  To deny the method of interpretation is another way to deny taking a position.

It is also common for nations, business and individuals to claim the be neutral in regard to religious beliefs.  Once again, this attempt to tolerate them all, denies them all since all of them are asserting their own position.  Just because a person claims to not be doing something, doesn’t mean that that is what they are actually doing.  You can claim to love someone while harming them.  The same thing happens when a person claims to be religiously neutral and then disallows any of them to be expressed.  The fact is that a secular position is being promoted under the disguise of “neutrality.”

The claim: “I am neutral” is itself a non-neutral claim because it assumes that “Neutrality exists.” Asserting this claim, is taking a position against those who don’t believe it exists. When a person asserts a position, they are not being neutral. Therefore, the claim that neutrality exists is a fallacy.  Dr. Jason Lisle calls this fallacy: “The Pretended Neutrality Fallacy” in his book “The Ultimate Proof of Creation”.

Both Evolutionists and Creationists aren’t really neutral. They may convince themselves that they are, but by choosing to believe in neutrality they are not only taking a position, they are being irrational. It’s understandable that evolutionists would be irrational, because they don’t have a basis for logic or morality in their worldview, but Christians actually have a moral obligation to be rational because it’s biblical.

Christians are supposed to be honest about the fact that they are not neutral. Jesus said that people were either for Him or against Him. He never said that there were people who were “on the fence.” Instead, He made it clear that the fence didn’t exist. By doing this, He exposed everyone’s position. Claiming to be neutral is to say that Jesus is wrong. When you say that Jesus is wrong, you taking a very bold, non-neutral position.

So, the claim that a person is neutral is fallacious because it is based on the non-neutral position that neutrality exists.  Christians should be aware of this and not be persuaded by the fallacy of neutrality.

Further Study

What is a Worldview
We all have a worldview. We see the world through a set of presuppositions that we can’t prove scientifically.  This is how I describe it.

Bill Nye and the “No True Scotsman” Fallacy

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It is evident that Bill Nye committed a significant logical error in the recent debate with Ken Ham at the Creation Museum.  The problem with a logical fallacy is that it can sound right to people, even though an argument hasn’t really been made yet.   This article explains the fallacy that Bill Nye committed every time he would contrast “us in the scientific community” with “Ken Ham’s creation model”.  This article does a great job of addressing what the “no true Scotsman” fallacy is, how Bill Nye committed it and how he was merely insulating himself against responding to the issue.  Instead of answering with a discussion about why Ken Ham’s creation model wasn’t scientific, he merely implied that real scientists don’t use it.  In a very real sense, Bill Nye didn’t actually debate the issue.

You can read more about Bill Nye’s use of the “No True Scotsman Fallacy” here.

Here’s a great quote from it:

…early creation scientists forged the paths of each of today’s major scientific branches of inquiry, like Isaac Newton’s physics,4 Matthew Maury’s oceanography, Louis Pasteur’s immunology,5 Michael Faraday’s electromagnetism,6 and George Carver’s agriculture.7,8 Are we to believe that Newton and Pasteur were not real scientists?

Apparently, facts like these do not matter to someone who is so fully committed to the false idea that real scientists only believe in evolution that he is more than willing to adjust the very definition of scientist to preserve his argument.

Monkeying with the Truth

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I’ve been finishing my next devotion book… Stay tuned.

I want to address one of Bill Nye’s supposed pieces of evidence about evolution he offered in the recent debate between he and Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis.  He showed a slide with a bunch of skulls on it and suggested that it was some kind of proof for evolution.  In this video, Dr. David Menton, who is actually an expert in these things.  Explains the real issue and does so in a very enjoyable way.

I’m sure the video is easily worth the money (I have his whole “Body of Evidence” set) but the trailer is educational in itself.  Check out: 3 Ways to Make an Ape Man.  By the way, Answers in Genesis has linked the video to articles explaining away other things that Bill said as well.

Science Opposes Evolution

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Science is the study of physical things that can be repeatedly observed, and by doing experiments, it has been observed that order is a fundamental element of physical systems.  In living systems, this order takes the form of programming, which we recognize as a very complicated form of linguistic information.  This doesn’t fit well with the ideas of evolution because evolution usually tries to explain change as a random process that happens when energy is applied to matter.  I believe, that at least one reason we don’t consider this to be a problem, is because we were only exposed to part of the truth about the fundamental elements of universe in school.

In an effort to stay within the bounds of naturalism, public schools teach two things that don’t work together.  We see this in the difference between what was taught in health class and what was taught in science class.

In health class, we are warned about germs and ways to protect ourselves from doing things like eating canned goods that have had the seal broken.  We are told that as long as the seal of a canned item is unbroken, an unwanted organism cannot get through and contaminate it.

Now when we go to science class, we are told something else, but it isn’t obvious at first.  Evolutionary science teaches something that could be simplified into a formula like this:

Matter + Energy = Life!

One thing that was shown to me is that we are capable of doing this experiment ourselves, but I suggest that we go back to health class to do it!  Let’s take a sealed can of beans and put it in a shaking machine.  Let’s also heat it up to just above room temperature.  Let’s leave it there all day.  Then let’s open it up at the end of the day and see what kinds of new life has formed.

Note that we had this formula:

Beans + (Shaking and Heat) = ?

To our dismay, when we open the can we find no new life.  There is no mold or anything.  We added a significant amount of heat and shaking.  The amount of pounds of pressure that was sent through the can could probably have built a house.  What we are experiencing is a way in which the formula we are taught in science class doesn’t appear to work.  We still eat cans of beans that haven’t been opened yet, even though the temperature has changed, it has been shaken and light has been showing on it.  We could have even been exposed to an magnet.  Did you realize that this experiment is performed over and over every day all over the world?  There are literally millions of cans being stored every year. The government is so concerned with the reality of this that they make laws to ensure that business abide by health class rules and not science class rules.

Here’s the formula being carefully controlled by health organizations:

Matter + Energy + Information = Life!

I would argue that there are actually three fundamentals of nature and one of them isn’t physical.  Information is from outside nature.  It’s “super” natural, and we don’t observe nature without it.  Once the right kind of information is introduced into a can of beans, we quickly discover new life forms.  If information is kept from being introduced into the experiment, only the existing life forms are left, but only until they break down (but that’s another topic).

The Bible has been telling us the truth the whole time.  Even when we didn’t understand the nature of germs or DNA yet.  Unlike a science book, it didn’t have to change to protect its philosophy.

 

Evolution is Ancient

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One of the incorrect assumptions people have about evolution is that it is a modern idea. Like almost everything about evolution, this is also not true.

I was informed that in some of the old pantheon’s, the gods themselves came from a sort of primordial soup.  Darwin’s ideas were just an intellectual rehash of ancient religious philosophy.  When you dig deep enough, you discover that all ideas about origins are beliefs.  In fact, everything that we think ends up being faith.  Just as yourself “why” enough times about anything.  Even those who claim to believe in naturalism have to ask “why” they believe in naturalism.

You are not a fool to believe in something that cannot be scientifically proven.  Most scientists believe in love.  They also believe in hope, even if it is only for their next paycheck.  The fool is the one who believes he isn’t believing.

I wanted to let you know that I plan to drop the price on my Kindle book “183 Days in John” for the next week, starting tomorrow.

My New Book: 220 Days in Luke

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This was a big one!  It’s over 400 pages printed. Fortunately, as an eBook, we don’t really need to print it.  To get my new book visit:
http://Luke.WisdomIsBetter.com

As a software engineer, I really like Luke’s writing.  He is meticulously detailed and for a person like me who asks a lot of “Why’s” it’s helpful to have a doctor like Luke to explain it.  It is remarkable that we have a 2,000 year old document like this at all.  Of course, it’s not a surprise since God made sure that the Bible would last.  Some people try to claim that because Bible is so old, it can’t really be trusted.  They argue that it has been changed too many times, but I have discovered that this is simply not true.  In reality, with just the New Testament part of the Bible, we find that it is the most well documented book of its time.  According to The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell (p.38), the New Testament has far more manuscript copies than any other book its age.  That means we can check the copies and see what has changed.  To put it in perspective, the famous book The Iliad is known to have 643 hand-written copies left today.  These are copies that were made before printing.  The New Testament on the other hand, has 5,366 copies.  That’s enough for us to use to determine what errors might have been introduced over the years.  Not many differences have been found.

There have been those who have attempted to make changes to it though.  These have been discovered and exposed, too.  There are also problems in translation between the original language (Greek) and the one that I use (English), but there are loads of commentaries about those as well; enough for me to get a good idea about what the truth is.  Nothing that I have researched changes the basic facts either.  We sinned, we needed a savior, God became a man and saved us.

That’s what Luke documents for us and it’s awesome.

I hope that I have actually helped connect it to our lives today.  If not, ignore me and just read Luke.  God’s words are never wrong and they will always be successful at accomplishing what God wants.

Wisdom and the West

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The word “Philosophy” when literally translated means “lover of wisdom.”  Being a philosopher is a good thing in that sense, according to the Bible.  Here’s what the Bible says in Proverbs:

Whoever loves wisdom brings joy to his father;

Proverbs 29:3a

The western world has a big problem, though.  What they call “philosophy” isn’t what the Bible says is philosophy.  The problem has to do with the word “Wisdom” that the philosopher is supposed to be loving.

According to the Bible, “Wisdom” means something very specific.  Wisdom starts with believing in God.  That’s what the Bible says.

The fear of Yahweh. is the beginning of knowledge;
but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7

Obviously, you must start at the beginning, and to begin you must fear God.  It’s difficult to fear God when you don’t even believe in Him.  So, what does “Wisdom” call a person or a nation that doesn’t believe in God?  Well that’s here too.

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

Psalm 14:1a

Now, that’s pretty strait-forward, don’t you think?  But that’s not all, it also says this:

There is no wisdom nor understanding
nor counsel against Yahweh.

Proverbs 21:30

Remember, Yahweh, is a representation of the biblical name of God.  “Yahweh” is the God of the Bible not the God of any other religion.  What the Bible is saying is that anyone who doesn’t start out believing in the God of the Bible, can’t be wise.  There is nothing “progressive” about throwing the Bible away.  If the western world doesn’t go back to the God of the Bible, foolishness is all that is left.