Blog Visits note, 9: A Busy week . . . on thermodynamics, Islamism and the rift in the Caribbean.

As I look back I see it has been a week since the last post here.

That's because there has been a major ongoing back-forth in this blog on the issue of thermodynamics, following up from a recent visit over at Uncommon Descent, and a restart to debate on the BFP thread on Islamists and the killing of innocents.

The former is drawing to a close now, with closing remarks from both sides. For those who cannot follow the thermodynamics in the arguments, it boils down to this: once we assemble a complex functional entity from small parts that can be arranged in many, many ways, it is most likely the result of intelligent action. If we see a jumbo jet, we infer to a Boeing Aircraft company, not a tornado in a junkyard!

The root of that is the implications of the second law of thermodynamics, especially in its statistical form. But, that in fact fairly obvious and empirically well-supported point is stoutly resisted by those with a lot at stake on the matter. For, it immediately and rather directly questions the claimed origin of life by unintelligent processes only, i.e evolutionary materialism.

The other thread is disturbing for a very different reason: it reveals the underlying questionable assumptions, biases, hostility and even in some cases, outright spitefulness that are lurking in the minds of many educated people in our region, once an Evangelical Christian speaks up. Unsurprisingly, this attitude most often works by the old turnabout accusation trick: accusing the Christians of the attitudes one in fact is manifesting.

To illustrate, let us excerpt a few choice remarks, making a few noted. The point here is to show what sort of increasingly hostile attitudes and shut-up rhetoric we can expect if we try to speak out to the problems prosed by Islamism and by Islam's Dawah missionary campaign in the Caribbean; even on a basis of the facts and their reasonable implications:

DFX: take a look at Numbers 25:10-13. Image if we could be killed in the name of the Lord just for being in an inter-racial marriage?

--> Moses, the author of the book, was married to a woman of the relevant ethnicity; the incident in the text is about calculatedly luring Israel into adultery and fornication thus the destructive judgement of God. In short he text is grossly twisted into an accusation that is ill-founded.

Agenda: for the right wing idealogues on here, islam is the number one [threat] . . . . it is pointless arguing with right wing evangelicals, fundamentalist and idealogues. they view everything through a narrow prism and anything that doesnt fit into their little box is attacked. it is a simple formala they use. paint a picture of an “other”, a bogey man who wants to destroy us. create myths, exaggerations and distort fact. mix it with christian fundamentalism and evangelical fervour. keep spouting the diatribe and propaganda and anyone who is gullible will buy into it

--> In fact I specifically spoke to the problem of the radicalised 10 - 15% [not a monolith], and the troubling roots they have in the founding era, texts, examples and history. I also spoke to the other threats to the Caribbean, starting with ourselves, explicitly noting that the apostate west is a greater danger than Islam. Turns out, too, there was a recent thread with a live interview by the former Dutch parliamentarian, Ali, on this. Ignored of course -- don't confuse me with facts, my mind has been long since made up. Sad, but that's out there..

DFX: To often “Christians” like to get up and spew that it is only the Bible way or the Hell way. And testify like above. When you do that are you not in the same boat as the Islamic Extremists?

--> The Bible way from Rom 2:7 "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he [God] will give eternal life.” The hell way, from v 8: "But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” [Note, this opens up the point that those who penitently and persistently respond to the voice of God in conscience and creation, even if they do not have much light otherwise, God will accept. But, willful rejection of truth and insistence on evil God for excellent reason frowns on. So, by the light we have, where do we stand before him, in the C21 Caribbean?]

--> The inference to immoral equivalency to the likes of a Mr bin Laden is obviously uncalled for and outrageous.

DFX: lets use some logic here today. Lets starts with the Bible. Genesis is a good start . . . . Genesis 1:25-27 So God created Man AFTER the animals . . . . Genesis 2:18-19 Wait a minute.. God created man before the animals? HMMM I wonder which was it? . . . . the Bible seems so contradict itself by the 22nd verse of the 2nd chapter in it’s very first book. Man that is too funny. And yet we have founded a religion on it.

--> Basic reading blunder: the texts do not at all require that there is a chronological contradiction.

DFX: Does poisoning 900 people in a jungle in Guyana after killing a US Senator count [as comparable to the 9/11 attacks on the part of Christians] ?

--> Rev'd Jones was a pseudo-Christian, in fact Marxist, charlatan, who forced his unarmed people to drink poisoned Koolaid at gunpoint, and tried to leave his money tothe USSR and the cause of revolution. Not exactly a Christian.

DFX: My GOD it has a brain after all! [NB: later apologised for] . . . . You are so blinded by you hate and intolerance of other faiths that you failed to figure out that I have been trying not to support or cry down either faith but to say only through understanding can we co-exist.

Chase: Ignore this ‘educated’ clown…we get your point.

--> Ignores what he evidently cannot address on the merits, and resorts to attacks to the man.

Rumpel; By the way, did you know Hitler actually had built a ’star chamber’ designed from readings in the Bible, which he thought would give him strength from God?

--> This is perhaps the most outrageous and subtle. Nazism is probably the only unquestioned instance of gross demonic evil in the West today. So, buy tarring the Bible with the Nazi brush, R seeks to discredit the Christian faith through guilt by association.

--> Observe: no reference is given, no facts are cited on a grave charge indeed. And, if one knows the history one would know that Hitler's worldview was mostly shaped by occult [Blavatsky and her Aryan Man myth] and Social Darwinist forces [ the Master Race and its "right" to wipe out inferiors, etc] A glance at the Barmen declaration will suffice to show that Bible-believing confessing Christians in Germany repudiated Hitler and his deceits officially and publicly as early as 1934, one year after he came to power -- through what is in effect a full creedal statement!

Of course I took time to respond to such remarks, trying to be relatively brief but responsible on points [many of the above points could motivate whole essays of dozens of pages in response].The only serious response was from DFX, who apologised for his "it" remark, and has over the past couple of days tried to reach out with an olive branch. (I of course accepted the apology.)

What troubles me, is the gnawing feeling that many, even most Christians in our region are ill-equipped to answer to such attacks and attitudes. Also, the Islamist radicals and propagandists can relax, as this shows just how divided and unwilling to face unpleasant realities we have become in the Caribbean. The triumph of rhetoric over reason also does not bode well for us.

This underscores the ever-increasing need for the sort of venture proposed in our recent post on the need for a regional Christian Cyber-College. DV, next time, let us further elaborate. END