For many, the biggest threat to religion is science’s demystification of life. When we say this, we mean that things that used to be thought of as mystical or paranormal are being explained as being ordinary. For example, people used to think that lightning and thunder was a result of magic. Today, we understand the work of ions and static electricity as forces that cause these things. Parents used to pray that their children not be afflicted by diphtheria, but now we can vaccinate the child to prevent that disease. Mental disorders such as schizophrenia were thought to be the result of demon possession, but now are known to be linked to chemical imbalances in the brain. These are but a few examples of how science has demystified these superstitions.
Because science has been solving superstitions and explaining them in scientific terms, people will often latch onto any hints of the supernatural. If you take the time to walk into any religious bookstore, you will find that you are confronted with a variety of different accounts of supernatural encounters or working practices. Things like fortune telling, out of body experiences, dying and going to heaven or hell are common among these books. These books try their hardest to justify their supernatural mysteries and refute the mechanistic worldview that has no room for the paranormal.
Most psychologists are skeptical of the paranormal and extrasensory perception. They have plenty of reasons to be skeptical of such things when faced with the tremendous amounts of fraud related to these subjects, and the fact that no one has been able to reproduce any paranormal or “sixth sense” experience. In 1995, the CIA decommissioned a twenty million dollar psychic spy program which produced no results. Because of these factors, the National Research Council has concluded that “the best available evidence does not support the contention that (paranormal) phenomena exist.” (p. 54)
As Christians, we tend to side with the scientific standpoint on the paranormal. We are warned in the Bible about being misled by those who practice divination or magic. We are also reminded if a prophet cannot produce results, he is a liar and not of God.
So what then can we consider to be mystery? Sherlock Holmes reminds us that we can make the mistake of confounding strangeness with mystery. Life is stranger than anything the mind can create, and the mind is what makes us think something is mysterious due to the way our minds handle this information. Is it not strange how the brain works? Thousands of little neurotransmitters are firing to achieve an end action or product. Your neurons are going crazy reading the letters on this page and deciphering them into a way that they mean something to you. This is purely amazing.
Science is a problem solving activity. Scientists wondered how those neurons, like the ones we discussed above, worked, and found that they worked via tiny neurotransmitters. In solving the question of the neuron, we have opened up a thousand questions about the neurotransmitters we just discovered. How do they work? How may are there? Are they related to this or that disease? We go can go deeper and deeper still until we reach the nexus of questions of how this all came to be. How did something come from nothing?
We often make the mistake of only looking into the bizarre to see God, when we should really look into the simple. We do not have to look into the paranormal to see God’s hand, just the simple things, and if we want to go deeper to gain understanding of God’s work, go deeper.
This was a weird chapter to read, and a hard one to outline. One pet peeve I had with this chapter was that it started talking about ESP, but didn’t really explain what it was. Anyway, I digress. I see many Christians latching onto supernatural encounters saying that they are proof of God. Stories like visits from angels, and out of body experiences. I do not deny that what is in those may have happened, but I remain skeptical. There are thousands of books being sold, and I often wonder how many of those stories have been made up just to grab a publishing deal. Miracles do happen, but I have trouble believing the ones that people do boast about. We are warned of false prophets, and those seem to be popping up a lot more than usual these days. What makes humans be attracted to such themes? I know I am attracted to the supernatural because it is the unknown. As stated above, science is a problem solving activity, and I wish to solve the unknown. Not everything can be solved though. We cannot reproduce certain aspects of our faith, so do we mark all things that are unsolvable as supernatural or needed to be accepted by faith? I think so, but that should not stop people from testing them and trying to prove a thing right or wrong. What science can disprove should be cast aside, what it cannot can be accepted by faith, and what it can should supersede other beliefs.
Because science has been solving superstitions and explaining them in scientific terms, people will often latch onto any hints of the supernatural. If you take the time to walk into any religious bookstore, you will find that you are confronted with a variety of different accounts of supernatural encounters or working practices. Things like fortune telling, out of body experiences, dying and going to heaven or hell are common among these books. These books try their hardest to justify their supernatural mysteries and refute the mechanistic worldview that has no room for the paranormal.
Most psychologists are skeptical of the paranormal and extrasensory perception. They have plenty of reasons to be skeptical of such things when faced with the tremendous amounts of fraud related to these subjects, and the fact that no one has been able to reproduce any paranormal or “sixth sense” experience. In 1995, the CIA decommissioned a twenty million dollar psychic spy program which produced no results. Because of these factors, the National Research Council has concluded that “the best available evidence does not support the contention that (paranormal) phenomena exist.” (p. 54)
As Christians, we tend to side with the scientific standpoint on the paranormal. We are warned in the Bible about being misled by those who practice divination or magic. We are also reminded if a prophet cannot produce results, he is a liar and not of God.
So what then can we consider to be mystery? Sherlock Holmes reminds us that we can make the mistake of confounding strangeness with mystery. Life is stranger than anything the mind can create, and the mind is what makes us think something is mysterious due to the way our minds handle this information. Is it not strange how the brain works? Thousands of little neurotransmitters are firing to achieve an end action or product. Your neurons are going crazy reading the letters on this page and deciphering them into a way that they mean something to you. This is purely amazing.
Science is a problem solving activity. Scientists wondered how those neurons, like the ones we discussed above, worked, and found that they worked via tiny neurotransmitters. In solving the question of the neuron, we have opened up a thousand questions about the neurotransmitters we just discovered. How do they work? How may are there? Are they related to this or that disease? We go can go deeper and deeper still until we reach the nexus of questions of how this all came to be. How did something come from nothing?
We often make the mistake of only looking into the bizarre to see God, when we should really look into the simple. We do not have to look into the paranormal to see God’s hand, just the simple things, and if we want to go deeper to gain understanding of God’s work, go deeper.
This was a weird chapter to read, and a hard one to outline. One pet peeve I had with this chapter was that it started talking about ESP, but didn’t really explain what it was. Anyway, I digress. I see many Christians latching onto supernatural encounters saying that they are proof of God. Stories like visits from angels, and out of body experiences. I do not deny that what is in those may have happened, but I remain skeptical. There are thousands of books being sold, and I often wonder how many of those stories have been made up just to grab a publishing deal. Miracles do happen, but I have trouble believing the ones that people do boast about. We are warned of false prophets, and those seem to be popping up a lot more than usual these days. What makes humans be attracted to such themes? I know I am attracted to the supernatural because it is the unknown. As stated above, science is a problem solving activity, and I wish to solve the unknown. Not everything can be solved though. We cannot reproduce certain aspects of our faith, so do we mark all things that are unsolvable as supernatural or needed to be accepted by faith? I think so, but that should not stop people from testing them and trying to prove a thing right or wrong. What science can disprove should be cast aside, what it cannot can be accepted by faith, and what it can should supersede other beliefs.
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