Michael Bresciani
Premiere of Discovery's 'Curiosity' - - shameless secularism not science
By Michael Bresciani
After weeks of being pounded by commercials promoting Discovery Channel's first in a series they call "Curiosity," it would be hard for anyone with only a little bit of curiosity not to give it a chance and a little look see.
Produced by John Hendricks the founder of Discovery Channel, the show is set to air sixty more episodes each one dealing with different subjects. You will need to find a great deal more curiosity to take in the next fifty nine, if they are anything at all like the first. This is not a mere review of the program but rather it is a purview of the premise on which it is based. The program was well produced and narrated but it is hard not to conclude that it meant to use its science to close minds, not to open them.
In the beginning the show is like a flashback to my days as a college freshman, when eager professors worked feverishly to convince their young disciples, and I, to scrap any notion of God and lay down the false hype learned in the church. Using the well known battle between Galileo and the Catholic Church seemed to mock at times and bordered on insult. As always the argument is about what church fathers said and not about what the Bible says.
Curiosity, along with eager college professors, always leaves out the fact that the Bible always supported the scientific findings of the true relationship of the sun and the planets in our solar system. The Bible never says the earth is the center of the solar system or the universe. For those who walk by scripture alone it can only be repeated once again that, when any Christian sect leaves the Word, be it Catholic or some nascent non-denominational mega church, the secularist will eat it up and such theology will be labeled as, the folly of man and will most assuredly meet its doom under the sword of scientific scrutiny. Then, there is the other side of the coin.
When the single edged sword of the science of man does battle with the double edged sword of the Word of God there is never any contest. God's word will always stand. Let's see why.
Curiosity was willing, as might be expected, to use predisposition to arrive at bold pompous and swelling conclusions extracted from un-witnessed, unverifiable so called facts of science. They are based on (once again) prior philosophic postulates. Put simply that means, when describing events that took place billions of years before anyone could witness them, much less submit them to the scrutiny of science, is to delve into the endless realm of conjecture, speculation and perhaps prognostication, but it is not science. What's worse is that because it leaves the very definition of science, which is the gathering of intelligence from repeatable observable phenomenon, what we have here, is an excursion into the realm known as, 'faith.'
Since there is no more proof that the universe began with the Big Bang than there is that Christ was resurrected from the dead we have to engage the element of faith to build the hypothesis. In fact there is a great deal more historical, archaeological and eye witness evidence for the resurrection of Christ than for the Big Bang but that is a subject for another time.
Curiosity, it seems, used a series of hypothesis followed by giant leaps to unverifiable conclusions that begs to be scrutinized and subjected to calm reasoning and a great deal more hard science instead of sweeping speculation.
First it depended heavily of the meager findings of the all new fledgling science of quantum mechanics. We are told that a single sub-atomic particle burst into the creation of an entire universe then, produced what is now known as the laws of nature. From this we can conclude that a lawless unknown particle went floating around in space for untold trillions of years until it had opportunity to produce everything there is, and give it law, or as Stephen Hawking says, the laws of nature.
At one point Hawking says he does not want to offend those who have faith in God. Not once does he seem to notice that what he is suggesting would require even more faith and it ultimately is an answer that could cost many people dearly. Hawking is heralded as one of the most brilliant minds of the day but I would warn that all that shines out of a person in talent, virtuosity or intelligence does not necessarily come from God. Christ remarked that the light within may be noticeable to all but it could very well be darkness and he asks the question that Hawking and every other secularist should carefully weigh. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Mt 6: 23)
Trusting the conclusions of quantum science to explain the universe is not to be compared with something like the hard and tangible product of Einstein's theory of relativity, but to a curious mind under the sway of mesmerizing, colorful, graphic depictions of the solar system in its infancy, complete with big bang explosions, black holes and endless views of stars, galaxies and planets, all but the strongest minds would be inclined to accept the program's conclusions. Those conclusions are intrinsically weak and incomplete and that is their failing. The premise on which they are founded is faulted by science's own definition rather than the Bible.
Not once do the narrators of the program or, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking attempt to explain the origins of the fabulously fated sub-atomic particle responsible for kicking off our universe. One conclusion we can safely come to, is that science has now pinpointed their very own tiny little god and creator. Forget the silly old question of how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, now science says that millions of creators could take up residence in the same space.
Perhaps the Athenians of ancient Greece would be pleased to know that science has finally identified the deity (Agnostos Theos) that they built the famous temple to the unknown god for in Areopagus. In fact until science can explain who or what originated or created the original sub-atomic particle they will have to go back to their theorem and search much further back. I would suggest that they have no plan to do that in the very near future.
In forty years of asking this question of the origins of the sub-atomic particles that allegedly gathered together to spark and create the universe I have only drawn complete silence. Picking up the argument from the particle and leaping forward to an entire universe, is not science and in fact is wholly dishonest. The word 'origins' has not been addressed but it has surely been misused.
The biggest leap Curiosity takes is where it completely misses the mark. Interspersed with Hawking's remarks and surmising about using the simple kinder alternative of science to explain the universe, we are subsequently taken on a swirling thrill ride through the entire universe to arrive at an un-named giant black hole. It is there we are told that everything, matter, stars, planets and even science's revered creator, the original sub-atomic particle, will be sucked in and even time itself will cease to exist.
No allusions to the Bible or the science of homeostasis is relied upon to explain fully how, or why, time ceases to exist and the sense of the doom of all things manages to prevail. In some way the entire idea is like a scientifically inspired version of hell. It is hopeless, final and indescribable. Again the faith that would have to be mustered to accept this theory is incomprehensible. The Bible's version certainly is less cerebrally taxing, has a real historical context, and is for most people still far more credulous.
Curiosity concludes that since all time stops when sucked into the black hole, that God (if he exists) would not have had, or chanced to find, any time in which to create the universe. It is here that I can only ask the reader to pause and carefully consider this conclusion. Who would have guessed, that the priests of science, would also develop their own particular kind of eschatology. Now they are offering an explanation of the beginning and the end of all things.
The Bible claims over 150 times that God has created man and the entire universe. We may think to say he did not, but we will have to call him a liar over one hundred and fifty times, and still we and the scientist will all be brought down in the end by the great common denominator we know as death. The difference between the believer and the secular scientist after that is, that one group can only be wrong; the other can be wrong and condemned. The best science can't make men who can still think, gamble on a losing proposition as bad as that.
According to the Bible the laws of nature do not constrain God in any way. He being natures God, it is seen that he created time and he alone has authority initiate it, and bring it to a halt. Accordingly that is exactly what he does at the second coming of Christ and for each and every individual who dies before that event.
"And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." (Rev 10: 6)
Time and God's authority over it is one of the greatest reasons man needs to heed the laws, commands and the gospel of Christ. We are strictly warned that because time as we know it is temporal we should heed and obey every edict of God.
Although the past, present and future are all equally known to God, his laws do not originate or pertain to just one or two of these segments we refer to in our understanding of time. He had no beginning and, he has no end. His laws have issued from a realm far above the past, the present or the future. God's laws come from a place called the eternal. It is a place that is not now, nor ever was, subject to the ravages of time. It cares nothing about nature's laws of entropy and is not subject to the destructive power of a black hole.
According to the scriptures the sun moon and stars will someday be removed because the final resting place of redeemed men and women is with a God who provides a new heaven and a new earth. He is the light of that planet and no artificial light is needed. The Bible says he rolls up the stars and the heavens like a scroll. That would include black holes and all the surmising of science along with them.
The Prophet Daniel exclaimed that near the end of time as we know it man would have increased his knowledge of all things exponentially. Some 800 years later the Apostle Paul commented on this new knowledge by saying that men would be "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2Tim 3: 7) Paul later concluded that it was man's newfound knowledge that would catch them in their own pride triggered trap of deception. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Ro 1: 22)
It is so much like man, that after jumping a mere quarter of a million miles to the moon and back, a distance covered by many frequent flyers on earth, that they would presume to discuss the distances they cannot imagine in outer space. Have we also tackled the unknown distance between the beginning and the end? Perhaps science doesn't think it is fully legitimatized without ordaining its own certified empirical prophets. How presumptuous, to remind those of the faith that there are among them false prophets and not to warn the secularists that they have a full contingency of their own false prophets.
Long before Paul, the great Prophet Isaiah by the power of the Holy Spirit warned man that, God's wisdom and knowledge must never be compared to our own. We cannot anthropomorphically ascribe or transfer the intelligence and wisdom of God to a mere mortal. By any other name that would be presumption and a grand attempt at making ourselves wiser than, or equal to God.
Isaiah said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa 55: 8, 9)
More amazing is the fact that God invites man to share this place called eternity. He has placed a door by which anyone on this earth can enter, regardless of status, gender or age, and he cares little if you have a good understanding of quantum physics or if you could give a hoot about it. It takes faith to pass through the door marked 'the cross of Christ,' but again, how much faith does it take to believe science's version of the beginning and the end of all things?
After giving the Apostle John a detailed description of all the events that will precede his second coming Christ assures John of why he has been given such a revelation. He not only tells John that he is the originator of all things but he is also the only one that can bring it all to the finish: sorry black holes, Discovery Channel and Stephen Hawking.
"And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Rev 22: 10-13)
© Michael Bresciani
August 10, 2011
After weeks of being pounded by commercials promoting Discovery Channel's first in a series they call "Curiosity," it would be hard for anyone with only a little bit of curiosity not to give it a chance and a little look see.
Produced by John Hendricks the founder of Discovery Channel, the show is set to air sixty more episodes each one dealing with different subjects. You will need to find a great deal more curiosity to take in the next fifty nine, if they are anything at all like the first. This is not a mere review of the program but rather it is a purview of the premise on which it is based. The program was well produced and narrated but it is hard not to conclude that it meant to use its science to close minds, not to open them.
In the beginning the show is like a flashback to my days as a college freshman, when eager professors worked feverishly to convince their young disciples, and I, to scrap any notion of God and lay down the false hype learned in the church. Using the well known battle between Galileo and the Catholic Church seemed to mock at times and bordered on insult. As always the argument is about what church fathers said and not about what the Bible says.
Curiosity, along with eager college professors, always leaves out the fact that the Bible always supported the scientific findings of the true relationship of the sun and the planets in our solar system. The Bible never says the earth is the center of the solar system or the universe. For those who walk by scripture alone it can only be repeated once again that, when any Christian sect leaves the Word, be it Catholic or some nascent non-denominational mega church, the secularist will eat it up and such theology will be labeled as, the folly of man and will most assuredly meet its doom under the sword of scientific scrutiny. Then, there is the other side of the coin.
When the single edged sword of the science of man does battle with the double edged sword of the Word of God there is never any contest. God's word will always stand. Let's see why.
Curiosity was willing, as might be expected, to use predisposition to arrive at bold pompous and swelling conclusions extracted from un-witnessed, unverifiable so called facts of science. They are based on (once again) prior philosophic postulates. Put simply that means, when describing events that took place billions of years before anyone could witness them, much less submit them to the scrutiny of science, is to delve into the endless realm of conjecture, speculation and perhaps prognostication, but it is not science. What's worse is that because it leaves the very definition of science, which is the gathering of intelligence from repeatable observable phenomenon, what we have here, is an excursion into the realm known as, 'faith.'
Since there is no more proof that the universe began with the Big Bang than there is that Christ was resurrected from the dead we have to engage the element of faith to build the hypothesis. In fact there is a great deal more historical, archaeological and eye witness evidence for the resurrection of Christ than for the Big Bang but that is a subject for another time.
Curiosity, it seems, used a series of hypothesis followed by giant leaps to unverifiable conclusions that begs to be scrutinized and subjected to calm reasoning and a great deal more hard science instead of sweeping speculation.
First it depended heavily of the meager findings of the all new fledgling science of quantum mechanics. We are told that a single sub-atomic particle burst into the creation of an entire universe then, produced what is now known as the laws of nature. From this we can conclude that a lawless unknown particle went floating around in space for untold trillions of years until it had opportunity to produce everything there is, and give it law, or as Stephen Hawking says, the laws of nature.
At one point Hawking says he does not want to offend those who have faith in God. Not once does he seem to notice that what he is suggesting would require even more faith and it ultimately is an answer that could cost many people dearly. Hawking is heralded as one of the most brilliant minds of the day but I would warn that all that shines out of a person in talent, virtuosity or intelligence does not necessarily come from God. Christ remarked that the light within may be noticeable to all but it could very well be darkness and he asks the question that Hawking and every other secularist should carefully weigh. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Mt 6: 23)
Trusting the conclusions of quantum science to explain the universe is not to be compared with something like the hard and tangible product of Einstein's theory of relativity, but to a curious mind under the sway of mesmerizing, colorful, graphic depictions of the solar system in its infancy, complete with big bang explosions, black holes and endless views of stars, galaxies and planets, all but the strongest minds would be inclined to accept the program's conclusions. Those conclusions are intrinsically weak and incomplete and that is their failing. The premise on which they are founded is faulted by science's own definition rather than the Bible.
Not once do the narrators of the program or, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking attempt to explain the origins of the fabulously fated sub-atomic particle responsible for kicking off our universe. One conclusion we can safely come to, is that science has now pinpointed their very own tiny little god and creator. Forget the silly old question of how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, now science says that millions of creators could take up residence in the same space.
Perhaps the Athenians of ancient Greece would be pleased to know that science has finally identified the deity (Agnostos Theos) that they built the famous temple to the unknown god for in Areopagus. In fact until science can explain who or what originated or created the original sub-atomic particle they will have to go back to their theorem and search much further back. I would suggest that they have no plan to do that in the very near future.
In forty years of asking this question of the origins of the sub-atomic particles that allegedly gathered together to spark and create the universe I have only drawn complete silence. Picking up the argument from the particle and leaping forward to an entire universe, is not science and in fact is wholly dishonest. The word 'origins' has not been addressed but it has surely been misused.
The biggest leap Curiosity takes is where it completely misses the mark. Interspersed with Hawking's remarks and surmising about using the simple kinder alternative of science to explain the universe, we are subsequently taken on a swirling thrill ride through the entire universe to arrive at an un-named giant black hole. It is there we are told that everything, matter, stars, planets and even science's revered creator, the original sub-atomic particle, will be sucked in and even time itself will cease to exist.
No allusions to the Bible or the science of homeostasis is relied upon to explain fully how, or why, time ceases to exist and the sense of the doom of all things manages to prevail. In some way the entire idea is like a scientifically inspired version of hell. It is hopeless, final and indescribable. Again the faith that would have to be mustered to accept this theory is incomprehensible. The Bible's version certainly is less cerebrally taxing, has a real historical context, and is for most people still far more credulous.
Curiosity concludes that since all time stops when sucked into the black hole, that God (if he exists) would not have had, or chanced to find, any time in which to create the universe. It is here that I can only ask the reader to pause and carefully consider this conclusion. Who would have guessed, that the priests of science, would also develop their own particular kind of eschatology. Now they are offering an explanation of the beginning and the end of all things.
The Bible claims over 150 times that God has created man and the entire universe. We may think to say he did not, but we will have to call him a liar over one hundred and fifty times, and still we and the scientist will all be brought down in the end by the great common denominator we know as death. The difference between the believer and the secular scientist after that is, that one group can only be wrong; the other can be wrong and condemned. The best science can't make men who can still think, gamble on a losing proposition as bad as that.
According to the Bible the laws of nature do not constrain God in any way. He being natures God, it is seen that he created time and he alone has authority initiate it, and bring it to a halt. Accordingly that is exactly what he does at the second coming of Christ and for each and every individual who dies before that event.
"And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." (Rev 10: 6)
Time and God's authority over it is one of the greatest reasons man needs to heed the laws, commands and the gospel of Christ. We are strictly warned that because time as we know it is temporal we should heed and obey every edict of God.
Although the past, present and future are all equally known to God, his laws do not originate or pertain to just one or two of these segments we refer to in our understanding of time. He had no beginning and, he has no end. His laws have issued from a realm far above the past, the present or the future. God's laws come from a place called the eternal. It is a place that is not now, nor ever was, subject to the ravages of time. It cares nothing about nature's laws of entropy and is not subject to the destructive power of a black hole.
According to the scriptures the sun moon and stars will someday be removed because the final resting place of redeemed men and women is with a God who provides a new heaven and a new earth. He is the light of that planet and no artificial light is needed. The Bible says he rolls up the stars and the heavens like a scroll. That would include black holes and all the surmising of science along with them.
The Prophet Daniel exclaimed that near the end of time as we know it man would have increased his knowledge of all things exponentially. Some 800 years later the Apostle Paul commented on this new knowledge by saying that men would be "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2Tim 3: 7) Paul later concluded that it was man's newfound knowledge that would catch them in their own pride triggered trap of deception. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Ro 1: 22)
It is so much like man, that after jumping a mere quarter of a million miles to the moon and back, a distance covered by many frequent flyers on earth, that they would presume to discuss the distances they cannot imagine in outer space. Have we also tackled the unknown distance between the beginning and the end? Perhaps science doesn't think it is fully legitimatized without ordaining its own certified empirical prophets. How presumptuous, to remind those of the faith that there are among them false prophets and not to warn the secularists that they have a full contingency of their own false prophets.
Long before Paul, the great Prophet Isaiah by the power of the Holy Spirit warned man that, God's wisdom and knowledge must never be compared to our own. We cannot anthropomorphically ascribe or transfer the intelligence and wisdom of God to a mere mortal. By any other name that would be presumption and a grand attempt at making ourselves wiser than, or equal to God.
Isaiah said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa 55: 8, 9)
More amazing is the fact that God invites man to share this place called eternity. He has placed a door by which anyone on this earth can enter, regardless of status, gender or age, and he cares little if you have a good understanding of quantum physics or if you could give a hoot about it. It takes faith to pass through the door marked 'the cross of Christ,' but again, how much faith does it take to believe science's version of the beginning and the end of all things?
After giving the Apostle John a detailed description of all the events that will precede his second coming Christ assures John of why he has been given such a revelation. He not only tells John that he is the originator of all things but he is also the only one that can bring it all to the finish: sorry black holes, Discovery Channel and Stephen Hawking.
"And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Rev 22: 10-13)
© Michael Bresciani
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