Why Modern Atheism Meets with The Occult?

All-Fiction Field, Inc. - Popular Publications / Lawrence Sterne Stevens, public domain.



Joel Kontinen

You can hear Mike Keas now on a new episode of ID the Future, with host Andrew McDiarmid . Keas, a historian of science, turns from the past to the future.He speaks about his new book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion.

Despite some notable exceptions, especially C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, “modern day atheism is becoming more and more indistinguishable from the occult, and science fiction is a part of that,” Keas tells us.

And who are the gods of the new occult – they are space aliens? That atheism has learnt to take the creation story to the skies, believing that we are the sons of aliens.

George Herbert Wells was probably the one who brought Scientism into literature.

Most atheists and readers of sci-fly think that religion is an addition of facts, so they will cope for spirituality, instead. But that spirituality is infused with the occult.

Source:

Evolution News, 2019. Mike Keas: Modern-Day Atheism Meets the Occult. (26 February).

All Scientists Have Unconscious Biases, Microbiologist Says

Sir Isaac Newton's portrait by Godfrey Kneller (1702). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

A recent article in the journal Nature on the merits of scientific fame included an interesting admission:

“All scientists have unconscious biases,” Laura Piddock, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham, UK, said.

Some people tend to think that wearing a white lab coat makes one sort of unbiased and infallible. This, of course, is by no means true. Scientists are real human beings with real hopes, aspirations and beliefs.

And biases.

Unfortunately, some scientists believe that nature is all that there is – that the supernatural sphere does not exist. For them science is not a search for the best explanation but it is a search for the best naturalistic explanation.

In contrast, the great pioneers of science, such as Sir Isaac Newton, were not biased in that way.

Science can be misused and elevated to the status of a religion.

Scientism is something that C. S. Lewis warned us about.

Source:

Woolston, Chris. 2014. Being a big name in science brings benefits. Nature (12 November).

C.S. Lewis: Beware of Scientism

Joel Kontinen


When a well-known atheist (Michael Shermer) says that science is his saviour or when thousands celebrate the birthday of Charles Darwin, we might suspect that science is more than what we would at first glance suspect.

C.S. Lewis realised that in spite of all the good things modern science has given us, it also has its dark side. In his days, the almost universal use of eugenics, the scientific socialism in the Soviet Union and a racial policy inspired by Social Darwinism were perhaps three of the most glaring examples of the misuse of science.

Lewis saw that science and magic were like twins. They shared three major characteristics: (1) Like magic, science could be a religion. (2) It could cause credulity, so that most people believed everything proclaimed in the name of science. (3) It could be used to control both nature and other people.

C.S. Lewis was very sceptical of scientism, which can be likened to a religion. He was especially sceptical of the power of blind, undirected causes to magically produce all living beings.

The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism is a just-released video exploring this aspect of C.S. Lewis’ thinking.

C.S. Lewis, Darwin Doubter

Joel Kontinen

C.S. Lewis doubted evolution even before he became a Christian. Still an atheist, he realised that Darwinism could not produce something as complicated as a human being.

He was well aware of both the literature that promoted Darwinism and criticism of evolution, including the writings of Henri Bergson.

Later, as a literature professor and a famous Christian writer, he became even more sceptical of Darwinian evolution.

A new video, The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and Evolution, examines his views on Darwinism:

C. S. Lewis: Science Is Magic’s Twin

Joel Kontinen

C. S. Lewis once said that science and magic are twins. A soon to be released book edited by Dr. John West will examine this issue.

The Magician's Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society (Discovery Institute Press, 2012) will be accompanied by a video documentary that will premiere on August 11 in Seattle.

Scientism can be defined as ”an exaggerated trust or belief in the power of scientific methods and knowledge” (The New Penguin English Dictionary). For some people, it seems to be a secular religion.