1869- THE GOD PARTICLE [and Mayan flag day]

Hope you ‘all’ had a good 4^th of July.

I actually flew the flag for the 2^nd time in so many months.

For years I never had a house flag- I hung them up daily at the fire dept for 25 years and it never dawned on me to get one.

So when I woke up on Memorial Day and saw my neighbor’s flag flying high- yea- it made me feel like a commie.

So I went and bought a flag.

I asked my wife- ‘where did you put the flag’ ‘it’s in the closet’.

I get the flag- it’s around 7 or so- and I walk back into the room ‘let’s go hang the flag’.

My wife says ‘what do you mean- you need 2 people to hang it’?

No.

 But I want you to stand next to me and recite the pledge.

I thought it was funny- she didn’t seem to think so.

Yeah- I’m one of those types that get the most use out of a purchase as possible.

I’ll probably be flying it on that Mayan calendar day- I think it’s coming up pretty soon?

So- as I debated about what we should discuss today- I picked up the paper [yesterday morning] and the front page headline read ‘JUSTICE DEPT SUES CITY’.

I mentioned this the other day- about the fire dept not hiring enough women [they say].

I read about half of the article- I read the stats- we actually hired more women than other comparable cities.

I really did not want to do another whole post on the thing- but it was sad to see that as a front page headline- I don’t think we have ever been sued by our own govt. before.

[in the post the other day- I think I used the word threat- maybe not- but now I know they did sue].

I have written about our attorney general before- Eric Holder- this guy has politicized the justice dept to no end.

I could give you example after example- even his past dealings are very shady- the Mark Rich pardon- a pardon he recommended when he worked in the Clinton days.

By all accounts- Clinton pardoned a crook because he had connections- Holder used his influence to get the dirty deed done.

Pure- 100% Chicago politics- corrupt to the core.

Okay- instead- let’s do the other big news story- the so called God Particle.

Yeah- I heard/read a bunch of stories on the so called breakthrough discovery.

Now- I am not ‘anti science’.

I am not a person who believes the earth is only 6 thousand years old- or that kids rode on the backs of dinosaurs.

But- in the historic setting of apologetics- and the role that science has played in the debate- I must say there are lots of misconceptions floating around in the air.

Okay- a brief history of the scientific method and how it came to be.

The past year or so I covered lots of posts on philosophy and physics and world history in general.

We covered how during the middle of the last millennium [500years ago] the world began a break thru in many areas- and we often refer to this as the modern era.

Man- science- thought- all of the fields we see as part of the modern era- they began at around this point.

Science/philosophy and religion all played a big role in the debate.

One of the big boys was a man named David Hume- he was a thinker who questioned what we talked about the other day- the law of cause and effect.

This law simply says that every effect has a cause.

Hume challenged the popular idea that we can know causes.

He said we think we can know the cause of something- but in reality we can’t be sure.

The example Hume gave was the Pool table.

He said we see a person hit the q ball- the ball hits another ball and it goes into the pocket.

Hume said it might look like this a string of cause and effects- but we don’t know for sure.

Maybe there are other reasons why the balls are reacting like this.

Another famous example is the Rooster crowing- the guy couldn’t sleep in because the sun kept shinning in his window- so every morning right before the sun rose he heard the darn rooster crow.

So he shot the rooster.

 Just because one act precedes another- this does not mean that is the cause.

 Okay- we got it Hume.

But some began to doubt all possible knowledge- they said you can’t make any judgments at all- because we don’t know for sure what the real cause is.

Okay- this led another great thinker- Kant- to challenge Hume [the famous quote from Kant was ‘he woke up out of his dogmatic slumber’] and Kant said even though we can’t be 100 % sure- yet for any possibility for science to function- we do need to be able to have some type of way we can settle on knowledge- science does need to be able to say ‘okay- we have looked at this long enough- we think this is what’s causing this’.

Okay- this whole debate is called Epistemology- how we know stuff.

Now- the God particle.

As I listened to the various reports the last 2 days- I could tell right off the bat that there was some funny stuff going on.

The actual statements form the scientists are saying ‘well- we haven’t ACTUALLY seen the particle [also called Higgs Boson] but- we have detected enough other particles- so we think the Boson is more than likely there too’ or ‘it’s like looking in the distance- and you think you see someone- but maybe you’re looking at his twin instead’.

Okay- what kind of argument is this?

This is what we call a Metaphysical argument.

It’s an argument that is made- not because you actually detected the thing- but you have come to a conclusion based on the Scientific Method of Induction/Deduction.

You looked at- observed- and tested various things- and you now say ‘well- it must be there- because look at all the other stuff’. [layman’s terms].

Okay- is there anything wrong with this.

Not really.

But- here’s the catch- many in the modern field of physics refute the argument for the existence of God because in the end it is a metaphysical one.

That is- the materialist scientist [one who says we only deal in facts that we can actually see\detect] uses metaphysical arguments all the time- he just does not realize he is doing this.

Remember the other day- I posted about the many contradictions good men make when mixing science with apologetics and the laws of argumentation [or logic].

They often do not realize they are contradicting themselves- or making out right nonsense statements- because they are scientists- not logicians.

So what we have in the Higgs Boson case- in the Dark Matter- Dark energy case- in the entire Multi Verse theory [many universes].

In all these theories- which now make up the majority of modern physics- they are all the same type of argument that the materialist scientist says are not good arguments- at least when it comes to the argument for the existence of God.

In a nutshell- if we agree to accept that a certain particle must exist- not because we have actually detected it- but because ‘well- it must be there- because if not- then how do we explain everything else’?

If these arguments are being used in all of the above scenarios- and trust me- they are.

Then we can’t exclude the Theist from the table- we can’t say ‘no- you silly Christian- you deal in things we DON’T SEE- we deal in things we do see.’

Actually- you don’t.

All of the above theories are conclusions based on how the other things around them respond.

The reason many think Dark Matter exists- is not because we have found it- we haven’t.

But because in order for the standard model- well- to stand- then Dark Matter simply ‘must be’.

Okay- this is the same type of argument the Theist [one who believes in God] uses.

If you want to exclude the believer from the table- on the grounds that he appeals to a ‘non detectable’ being.

Then we must ditch all of the above.

And it seems- Higgs Boson too.

NOTE- all scientists are not materialists- many are believers- and even many non believers are not materialists.  If you are a pure materialist scientist- one who says we cannot accept any other non material arguments [things we don’t actually see/detect] then you also would not be able to accept any of the major theories of physics today- that is if you were consistent in your thinking.

Also why did the researchers at CERN release this as some great new finding?

The ‘discovery’ was made at the new 10 billion dollar Hadron Collider.

This is the world’s largest Atom smasher.

In order for the Europeans to justify the cost- they had to convince people that this was the best chance to actually discover this long elusive particle.

Now- Europe is in a near depression- as most of you know.

This underground ‘particle smashing tunnel’ [I think it’s right on the French Swiss border?] when first opened- had a bad day.

It leaked oil into the tunnel and it was shut down- and had to be repaired at the cost of millions of dollars.

Okay- all of these guys realize- if you do not justify the cost of this thing- in the midst of a European depression- then what are the odds that your gonna keep getting funded?

I don’t know if this was the main reason they came out with the statement now- but for them to have come out- and kinda have fudged on it- makes me wonder.

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