“Ignoring science has led to the crumbling of society.”
If there is one thing you should take away from the video above, it is that “Ignoring science has led to the crumbling of society”.
Rome rejected science and slipped into the dark ages.
Society tends to declare war on science to serve Ideological Agenda.
Science is much more than a body of knowledge and applications. It’s a way of thinking; a way to unravel the world’s mysteries, to see its beauty, where we can look at all the facts to make informed decisions, instead of relying on preconceived notions and biases. Science doesn’t choose a political party, it simply adheres to evidence….
Remember that a vote for science is a vote for knowledge and progress, based in reality.
Michael F. Flynn wrote The Autumn of Modern Science in a guest editorial of the April 2016 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact in which he notes that ‘modern’ society is moving away from science and moving to the social realm — in other words, emotions and the way people feel are more important that observations and facts, ultimately leading to the ‘Autumn’ of science where science is relegated to a lesser role in making decisions and setting a course: “The thought-cliche for ‘good’ is now ‘sexy,’ and products are sold by buff men and women seldom wearing white lab coats.
Indistinguishable from magic
During the twentieth century, progress took on ironic overtones among elites. Post-modern made a sudden and dramatic appearance. “Urban” and “urbane” parted company, as did “artst” and “artisan.” This terminological ferment signaled the emergence of new ways of thinking.
What does all this mean for science in the coming age? Some bold forecasts:
As it becomes more important to feel than to think, the Scientist as Culture Hero will fade. Too many scientific findings, flaunted prematurely on the evening news, are questionable, wrong, or retracted. Science has become associated with pollution and other problems. The radicals and intelligentsia grow disenchanted.
People will still do science for the old reasons. But political funding will channel more and more research toward political goals. The perception of the scientist as a hired gun will grow — especially if standards of proof are relaxed or theories are accepted for their elegance and mathematical beauty. Having been in turn the Handmaiden of Philosophy, then of Engineering, science in the coming age will become the Handmaiden of Policy….
The result will be a “science-less science.” Lots of facts, rules of thumb, and heuristic models, but few insights into nature. But causal principles that are not known (“manifest” are hidden (“occult”).. And the manipulation of matter through occult powers is called “magic”.
And so the golden summer of science is sliding into Autumn.
However, within the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia, it’s already winter time for science. It is cold and freezing. The winds are howling. There is a biting weather chill that scrapes the bone. Science has been rejected for magic and thus, sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
For the longest time, Dr. Herman Hoeh was the ‘hired gun’ to take science and history and deform them into the distorted perceptions requisite to support the End Time Apostle. He was a hired church cult corporate hack to churn out supporting ‘evidence’ for the pronouncements of the madness of the [false] prophet. He knew it was wrong, but he had a mandate to manufacture fabrications to impart credibility to the very daft kook, Herbert Armstrong.
To Herbert Armstrong, science was only a tool to wrench twisted paradigms into viable doctrines and he didn’t care if it was true or not, just so long as it supported his great swelling ego. It is all to gain an advantage to propel those in power to greater heights of power, money, control and influence — as well as conspicuous affluence.
Science is all about observation. Observation is the very last thing Armstrongist leaders want people to do. The leaders want their followers to believe what they tell them. What the leaders tell them is abject lies which are inimical to science. Science will disprove the doctrines of the Armstrongist Churches of God. The leaders do not want the followers to know. The leaders want their congregants to believe British Israelism. The problem is that the observations of the scientific method demonstrate that British Israelism is absolutely ridiculous. The problem is that most of the members of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia do not have the talent to understand science. To them, it is magic. Not only is it magic, but it is magic which is flexible to bend to their beliefs and wishes. Most of the members have an appalling lack of scientific ability. As an illustration, over at the Ronald Weinland False Prophet blog, one of the former PKG members disclosed that they believed the world was flat. This created a storm of furor as others on the forum attempted to change the opinion of this person. The person actually cited some ‘proof’ materials and videos that the earth is flat.
One of the many problems of Armstrongism is that people make assumptions about others in their midst. People in the WCG sat with one another every week for decades and thought that they were all speaking (and believing) the same thing. The Tkaches come along and suddenly you find out that the people sitting next to you for all those years don’t at all believe the same thing you do. A great rift of divide ensued. The disparate viewpoints simply can not and have not been reconciled.
The cult of Armstrong must be antiscience. There is no other choice. If people knew and understood science, they would know that what Armstrongism teaches is all lies. The alternative universe constructed from sheer conjecture simply cannot exist in our own universe. Germany isn’t going to head the European Union to begin World War III and send what’s left of the Americans and Brits into slavery — it isn’t going to happen in the next 3 to 5 years and it isn’t going to happen in 300 to 500 years. There will be no Place of Safety at Petra. It isn’t going to happen. Of course, the Armstrongists will live in denial because Winter has come for science in Armstrongism land.
As a result of ignoring science, Armstrongism will crumble and the Armstrongists — those few who are left — will fall into their own Dark Ages.
For a religion which preaches so much about God and claims He is the creator, the Armstrongists certainly hold God in contempt. If God really did create the universe and is behind all truth, then God is the ultimate Scientist, Technologist, Engineer and Mathematician. He has to be, because even with our advancements, we barely understand how things in the universe really work. It took years to map the human genome. Apparently God understands things so complex that even after another thousand years, humanity will still be in its infancy compared with God.
But the Armstrongists insult God. They make snide comments about ‘that DNA nonsense’. If you really believe God created everything, DNA isn’t nonsense and you had best take care because if God truly exists, He may forgive you for your deficiencies, but He certainly isn’t going to tolerate your defiance.
Beware! View the following video by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson about what happened to Islam when an Islamic scholar named Hamid Al-Ghazali deemed science evil:
The Armstrongist leaders want to be the .1% of the world ruling class with special privileges of power, wealth and prestige, free to pursue their passions, including Irish Dancing, without any accountability, dominating their peasants / Proles trapped in an agrarian dystopian society subject to magical thinking without science to release them from shackles through truth. The Armstrongists want to suppress science so they can ply their abuse upon hapless helpless miserable impoverished people without regard for their well-being or happiness. The damage they will do if they reach ascendancy will be collateral because they care only about themselves and their privileges. They will hold the world in superstition if they get the opportunity. And if they get their way…
Winter is coming.
As I pointed out over at “Banned”, HWA used the information which he assured his listeners was factual to create cognitive dissonance in their minds, so that the only solutions to restoring consonance were to refute the incoming “facts” or to join in with his church and its line of thinking. He was appealing primarily to middle class working people who lacked the resources or know-how to refute, and he managed to trap and harness significant numbers of them. They made him the .1%er that he had always aspired to be. The victims became his own personal socialization experiment.
BB
“The result will be a “science-less science.”
But muh feelz!
This is so true. Not just in cults or religion, but also in the secular mainstream as well.
“…he notes that ‘modern’ society is moving away from science and moving to the social realm — in other words, emotions and the way people feel are more important than observations and facts…”
Universities Are an Absolute Wreck. Camille still has all that energy!
the problems:gender is a social construct, respect my pronouns, micro-agression, triggering, etc.,
“If there were ever a species for whom sex hurt, it surely went extinct long ago.”
“I think I’ll try out one more on the biologists…”
“If you have a gene for celibacy, you didn’t inherit it.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson shitstorms twitter.
DBP
ps: WTF!
here’s the article
During the summer I visited my old homestead in fossil fuel country. My elderly mother reminisced and denied my recollection that I was “forced” to go from Catholic to Evangelical Protestant. There was incentive for my being hooked on HWA’s fringe doctrines with all his “proofs”.
I heard a few stories from Christian Jews who left Christianity and accepted some form of Judaism. Apparently 90% of ethnic Jews who convert to Christianity are non-practicing Jews, and are easily convinced that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Some of those who dig deeper find the “proofs” were rather simplistic and didn’t stand up to Hebraic exegesis. Some then feel the incentive to start practicing some form of Judaism.
A number of people I met in the WCG told me that before they heard HWA/GTA they had no interest in religion. It seems little wonder that so many abandoned Armstrongism when the Tkatches started re-examining the “proofs”.
In a conversation with the minister of my parents’ current church, I mentioned a science teacher. He immediately responded “atheist”. If he saw the Tyson video clip, where he ended asking about the 15% of the NSF members who believe in God, he would conclude that Tyson wanted it to be 0%. Just to check, I pulled up a few articles that showed Tyson didn’t consider himself an atheist, but had zero tolerance for reconciling science and religion. Drat! Those web pages had RCG popups!
But to correct a misunderstanding on the first video clip, and Tyson’s “Cosmos”, and Stephen Hawkings “Genius”, and myself in early years, Bruno was not burned at the stake for accepting the Copernican model of the solar system. Bruno openly refuted a number of core Catholic doctrines, such as the trinity, virgin birth, transubstantiation, … I’m sure our Catholic friend of many blogs ago, Jared Olar, would agree…
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic?
RCG popups?
Yes, websites with internet advertising – I made the mistake of checking on Dave’s page without blocking cookies and popups. So things like pictures of HWA, AC, etc started t0 pop up with questions that would be answered by visiting RCG.ORG…
Well, at least these are relatively easy to get rid of on iphones and ipads! I air gap my PC’s so that nothing can disrupt my business-related software. I’d hate to see old Elephant Ears’ (or Hog Jowls’) ugly face pop up while I was creating an invoice or quote for a customer!
BB
I see now, you were the connection. You made it sound like they were in collusion or something like that.
LOL
The Armstrongists are too dense to understand that without understanding and appreciating science, they are doomed to superstition and magical thinking — opening the way for con men to take over their lives because they have no protection to teach them what is real and what is fantasy.
We see this already. Every false prophet, evangelist, apostle that comes along makes them easy prey with their fabulous stories rife with chaotic illogic which the typical Armstrongist is completely unprotected against. If if sounds right to them, then it must be right — even though it is monstrous distorted perception.
From British Israelism to alcoholism, the Armstrongists are held captive of their own ignorance and love of magical lies. Without the science to protect them and teach them the way, they will die without treatment, believing in the potions and rituals of CoG fantasia.
As with other disciplines, the WCG categorized things as good and bad, with unclear and variable boundaries. GTA would denounce science and ridicule scientists, but then whine that people didn’t have a basic understanding of scientific principles. In GTA’s take on Baconian scientific method is to first of all reject revelation. Of course, he meant WCG-approved revelation.
HWA blamed Plato for his perceived ills of modern education, but built colleges that followed a fairly common academic structure. He used a method of non-sequitur deductive exegesis and convoluted inductive eisegesis rather than taking an yeshiva-style approach. We end up twith a theological monstrosity based on misunderstanding, opinion, scriptural quote-mining, etc…
It’s much more simple than that: Herbert Armstrong simply took everything he believed from Greenberry George Rupert including British Israelism. Herbert Armstrong was not an academic nor was he particularly well versed in exegesis or eisegesis. He was an ad copy writer. That’s it. He had a high flow of ideas, coupled with low inductive reasoning and a very limited education and a non existent academic background. You could sort of think of him as a parrot. There’s no use ascribing to him more than he was.
Herbert Armstrong was a narcissist who employed vengeance against anyone who disagreed with his ideas. He himself said that he considered himself ‘an idea man’. He certainly did not, like most of the rest of us, engage in manual labor, have any mechanical or engineering abilities, nor did he have any leanings toward academic pursuits. He simply touted his ideas — which were really G. G. Rupert’s opinions — to anyone who would listen. He bragged about getting revenge on those who defiled ‘his’ ideas, like the Librarian in Portland who disagreed with him about evolution: “I made her eat her words”, he said. He had to win. It was a pride thing.
No one should ascribe more to Herbert Armstrong than his being a rather limited two dimensional twit blowhard with a loud voice and annoying confidence about wrong-headed ideas he adopted. He was convincing. His ‘work’ was to spread his ideas and have them be respected by those who he felt were important — hence the idiocy of ‘the two trees’ which is about the most stupid idea anyone could have.
Disrespect him, though, and you could be in big trouble because he had the support of enough empty headed twits who gave him the money so he could enact revenge upon those who disrespected him.
I’m thankful that I never had experienced all that. My experience was much closer to home……no wait…it was in my home with narcisstic parents and sociopathic siblings.
I stand corrected on overestimating HWA’s analytical skills — my experience with WCG journalists should have made me expect only regurgitation of the work of others. Hence the use of “Bible is a puzzle” to hide the randomness of a hotchpotch of doctrines.
A little coincidence with your second paragraph – I was watching an episode of Star Trek Voyager; the character Q said “I’m an idea man. Hard work isn’t my forte.”
I don’t have such a pessimistic view of an Armstrongist’s capability of change. Are they stubborn? ..hell yeah! But I say this as a former Armstrongist and someone who was born into a different Christian cult. I think it all boils down to information. Even though the exact details of how we each experienced the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, we all eventually did leave it. If you know someone similar to yourself, you can share that information that you have with them, but only if they are ready to listen. Now, getting people to listen to you, in whatever it is you have to say, is NOT impossible. But remember the ball bounces back into their court too. Some people just don’t want to play. Being unsportsmanlike. Getting upset about that, will not find you any new playmates. Unless you like playing with sore losers, and you will always know where to find them. That’s why I am now learning to ‘tease’ them out of their seriously stubborn behaviour, rather than argue. “Aaww,..I guess God’s will is for you to learn to tie your own shoes first..wad a puhr liddle baby..wah..somebody call the wahhbolance. Crying a river won’t pass the Test…you CAN’T cheat, it’s impossible,..you have to actually get it right, which is what God wants, right? …instead of just saying you’re right..or even convincing a horde of flying monkeys that you are now right in “their eyes”.
I love the part at around 29 seconds in, you can almost hear the momentarily brief self-awareness of contradiction.
Satan’s Claws.
Atheists don’t protest Santa Clause because they and all Christians know that Santa Clause is a lie. “Ohh.., sure you can protest all those other religious lies but that’s NOT my black swan!”
DBP
Having been in aiki-jutsu, you learn to use your opponents errors against themselves.
If your opponent makes no errors, then you are not at war!
Morihei Ueshiba’s circular reasoning is only true through infinite-regress. While being on the mat in his last weeks of life, he would look up to the sky and say “But I was just now finally getting ikkyo right!”
LULZ [Just for fun, this is how I see fundementalists practicing ‘godly character’]