Why is materialism NOT a valid assumption?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

Materialism Is NOT a Valid Assumption

Materialism, the unfounded presupposition that there is no God. To assume that there is no spiritual realm is to disregard the greater portion of reality. All sorts of poor logic is used to defend this sad position. The reality is that materialism is an irrational belief. On top of the problem with unfounded presuppositions, there is financial incentive to sweeping evidence for creation under the proverbial rug. A scientist who comes out against evolution will lose his or her funding.

Materialism is said to be scientific, but this is not the case. Materialism makes science less scientific, since it acts as a filter to filter out all facts that disagree with materialism. If there were evidence for materialism, then that might make sense, but materialism itself is based on a whim. It is based on imagination.

Even to the extent that we are able to observe, science is hampered by the fact that observation is not pure. Observation, because of the human element, becomes adulterated. Every one of us is, to some extent, trapped by our own preconceived ideas (presuppositions). So even true science is limited by the human condition. Though methods have been developed to try to overcome the ways that scientists are hampered by their preconceived notions, these methods have only partly worked. On top of the problem with presuppositions, there is financial incentive to sweeping evidence for creation under the proverbial rug. A scientist who comes out against evolution will lose his or her funding.

So even true science is limited, by the limited ability to observe and interpret, limited knowledge, and the natural human problem with presuppositions. What happens when scientists start with unproven assumptions that they claim cannot be challenged? What happens when they assume there is no God, there was no flood, and there was no creation, and then claim that those assumptions are axioms that cannot be challenged. Evolution, by the way, isn't science.

True science is knowledge based on experimentation and observation, while false science allows for interpretation, speculation, and presuppositions. Evolutionism, then, is not true science. It's like The Darkness Absorption Process. Evolution is based on presupposition and unsupported dogma which have become more important to those promoting evolutionism than facts. Evolutionistic dogma takes on a religious quality, and the proponents of the dogma have a religious zeal to propagate it.

Empirical science is based on observation alone, but there are other definitions of scientific method.

The scientific method now used by many intellectuals, including most evolutionists, is the method used by Karl Marx in the mid 1800s. This methods starts with reaching conclusions based on imagination alone. Then, the right facts must be found: the facts that fit. These are the facts that appear to prove the original dream. Troublesome observations are eliminated by various means. Some of the facts have to be altered to fit the dream. For more information, read the book, Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson, Harper Row, NY, 1988, pp.61-71.

Why is materialism NOT a valid assumption?

How can we know anything about anything

Materialism Is NOT a Valid Assumption

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