The sense of wonder vs presuppositionalism

Hello everyone. I'm giddy at having "acquired" (I actually stole it from Paul Manata, but don't tell him) a copy of the Presuppositionalist Arbitrary Rant Generator. It's what they use to fill their Usenet posts and blog entries. Here, I'll have it generate a couple sentences :

"Materialism/reductionism/science is the enemy of love and wonder. It is a cruel/cold/unfeeling ideology. We need to leave nature alone and appreciate its mystery. Only God can give us proper knowledge."

That's a common one. You can also get it in New Age circles, and pretty much anyone who has a vested interest in hating materialism, reductionism or science. Christians certainly have a not-so-vested interest in hating at least two of these - science, because it destroys the "specialness" that they impute to human beings, and materialism, because it denies the existence of transcendence by definition.

They, I think, are particularly attracted by the assumed antagonism between materialism and the human condition, not by the mystery aspect. New Agers, on the other hand, tend to be more attracted by the mystery aspect. They're both subjectivists anyway, but I have to give Christians points for not being so arrogant as to think that the universe is subjective to themselves.

Ah, the only problem is that this claim is bullshit. Mystery is shallow and destructive. By maintaining the mystery, we refuse to acquire knowledge, and by doing so we doom ourselves and society to misery. Or to religion, which is just a more roundabout way of saying that we're doomed to misery.

Science, reductionism, materialism, on the other hand, has a triune depth of wonder :


1. The sense of wonder at the object itself. This is a superficial reaction to the observed facts. Not that this makes it bad : it may be superficial, but it's very spiritual nevertheless. Christians also have this kind of wonder.

Well, just because we can explain something doesn't mean the initial reason for our wonder is gone. Science does not dissipate, it reveals more (contrarily to religion, which narrows, twists and attacks man's moral will instead of broadening it). The object, and its complexity and subtelty, is still there. To take the classical example of the rainbow, the fact that we know how rainbows arise does not make them dissapear. Rainbows are still wonderful in themselves (in fact, I would go so far as to say that they "rock").

2. The sense of wonder at the reductionist explanation. Reductionism in itself is incredible. The fact that all the structures of matter that we see around us arise from the interaction of microscopic particles is amazing. To take our rainbow example again, the interaction of light with rain drops produces a perfectly ordered colour gradient. From simplicity, arises complexity.

Compare to the idea that an infinite being created everything. How exactly am I supposed to be impressed by that ? Christians believe that the universe is nothing but a brain fart. It means nothing and is completely arbitrary. In this case, God created rainbows so he would be reminded not to wipe out all life on Earth. How wonderful.

3. The sense of wonder at what we can do with it. For one thing, we can reproduce it ourselves. We can experiment with chemicals, prisms, and all sorts of things, to observe in our own little worlds what happens in the greater universe. We also use the results of science to cure people, help us communicate around the world, make the fruits of technology available to the masses, and generally making human life easier, better, more free.


Christianity is not loving or wonderful. It is full of hatred for human values and human life. It centers itself on God, on the Bible, everything not to acknowledge man's obvious moral will. It rejects the obvious truths of science, and fawns at the meaningless brain farts of a meaningless being.

Presuppositionalism in particular stands squarely against man's moral will and moral autonomy, and tries to substitute it with an impossible dependence on God, desperately jamming a square peg in a round hole. Christians do indeed "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel", like the Bible says.

That's all I have to say about that. Let me give the Presuppositionalist Arbitrary Rant Generator another spin :

"So, I have the concept of oneness, twoness, threeness... and fifty-one billionness. That is, 100 billion divided in half. It gets worse, though. I also have concepts of dogs, cats, elephants, trucks, tables, chairs, televisions, computers, etc. Put differently, I've shown that you don't have enough neurons for the concepts!"

So that's where Paul got that. Oh Paul, you're not stupid after all ! You just selected the "high school debate" setting on the Generator. I'm sorry for laughing at your complete ignorance of mathematics.

Wait, I'm not.