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The Very Small Limits of the Secular


To the secular, nothing is sacred. Then again, why should it be? They’re “secular.”

Back in 2006 National Geographic and other media echo chambers thought enough of this “discovery” to headline it, Jesus May Have Walked on Ice, Not Water, Scientists Say . I’m not nearly so objective. After I read the story, I thought it could more reasonably be headlined, Scientist Confirms Popular Theory That Most Scientists Are Atheistic Asses with Too Much Time and Money on their Hands, Sensible People Say

The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation — he walked on a floating piece of ice….
Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee…..
“If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don’t,” Nof said. “Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don’t know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it.”
“We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account.”

We leave to others the question of whether or not this research is worth diddly-squat. What is of broader interest is the present state of the secular mindset to all things religious.

Religious in the Christian sense, that is, since the current global climate of “Fear of Muslims” seems to have created a shortage of “scientific research” into the various miracles and powers assigned to Allah in the Koran. Indeed, given the reaction to a drawing of the Prophet with a bomb in his turban, it is not hard to imagine that even if a “scientist” were to notice “something natural that explains” Allah, his next thought would be something on the order of “Why should I put my head on the chopping block?” Jesus, being a more forgiving God, is safer game.

Of course, it is, as scientists are wont to say, ‘only a theory.’ This is used in two ways.

When it comes to a central tenet of modern science, Darwinism for example, the word “theory” is used in a manner that merges forcefully into the word “fact,” and a great deal of effort is put into why “The Theory of Evolution” really means “The Absolute and Forever Established Fact of How the World and Life and Everything Else Came to Be and Everyone Else Can Just Shut UP and Sit Down.”

Nof opts for the Non-Denial Denial use of “Theory” in his paper. The Non-concluding Conclusion to his paper, “Is there a paleolimnological explanation for ‘walking on water’ in the Sea of Galilee,” reads:

We hesitate to draw any conclusion regarding the implications of this study to the actual events that took place at Tabgha during the last few (or several) thousand years. Our springs ice calculation may or may not be related to the origin of the account of Christ walking on water. The whole story may have originated in local ancient folklore which happened to be told best in the Christian Bible. It is hoped, however, that archeologists, religion scholars, anthropologists and believers will examine such implications in detail.

Translation: “I just pulled the pin and threw the grenade in the building. Can’t blame me. I was just the hand grenade’s messenger. And, by the way, you may cower and abase yourself when you note the insertion of the word “paleolimnnological” in the title. Makes it sound real solid scientific, don’t it?”

Of course, when Nof gets a little attention from a supportive and loving media, he phrases it a bit differently, “If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don’t,” Nof said. “Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don’t know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it.”

Nof’s entitled to his ‘belief’ in “something natural.” That belief system is not only the foundation of his career, but of his self-limited life itself. It is, in a very real sense, his religion.

As far as the whole “Jesus walked on the water” issue goes, my own belief is: “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I can’t seem to find the weather report from that day online. And there’s no video tape that I’m aware of. Just some eye witnesses, with all that implies.”

I’m also aware of another theory that holds that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova that just happened to show up in the sky at Christ’s birth. Arthur C. Clarke used this to good effect in his short story “The Star.” T.S. Eliot used it earlier in “The Journey of the Magi.” In a much less distinguished manner, I’ve even used it myself in Sunday Meditation: The Star    where I noted, in passing,

In time stronger sciences would rise upon the structures of the proto-sciences of astrology and alchemy. These sciences would push the first sciences into the realm of myth, speculation, and popular fantasy. The new sciences, you see, were much, much more about Reality. They would never be tossed aside in their time as so many playthings of mankind’s youth. The authority of astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry and others was certain. Unlike astrology and alchemy, they would never be questioned. We had the evidence. There was no doubt. They were as eternal and as fixed in the truth as… well, as astrology was in 5 B.C.

All of which gets us back to pretty much where we are today where Christ is revealed to have been, at the very least, pretty good at ice-skating. And, with a supernova at birth and a frozen lake near the end, you would have to say, even as a secular scientist, that Jesus had a great sense of timing as well as a way with words.

Nof seems to have a sense of timing and a way with words as well. I’m sure there are nods of approval and various other high fives pinging into his email today from other true believers world-wide. After all, it seems that the only thing that makes a bigger splash in Science these days than a cure for cancer is some bit of “cutting-edge research” (almost always with the aid of computer modeling) that either warms the globe or disparages religion.

Why? Because it is a central tenet of faith, of pure faith, in the Secular Religion, that traditional Christianity is the “Anti-Darwin” to that faith. Strange when you consider that, in terms of actual dogma and actual acts, Islam is far more hostile to all the core tenets of science, but — as I noted above — it really isn’t very safe to take too close a look at that collection of ergot-derived insights out of the desert. Those adherents are a bit more lethal when it comes to accepting slights on their religion. But then Christianity is the dominant religion of the First World and that’s what we’re discussing here — not which faith is right, but which faith is to be master. It seems that for Science to triumph as the new religion, Christ has to die again — and this time he’s got to stay dead.

There are fundamentalist Christians who hold that everything in the Bible is as the Bible says it is. And there are fundamentalist Scientists, like Nof, who hold that nothing in the Bible is as it says it is.

My very small puppy in this fight says that there is a lot in Science that lets all of us live longer and better lives while there is a lot in Christianity that lets us live deeper and more meaningful lives.

I don’t look to Christianity to bring me the weather reports for tomorrow. At the same time I don’t look to Science to ever, in its widest dreams, reveal the core of the miracle and mystery of being a conscious entity who has been granted the gift of being able, in my better moments, to witness — even for an inch of time — the wonder of Creation.

I know that there are many zealots of the Secular Faith who will think the less of me for not being “tough minded” enough just to face up to the fact that everything really is “purposeless matter hovering in the dark.” I know that habit of mind well. I wore it like a pre-fab Medal of Honor for many years. Then one day I had had enough of Nothingness and I sent it back.

I guess you could say that being a Secular Atheist started to feel like trying to walk on thin ice.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Mike Anderson January 14, 2018, 2:19 AM

    We “critical thinkers” in the statistics profession have a name for Professor Nof’s kind of “based on a true phenomenon” explanation: a Just-So Story. The kind you tell children, and other gullible folks. It don’t mean sh*t.

  • Guaman January 14, 2018, 4:07 AM

    Thank you for your insight – that ivory tower crap bugs me to no end.

  • Linda H King January 14, 2018, 4:35 AM

    Thank you so much for your comments. Those who look at the stars, babies, flowers, and all of the glorious and various forms of life( that cannot be reproduced in a test tube) thank you!!

  • Hoss January 14, 2018, 8:46 AM

    Have been by your site many times over the last year or two. Have always enjoyed your writing. As they say, you sir, have a way with words. Thank you.

  • w barna January 14, 2018, 9:30 AM

    Occasionally, while leisurely driving through the countryside, I’ll notice a small, insignificant gnat flailing against my windshield trying to escape my F150 prison. He is persistent as he explores every inch of his prison for an escape route. When he finally gets to my side window, I momentarily open the glass just a bit to facilitate his escape.
    When so-called “scientists” are able to assemble the various “gnat components” and cause them to be ALIVE and sustaining their livelihoods, then, and only then, will I let them explain to me how all THIS was created.
    My lot has been, is now, and always will be with the true Creator God of the universe. I am convinced that truth will endure for eternity.
    Thank you, Gerard! I highly regard your thoughts.

  • pbird January 14, 2018, 9:47 AM

    He did or he didn’t. No funny business. No ice. I see no reason to believe he didn’t. He was making a point.

  • Jim in Alaska January 14, 2018, 12:03 PM

    God’s in his heaven and all that’s Left is the world -and that’s not right.

  • Cris January 14, 2018, 1:18 PM

    “Ice thick enough to support a man formed a solid span
    three to four miles across the notoriously stormy Sea of Galilee
    during a storm” is supposed to be the easy-to-believe explanation?

    Riiiight.

  • ghostsniper January 14, 2018, 8:20 PM

    No.

    A man walked three to four miles across the notoriously stormy Sea of Galilee
    during a storm with absolutely NO support from below at all.

    THAT is supposed to be the easy-to-believe explanation.

    But, I wasn’t there, so both methods seem ridiculous.
    Why didn’t he ride a burro?

  • Casey Klahn January 14, 2018, 9:59 PM

    Since I am now, officially, an “old man,” I believe everything. OK. That’s hyperbole – I will consider all, and use my well groomed intellect to survey the possibilities, plausibilities, and lessons. Jesus walked on water. Why mess with this? because you lack faith, that’s why. Simple as that.
    Further, scientists don’t know anything. they test things. These things change their results, or maybe I’ll say that new data is added and things change. What they now know, tomorrow may be all different. When they say they are the authority on something, then watch your ass. Something bad is about to happen. Blasphemy being one thing; unfaith another. In the secular realm, the scientists have stepped way, way over the line. Regularly, and frequently. Makes you tune them out, because if they constantly sell snake oil, why trust them in their actual area of expertise?
    By the way, there is no end to the miracles God performs. You don’t know them because you don’t look, and you don’t know how. When you do have faith, it is all miracle.
    Ice, indeed. Do they receive pay for this?

    • Anonymous July 25, 2022, 3:52 AM

      “…I believe everything.”

      Especially what the WEF Globohomo corporate media says about Russia/Ukraine. Right, Grandpa Gell-Mann?

  • Gabrielpicasso January 15, 2018, 12:57 PM

    Is this the same science that can’t tell me with any certainty if it’s going to rain at my house next week?

  • Glenfilthie July 24, 2022, 1:53 AM

    The best one I ever saw was this [THIS don’t do again –>]greasy little jew [<-- THIS don't do again] on TED Talks that theorized that David was ackshully a bully and a meanie and Goliath was a mobility-impaired victim. The guy went on for about 20 minutes and I don’t care if you are religious or not… you’d develop a split personality trying to figure out if the guy was a clown or a bloody retard. The guy even had groupies - big fatties and chubsters that thought he walked on water. Take the bible for what it is: BIBLE = Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth 😊👍🏻

    • Vanderleun July 24, 2022, 8:50 AM

      [STRIKE ONE] Insults my first wife, my in-laws of my first wife, my daughter, and my Savior.

  • Mike Austin July 24, 2022, 5:51 AM

    It amuses me to see what lengths men will go to avoid looking at the Face of God. They will say anything and do anything to remain out of the Light. They do this from sheer terror, from a numbing shame at the sordidness of their own lives. All men no matter their race or creed have the imprint of God upon them—the imago Dei, God’s own Law nailed to the soul of every man. There is no escaping this; there is no denying this. God means what He says. Either believe Him or not. There is of course a consequence for each choice.

    Choose wisely.

    An atheist is like a man who puts his own eyes out and then complains because he cannot see the sun.

  • Speller July 24, 2022, 6:39 AM

    Let’s just ignore the fact that Jesus was walking from shore to a small fishing boat.
    Ice you say? The account says:
    Matt 14
    24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
    25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea.

    Buffeted by the waves? I’ve seen water iced over that you could walk on, but this ‘iced over water’ had waves!
    Sounds truly miraculous.

  • pbird July 24, 2022, 7:05 AM

    Being four years older now than my first reaction…it seems to me that the very bottom fact that no one can get out of or around is existence. What in the world..how can it be…how could it not be. It stops all foolishness of thought. It is to my mind, the unassailable proof.

  • Subsunk July 24, 2022, 7:41 AM

    I love the way you think sir. Eloquent, as always. The Lord allows us all to believe what we want. One of my favorite articles discussed how if you changed the Laws of Physics in various ways, in a multitude of combinations, Life could not exist. No order out of chaos. Only in a smaller subset of the Laws could Life in the Universe exist. Divine Intervention had to put this set of Laws in place to allow Life to exist. And if existence is all “purposeless matter”, then how wonderful that so many billions of human beings actually find a purpose in their lives and make our minuscule place in the universe better for our kind. And the photos of the universe unfolding now certainly contribute to the sentiment “Oh Lord, thy sea is so vast and my boat is so small”. I am an engineer and totally understand physical laws, and I believe that they give us reality in facts. But what makes me get up every day, go to work, love and miss my children, and love my wife and my ex wife, and toil to better other people’s lives, at the expense of my own, is due solely to my belief in a benevolent Lord and his love for all creatures. God bless you Gerard.

    • Terry July 24, 2022, 5:11 PM

      @ Subsunk – Very fine comment Sir.

  • joe July 24, 2022, 8:36 AM

    Nobody knows what he walked on. The bible was composed 400 years after he died. Then it was translated from a language no one speaks into a language where people cant agree on what words mean. Gay no longer means happy and cheerful. Now it means perverted, sicko, mentally ill, and angry.

    • Mike Austin July 24, 2022, 9:10 AM

      The Bible known to Jesus and His followers is what we call the Old Testament. Paul’s letters and the rest of the New Testament began to be written down and compiled for a variety of Christian communities beginning around 40 AD. The cannon of the Bible as we know it today was codified by 400 AD or so, although all of the inspired books were already hundreds of years in use. The Old Testament was almost entirely in Hebrew, a language spoken today by millions. Short passages of the Bible are written in Aramaic, a language still spoken today in the Levant. The New Testament was composed in Koine Greek—a lingua franca of the Ancient World—written down first by the Apostles from Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.

      It is not at all a problem for Biblical scholars or even for non-specialists to read the entire cannon in its original languages.

    • Mike Austin July 24, 2022, 10:07 AM

      Oh…as for “Nobody knows what he [sic] walked on.” I know. He walked on water.

      Next question?

  • David July 24, 2022, 3:21 PM

    Did Jesus of Nazareth walk on water, the Sea of Galilee? That was the story. The Disciples saw a lot of what Jesus did, and maybe walking on water was the least of it.
    There were a lot more truly amazing things He did during his ministry on Earth, and for all the teaching, spiritual and physical healing He did, the “world” (ie, Romans and others) decided He should be nailed to a tree and die there.
    And then…. He rose again, and here we are. Without the most amazing miracle of the Resurrection, what became Christianity would be just a minor folk tale. And a New Covenant was formed between God and Man. The purpose of Jesus Christ life on Earth.
    If you don’t believe and discard this, then this is all for naught. Otherwise, walking on the water is a small thing compared to this.

  • Donald Sensing July 24, 2022, 4:37 PM

    Actually, the Bethlehem star has been proven by mainstream astronomers to have been an actual, provable celestial occurrence. “What sort of star did the wise men follow?

  • Plague Monk July 24, 2022, 6:08 PM

    The best lay rebuttal of christianity is The Jesus Hoax, by David Skirbina. I started off as a believer as a child, became an angry atheist in my teens, almost divorced my wife when she became a believer(if I had to do it again I would have gone ahead and divorced her over this), sort of came around to believing, while skeptical of much of the bible, and now, I’m a firm, rock solid atheist.
    I love my wife dearly, but when our time together comes to an end, I look forward to eternal oblivion. jebus is not coming back, folks. revelations is a book written by the first century Timothy O’Leary, John, who must have found some really good ‘shrooms before he composed it.
    I won’t name the hard sf writer, but one of them said that there is more evidence of UFO visitation than there is for the existence of god, jebus, or any of the major religions. One of my history professors during my second college stint @1990 firmly believed that if not for the christian induced collapse of Rome, we would have have interstellar colonies by @1000 CE.
    Sigh. I enjoy much of the content here, but the pro-religious stuff here and a few other sites that I won’t name really repels me.

    • Mike Austin July 25, 2022, 3:09 AM

      Quite the advertisement for atheism, that the atheist has nothing to look forward to but “eternal oblivion”. That should attract millions of followers.

      You have shunned the Light for so long that you actually prefer the darkness.

      Your history teacher claims that the Fall of Rome was “Christian induced”? Was he speaking of the Western Empire (476 AD) or the Eastern Empire (1453 AD)? After 325 AD most of Rome’s legions East and West were composed of Christian soldiers. It was they who kept both East and West together, making the Roman Empire the longest lived empire in History. That professor of yours is a very ignorant man. You should get your money back for that class, for you have been lied to and cheated.

      Since Christ walked among us there have been hundreds of millions of witnesses to the power and the glory of the Christian faith. Many of them left written accounts of their lives, all of which are available to you. Yet you toss all that aside and latch on to some nobody and God hater named David Skirbina. What a bargain you made!

      Have you ever heard of Esau?