Henke 2022ak

Mr. Lundahl’s Acts of Imagination Need to be Backed Up with Evidence of Reality

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I made the following statements:

“Later in Lundahl (2022a), he returns to the issue of levitation and again invokes groundless magic to explain the supposed process:

“As explained: levitation does not go against the law of gravity, it either excepts certain matter in and around human bodies from it (in case of God's miracles at walking on water and Ascension) or simply adds an invisible support (cfr the demonic version of how Copperfield does a trick).”

How are “excepts certain matter in and around human bodies” not a violation of the laws of physics? This claim sounds like God temporarily made the mass in human bodies weightless by locally removing the effects of the gravitational constant. How would this not be a violation of the laws of physics? But, before Mr. Lundahl starts throwing out imaginative physics explanations for how Jesus walked on water or ascended, he actually needs to provide evidence that Jesus even walked on water or ascended.

Lundahl (2022a) then accuses me of having a wrong view on what the supernatural is. While I’m not the one trying to inject imaginary forces into these Bible stories, he’s selectively and unjustifiably making up groundless supernatural interpretations about groundless stories in an attempt to avoid violating the laws of physics. He is engaging in fallacious circular reasoning. Mr. Lundahl clearly does not understand the difference between the natural and the supernatural. Most of all, he needs to provide evidence of supernatural beings before believing what they are supposedly capable of doing.” [my emphasis]

Lundahl (2022i) then comments on the bolded section of Henke (2022b), but avoids dealing with the section in italics:

“Any force, divine or physical, is accessed to our analytical minds through acts of imagination, before we reason about them.

The problem is, Mr. Henke has made up his mind on what the presence of "imaginary forces" would imply, and when I try to correct this as a logical non-sequitur, he complains I haven't proven the historicity. So, he gets to reason before analysing historicity and I do not get to do so. Quod licet Ioui, non licet boui. I refuse to bow down to his presumption that he as natural scientist and as philosophical naturalist (which are two different things) is the equivalent of Jove, and myself as only amateur in natural science and as supranaturalist, the equivalent of a bull.

As C. S. Lewis once said - "the browbeating has to stop" - it could have been Miracles.”

Although our “acts of imagination” can be very useful in proposing hypotheses for evaluation, they must never be separated from our reason. Not everything that we can imagine turns out to be real. That is, the products of our imagination must always be immediately tested with reason. To be exact, all of us should have a rational mindset as a starting point and immediately apply reason when we are first introduced to any “act of imagination.” Claims should also be tested by the reasoning of peer-reviewers, advisors and mentors. We need to look for evidence to see if our thoughts and beliefs have any possible grounding in reality or not. Mr. Lundahl can’t seem to be able to do any of this when he refuses to properly communicate with others by using appropriate language, spelling and references (Lundahl 2022a-p), rejects input from mentors (email on May 17, 2022, 12:41 PM US Eastern Time; Henke 2022r), and blindly accepts whatever fantasies ancient people identified as “history” just because he thinks that they were the “first known audience” and whatever they believed as “history” must somehow have actually happened.

Evidence is what separates the probable from the possible and from the imaginary. Evidence is what allows us to make up our own minds on what are likely imaginary forces and what are likely real forces. Evidence is what allows us to make up our own minds on what is likely mythology and what is likely or possibly history. Logic depends on evidence and evidence must be interpreted with logic (see Henke 2022aj). In contrast, Lundahl (2022a) just throws out speculations about God and then expects our readers to accept whatever he says.

My persistent pleading with Mr. Lundahl (“browbeating” as he calls it) would stop if he would actually give us good evidence for the Talking Snake of Genesis 3. This means that he actually has to stop trying to show off by spouting Latin phrases, learn what good evidence is, find it for the Talking Snake, and then clearly present it. Instead, he makes worthless pronouncements about “first known audiences,” which is nothing more than a dogmatic and absurd proclamation without providing any archeological or other scientific support. If often gullible and superstitious ancient people believed in a Talking Snake and magic fruit trees (his “first known audience”), then Mr. Lundahl thinks that it’s just fine for us to throw away wise skepticism, blindly accept whatever these ancient people believed as “history”, fall in line and follow them into absurdity.

Instead of clearly communicating, Lundahl (2022i) decides to be rudely condescending to our readers and me by throwing out a Latin phrase that most people probably don’t know: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi. Lundahl (2022i) is obviously trying to impress me with his fluency in Latin. Well, I’m not impressed, but saddened, by his arrogant behavior. According to https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/phrase/1616/ , this phrase means “what is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to an ox.” The website defines the phrase as “if an important person does something, it does not necessarily mean that everyone can do it.” So, why didn’t Mr. Lundahl just say what he meant in English instead of trying to brag about his knowledge of Latin? Contrary to what Lundahl (2022i) says, no one here is Jove or a bull. He’s a smart human being that is capable of separating fact from fantasy and evidence from myth. I’m calling on him, as I would anyone, to back up his supernaturalist beliefs with evidence.