Welcome to ScotConway.org

Dr. Conway has carefully considered his positions, but he also realizes that some will take issue with some of what he believes and teaches. As a trained attorney, he is trained to look at all sides of an issue and be prepared to argue either side (which he has done in "friendly fire debates" with those with whom he actually agrees). He is prepared to discuss any of his theories with anyone who has serious questions or has logical or scientific attacks on his position. If you have questions or information to share, feel free to email Dr. Conway.

REALITY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING YOU BELIEVE

Reality is more important than anything you believe. You might believe that you are immune to bullets, but if it isn’t true, you might be in for a rude awakening if someone shoots you. You might believe that you’re immune from all harm (a common accusation leveled against teens whose behavior indicates a lack of awareness of their mortality), but that won’t protect you. You might believe you can fly, but that doesn’t mean you can leap off tall buildings.

What is, is. That means that something is true or real no matter what you think, feel or believe. If you’ve analyzed something and drawn certain conclusions, you must remain open to the possibilities that your conclusions are in error. Science is constantly changing as scientists recognize that some well thought out conclusions are simply wrong, and others need to be reconsidered. The speed of light was once thought to be infinite, now we know it isn’t. Life was once thought to arise spontaneously, now we know it does not. Evolution was once thought to be the result of random metamorphosis and natural selection, but the DNA code showed that it could not happen that way because physical attributes are digitally encoded and new code would need to be written.

Sometimes you get a gut feeling, a sense that you like or do not like something. These feelings do not always reveal the truth. You might be watching the news and seeing airline accidents reported, so you develop a fear of flying. The fact that hundreds of planes take off and land safely every day is overshadowed by the images in your mind of the crashed planes. The actual reality gives way to the perceived reality in your mind.

The same thing can happen in dealing with people. An experience with a class of people, whether men, women, children, Christian or any other discernible group can taint your perception of every member of that group. You start with your feelings based upon past ideas or expectations, and your perception of everything they do is tainted by your preconceived ideas. This can apply to professions, to races, to sexes, to ideologies, to regional origin, to musical tastes, hair color, physical mass or just about anything else.

All these feelings must be subjected to the preeminence of Reality. A person is a person, and while certain stereotypes based on statistical truths might be useful to have some starting place in dealing with them, you must always be aware that whatever you feel might be based on wrong information or assumptions.

Sometimes you have beliefs, whether about God, people, governments or organizations that may or may not be correct. If Reality is truly more important than anything you believe, then you must always be open to evidence that supports or refutes your views.

Beliefs may be accurate, but incomplete, such as the belief in gravity. We know that gravity is real and pulls things down, but some things float. That doesn’t mean that gravity doesn’t exist, only that there is something about gravity that needs to be understood, including the fact that gravity isn’t the prime force in the universe to hold it all together. In the case of a balloon, it’s the idea that whether something floats or sinks depends upon its weight relative to the medium in which it is found. So something lighter than water will float in water. Something lighter than air will float in air. Many things are like this.

The principle that Reality is More Important Than Anything You Believe must be an Ultimate Principle.

SEEKING TRUTH

Reality is more important than anything we believe. Philosophically, it is difficult to dispute this point. Even those who try inadvertently use the principle to disprove the principle. You cannot argue that there is no absolute truth unless you are willing to assert that the statement itself is absolutely true, which refutes itself.

The truth that there is an objective reality is a truth lost on too many people. Many, perhaps even most, are content to simply accept whatever they believe as Truth. They might say that what they teach or believe is Truth, but really what they mean is that because they believe it, they know it is true. This is especially prevalent in religion and politics. However, no matter our convictions, we ought to be more dedicated to becoming correct than we are to proving we are already correct.

We can observe that many religions are mutually exclusive. One church cannot be the One True Church and have any other church also be correct unless they are in perfect agreement. One faith cannot be the only way to Heaven, and any other faith also be true. The sheer number of conflicting philosophies and religions tells us that some, perhaps even all, are necessarily wrong. We must also be aware that it is possible that whatever faith or philosophy we presently follow might be one of the wrong ones.

The same with politics. Conflicting political solutions are unlikely to both be answers unless they are actually after different agendas. The old segregation idea of “separate but equal” gave way to integration, but why, if they are at the same schools being taught the same things, are not all the races performing the same? Why, decades after Martin Luther King, Junior said he hoped that some day his children would judged not by the color of their skin, but on the content of their character, are we still dividing people by race? Why is it often the people of those races doing it to themselves? If the playing field was being levelled and the meritocracy was put in place, shouldn’t performance start to level out by now?

With a 30 year War on Poverty, with the War on Drugs, with all the other things the government has championed over the last half century, what have they really accomplished? What efforts have produced results, and what have not? There are many things the government does very, very well, and a lot of things that need work. There are other things that may need to be scrapped. They build and run a great military - few would dispute that, but the government seems to be singularly unable to effect social engineering by the methods they have been using. Yet, like many adults, they are more committed to their process than to any meaningful result.

Reality is more important than anything we believe. That also means that we must ponder our own faith. It is easy for Christians in particular, bolstered by the fact that Guardian Kempo is a Christian martial art, to grow complacent in their faith. This ought not be the case. Even Christians must consider that they may be in error. My wife and I are Christians, but we have more of a problem with conventional Christianity and the way most typical Christians (at least those self-identifying as Christians of some sort) think, or don’t think, than with secular people and the way they think. So often, the people on whose side you would expect us to be are willing to run with what we call “The Book of Second Opinions,” essentially treating their own interpretation or opinions as the undisputable Word of the Almighty.

There are many churches claiming to be Christian that have conflicting interpretations of critical Scriptures, and if we have accepted that the Bible is the Word of God, then we should search the Bible to learn the truth. We should also accept that the Bible is the ultimate authority, that the whole thing is true, and not twist the meaning of any passage to fit a denomination doctrine. If we refuse to question our own beliefs and resolve potential conflicts, then why should we expect anyone in a faith we consider in error to ponder their own beliefs?

In seeking truth, we try to find out what is real and what is not. The first level of a religious search has to do with the claims of the religion. If a faith has a Primary Source, such as the Bible, Torah or Koran, then that faith should be judged by the standards set forth in its own Holy Book. Any apparent inconsistencies should be resolved by means permitted by the book or other Primary Source. What are the claims of the religion? Does it even claim to deal with eternal issues? Does it claim to be inspired from beyond? Does it claim to have the answers, or does it merely purport to be one of many paths?

If we want answers to eternal questions, we know that we need not spend time considering the teachings of those who do not even claim to have those answers. Rather, you start with one or more of those that claim to have the answer and work from there. The Bible is one of those places. The Bible says that all Scripture is God breathed, that is, inspired by God. It claims that it is from beyond Creation and that it has the answer. Jesus Christ said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Was He right? Was He mistaken? Was He lying? Within the context of the Bible, we can begin our search for Truth.

If a Holy Book refutes itself, then we know we can discard it. If it seems internally consistent, then we go on. If it is too consistent, it might be simple human engineering. If it is complex with paradoxes that require serious thought and inquiry to reconcile the problems, it may be a stretch of logic, or it may be evidence that it is true at a deeper level than ancient men could have imagined.

SELF-CONSISTENCY OF TRUTH

If two people saw an accident, and one says that there was a crashing sound, and another says that there was a screeching sound, they could both be telling the truth because there could have been a screech and a crash, and each of them heard one of them. If someone says there were two cars, and another said there were three, there might have been three but the first person could only see two of them or may only have mentioned two of them because those were the two that started the accident.

Truth will not contradict truth. If something is true, then there is a way to harmonize that information with everything else that is true. It does not mean that the solution will be easy or obvious, and it does not mean you will know anytime soon, but there will be an answer. For example, the Bible mentions that the Sun has its circuit from one side of heaven to another, and this was commonly interpreted to mean that the Sun went around the Earth. When it was proven that this was not true, it was assumed that the statement was merely poetic based on our perspective from the surface of Earth. Years later, however, we discovered that the Sun really does have a path around the heavens in a circular path around the galaxy. It was true, and not poetic, even when we did not know that it was true.

If truth seems to contradict truth, it means you are missing information, such as the circuit of the Sun in the galaxy. It can also mean that one of the presumed “truths” is incorrect in whole or in part. For instance, if you believe in predestination and you also believe in free-will choice, they may seem to contradict one another. However, if you understand that God has known since the foundation of the world who will choose, and has so ordained, but it was because He foreknew our freewill choice, then you have reconciled the two “truths.”

An example of this my wife likes to use is the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. If you could travel back in time and declare beforehand that John Wilkes Booth will assassinate the President at Ford’s Theater, does Booth still have free will? Can he still choose not to shoot Lincoln, or has nor foreknowledge and declaration steal his free will? Of course not. The only difference is that this event has already happened to you, but it is still future to Booth. He still has a choice, you just know what choice he will make.

In Biblical Christianity, we believe that the Bible is true. It does not mean that our interpretation of the Bible is necessarily true, and the proliferation of “Christian” with so many different views on a variety of issues testifies to the impossibility of all interpretations being true. The Bible can be used to justify just about any view, and it is often used to do so, but a full Biblical exploration of any given subject will often disprove a position. Biblical Christians must always be open to what the Bible has to say on a subject.

Whether religious truth or scientific truth, or cross-discipline truth, there will never be an unreconcilable contradiction between truths. For example, if Creation is true, then all the evidence for Evolution must be reconcilable with the truth of Creation. If there are serious aspects of Creation that cannot be reconciled with scientific truth easily. I personally have a problem with fossil theories that depend upon hydrolic sorting (the water separated the fossils so perfectly, but hydrolic sorting puts the largest on the bottom and smallest on top) and victim mobility (the warm blooded animals could get to higher ground, but there’s no mix - not one mammal got caught at the watering hole). There are better answers that are more in keeping with scientific understanding.

This does not mean that we will always have all the answers, but that the answers exist. Unfortunately, as with so many seeming contradictions with the Bible, the facts necessary to prove that the Bible is true might remain undiscovered for some time. Many scientific mysteries remain, though they all have answers.

This does not mean that we do not search for those facts. If you do not try to find answers, then they will never be found. If you try, sooner or later you are likely to discover or develop an answer, or at least a potential answer. This is part of our commitment to Truth.

OPEN MINDEDNESS AND PRESUMPTIONS

Open Mindedness is often misrepresented as a lack of absolute truth and an acceptance of contrary positions without any regard to the evidence. When someone asks you to be open minded about something, what they usually mean is that they want you to accept that what they did or said was okay. They are asking you to set aside your beliefs and convictions, to accept their position and opinions as equal to any belief or conviction you may have. This is not true Open Mindedness. This is the sort of open mindedness spoken of in the sayings “Don’t be so open minded that your brains fall out.” We need a starting point, and we need to weigh what we learn and compare it to and reconcile it with what we know.

Real Open Mindedness is a willingness to consider other perspectives and ideas, examine the evidence and arguments for contrary positions, and a willingness to change your opinion if the evidence shows that you were wrong. When someone with a contrary behavior or philosophy asks for you to accept their opinions and thoughts as equally valid to yours, all you ought to do is hear their evidence and argument that what they did or said is valid and true. Then you consider their evidence, compare it to your evidence, and you decide whether it seems they have a valid point. If not, you reject their argument and hold to your position. If so, then you can alter your position on the subject.

To be properly Open Minded, you need to have reasons for your positions. If your positions are blindly held, then any blind opinion is as valid as any other blind opinion, and Open Mindedness will mean that you accept their conclusions as though they were as valid as yours. After all, if you have no reason for your position, then what does it matter that the other side has no reason for their opinion? If the principle that truth is whatever you think truth is, then anyone’s thoughts are as valid as anyone else’s thoughts.

You can start with the presumption that your existing position is correct, but you maintain that as a rebuttable presumption. You assume something to be true unless evidence demonstrates otherwise. You do not presume to be certain of the truth, but you start with a belief and seek evidence to support or deny that position. If there is no evidence, or insufficient evidence, either way, then you hold your presumption. How strongly you hold a presumption should be based on evidence and the risks involved. If you are doing something that might be deadly, you want to make a strong presumption in favor of safety. You should be satisfied with clear and convincing evidence that you or another will be safe.

Open Mindedness means that you leave your presumptions open to rebuttal. To do this you need to be committed to truth, you need to have intelligently held, rational positions, and you need to be willing to examine the reasons for contrary positions. You should be able to think critically, and to recognize the presumptions in the positions of others. You should also be able to recognize when the evidence itself is not completely clear, and recognize when you are holding to your presumption because the contrary evidence is inadequate, but someone else may hold the contrary position for the same reason. These are situations about which we say “reasonable minds may differ.”

BELIEF SYSTEMS: SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE?

“Religion is a personal thing.” It may be true that many aspects of religion are personal, but other aspects are either true or false. When you die, you face God (presuming He exists) and the prospect of Heaven and Hell (presuming they exist). Wouldn’t it be better to know the objective, real truth at that moment than to think that you can face such a stark reality armed only with personal feelings and subjective opinions? Reality is reality no matter what you believe it to be. It is better to seek the truth than believe a lie that may condemn you.

Ultimate religious truth, provided such a thing exists, would be an objective reality. The question is: What is that reality? Do you want to settle on a personal opinion of that reality? What if there is a Hell, wouldn’t you want to know that in advance? Is that the sort of thing you want to find out when you end up there, or would you rather find out whether or not it exists, and if so, avoid it? What if there is a God, wouldn’t you rather find out one way or the other before you end up face to face with Him? If He exists, it might be a good idea to find out. If He exists, it might be a good idea to learn who He is and what He really wants or expects, not just what hundreds of different religions say. Is he Zeus? Odin? Yaweh? Is He the God of the Bible? Allah? The Cosmic Consciousness? You can base your eternal destiny on feelings and opinions, or you can try to find out if there is an objective reality, and, if so, seek to discover the nature of that reality. When you are faced with reality, it is best to be prepared for reality.

GOD EXISTS OR DOES NOT EXIST

God exists or does not exist. Either He is there, or He isn’t there. One or the other is true. At this point, we are not considering whether God is a he, she, or it, only whether some intelligent, powerful being exists that we would call God. If the existence of God is presumed or demonstrated, then the nature of God would be another question. This question rests simply on the existence or nonexistence of God. The nature of that God would be a question to ask if we go with the conclusion that a God likely or definitely must exist.

If someone believes in God, but God doesn’t exist, that belief does not make God exist (unless you consider God no more than an idea - but that’s something different than we are discussing here). If someone does not believe in God, but He does exist, that does not make Him not exist. God’s existence or nonexistence is a fact that remains independent of anyone’s belief about whether or not He’s there. The reality is independent of our belief. Since reality is independent of our belief, our goal should be to bring our belief in line with reality.

Whether or not God exists is a fundamental question. There might be debates over who God would be or what God might look like or whether God is male or female or neither, but the first question must be considered. Is there a God? One might make arguments based on a presumed nature of such a God, such as whether He is good, and if you find evidence that a God we consider good does not exist then you dismiss the existence of any God. This does not actually prove that there is no God, only that there is no God with certain defined characteristics.

Is there evidence of God? That depends upon what amount of proof you desire. The Law of Entropy tells us that all things tend toward chaos absent the introduction of information or operation of some mechanic (such as magnetism or crystallization). Yet, this begs the question: Where did all the Order come from in the first place? If the Universe was more ordered yesterday than today, and the further back in history you go, the more Order there was, then at some point there was Ultimate Order. Where did that Order originate? Might it have been designed?

What about the complexity of life and the delicate balance of the ecosystem? Doesn’t the function of life appear to hint at the probability of a Creator? Certainly not everything works perfectly, but just because things aren’t perfect doesn’t mean someone didn’t make it. If we found a functioning machine, we would assume that someone designed and built the machine. We would not be likely to look at a pocket watch and comment on how interesting a mineral formation it is, although a watch is far more simple than any living organism. Might there be a designer?

The answers to the existence of God has enormous consequences, though rock solid proof may not be possible. If we presume there is no God and conduct ourselves accordingly, what is the foundation of morality? If we presume there is no God, then what, if anything, makes one idea any better than another, and why? The idea of Enlightened Self Interest may lend some credence to social organization theory based upon group self interest, but what makes the interests of the group more important than Self if there is no higher being than Man? While there is certainly utility in social organization as a group, why should an individual comply with the group’s needs?

If we presume there is a God, then what responsibility to further inquiry might that involve? If there is a God, what then? Certainly ignorance of a being of such transcendant importance may not be a good things. What might we conclude with further inquiry?

GOD IS WHO GOD IS

God exists or does not exist independent of our belief in Him. Likewise, if we conclude that God does exist, then He is who He is no matter who we think He is (or she, or it - but He will be used for a combination of simplicity and because of the conclusions of this author). Obviously, if we have concluded that there is no God, we can stop our inquiry there. If, however, God does exist, then what? Who He is and whether or not He has any expectations of us is also important.

The question of God’s character is not an easy one to answer. How would one determine if God is male or female, both or neither? How would one determine if God is good, evil, or amoral? How would anyone go about making a determination about what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what evidence shows one character trait as opposed to another? If we are talking about a transcendent God, are we talking about a God that is even subject to our rules of understanding? Is this a God we could ever know?

Religions throughout history have pondered these questions and devised uncounted gods. The rules upon which Creation function would indicate that there is a Creator who is a supreme engineer and who created supreme order. However, decay, death and chaos would indicate that there is another force at work, but is it of less, equal or greater power? Or is it the same power, and evidence that the God who made the order then left it to decay on its own?

Then there is the question of one God or many gods. If there are many gods, do they compete with one another or do they work together? Are there alliances or rivalries? If there is one God, are there any subordinate intelligences? Are there any competing powers who might have great, but less power?

How would one resolve these questions? Throughout history, and even today, these questions have been resolved in a great number of ways - and all of them conflict with other views. Somehow there has to be method for determining the nature of God, should He exist.

If one of the ways we arrive at a presumption there is a God is because despite assertions of random chance, we still see evidence of Intelligent Design, then we can look to Creation itself for some of our hints. Many systems are fully interated, such as the visual system. We need an eye with a lens and some means of sensing light, possibly color as well, and we need an optic nerve, then a visual center in the brain to interpret the signal. It would be difficult to any part of the system to serve a purpose without the others. The balance of the ecosystem may also serve as evidence, since a break in the food chain should theoretically destroy everything above it in the chain.

One method considered the most reliable by many is revelation with religions throughout the ages being defined through these revelations, whether written, handed down through oracles or priests, or revealed through omens. The principle of revelation indicates that we cannot directly know God or figure Him out, but He can reveal Himself to us. We can then consider the revelation to understand who He is and what He expects from us, and what consequence, if any, will result from failure to live up to His expectations. If there is a transcendent God, revelation would be one of the most reliable means available to determine God’s nature. What is revelation and how we can determine its reliability would be a question to ponder as well.

Certainly people have claimed to be prophets throughout history. There have been many people with many views all claiming to be the incarnation of this or that, sometimes claiming to be the sole authority on the mind of God, or claiming to be the only voice for the Almighty. How do you decide who to trust? We will address this in a moment.

THE RULES ARE WHAT THE RULES ARE

God exists or does not exist not matter whether we believe God exists. If God exists, then God is who God is no matter who believe God is. Likewise, when it comes to cosmic matters, afterlife and eternity, the Rules are what the Rules are no matter what we think the Rules are. If there are cosmic rules, we will be measured by them, so if the answers are available to us, we should make an effort to discover the Rules so we can decide if we will follow them.

Of course this follows a line of reasoning. If we conclude that there is no God, then there is no need to inquire further. We conclude there is a God or there may be a God, then we ought to consider the character of that God and try to determine if He is a God worth following. Since virtually every religion has some respect for Jesus Christ as God, the Son of God, a prophet, great teacher or great mystic, then it follows that the Christian Bible might be a reasonable place to start. The Torah, the Koran, the I Ching, various philosophies and formalized belief systems also would be entirely reasonable starting points for an exploration. Of course the quest is for Truth, not for what we like, is ultimately what is important.

The idea that there are Rules derives from Nature. There are many things that contribute to life, and if we are missing any vital element, then life ends. We know we need nutrition, we need water, and we need oxygen. Whether or not we think we ought to need these things to stay physically alive, we do need them. Physics, mathematics, even music works based upon certain rules. Even such subjective things as art, musical styles, poetry and prose still follows certain rules.

If there are Rules everywhere, physical laws, man made rules for organizing society, then it is reasonable to assume that there might likewise be rules about spiritual matters. If there are, then what are they? What do we have to do? What should we do even if it isn’t mandatory?

The same question we have about the character of God also applies to the Rules. How do we find out the Rules? Can we look at Nature and draw conclusions about the Rules? How can we determine if there is a Heaven and Hell, if reincarnation is true or an illusion, if there is a Nirvana. If the information is admittedly only human insight, how do we know if it is true?

If a source at least claims to be transcendent, then at least by how it defines itself there is cause to believe the source. If the Bible is the Word of God, as it claims and has traditionally been accepted, then it would be true. If a holy book claims to be the insights and understandings of a man, then what makes that man so sure? If something at least claims to be transcendant, then there would be internally consistent reasons to that it might be a valid source. Then the source itself would need to be carefully analyzed.

This does not mean to say that the Bible actually is true. What it does say, however, is that if it is true, if it is what it is thought to be, then the purported source would have cause to know the answer. If it really is the Word of God, then it is revelation from God about Himself, who He is, how He operates, and what the Rules are for eternity. However, despite the fact that there is one Bible, there are many interpretations, and rather than follow the interpretations of Man, we must seek the objective Truth of God. All religions cannot be right. All faiths claiming to follow Christ cannot be right. The Rules are what the Rules are, and we must discover them.

Email Scot Conway, Ph.D., J.D.