Carrick McDonald
When you stop believing in authority how do you decide what to believe and what not to believe? The method has been emerging slowly since the twelfth century. The only valid way of demonstrating truth in an explanation is by making predictions from it. If these are repeatedly true and others can verify them then your original prediction must contain a level of truth. This book traces the development of the equipment which allows us to make these predictions and outlines some serious traps we have fallen into in so doing. When we downgrade thought systems which fall short of this method we meet some surprising consequences.
Dr Carrick McDonald is a retired neuropsychiatrist. His research interests lay mainly in the dementias, including Alzheimer's disease. Free time has allowed him to take an overview of developements in biology and molecular science and he intends to pursue his interest in concept formation already foreshadowed in this book.
Strangely, as we disentangle thought systems to isolate those deserving of our credence unaided by God or any other authority, it emerges that homo sapiens has evolved in just such a way as to allow him to formulate truth. This has happened in spite of the limitations of his senses. Any animal totally out of touch with its surroundings would have been doomed to extinction. What is surprising, and at the same time reassuring, is that we can trace sapiens’ contact with reality through the development of his body, and later of his mind. So we have a nice consilience, understanding man’s physiology reflects his essence and defines the nature of his understanding of his world.
We will examine the nature of “truth” as it is accessible to man and we will see it emerging from his evolving body and mind. This “truth” will be his only weapon in the planning, and hopefully the execution of his own deliverance. So this book is about how to recognize what to believe. It does not shy away from the corollary- beliefs that do not meet our selected criteria should be discarded or at least severely downgraded.
MY CONCLUSION: THE LIVING GOD IS DEAD AND NEVER WAS.
The form of the book is idiosyncratic. Its narrative is not exhaustive. Rather it attempts to present a series of startling “facts” and trust that the reader will extrapolate from them to reach the same conclusions as the writer, conclusions that seem to him to be inescapable. The selected “facts” rise like fizzling roman candles and light the darkness around. Do not be afraid of the lights but be very afraid of the surrounding darkness!
