Dr. Robert Kuhn
Early career
Kuhn first came to prominence in 1972 when "Why the Vast Difference between Animal Brain and Human Mind?" appeared in The Plain Truth magazine published by Ambassador College, an institution of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). The WCG's Systematic Theology Project[6] was coordinated by Kuhn, but later banned by WCG Founder Herbert W. Armstrong. Kuhn severed his connection to the WCG and its affiliates (1978), including the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (classical music concerts, featuring musicians including Vladimir Horowitz and Luciano Pavarotti), which Kuhn had created and managed.
Closer to Truth is a television series on public television originally created, produced and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The original series aired in 2000 for two seasons, followed by a second series aired in 2003 for a single season. The third series of the program, Closer to Truth: Cosmos.
Consciousness. God, launched in 2008, with 19 full seasons to date. Closer to Truth airs on over 200 PBS and public television stations and has had over 200,000 station broadcasts.
The show is centered on on-camera conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars, covering a diverse range of topics or questions, from the cause, size and nature of the universe (or multiverse), to the mystery of consciousness and the notion of free will, to the existence and essence of God, to the mystery of existence (i.e., why there is anything at all).
The Closer to Truth website features extensive conversations in addition to those that have been broadcast on TV (approximately 4,000 videos)] It is the world's largest archive of video interviews with leading experts in the philosophy of cosmology and physics, consciousness, and the philosophy of religion.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, executive producer, writer and presenter of the series.[10] Peter Getzels is the co-creator, producer and director.
“Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you shall learn nothing.” ― Thomas Henry Huxley
26 comments:
So he and his millionaire buddy Rader quit their AICF creation and left us paying the bills!
His PT series said consciousness was unique to humans, that's not true. This kind of bigoted thinking led to cruelty to primates (medical research) and marine mammals (cruel captive containment.)
These frequent anti belief in the bible and God articles has made this blog a switch and bait.
I have enjoyed Robert Kuhn's various series, and found them to be interesting and open ponderings about life , the universe and science.
Kuhn is obviously someone who outgrew the limited and narrow box that the WCG had , and still embraces a child like wonder and pondering of "what it all means", humbly and respectfully without a pre determined agenda or conclusion.
It is no surprise that he has been immensely successful in life and has held distinctive positions both politically and in business.
Wherever one is at in the spectrum of belief, the Kuhn series offer an excellent exploration of the nagging issues of fate, existence, evidence, and destiny, with interviews ranging from scientists, philosophers, theologians, skeptics and believers. Kuhn strikes me as one of those rare people who are seekers and inquirers, and who respectfully are willing to test and inquire all things.
Thanks for that Dennis, that lady really knows her stuff,
it's mind blowing. toby
There were some problems in confirming who came up with the origin "spirit in man", consciousness, man/animal teaching. When GTA was out in 1972 and HWA did the "broadcast" he mentioned Dr Kuhn and this "discovery". At another time it sounded like HWA and Dr Kuhn independently arrived at the same conclusions. Later I believe Dr Kuhn claimed the whole thing was HWA's idea.
Did HWA actually originate this teaching but had Dr Kuhn write it up in an attempt to get it "scientific credibility"?
"His PT series said consciousness was unique to humans, that's not true. This kind of bigoted thinking led to cruelty to primates (medical research) and marine mammals (cruel captive containment.)"
That was over 40 years ago. Would it ever cross your mind that, like many others if not most of us, as he explored the questions and interviewed those whose life revolves around the study of such topics, he came different conclusions than when younger? Do you believe now what you believed back when you first believed anything? Probably not.
One of the absolute phenomenon one sees in the Church of God member and minister is their getting stuck in the concept of it being the same yesterday, today and forever because they think they are supposed to. "New Truth" , which was HWA correcting something that obviously now was not correct to begin with and was too embarrassing to keep promoting, came from the top down and evidently still does. Church is boring after all these years because those who teach have nothing new to say and pride themselves in that. They have learned nothing new. Not about the Bible and not about the natural world and origins. Or if they have they must keep it to themselves until it is discussed and approved or frowned upon. It's a fake kind of faithfulness to their truth.
And too...An intelligent woman who increases knowledge is about as bad as it gets for Church of God men.
Dr Kuhn's "Closer to the Truth" series, interviewing the best minds on the best topics is brilliant and would keep you far more likely to "gyrate in your seat" than Dave Pack ever could. lol.
It is important to understand that Mersini-Houghton is talking meta-science. She is not giving us articulated conclusions validated by scientific method from observations of empirical phenomena but rather her own personal theory of how it might have worked.
Technically, when you listen to this you are not sitting "down before fact like a little child." You are instead sitting down before someone's dream scenario that includes some facts of physics. It is a species of science fiction.
Another point is that these cosmologists are not looking for God in this. And if you look for God in this you will not find him. This may lead you to the mistaken conclusion that he is not there. This is a typical atheist category error. Kuhn hints at this but does not pursue it when he observes that Mersini-Houghton starts with a "lot of stuff" including material, energy and laws of physics. As a cosmologist, she starts within the boundaries of the empirical Universe. She doesn't start by saying "There was a First Cause and that cause was God …" She starts with a ready made universe.
Last point: all we really have empirically is the Observable Universe and some physical trends. Even the miniscule singularity that expanded in the Big Bang represents only the initial size of just the Observable Universe not the posited Universe as a whole. Nobody knows what the Universe as a whole looks like.
Another Ambassador College student, WCG member who outgrew the box and went on to look deeper into it.
As the weak of the world member and yes, even minister, you don't feel you had the right to look outside HWA's view just as today many don't think they cant think outside Dave Pack's, Gerald Flurry's , Bob Thiel's or any of the other one man shows in the COG debris. Or if you do, the price is going to be pretty darn high if you want to stay in the church.
How can you even think to learn what you don't know singing this every week? It's the formula for staying ignorant and believing what you are told to believe. It gives one permission to stay complacent to the realities of church history, theology and Biblical criticism. It gives one permission to be intellectually lazy and stuck. This hymn/scripture was an early apologetic for the fact that the church had and did not attract critical thinking people back in the day as obviously so. Just look around at the people the church attracted then and now was the reason Paul stated I Cor I:26 as a kind of backwards encouragement to those in the church. The idea that the weak (uneducated?) of the world would someday confound the mighty (educated?) was appealing.
Not many wise men now are called, Not many noble brethren;
Not many mighty, chosen ones, For you see your calling:
Sons of God, you are called, Not because of greatness;
Even the wisdom of mankind, Is to God but foolish.
God chose the foolish of the world; He chose the weak and base things;
He chose the things which are despised, That no flesh should glory.
Sons of God, you are called, Not because of greatness;
You who are called and now in Christ, Shall confound the mighty.
Even the foolishness of God, Wiser by far than man is;
Even the weakness of our God, Stronger far than man is;
Sons of God, you are called, Not because of greatness;
Let them who glory, boast in Christ, Not in their own greatness.
James D. Tabor is a Biblical scholar and Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1989 and served as Chair from 2004–14. He previously held positions at Ambassador College, the University of Notre Dame, and the College of William and Mary. Tabor is the founder and director of the Original Bible Project, a non-profit organization aimed to produce a re-ordered new translation of the Bible in English.
Dr James Tabor also started out as a young Ambassador College student taken in by the teachings of the WCG and HWA. He's come a long way since then in his pursuit of his desire to know the Bible and the story behind it. James was instrumental in helping those endeavoring to put an end to the Waco tragedy understand apocalyptic thinking and what those inside might think and do as it unfolded.
https://jamestabor.com/
And another WCG Refugee who had time to follow his Biblical questions and interests. He rightly considers WCG and Ambassador College not to be a credible part of his credentials. Boy do I get that!
Lester L. Grabbe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alma mater
Claremont Graduate University
Lester L. Grabbe is a retired American scholar and Emeritus Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, England.[1] As an historian of ancient Judaism, he has authored several standard treatments.[2] He founded and convenes the European Seminar on Methodology in Israel’s History, and publishes the proceedings in the sub-series European Seminar in Historical Methodology.[1] Before retirement, he established and taught for several years a module, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and another module, Religious Sectarianism in History and the Modern World.[1]
An alumnus of Claremont Graduate University, he was a student of William H. Brownlee and frequent guest on both Viking Radio and Radio Humberside to discuss such topics as: the Ten Commandments, the Jewish festivals, the 4th of July, and Nostradamus and the millennium.[3] Grabbe delivered the 2008 Brownlee Memorial Lecture on the topic: Exit David and Solomon? The Current Debate on the History of Ancient Israel.[4]
At age sixty-five,[5] Grabbe was presented with a Festschrift, a memorial book, by editors Philip Davies and Diana Edelman, containing a collection of thirty essays by his colleagues and friends, offering "reflections on the practice and theory of history writing, on the current controversies and topics of major interest". The essays show Grabbe's influence on the field of biblical studies and history.[6]
Published works[edit]
As of October 2013, Grabbe had: 95 works in 234 publications in 3 languages and 7,650 library holdings listed in WorldCat.[7]
And who can forget Lester's brother Orlin Grabbe…
Early life[edit]
Orlin Grabbe was born October 8, 1947, in Hale County, Texas,[2] and grew up on a farm in Briscoe County in the Texas Panhandle. He showed great academic prowess in his youth and in response, he was invited to participate in nationwide, specialized education in mathematics.[3] Two of his brothers also achieved doctorates and became professors. His brother Lester was a professor of theology at the University of Hull in England,[4] while his brother Crockett was a professor of physics at the University of Iowa.[5]
In the fall of 1966, Grabbe joined an older brother at the Worldwide Church of God's Ambassador College, based in Pasadena, California. He graduated in 1970 and served on the teaching staff until 1973. During this time, he was the editor of the student newspaper.[1] In his memoir, written later in his life, he described not only his own experiences and thought processes, but also the atmosphere that permeated the college, its students, and the organization as a whole.[6]
After leaving Ambassador, Grabbe enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, to pursue his interests in research and science, with an emphasis in mathematics. In 1976, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He continued his education at Harvard University where he was awarded a Ph.D. in economics in 1981.[1]
Grabbe specialized in the study of financial derivative instruments and published important pricing models for futures, forward contracts and options, especially in the foreign exchange (FX) markets.[7][8][9]
In 1995, Grabbe moved to Reno, Nevada.
Professional career[edit]
Wharton School of Business[edit]
After graduating from Harvard, Grabbe accepted a position at the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania), working in the capacity of assistant professor in economics. Grabbe discovered that there was a lack of educational material for the emerging field of international finance and for the increased trading in financial derivatives created by this market. In 1986, he wrote International Financial Markets,[10] which is used worldwide as an educational and professional reference of trading in derivatives.[citation needed] In the 1991 second edition of his International Financial Markets, Grabbe introduced the term regulatory arbitrage in the context of eurocurrency markets.[11] One of Grabbe's students, Andrew Krieger,[12] became a Bankers Trust FX trader and the author of The Money Bazaar.[13]
Dennis,
I have enjoyed Dr Kuhn's and Tabor's writings and presentations and am grateful to you for pointing out a few of the others who have recovered their intellectual curiosity. Even so, we have abundant evidence on this website that intellectual life (and fulfillment) after the Worldwide Church is possible. From your postings, I know that you feel like you could have been more without your experience in Armstrongism; but your own posts and comments demonstrate that you have emerged from the box (and, judging from many of the others who have posted here, you're not alone). Let's hope that by showing that this is possible, that others will reclaim their curiosity and ability to reason! It's never too late!
Thank you Miller. That is my hope. Curiosity doesn't just kill the 🐱
Herbert's booklet on the differences between the human brain and the animal brain was based on lies about science. This has been discussed in an article at the painful truth site. So it was Kuhn a liar who tricked Herb?
Like the rest of you, Kuhn outgrew one box and stepped into another.
Robert L. Kuhn and Lester L. Grabbe are under great attack from Frederick Coulter, a pastor of over 50 years:
below is an excerpt:
(The Christian Passover, pg 32)
We will do as the apostle Paul! We will stand with the truth of the Word of God and withstand those who oppose God, and we will expose the false arguments and views of so-called scholars. We will prove from Scripture that the statements made by Kuhn and Grabbe are utterly false. THE WORD OF GOD WILL PROVE THEM WRONG!
The Hebrew term ben ha arbayim is of ancient origin and is found only in the Pentateuch. It is therefore imperative to let the Bible interpret itself in the use of this term, rather than reading into the Bible the opinions and interpretations of men, which attempt to justify later practices and traditions. THE BIBLE MUST INTERPRET ITSELF! That is the only way to come to the knowledge of the truth of God and to understand the true meaning of ben ha arbayim.
"Anonymous said...
Like the rest of you, Kuhn outgrew one box and stepped into another."
Ahh, but it was much much bigger full of amazing things.
6:18 AM
says "His PT series said consciousness was unique to humans, that's not true."
Certainly there are various levels of consciousness in the millions of species on Earth. But also it is certain that man has a unique depth of consciousness that makes us in a slight form of our Creator, but separated by "My thoughts are your thoughts" Is. 55.
Kuhn knows that neuroscience can not account for the mind though an accumulation of our physical synapses. The "spirit in man" is the explanation for our consciousness. The evidence is there but ignored because of man's dogma of an accepting only materialistic world.
Of course material is but an illusion, since all matter is just a form of energy.
The bias against the supernatural is illogical since nothing in "Nature" comes about in a "natural" way. Amino acids have never and will never bring themselves together "naturally". All proteins are created by an "supernatural" process of hundreds of
preexisting proteins working in concert to properly assemble, splice and fold a specific chain of amino acids in the most bizarre way, described in science as "The Central Dogma".
"Nature" is NOT natural". Yes it's all around you and as Romans 1 states the evidence for our Creator is so clear, you are without excuse. It's all a matter of having "open" eyes to see it.
7:23,
I took a class under Kuhn during the 76-77 school year. One day he gave us a brief history of the spirit in man idea. He said that HWA came up with the idea that there was a spirit in man that was transmitted by the father through the sperm and started discussing that idea among his inner circle. Kuhn wrote up a lengthy refutation of that idea, saying that spirit doesn't work that way. Not long afterward, HWA walked past Kuhn at a meeting and smiled and said he had Kuhn's paper in his reading stack and looked forward to reading it. Kuhn said he shook in his shoes in fear that HWA would dislike his paper and direct his wrath toward him. But HWA agreed with the paper and dropped his original idea and came up with the idea that we have all heard. Kuhn didn't say that he had any part in developing the new idea, to the best of my recollection.
Someone else should be able to corroborate this story. All I know is, it is burned in my mind, especially the part about Kuhn quaking in his shoes.
Dennis, thank you for introducing Robert Kuhn to the participants and contributors of "Banned". It seems that Robert is an explorer of the unknown, attempting to discover the realities of life and the universe. Along with scientists and philosophers, he is looking for real answers and is not encumbered with the restrictions of the Bible.
My take is that Robert wants to find a purpose for life and possibly evidence for an afterlife, but so far, proof has eluded him. I can certainly relate to this pursuit.
There are a few who have not only broken the bonds of Armstrongism, but have also recognized the extreme limitations of religion. For the curious, there is much to learn, but certain risk is involved, and a willingness to accept that the answers to most of the big questions are still in the process of being discovered...and may never be.
A curious and hungry mind is exciting to behold! On the other hand we can remain safely in the confines of our tiny Bible-based-box. It's a little late for most of us to start exploring now.
Wow, 1:37! So you are saying that the WCG was a vampire, and we should all be singing "Despite all the rage, I am still just a rat in the cage"?
BB
Hate to say it, but the picture of Dr. Kuhn reminds me of the pose Bill Cosby struck for the cover of his "Why is there Air?" record.
LOL!
BB
Gerald
Long time, no see. I for one, am very happy to remain safely in the confines of our tiny-Bible-box. Actually, it's not tiny at all if used properly. The bible is written in such a way that many scriptures can be viewed from different angles and different depths. One also absorbs the attitudes presented. The bible is like an anchor that keeps one grounded to reality, unlike the pseudo reality of many national cultures, including today's churchianity, with Herbs cult being no exception.
There's no practical substitute.
One of the more interesting documentaries I watch about the functioning of the brain was a bout the "conscious" layer and the rest of the brain. Based on their measurements, the brain knew a fraction of a second before the conscious part of brain decided on what it was going to do.
If this is true, then it makes you wonder how much free will we have.
There were also some interesting experiments where the right brain would see things the left brain did not see, and the left brain - which controls speech - would have to come up with an explanation for the other side's reaction.
We are biological beings of amazing complexity.
I suspect that the human brain is a powerful transmitter-receiver, with it's main mental machinery stored in a safe place some where in heaven.
Hello, Anon 5:08 PM. Obviously, you know me, but I have no idea who you are. The fact that you chose not to identify yourself on this site indicates that you may have ties to some restrictive church group that can cause harm to you or your family members. If you have beliefs that you are afraid to express with your name attached, I feel sorry for you. That is no way to live, and freedom of thought is not a part of your everyday life.
Yes, the Bible can be viewed from different angles and depths, that is why we have so many Christian denominations. As you say, it is like an anchor. It keeps people in the dark bottom of the ocean.
At least you have escaped "Herb's Cult" as you define it. Congratulations on at least one step out of darkness! IMO, you have a ways to go in order to enjoy mental freedom. I wish you all the best life can offer!
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