Posted on 12/31/2005 12:41:23 PM PST by streetpreacher
| Darwin's Pyrrhic victory Posted: December 28, 2005
By Patrick J. Buchanan © 2005 Creators Syndicate Inc.
"Intelligent Design Derailed," exulted the headline. "By now, the Christian conservatives who once dominated the school board in Dover, Pa., ought to rue their recklessness in forcing biology classes to hear about 'intelligent design' as an alternative to the theory of evolution," declared the New York Times, which added its own caning to the Christians who dared challenge the revealed truths of Darwinian scripture. Noting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III is a Bush appointee, the Washington Post called his decision "a scathing opinion that criticized local school board members for lying under oath and for their 'breathtaking inanity' in trying to inject religion into science classes." But is it really game, set, match, Darwin? Have these fellows forgotten that John Scopes, the teacher in that 1925 "Monkey Trial," lost in court, and was convicted of violating Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution and fined $100? Yet Darwin went on to conquer public education, and American Civil Liberties Union atheists went on to purge Christianity and the Bible from our public schools.
The Dover defeat notwithstanding, the pendulum is clearly swinging back. Darwinism is on the defensive. For, as Tom Bethell, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science," reminds us, there is no better way to make kids curious about "intelligent design" than to have some Neanderthal forbid its being mentioned in biology class. In ideological politics, winning by losing is textbook stuff. The Goldwater defeat of 1964, which a triumphant left said would bury the right forever, turned out to be liberalism's last hurrah. Like Marxism and Freudianism, Darwinism appears destined for the graveyard of discredited ideas, no matter the breathtaking inanity of the trial judge. In his opinion, Judge Jones the Third declared:
But if intelligent design is creationism or fundamentalism in drag, how does Judge Jones explain how that greatest of ancient thinkers, Aristotle, who died 300 years before Christ, concluded that the physical universe points directly to an unmoved First Mover? As Aristotle wrote in his "Physics": "Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us suppose there is a thing in motion which was moved by something else in motion, and that by something else, and so on. But this series cannot go on to infinity, so there must be some First Mover." A man of science and reason, Aristotle used his observations of the physical universe to reach conclusions about how it came about. Where is the evidence he channeled the Torah and creation story of Genesis before positing his theory about a prime mover? Darwinism is in trouble today for the reason creationism was in trouble 80 years ago. It makes claims that are beyond the capacity of science to prove. Darwinism claims, for example, that matter evolved from non-matter – i.e., something from nothing – that life evolved from non-life; that, through natural selection, rudimentary forms evolved into more complex forms; and that men are descended from animals or apes. Now, all of this is unproven theory. And as the Darwinists have never been able to create matter out of non-matter or life out of non-life, or extract from the fossil record the "missing links" between species, what they are asking is that we accept it all on faith. And the response they are getting in the classroom and public forum is: "Prove it," and, "Where is your evidence?" And while Darwinism suggests our physical universe and its operations happened by chance and accident, intelligent design seems to comport more with what men can observe and reason to.
If, for example, we are all atop the Grand Canyon being told by a tour guide that nature, in the form of a surging river over eons of time, carved out the canyon, we might all nod in agreement. But if we ask how "Kilroy was here!" got painted on the opposite wall of the canyon, and the tour guide says the river did it, we would all howl. A retreating glacier may have created the mountain, but the glacier didn't build the cabin on top of it. Reason tells us the cabin came about through intelligent design. Darwinism is headed for the compost pile of discarded ideas because it cannot back up its claims. It must be taken on faith. It contains dogmas men may believe, but cannot stand the burden of proof, the acid of attack or the demands of science. Where science says, "No miracles allowed," Darwinism asks us to believe in miracles.
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Hmmmm. I dislike unwarranted extensions of terms beyond their usual meanings; particularly when such extensions are attempts at a fallacious 'refutations' of the original proposition - that species evolve from other species by mutation and natural selection.
By the way, have you any familiarity with the actual scientific literature on evolutionary psychology, as opposed to its presentation in the popular media?
And people wonder why Jews tend to vote liberal and Democratic.
Do you have evidence that the ones who do aren't liberal when it comes to nearly all other issues besides religion in schools?
Science has methods for dealing with fraud and mistaken perceptions. As evidenced every time a creationist brings up Piltdown Man and other frauds and hoaxes.
And yes, any line of evidence that stands up to scrutiny is by definition natural, even the spooky stuff in quantum theory.
0.4 percent of the national vote, the only time he ever won a party's nomination. Well, if he hadn't been on the Palm Beach County ballot, Gore might have taken Flori-duh.
Don't know. There's always the dems in North Florida that were instructed by their party leaders to vote on every page.
So those who accept the theory of evolution as the best current explanation for biological development and diversification cannot be Christians. Period. And, of course, the consequence of this is (and must be) condemnation and an eternity in hell. One follows the other as a matter of course.
"While I am not the judge of anyone soul status . . . "
Oh, come on. That's precisely what you believe yourself to be. Why are you denying it after explicitly casting judgment? (Could it be because that little bit of blatant hypocrisy is necessary to preserve your own self-image as a Christian?)
"I can plainly read what Christ said and what path He established. Evolution is anti-Christ and some of those practitioners of evolution know darn well what they are selling."
Please provide the pertinent "plain" statement by Jesus that the theory of evolution is both wrong and evil (as it must be if it is "anti-Christ").
"Christ was not and cannot ever be considered the result of a hot brewing cesspool called the primordial bowl of soup."
Well gee, no kidding. The whole point is that Jesus is the Son of God, His birth was miraculous, and His presence and works were outside the realm of natural explanation. That's the miracle side of the Christian equation, and the very thing that mandates faith. How you ever concluded that Christians who accept the theory of evolution also reject the miraculousness of Jesus Christ and his gift to man is beyond me.
Also, just as a side note, the theory of evolution says nothing about either abiogenesis or "primordial bowls of soup," so your statement is a logical non sequitur in more ways than one.
"Is this what the Bible declares?
Well that's odd. That was my question to you. Which you rather patently avoided, I might add.
Since you (not surprisingly) presume yourself a Biblical scholar and seer, and also presume that I must be a non-Christian in need of both a Biblical education and a lecture on the meaning of "hell", why don't you enlighten me with the precise words of Jesus declaring the theory of evolution both wrong and evil? Perhaps you could save the soul of a heathen, instead of condemning it.
LOL!
Speaking in tongues again, eh? Circular reasoning, tautologies, whatever. The believe gives rise to the assumption that proves the belief. Perhaps I should have said "a classic case of liberalism."
One of the reasons the ultra-left supports teaching evolution...and ONLY evolution...in the public schools is that it fits their political agenda. A godless world where life just sort of happened to come into existence, and then just "evolved" of its own accord into the many lifeforms we see today, including humans, is similar to Marxism. Life is seen as purposeless, godless, and constantly evolving to a higher state. That higher state, of course, is seen as leftism. It's inherent in their use of the word "progressive" to describe their politics. They're more "evolved" than we conservatives are.
This isn't to say that Darwinian theory doesn't include aspects the left dislikes. The left despises natural selection, which is the aspect of Darwinism that is most likely correct. Natural selection produces what the left hates most: natural inequality.
So if the left has some problems with Darwin over the issue of natural selection, why are they so adamant that ONLY Darwinian theory be taught to the kiddies?
Here's the answer:
Remember the old "Fairness Doctrine"? It required broadcast media to give equal time to opposing views. This generally stifled OVERT political activism by the media. If Walter Cronkite had endorsed the Democrats or some liberal cause OVERTLY, CBS would have had to give equal time to opposing views, something they didn't want to do. But leftism prevailed in the media by being covert. CBS never officially endorsed the Democrats, but they biased their coverage by their choice of which stories to cover (GOP scandal gets big coverage, Dem scandal gets none) or by the tilt of the news story (if feminists object to a textbook then it's a story about fighting evil "sexism", while if parents dislike a textbook it's a story about "censorship").
By following this template, the liberal media pushed the leftist agenda for decades. They're still doing it, as we see with their grandiose coverage of the so-called Plame CIA leak and their non-coverage of Sandy Berger's archives theft. But with the Fairness Doctrine now gone, conservatives have been able to fight back with alternative media (talk radio, FOX News), and we've also been helped by the internet.
The entire public school system is geared toward denying that natural selection occurs. It's a system based on equality, not excellence. It's also militantly secularist. As occurred with the Fairness Doctrine, the entire public education system is designed to further the left's agenda. The left knows full well that the implications of Darwinism which they dislike will be downplayed or even denied. Can you imagine what would happen to a high school science teacher who delved heavily into the ramifications of natural selection, in terms of equality and inequality? In terms of individual, group, or gender differences? He'd be fired.
So the left knows that their problems with Darwinian theory (natural selection) will be downplayed and overriden by every other aspect of public school education. The Darwinian aspects they like (randomness, godlessness, "progress") will be reinforced by the rest of the school curriculum.
Like the Fairness Doctrine, the current evolution regime in the schools doesn't allow for overtness. It simply establishes a template in which leftism & secularism are taken as a given while conservatism & the existence of God are "outside the mainstream". It's a system they're quite happy with.
Hardly, but Aristotle was a pagan, not a Jew.
You obviously misread what I wrote and might want to go read it again.
"A godless world where life just sort of happened to come into existence, and then just "evolved" of its own accord into the many lifeforms we see today . . ."
"Life is seen as purposeless, godless . . ."
"The Darwinian aspects they like (randomness, godlessness . . ."
So if one accepts the theory of evolution (which, btw, says nothing about how life commenced) as the best current, scientific explanation for biological development and diversification, one necessarily rejects God?
You will notice I had the qualifying adverb 'usually'. I have been impressed by the occasional (usually very clever) proposals for testable predictions coming from evo-psych quarters that I've seen.
You mean you didn't write that evolution was not a tool to get atheism into schools?
It's interesting you should complain about me misreading you when you clearly did the same thing in reverse back at #124 (most likely deliberately).
Your definition for "supernatural" is correct. But you are assuming that if there was a "creator", then he/she/it was supernatural.
Whatever your preferred definition of "God" is, if there were evidence for Him, then it would bring that God into the natural world.
That some faithful people claim that God desires to remain unmeasured, and unseen, in the realm of the supernatural is merely evidence in my eyes that they know God does not exist and do not wish to face that fact. I believe they live in a fantasy world, and they like it that way.
It takes a lot of guts to admit that when one dies, that's it, the lights go out. I wish I could lie to myself and believe that I would spend eternity in heaven. It would make life a bunch nicer. But I find it impossible to lie to myself.
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