Rebutting Darwinists: (Survey shows 2/3 of Scientists Believe in God)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 04/15/2006 | Ted Byfield

[SirLinksalot]

Rebutting Darwinists

Posted: April 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

I suggested here last week that the established authorities of every age act consistently. They become vigilantly militant against non-conforming dissidents who challenge their assumptions.

Thus when the dissident Galileo challenged the assumptions of the 17th century papacy, it shut him up. Now when the advocates of "intelligent design" challenge the scientific establishment's assumptions about "natural selection," it moves aggressively to shut them up. So the I.D. people have this in common with Galileo.

I received a dozen letters on this, three in mild agreement, the rest in scorn and outrage. This calls for a response.

Where, one reader demanded, did I get the information that 10 percent of scientists accept intelligent design? I got it from a National Post (newspaper) article published two years ago, which said that 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Science "consider themselves atheists." Since if you're not an atheist, you allow for the possibility of a Mind or Intelligence behind nature, this puts 10 percent in the I.D. camp.

I could have gone further. A survey last year by Rice University, financed by the Templeton Foundation, found that about two-thirds of scientists believed in God. A poll published by Gallup in 1997 asked: Do you believe that "man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation?" – essentially the I.D. position. Just under 40 percent of scientists said yes. So perhaps my 10 percent was far too low.

Two readers called my attention to a discovery last week on an Arctic island of something which may be the fossil remains of the mysteriously missing "transitional species." Or then maybe it isn't transitional. Maybe it's a hitherto undetected species on its own.

But the very exuberance with which such a discovery is announced argues the I.D. case. If Darwin was right, and the change from one species to another through natural selection occurred constantly in millions of instances over millions of years, then the fossil record should be teaming with transitional species. It isn't. That's why even one possibility, after many years of searching, becomes front-page news.

Another letter complains that I.D. cannot be advanced as even a theory unless evidence of the nature of this "Divine" element is presented. But the evidence is in nature itself. The single cell shows such extraordinary complexity that to suggest it came about by sheer accident taxes credulity. If you see a footprint in the sand, that surely evidences human activity. The demand – "Yes, but whose footprint is it?"– does not disqualify the contention that somebody was there. "Nope," says the establishment, "not until you can tell us who it was will we let you raise this question in schools."

Another reader argues that Galileo stood for freedom of inquiry, whereas I.D. advocates want to suppress inquiry. This writer apparently did not notice what caused me to write the column. It was the rejection by a government agency for a $40,000 grant to a McGill University anti-I.D. lobby to suppress the presentation and discussion of I.D. theory in the Canadian schools. Suppressing discussion is an odd way of encouraging "freedom of inquiry." Anyway, the I.D. movement doesn't want to suppress evolution. It merely wants it presented as a theory, alongside the I.D. theory.

Why, asked another reader, did I not identify the gutsy woman who stated the reason for the rejection, bringing upon herself the scorn of scientific authority. That's fair. Her name is Janet Halliwell, a chemist and executive vice president of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. She said that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and the McGill application offered no evidence to support it.

The McGill applicant was furious. Evolution, he said, needs no evidence. It's fact. Apparently Harvard University doesn't quite agree with him. The Boston Globe reports that Harvard has begun an expensive project to discover how life emerged from the chemical soup of early earth. In the 150 years since Darwin, says the Globe, "scientists cannot explain how the process began."

The most sensible letter came from a research scientist. "I think that the current paradigm of evolution by natural selection acting on random variation will change," he writes. "I think that evidence will accumulate to suggest that much of the genetic variation leading to the evolution of life on earth was not random, but was generated by biochemical processes that exhibit intelligent behavior."

Then he urges me not to disclose his identity. Saying this publicly would threaten his getting tenure, he fears. Galileo would understand.

[RHINO369]

"Actually, what I said was the problem with Darwinism has always been the implications of his theory; i.e. that it implies one has no immortal soul.

Splitting hairs with me does not change the historicity of EvoThink's fallout on society, no matter how you much you'd like to compare animal "societies" with Western Civilization."

1) The theory of evolution never mentions a soul or lack there of.

2) Where is there any proof that we have a soul? You can't use the fact that you believe that people have a soul to disprove a scientific theory. I'm not sure what I believe about religion but I'm willing to admit that there's a chance that when I die, its just over. No after life, no heaven no hell, no staring at a top of a coffin, just nothing.

[Californiajones]

You hit the nail on the head of what Christianity is all about. Christianity says that despite nice appearances, good works, good deeds, flawless police record, money in the bank and happy grandchildren -- man still has a fallen nature.

We all have the propensity for sin. Selfishness. Greed. Theft. Anger. Lust, etc.

Christianity says that no man is perfect. Says no man is sinless, either.

Hence, the need of a savior because one cannot approach God with any sort of wickedness on their hearts. What's "good" in man's eyes is full of selfish intent or sin, in God's view. That's the Christian problem. Human standards of "good" all fail when it comes to God's holiness.

Even Mother Theresa once said, astonished that people thought she was perfect -- "oh no! I sin every day!" (Imagine the types of sins she committed? Too much tenderness lavished on one leper over the other?) This is why we need to ask God to forgive us our sins and ask Him to come into our hearts -- so we can fulfill the goodness in us, so the good fruit every person has in their hearts can be accomplished on earth.

Darwin's ideas contradict Christ. Jesus says that "not one jot or tittle" meaning "dash or period" of the written Law and Prophets, is incorrect. That means that Jesus did not believe the story of Adam and Eve to be allegory. He didn't even believe the story of Jonah and the whale to be allegory. That is the Biblical record. Either you take it as a whole, or you have to throw the whole thing out; either Jesus was who He said He was, or He was a madman proclaiming to be God. So Darwin's theories contradict the Bible because he says that there is this other process going on -- a morphing of one species into another over time; and that this morphing happened to bring about the Human Race, in a random act of nature. This is a complete contradition of the Bible's idea that man has a divine nature and was created by God as man, not as a morphed gorilla.

Darwin also questioned the idea, set forth in Genesis, that there were kinds or categories of animals in which mankind has dominion over. Adam named all the animals. This is the Biblical record; again, either you take it all or you reject it all. Either God is who He said He was in the Bible, or He is Not.

Darwin's theories bring the Biblical account into question, again, by saying that man is descended from animals. In the Biblical worldveiw, that is impossible, because the spiritual authority and dominion over the earth that mankind is given is OVER the animals. (Christians need to be aware that we will also be held accountable for our stewardship of the resources of the earth, as well as how well we treated the animals!!!)

Look there are so many contradictions between Darwin and the Bible, it is impossible to write them down like I am off the top of my head. But the main problem with Darwin historically has been that man can't have descended from apes because apes have no immortal soul. And who we are is important -- are we pure animal or are we magnificent beings, made in God's image?

It is a requirement of the first two of the Ten Commandments -- the two Jesus said were the most important -- To love the Lord your God with all thy might, strength, mind soul and body. And the second is to love thy neighbor as thyself.

If one sees his neighbor as a God breathed soul, there is less likelihood of a problem than if we believe we are just here for the survival of the fittest or "the most toys wins" -- as we mow down our neighbors in selfish pursuit.
EvoThink allows men to believe that they have no immortal soul, with scientific impunity.

[jennyp]

the best way to profit in the long run is to trade value-for-value honestly, with a slight tendency toward benevolence and forgiveness (to avoid endless feuds caused by miscommunication if nothing else)?

So why is Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate and how did Bill Clinton get elected president?

Because not everybody's as rational as you and me. :-)

[Californiajones]

Darwin didn't have to mention souls or no souls in his writings. I am stating that the long term historical debate over Darwin has been over Evolution's displacement of the idea of an immortal soul by inference. That's what the brouhaha has been, even before Scopes.

The only way I can prove to you there is an immortal soul is that the soul is the difference between a live human being and ...a corpse.

[Californiajones]

Well, all the vaunted 10,000 have to do is read, say, three books of the old and new testaments to know that EvoThink contradicts Judaism as well as Christianity. But as we've seen with "clergy" recently -- especially Episcopalians, they believe that they have a new, gay way of looking at the Bible: they don't.

[Dimensio]

I am stating that the long term historical debate over Darwin has been over Evolution's displacement of the idea of an immortal soul by inference.

You have still not demonstrated that any such inference exists.

[RHINO369]

"Darwin's ideas contradict Christ. Jesus says that "not one jot or tittle" meaning "dash or period" of the written Law and Prophets, is incorrect."

So to you the bible is acceptable evidence for a scientific theory? I don't care what you believe, but you have to understand not everyone accepts the bible as 100% true, and not everyone believes in God, nor your idea of God.

[RHINO369]

"The only way I can prove to you there is an immortal soul is that the soul is the difference between a live human being and ...a corpse."

Thats not really proof of anything other than your brain cannot function without blood flow. There is no question that a persons personality is a function of their brain. That doesn't prove or disprove if someone has a soul. In fact its impossible to disprove the existence of a soul.

[fabian]

Of course it self replicates...who set that up?

[stands2reason]

that it implies one has no immortal soul.

It does nothing of the kind. Faulty logic.

[Californiajones]

Sorry, I am working backwards through pings and just read this one about ""... I'm trying to understand this common creationist horror at the thought of our distant ancestors having been something other than ourselves...""

You need to remember that the idea that we were not tied to our ancestors' lineage is an entirely Christian idea, as this was a Christian nation. The whole notion of being self made, of pulling oneself up by his bootstraps, the rugged individualist, the log cabin to White House ideal, is because of Christianity's essential influence on the nation to abhor carrying the sin's of the father into each generation, of the Christian outrage at the injustice of 'nobility" and the monarchy (believing that other people are closer to God because of bloodlines than the common man) and of loving thy neighbor as thyself because we both have been created equal in the eyes of God.

This is the radical idea of Christianity, because to love thy neighbor as thyself means you are created equally before God. This idea broke us off of European class structure, nobility and aristocracy and monarchy. The American Dream of being a self made individual is a Christian idea -- i.e. all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." The Founding Fathers were Christians.

Again, I have to muse on the cosmic joke of Lincoln and Darwin's shared birthdate. Lincoln himself, along with the rest of the nation, marveled that God allowed the only two Presidents who signed the Declaration, Jefferson and Adams, to both die on the exact same day, on the exact day of the Jubilee or fiftieth year of the Declaration of Independence -- July Fourth 1826. This statistical and supernatural miracle impressed Lincoln years later, (ironic that he would die on Good Friday, too!), and convinced Lincoln that God was behind the founding of this nation.

Now to ruminate upon the fallout of Darwin on this nation -- how people just have an easy out when it comes to believing or not believing that we are Created in God's image (as the Founders did, btw!) it makes Darwin's shared birthdate with Lincoln's very very ironic, considering Lincoln furthered the cause of the Founding Fathers by holding the Union together, purified of the stain of slavery, because he believed the Creator created us all equal...

[Californiajones]

The Bible is not "my" idea of God, it is the Jewish and Christian idea of God. Either you take it all or you leave it all.

God actually respects those who take a firm stance either way, "be ye either hot or cold but be ye lukewarm and I will spew you out of my mouth!" but because He loves us, He'd rather you saw it the Biblical way.

For example, God really loved Saul, who was killing Christians for a living in the name of orthodox Judaism, until he happened upon the Damascus Road and became St. Paul, the greatest evangelist of all time. Saul was very hot against Jesus -- who turned that fire into the holiness of Paul.

As to being scientific theory, all I can say is that in my own field of endeavor, the Bible offers broad but ultimately potent outlines and signposts. It is my duty and responsibility to bear fruit by filling in the gaps in my vocational and personal life of what I know to be true in the Bible. In other words, the Bible helps me in my work and social life, but to do a fundamentalists dance would be in danger of the Pharisaical legalism Saul was murdering Christians over -- I must see the Bible as Jesus saw it -- the Spirit, not the Letter of the Law.

[RHINO369]

I've got no problem with that as long as you don't expect others to believe the same.

[jennyp]

Thanks for those two responses. I don't know how to respond to them, because they spell out a worldview which is so fundamentally different than mine that it's hard go grab hold of anything that I would recognize as rational. It's more like our mindsets are... orthogonal to each other. On different planes altogether. :-)

Just a couple observations, then. First, this allegiance to a totalizing interpretation of Scripture is very dangerous. In fact this approach is what is tying down Muslims in the 7th century and preventing their modernization.

As for the history of the "self-made man" concept, you may well be right that it stems from Christianity, I don't know. I just know that in a free country, we see people acheiving their own dreams all the time. Nobody need be held back by the fact that their grandfather was a serial killer or neer-do-well, let alone that their great-times-500,000 grandfather was a chimp. The truth of that is not dependent on the truth of Christianity. It's a simple fact that happens to flow from the fact of our human nature as the rational animal, and from the kind of government & society that best lets such an animal thrive.

Last word to you...

[Californiajones]

The difference between a Muslim worldview and a Christian one is huge.

Actually a universe in size.

Muslim's believe in murder to appease their god "Allah".

This "Allah" as described in the Koran, bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible. Bloodthirsty, vengeful, hateful this "Allah" enforces the death of the infidels who do not believe.

Christ, on the other hand, advocates this: "bless your enemies and pray for them; and bless those who wickedly curse you, for what good is it for a man to love those who love him?"

In other words, the Christian is called to do the better thing in the eyes of a loving God -- we are to forgive our enemies because deep down, we know we are capable of that same evil and have only been forgiven by a sweet and loving God.

Muslims, on the other hand, preach a sickening culture of death -- death for their sons who become suicide bombers, death to Jews and any non Muslim.

The Koran is a very very weird book. I put it on par with the weirdness of the Book of Mormon, but just a lot more murderously dangerous to the unbelievers. Oh, I won't mince words, the "Allah" of Islam is, of course, Satan. Who else would cause such fear, chaos, calamity, hatred, terror and death over the world with his phony "religion"?

[Californiajones]

"... Why do you think the theory of evolution as somehow hurt society?

Please informe me if you ever receive an answer to this question. Thus far Californiajones has adamantly refused to answer this question, despite claiming -- baselessly -- that the theory of evolution has hurt society....""

Rhino -- Darwin informed the communists and every other godless tyrant of the 20th century.

Someone on this thread wrote that they doubted a 1940 biography of Stalin -- that somehow this was a time period in which a biography in the USSR would have been suspect. That makes no sense. The bio was written at the time of the NaziSoviet Pact, probably before the fateful June, and while Stalin was obsessively still hunting down Trotsky in or out of Frieda Kahlo's arms in Mexico City.

Stalin was enamored of Hitler and any bio of that time period would be to prove his tyrannical mettle to Der Fuhrer. Thus I believe the Darwin anecdote, that Stalin turned atheist after reading Darwin. Why not? OF COURSE the murderous commies believed in EvoThink! What other belief would they have to fuel their bloodlust? This is only part of the cultural fallout of EvoThink -- tens and hundreds of millions dead to totalitarian slaughter since 1900.

I take back my rather pastoral image of Darwin, greasy research in hand, standing before the Just and Holy God of the Universe. God will certainly have laid out some tens of millions of innocent dead for Darwin to answer for. "By our words we are justified and by our words we will be condemned..."

Dimensio, you want cultural fallout of EvoThink? They are still finding mass graves in Russia from Stalin's time. He murdered his own people, his army Generals, Jews, conspirators of all shapes and sizes, especially Capitalists and Kulaks, he strangled his own wife. Someone wrote here that Stalin was sane --- what? Yeah, I attribute his irrationality and murderous ways to the holy triumvirate of Marx, Darwin and a little bit of Freud/Nietzsche.

[ml1954]

Well, all the vaunted 10,000 have to do is read, say, three books of the old and new testaments to know that EvoThink contradicts Judaism as well as Christianity.

I'm sure they've read them. But not all religious people read through the lens of FundiThink, to use your vernacular.

[Californiajones]

"... Oh and don't pretend like genocide is a new invention, its been around forever. The only reason more people died this century is because there are many more people..."

That is an insane statement. Do you mean that because of technology, more people were murdered at the hands of totalitarians because there were ovens or machine guns used?

Just because there are more people in this past century doesn't mean they deserved to be murdered! What do you mean to say, that population growth justifies murder by godless, Darwinian tyrants?

You have not read the Black Book of Communism, my friend, where even the intellectual Frenchies that wrote it in the year 2000 doubted that their astronomical figures for the mass deaths at the hands of Stalin, Mao etc., were accurate.

The fallout on our civilization of EvoThink has been disastrous.

[Tribune7]

:-)

[Californiajones]

Your Bible supports Darwin? This I gotta see!