The Origin of Speciousness (Darwinism is an intrinsically atheistic theory. If...)

Only a small percentage of the American people support the evolutionary claim that life arose through purely material causes. Consequently, many Darwinists, recognizing that they need to win new converts lest they completely lose control over the debate, now loudly argue that Darwin's theory harmonizes with religion. As Brown professor Kenneth Miller put it in the New York Times recently, Darwin's theory isn't "anti-God." But this PR strategy of emphasizing the compatibility of Darwinism and religion is running into a problem: Darwinism's most celebrated experts -- that is, the scientists who understand the theory most purely and deeply -- admit that it is an intrinsically atheistic theory.

Edward O. Wilson's introductions to a newly edited collection of Darwin's writings, From So Simple A Beginning, is newsworthy in this respect. Wilson argues very straightforwardly that the attempt to reconcile Darwinism with religion is "well meaning" but wrong. The theory excludes God as a cause of nature, he writes, and any "rapprochement" between science and religion is not "desirable" and not consistent with Darwin's thought.

"I think Darwin would have held the same position," Wilson writes. "The battle line is, as it has ever been, in biology. The inexorable growth of this science continues to widen, not to close, the tectonic gap between science and faith-based religion."

Buttressing his argument that Darwinism is a godless account of nature, Wilson reminds readers that Darwin rejected Christianity, and that this "shedding of blind faith gave him the intellectual fearlessness to explore human evolution wherever logic and evidence took him." (Wilson's anti-religious prejudice is so strong he doesn't even consider the possibility that love of God might inspire a scientist to study carefully and reverently God's handiwork in nature.)

Theistic evolution -- the idea that an omnipotent God could use random mutations and natural selection to produce life; in other words, create not by his intellect but by chance -- is no more meaningful of a concept than a square circle. Wilson doesn't say this but he would agree with it. Natural selection necessarily means that nothing outside of nature is necessary to explain it, he writes. "Implicit" in the concept of natural selection is the "operation of blind chance and the absence of divine purpose." Nature is self-sufficient and therefore has no need for God. He writes that "we must conclude that life has diversified on Earth autonomously without any kind of external guidance. Evolution in a pure Darwinian world has no goal or purpose: the exclusive driving force is random mutations sorted out by natural selection from one generation to the next."

The earth creates itself, according to Wilson, and man is like everything else on it -- a product of a "blind force." This means that man is no more special or purposeful than anything else. Yes, he possesses interesting "adaptive devices," which include a curious inherited tendency toward religion, but he is still an accident and an animal. This is why, writes Wilson, Darwin's theory is revolutionary: "it showed that humanity is not the center of creation, and not its purpose either."

WILSON'S COMMENTS, PRESENTED in an authoritative collection of Darwin's work, make the Darwinists hawking the theory as consistent with religion look either confused or opportunistic. They either don't understand the implications of the theory or they are willfully distorting the theory in order to gull the religious into embracing it. If they are doing the latter, they are reprising a game Darwin himself played very effectively: using the rhetoric of theism to upend theism.

Lest he lose his Victorian audience, Darwin made sure to conceal his hostility to religion in his work, and even presented On the Origin of Species as an extension of the tradition of natural theology. It wasn't until his unexpurgated autobiography came out long after his death that his view of life as godless became widely known. He reminded himself once in a note that he better "avoid stating how far I believe in materialism."

In his autobiography, he notes that he came to regard Jesus Christ's apostles as simpletons for believing in miracles. People of that time were, Darwin wrote, "ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us." And even as he unveiled a theory of nature as a blind and brutal force, he rejected Christianity as a "damnable doctrine" on the very sentimental grounds that if true it meant some of his family and friends were doomed: "I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished."

Of course, Wilson, who praises Darwin for his fearless, unflinching, hardheaded approach to thorny matters, sees no irony in Darwin's soft and emotional dismissal of Christianity as an unpleasant doctrine. (By the way, Wilson says that anybody who thinks Darwin "recanted" his view of Christianity is mistaken. "There is not a shred of evidence that he did or that he was presented with any reason to do so.")

Critics of evolution who observe that Darwin's theory is an account of nature that negates any role for God in life stand on very solid ground. They are not twisting the theory; they are stating it. Theistic evolutionists like Kenneth Miller, who has said that his Catholicism gives his Darwinism "strong propaganda value," are misrepresenting the theory for rhetorical reasons. Were they really serious about their position, they wouldn't spend their time browbeating figures like Austrian cardinal Christoph Schonborn for stating that Darwinism and religion are incompatible; they would spend their time debating fellow Darwinists on the theory's real meaning. Schonborn merely understands evolutionary theory the same way its most exalted exponents do.

IT WAS DARWINIST William Provine, not a critic of evolution, who said that Darwinism is the "greatest engine of atheism devised by man." Richard Dawkins, Thomas Henry Huxley, John Maynard Smith, and a host of other Darwinian experts, have made similar declarations of evolutionary theory's essentially atheistic character.

That evolutionists are downplaying this for PR reasons is understandable. What's not understandable is why certain religious are helping them. The modern religious who eagerly embrace random mutation and natural selection as an explanation of nature look as dim and craven as the hollowed-out Anglican ministers at Darwin's burial at Westminster Abbey.

If nature is not the work of divine intelligence but of blind chance, God does not exist. Darwinsim is a "universal acid" that burns through "just about every traditional concept," says evolutionist Daniel Dennett. This is illustrated by the increasingly wan and risible theology evolutionists within the Catholic Church are producing. Jesuit George Coyne, head of the Vatican observatory, is straining so hard to work God into his evolutionary schema that he has written that God is like a parent standing on the sidelines speaking "encouraging words" to earth. Kenneth Miller has declared, in a statement that would come as a great surprise to the doctors of the Church, that "randomness is a key feature of the mind of God."

Nietzsche wouldn't need to revise his view that "God is dead" were he to hear these descriptions of God. "Theistic evolution" is producing a theology of God as powerless and mindless, a God who is dead in man's thinking about life on earth. In separating God from nature, theistic evolutionists end up with a distorted view of both. And for what? To salvage a theory that Darwin's disciples like Edward Wilson have said is unavoidably atheistic?

This is not about choosing between Stalin or Mao, nor about any quotes from Dr. Strangelove.

This is about The ChiComs and by their own documents they have clearly adopted the tenets of darwinistic evolutionism as part of their plan to eradicate religion and ensure the victory of marxist atheism.

You want evidence, here it is argue against that, oh thats right, you cant.

2 December, 2004

CHINA

Party’s secret directives on how to eradicate religion and ensure the victory of atheism

The Department of Propaganda has prepared a new paper to promote atheism and ban religions and superstitions. It is intended to stop conversions among leading party cadres and youth.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – ‘Westernising’ and ‘disintegrating’ trends in the name of religion threaten China and the government must “be patient and meticulous in imperceptibly influencing the people”, especially the young and leading party cadres, so as to stop the “growth of religions, cultic organisations and superstitions and strengthen Marxist atheism”.

These are the main points presented in a paper prepared by the Department of Propaganda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to stop the growth of religion and spirituality among the Chinese.

Conversions among the young and leading party cadres are of particular concern. For this reason, the government is particularly interested in exploiting all the means of communication at its disposal, especially Internet, as privileged “tools to conduct Marxist atheism propaganda and education”. According to the paper, Internet is a new resource for improving the moral development of the young who are its greatest users in the country.

In a summit on religions held in Beijing in October, the government stressed that, given China’s special conditions, it is opposed to “laws based on western mentality”. Religious freedom is in this sense a concession of the state, not an innate human right.

The secret paper for party members only was leaked to the West by party members opposed to the government’s atheist policies and released to the public by a Canadian Website: The Voice of the Martyrs.

It is divided in eight parts; here’s a synopsis by AsiaNews of its main points:

Part one stresses the importance of increasing research, education and distribution of Marxist atheist information in order to stop the growth of cultic organisations and superstitions. ‘Westernising’ and ‘disintegrating’ trends in the name of religion are seen as a threat to China; hence, the importance given to the expansion and purity of the CPC and to improving every aspect—spiritual, moral, scientific and cultural—of national life.

Part two explains how to broaden the appeal of Marxist atheism and its goals, especially among the young and leading cadres of the party, who have been rediscovering faith and spirituality

The paper insists on the “need to promote the development of every individual in terms of the needs of the people”. Propaganda and education are key elements requiring “patient and meticulous efforts to imperceptibly influence the people, above all the young and leading party cadres”.

Part three emphasises the goals of Marxist propaganda. There is an absolute need to “eliminate fatuity (i.e. weakness or imbecility of mind) and superstitions” and replaced them with the norms and dogmas of “scientific thought”.

The people must be helped to recognise “the general process and rule of the development of human society” so that it can “voluntarily and firmly stick to the historical view of Marxist materialism.”

Reaching this goal means educating people in the “natural sciences” so that they can have “the basic knowledge about life, [. . .] the universe, the origin of life, the rule on human evolution, and correctly deal with various natural phenomena, natural disasters, birth, aging, disease and death.”

The paper stresses the importance of good health and healthy bodies which must be promoted by helping people “acquire the habit of good behaviour, and scientifically and reasonably conduct of physical exercises, health care, living, sightseeing, recreation and entertainment.” Health care, sports and leisure must find inspiration in Marxist atheism and follow the practical directives of party members.

Integrating Marxism in the education system is the main focus of part four. This is to be achieved through Deng Xiaoping’s four standards, namely ideals, morals, knowledge and discipline.

The paper reiterates the party’s absolute monopoly over education and the need to “stick to the principle of separation of national education and religion [and] integrate Marxist atheism propaganda and education into the syllabi of the course of political theory”.

Part five explains how to integrate Marxist doctrine in everyday spiritual activities. Marxism must permeate all activities in everyone’s life so as “to change old habits into new ones, conducting people’s cultural and sports activities, satisfying people’s spiritual and cultural demands, [and] popularising knowledge on laws, rules and regulations”.

Media are dealt with in part six. Television, radio and newspapers represent important channels through which “Marxist atheism propaganda and education can be conducted”. Internet is particularly prized as a new frontier from where to broaden the appeal of Marxist culture. “We shall enrich,” the paper says, “the pages and sections related to morals of some key websites, strengthen the instruction and management over online comments, and make Internet a new tool to conduct Marxist atheism propaganda and education.”

Part seven is dedicated to integrating Marxist atheism research, as a key subject, into the social science. Superstition, pseudoscience and cults are harmful and must be removed from the minds of leading party cadres and the young. This will be done by strengthening Marxist atheism departments, training of talented people, running well atheism research institutions and related departments in colleges and universities.

Lastly, part eight highlights the importance of spreading Marxism in order strengthen the power of the party leadership. Party members, especially leading party cadres, must boost “the party culture continuously, firmly hold a materialist worldview, and voluntarily set an example in studying and disseminating Marxist atheism” among the people. (DS)

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