Darwinian Evolution Held Together by Politics and Religious Faith
April 7th, 2008 by David DanskerBen Stein’s film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” set for release April 18, is not a case made for the creation of man, or even for intelligent design. Its focus is the persecution educators and scientists are subjected to for challenging the theory of evolution. The film is the result of interviews conducted over a period of two years with more than 150 educators and scientists who doubt the theory is an explanation for the origin of life. The film also contains interviews with leading proponents of the theory that include Richard Dawkins. As the title of the film implies, rigorous and open examination of the evidence used to support natural selection is considered unacceptable, and in many instances it brings retaliation and ruined careers.
Nevertheless, the number of scientists who have weighed the evidence and found it wanting, and are willing to go public, continues to grow. Since 2001, over 700 scientists have singed the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list proclaiming they are “skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life.”1
As the Darwinian Evolution unravels under scientific scrutiny, Walt Ruloff, Executive Producer of “Expelled,” observes that the only thing holding it together is “politics”.2 In the world of research grants, text book publishers, and careers that’s easy to appreciate, but there is another aspect of Darwinian Evolution that has become a gigantic leap of blind faith exhibiting something on the order of a religious adherence. And that places the theory where it belongs, and where it is most easily dispatched. Take for example how it is addressed in this section from the feature article “Immediate Man” running on The Bible Beats; which shows various ways the Bible defeats the theory:
Evolving Inanimate Objects: A Standard the Theory Cannot Meet
The foregoing verse [Gen. 1:26] presenting the creation of man as man is not an anomaly. There are no less than eight verses in the first two chapters of Genesis that demand immediate man in order to be intelligible to the text (i.e. Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:3, 7, 8, 15, 16), and if only one of them should be chosen for memories sake it would have to be this one:
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Gen 2:7).
At one time, and in one instance, man was fully formed up to his nostrils before he had any life in him at all-no living cells struggling for survival, no grotesque mutating and mindless devouring as protoplasm. God completely formed him out to the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life, and by miraculous means man became a living soul; not an intermediate soul, not half a soul, but a living human soul in its entirety starting life in the image of God. The scriptures give us an unmistakable assurance of a straight forward and literal account of creation for fowl, animals, and man; and they may even provide us with something more.3
The article does provide more by use of unique illustrations, and seemingly unrelated characters like Jonah, to show God’s creation of mankind is a literal account in Genesis. The treatment is both good study for the faithful, and particularly useful to dispel the idea that the Bible is harmonious with evolution as the mechanism God used in creating life.
Notes:
1. Troy Anderson, “Ben Stein Makes His Case for Doubting Darwin,” Daily News, April 5, 2008.
2. Ibid.
3. David Dansker, “Immediate Man,” The Bible Beats.com, February 16, 2008.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
The Dissenters from Darwinism list is disingenuous. Have a look at:
Who are the “dissenters from Darwinism”?
Dissenters from Darwinism in context
Religious opposition to “intelligent design”
April 12th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Ken,
Your comment was held for moderation because it contained excessive links. This criterion exists to avoid, among other things, “article dropping.” As I think you’ll admit, the brevity of your comment and the attachment of three article links qualifies as dropping, and is not substantive commentary in this forum.
I did, however, “have a look” at your articles. After examining your overall position, I decided I would post your links.
My reason is twofold: while I will reply to your point on lists and groups, I will also engage in some dropping of my own, and having taken yours patiently I put you on your honor to take my droppage as well. It comes in a form of ad hominem, but it is not an attack on your character. It is more an analysis of the human condition:
As to the dissenters’ list - Groups of any kind can certainly be discounted. All the signatories dissenting from the theory of evolution may not all practice in the particular field of science closest to the specialty (you might assert this nullifies them because they don’t really understand what they claim to dissent form). Conversely, those “Christian leaders” who reject the biblical account of creation, as you point out in one of your articles, are not representative of the Bible-believing Christians (you chose to use the term “rank and file” for the latter, but this does not accurately place the dichotomy).
We could, in turn, just as easily strengthen what these groups imply by noting that not all the Darwinian dissenters are at liberty to sign with the others, and not all the religious leaders who share the same inkling of the biblical dissenters have yet had the opportunity to meet with them.
I think you will agree that in the end, the discussion will come down to two things: what are the two claims being made, and how are they supported.
Upon reasonable examination, the evidence introduced does not support the theory of evolution, and often discredits it. Upon reasonable examination, the Bible claims to be the word of God, and the text not only supports that, it also supports an immediate creation of man in a period of time found in one day.
What we both have before us to weigh are two accounts: the Holy Bible, and the Darwinian bible. They make contradictory claims, and are mutually exclusive. One of them is wrong.
Now, I am going to get personal -
I want you to do something, I want you to get up and go look in the mirror-take a close look at your self right in the face, than eye-to-eye tell yourself you have no reason for being here, that you’re an accident and that there is nothing important about you except what you personally think about yourself, and what you’ve convinced others to think.
Now, go back to your work, to what you’re defending. At the end of the day, be honest with yourself: how does it feel?
I am going to pray that you feel miserable.
Give us enough time, that’s right, and us Christians will get sentimental on you. You’d probably say that now we are not sticking to the facts, but these are the facts. The most important facts.
I’m sentimental over you because I’m overcome with the strongest sentiment there is. It is the love of God that saved me by the substitution of His Son in my place for my sins so that I could be saved, saved from the penalty I disserve, saved from hell. Saved from the body of this death, and you can be saved from the body of your death too.
There is something about that look in the mirror you took that is bothering you, and I can tell you what it is. It is conflict. You caught a glimpse of something and it made you a little angry at the thought of being a passing fancy. You glimpsed the ideal, and you just can’t settle on the idea that something so marvelous is destined to just hit the dirt, and that’s it.
Well, your sneaking suspicion is right on the money. You’re alive in that body, and when it hits the dirt you’ll still be alive. You’re going to live forever; you are a spiritual being.
You knew as much all along, you knew you were valuable, there were times you amazed yourself, and there were moments you thought you were fantastic. But we both know the other moments. We do bad things. We call them mistakes, but that’s not always true. We do bad things on purpose, and we mean to do them.
You have eased your conscious in the past with the aura of non-responsibility to be found in a blind process of eating, making waste, and dying, but now you know it is an un-natural process you’ve selected to explain what you saw in the mirror, and you’ve selected it because there’s nobody behind it. If there is no one there, then there is no one you are accountable to. If there is no one you are accountable to, you’ve done nothing wrong.
I think you might pride yourself as an evidence man, so I will provide you with some of the testimonial variety:
I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (Joh 8:24)
If your body hits the dirt, and your sin is still on it; it means you have rejected God’s salvation. In simpler terms, it means you are calling God a liar. Now, you might go on to make some cogent arguments on other topics, and even mightily convince yourself, and have those moments of feeling fantastic again, but remember the conflict.
Now, think of the conflict this way: we are separated from God by our sins which are stuck on us; we can’t wash them away (you’ll notice we can’t even forget them). Now ask yourself to interpret this evidence:
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (1Co 15:17).
I know that you can make something out of this. You’ve had practice in extrapolating as an evolution man. In fact, the theory is an extrapolation, and you know this is no attack on your argument. It can’t be proved by the scientific method of proving, so you must be adept at squeezing things, and making inferences. Put a little pressure on the verse up there.
You can be out of your sins by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. That is a process of accepting what He did for you when He paid your penalty by dying in your place. Of course, you wanting to accept that means you are repentant.
Now take this press, and see if we’re together on this, the death of one man, while it may be easy enough to prove, may not be important.
Now we’re at another one of those claims again. This one is that Jesus rose from the dead.
Not only does that make His death important, it’s what makes your death important. Jesus rose from the dead because Death had no claim on Him. It couldn’t hold Him, he had no sin. He came down here to take on a tent of human flesh and sacrifice a perfect man so that as many as believe may be perfected; ransomed from death.
But we still die? Yes, and in another treatment I would explain why we are to be thankful for that, but here is germane to the topic at hand something of death we must expose.
There is a big lie commonly believed in the world, and in most of the scientific community as well (here I am not speaking of the theory of evolution). This lie is gleaned from the expression “you only live once,” form which is accepted the implication you only die once. This is not true for those who die in their sins.
All of those who die in their sins are going to be resurrected from the dead to stand before God at a special judgment. Those who have not accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior will not be found to have their names written in the Book of Life, and they will once again experience the sting of being separated from their body and then cast into the lake of fire prepared for Satan and his fallen angels to spend eternity. That is the second death.[1]
It’s not just hit the dirt, and it’s over with. In perspective, it could be said that your first death is only the beginning. You, the evidence man, are getting closer to that beginning every day. How much time have you spent examining the claims of the resurrection? Not on the subject evolution vs. creation? It supersedes them. If Jesus got out of the tomb, everything He said is true: meaning the Bible is true, and God is true. After you successfully solve that one, the apparent discrepancy of ‘biological life-to-geological time-to-creation account details’ is on the scale of sophomoric in resolution.
Notes:
1.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
(Rev 20:11)
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
(Rev 20:12)
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
(Rev 20:13)
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
(Rev 20:14)
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
(Rev 20:15)