Tag Archives: Evolution

January 17, 2015

Humanism and Truth

By The Paleofundamentalist

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 16:25)

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life . . .” (John 14:6)

Humanism is that worldview that makes man the center of all things and exalts human reason to a position of either equality with, or even superiority over, divine revelation (i.e., the Bible). Humanism exists in two forms, secular and religious. Secular humanism is the atheistic form of humanism. It rejects the existence of God, so it must be committed solely to naturalistic explanations for the origin of the universe and life. Today, it embraces the Big Bang Theory to explain the origin of the universe (which violates both the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics) and the Theory of Evolution to explain the origin and development of life (which violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). It peddles these theories as “science”, though they violate the most fundamental, well-validated laws upon which all science is founded (cf. Ps14:1; Rom1:22). Secular humanism is the dominant worldview in America today, and public education, from kindergarten through graduate school, is a taxpayer-funded system committed to indoctrinating American youth in it. Secular humanism is the clearly declared enemy of the Bible-believing Christian.

But humanism also exists in a religious form. Religious humanism has a veneer that can appear religious, even Christian, and it can even profess to believe the Bible to be the Word of God, but behind the façade is an absolute commitment to naturalistic explanations in the arena of science. Religious humanism accepts the Big Bang and Evolution as proven by “science” (i.e., these are the instruments God used to “create”), so it embraces non-literal ways of interpreting the Bible in order to accommodate them. As a contemporary example of this, consider the quote from Dr. Francis Collins, current Director of the National Institutes of Heath, and founder of the BioLogos Foundation:

Foundational to the BioLogos vision is the belief that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative Word of God… We have found that the methods of the natural sciences provide the most reliable guide to understanding the material world, and the current evidence from science indicates that the diversity of life is best explained as a result of an evolutionary process. Thus we affirm that evolution is a means by which God providentially achieves His purposes. [1]

Here, “evolution” should be understood in its broadest sense as the naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe as well as all life in it. Thus, despite Dr. Collins’ claim to believe the Bible to be the “inspired and authoritative Word of God”, in the arena of the “natural sciences” he clearly subordinates divine revelation to human reason.

Similarly, Dr. Hugh Ross is an astronomer who founded the Reasons to Believe ministry for the purpose of “integrating science and faith”. His statement of faith published on the ministry’s web site affirms:

We believe the Bible (the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is the Word of God, written. As a “God-breathed” revelation, it is thus verbally inspired and completely without error (historically, scientifically, morally, and spiritually) in its original writings… The Bible is therefore our supreme and final authority in all matters that it addresses. [2]

And yet, based on the conclusions of modern science Dr. Ross and his ministry teach that: 1) God used the Big Bang to create the universe, 2) the days of the Creation Week are really millions/billions of years in duration, 3) a pre-Fall race of hominids existed before Adam, and 4) that the Flood of Noah was not global in extent. The Bible-believer must ask, “How are these beliefs consistent with his assertion that the Bible is the supreme and final authority in all matters that it addresses?” This is equivocation in the extreme, which is the only way that religious humanism can maintain its façade of an authoritative Bible.

Religious humanism, therefore, is not only bad science, it’s also bad religion (Prov14:12; Jn17:17). Religious humanism is a more subtle enemy of the Bible-believing Christian than secular humanism, but for that reason it’s probably the more dangerous one.

Endnotes:

[1]  BioLogos Foundation Website, http://biologos.org/about, accessed October 19, 2011.

[2]  Reasons to Believe Website, http://www.reasons.org/about-us/our-beliefs, accessed October 19, 2011.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Creation Studies

December 13, 2014

The Madness of Science Falsely So Called

By The Paleofundamentalist

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some, professing, have erred concerning the faith . . .” (1 Timothy 6:20-21a)

In his 2005 book titled The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, Richard Dawkins, the undisputed leader of the aggressive New Atheists, wrote: “The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing—is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice”.[1]

Dawkins has admitted what few secularists will; namely, that those who dogmatically defend the presuppositions of (so-called) modern science can be best described as being “mad”. Mark Twain, himself a legendary skeptic, offered this parody of Christian belief: “Faith is believing what you know isn’t true”. Twain’s definition is far more apropos of Dawkins and scientists like him than Bible-believing Christians. Why do I say this?

Consider what Dawkins believes to be the two foundational events on the path to explaining everything. First, that “the universe evolved literally out of nothing”, by which he means the origin of the universe in the primeval event of the Big Bang. That our universe must have had a beginning is inescapable, since according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics it would now be cold, dead, and lifeless if it were in fact eternal. However, in claiming that it originated “literally out of nothing” he is asserting that the process that brought it into existence violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. Although modern scientists will suffer no other event in all of history to be explained by a process that involves the creation or destruction of matter or energy, they accept it as the “best” explanation for the origin of the universe.

Second, that “life evolved out of nearly nothing”, by which he means the origin of life by the processes of random variation and natural selection most often attributed to Darwin. The problem is that Darwinian evolution, even if it were a valid mechanism in giving rise to new species, can only operate on life forms already capable of reproduction. Evolution cannot account for the origin of life itself. How did the first replicating life form begin? Though modern scientists are loathe to admit it, their answer is spontaneous generation in which life originated from non-life. Again, although modern scientists will suffer no other event in all of history to be explained by a process that violates their own empirically validated Law of Biogenesis, they accept it as the “best” explanation for the origin of life.

This is indeed “mad[ness]”! Such madness was foreseen in the Scriptures when Paul warned Timothy to avoid “science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20). But such madness is what must be embraced by rebellious men who are philosophically committed to “chang[ing] the truth of God for a lie, and worship[ing] and serv[ing] the creat[ion] more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). As evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin admitted, “We are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create … a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive … for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”.[2]

Endnotes:

[1] Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (First Mariner Books, New York, NY, 2005) p. 613.

[2] Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons”, New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Creation Studies

%d bloggers like this: