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Posted on 05/03/2013 8:03:59 AM PDT by fishtank
Abortion: The Evolution Connection by Jake Hebert, Ph.D., and Michael Stamp *
Within a consistent evolutionary worldview, there is no logical basis for moral absolutes. If mankind is truly a cosmic accident, then there is no Creator-God to whom we must give an account, and there is no logical and objective basis for claiming that a given action is morally right or wrong.
In such an amoral worldview, it's perfectly "natural" for the strong to prey upon the weak, as often occurs among animals in the wild. And if it's natural for the animal, it's also natural for strong humans to discard the weak. An individual might claim that he prefers that a frail human not be harmed, but is one's mere preference an objective basis from which to make a moral claim that applies to all people?
The recent trial of American abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell dramatically illustrates this deep ethical problem with the evolutionary worldview. Gosnell is charged with killing four newborn infants who had apparently been born alive after surviving his attempted abortions. He is also charged with murdering a 41-year-old woman, but the grisly killings may have gone far beyond even this (see references below).1, 2
Many of those familiar with this case (including evolutionists) have been horrified by it. But if evolution is true, why is Gosnell's behavior wrong? Some might argue that his behavior is wrong simply because he broke the law—but then why is breaking the law wrong? On what basis can one claim that any behavior is wrong?
The essential question is straightforward: Is human life precious and sacred or not? When we witness atrocities like the Gosnell crimes, we recoil in horror because human life has been ravaged. Our collective consciences concur that his acts were wrong and even malicious. At these moments we all agree human life is sacred—it's uniquely precious—and that sacredness is the objective basis for our determining right and wrong.
Human life is sacred because humans are made in the "image of God" (Genesis 1:27). God alone has authority over life because He alone is its Author—this is the objective, logical basis for declaring that Gosnell's actions are wrong. Human life is sacred in every case simply because God made it so.
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. (Psalm 139:13-14)
Evolution denies God's existence and, in so doing, negates the objective and intrinsic value of human beings. Dr. Gosnell and his like are, in a sense, acting this belief out as they discard the weakest and most helpless human beings.
The Lord Jesus said, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor [can] a bad tree bear good fruit."3 Bad ideas often have bad consequences, and evolution is one such very bad idea.4 The theory of evolution sowed its amoral seed generations ago, and the desacralizing of human life is part of its bad fruit today.
References
Associated Press, "Babies treated worse than sick dogs, prosecutor alleges at abortion doc murder trial," Fox News, April 29, 2013. However, witnesses have claimed that Gosnell may have killed more than one hundred newborn infants. Weigel, D. Kermit Gosnell: The Alleged Mass-Murderer and the Bored Media. Posted on www.slate.com on April 12, 2013, accessed April 15, 2013.
Matthew 7:18 (NKJV). Women have long been told that their pre-born children pass through different evolutionary animal "stages" in the womb, and such a claim may make the prospect of abortion psychologically easier to accept. It has long been known that Ernst Haeckel, the zoologist who first proposed this evolutionary animal stages idea, falsified data in order to strengthen his argument. Unfortunately, many biology textbooks still present versions of this argument as "evidence" for evolution.
Thomas, B. Do People Have 'Gill Slits' in the Womb? Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org July 20, 2012, accessed April 15, 2013.
* Dr. Hebert is Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Texas at Dallas. Michael Stamp is an editor at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on May 3, 2013.
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There are other worldviews that provide a valid moral foundation.
But an evolutionary viewpoint is the rationale for abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, racism, and death camps.
Not every evolutionist goes that far, but that is the path of evolutionary thinking.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim*3 are only being internally consistent.
There was infantcide, racism and genocide long before Darwin penned the theory of evolution.
The main culprit for democide and its offshoots is a belief in unlimited, unchecked power of government.
Evolution is not a moral philosophy, it’s a scientific explanation of overwhelming real-world evidence.
If evil people twist “evolution” to their own ends, it’s similar to the Nazis twisting “chemistry” to their own ends. Doesn’t mean chemistry is wrong, and you can’t escape the fact that Zyklon-B will kill you if inhaled.
This is like arguing that the world would be a better and more moral place if we all believed the moon was made of green cheese instead of rock.
Why would giving an account be necessary to a being that knows all, including the future?
and Numbers 31:17
Evolution, or rather believing in evolution, is a symptom of a humanistic set of beliefs. Abortion is another symptom, so, yes, they are related. And yes, there was abortion before Darwin was born.
> it’s a scientific explanation of overwhelming real-world evidence.
Really? Then, what’s the scientific explanation for the evolution of the eye? I’ve heard many, but they were hardly scientific. Full of “could have”, “might have”, “should have”, conditional verbiage. However, the facts are that:
* There must first exist the socket in the skull
* There must be the eyeball with the iris with musculature to control the aperture.
* There must be the lens for focus, and the musculature to control that.
* There must be blood vessels to provide nourishment and repair.
* There must be the lubrication system to maintain the integrity and transparency of the cornea.
* There must be the vitreous fluid through which the image is projected.
* There must be the electrochemical receptors (rods and cones of the retina) to receive the photons and convert them to electrical signals.
* There must be the optic nerve to convey the electrical signals.
* There must be an image processing center in the brain where the image is decoded and projected into 3-D space.
* There must be the consciousness to make sense of it all.
If just one of these things is missing or sufficiently impaired, there is no sight.
Then there are the complex workings of the cell. To simplify ...
* Basically, the DNA is the blueprint, and the proteins are the building blocks.
* To build a protein, the messenger RNA must unzip a part of the DNA helix and read the code.
* The messenger RNA conveys the code to the translase RNA.
* The polymerase RNA decodes the information for the ribosomes building the protein.
There is no electrical or chemical reason for any of these transactions to take place, nor is there much explanation for the timing of these transactions.
The same confounding complexity can be found in every organ at every level from the macroscopic to the submicroscopic.
To dismiss this as the result of random collisions of molecules in an environment that is more likely to destroy order than to produce it is wishful thinking.
I used to be an evolutionist. I was a true believer. But then I started having a closer look at the evidence, and the interpretation thereof by the evolutionists.
You can believe what you want, and you can dismiss me as a throwback whose ruminations are unworthy of any consideration by “thinking” people, but I firmly assert that God created, just as He said He did.
No, actually it isn't. That would be the "atheist viewpoint". There is nothing contradictory about evolution and Christianity, unless you are a strict constructionist sola scriptura type. Evolution has, on occasion, been highjacked by atheists to justify their actions, but evolution itself is strictly neutral.
To those who are not "literal interpreation biblicists", evolution is just the way God accomplished His ends.
“Scientific”? Oh please...unless you are referring to survival of the fittest or natural selection. Otherwise, there are a multitude of questions evolution (and evolutionists) either cannot or will not answer. And that can only be reconciled by believing that the universe has a highly-intelligent Creator.
To have evolution you have to believe that God is a lair when he says that He created life.
You have to go against Science and believe that life popped into existence even though the odds of abiogenesis are roughly I to the 100,00th power to 1 against even one cell coming about by chance.
Many atheists have seen the numbers and heard about how complex cells in the last 10 or 15 years and reluctantly agree that it's impossible (most real scientists agree that anything that is 10 to the 80th power to 1 against is impossible. So now they say that outer space aliens must’ve created us.
That only removes one step....who made the aliens?
You either believe the eyewitness account of God (Jesus let us know that the Bible is true) “In the beginning, God...” or the ever-changing theories of atheists that weren't there.
There was nothing scientific about your reply.
It remains nothing but conjecture.
A creator who could so construct a universe that over billions of years life forms would arise and develop based on natural laws he set into place with the Big Bang would be a far greater creator than one who had to constantly get in there and tinker, bringing along extinction events now and then when he went down a wrong path and had to start over again.
Exactly, there are millions and millions of Catholics and Jews, and a fair number of Protestants, who have no problem reconciling their faith with paleontology and astronomy.
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