Posted on 02/04/2010 2:42:12 PM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
In addition to original Darwinism, today there are two other versions of evolutionary theory: punctuated equilibrium and neo- Darwinism, a revamped version of the original Darwinism. No matter the variant though, evolution serves as the creation myth for the theological and philosophical worldview of Evolutionary Humanism (Naturalism).
“Evolution is a religion,” declared evolutionary Humanist Michael Ruse. “This was true of evolution in the beginning and it is true still today…One of the most popular books of the era was ‘Religion Without Revelation,’ by Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley...As always evolution was doing everything expected of religion and more.” (National Post, Canadian Edition, 5/13/2000)
“Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.” (Paul Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I & II, Introduction)
The primary denominations of Evolutionary Humanism are Cultural Marxism/Communism, Secular Humanism, Postmodernism, and Spiritual Communism. The offshoots of these are among others, New Age/green environmentalism/Gaia, socialism, progressivism, liberalism, multiculturalism, and atheism. Individually and collectively, these are modernized versions of pre-Biblical naturalism (paganism).
All worldviews begin with a religious declaration. The Biblical worldview begins with, “In the beginning God...” Cosmic Humanism begins, “In the beginning Divine Matter.” Communism, Postmodernism, and Secular Humanism begin with, “In the beginning Matter.” Matter is all there is, and it not only thinks, but is Divine:
“...matter itself continually attains to higher perfection under its own power, thanks to indwelling dialectic.…the dialectical materialist's attribution of ‘dialectic’ to matter confers on it, not mental attributes only, but even divine ones.” (Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism, p. 58)
In explicitly religious language, the following religionists offer all praise, honor, and glory to their Creator:
“We may regard the material and cosmic world as the supreme being, as the cause of all causes, as the creator of heaven and earth.” (Vladimir Lenin quoted in Communism versus Creation, Francis Nigel Lee, p. 28)
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever will be.” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 4)
Evolutionary Humanism has demonstrated itself to be an extremely dangerous worldview. In just the first eighty-seven years of the twentieth century, the evolutionist project of radically transforming the world and mankind through the power of evolutionism has led to the extermination of between 100-170 million ‘subhuman’ men, women, and children.
Deadly Problems
First, in order that materialist ethics be consistent with the idea that life evolved by chance and continues to evolve over time, ethics must be built on human social instincts that are in a continuous process of change over evolutionary time. This view demolishes both moral ethics and social taboos, thereby liberating man to do as he pleases. Over time this results in a lawless climate haunted by bullies, predators, despots, psychopaths, and other unsavory elements.
Perhaps Darwin could not envision the evil unleashed by his ideas. Nonetheless, he did have some inkling, for he wrote in his Autobiography that one who rejects God,
“...can have for his rule of life...those impulses and instincts which are strongest or…seem to him the best ones.” (Tom DeRosa, Fatal Fruit, p.7)
Humanist Max Hocutt realizes that materialist ethics are hugely problematical, but offers no solution. An absolute moral code cannot exist without God, however God does not exist, says Hocutt. Therefore,
“...if there were a morality written up in the sky somewhere but no God to enforce it, I see no reason why we should obey it. Human beings may, and do, make up their own rules.” (David Noebel, Understanding the Times, pp. 138-139)
Jeffrey Dahmer, a psychopath who cannibalized his victims, acted on Darwin’s advice. In an interview he said,
“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then…what is the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought…I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime.” (Dahmer in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, 11/29/1994)
With clearly religious overtones, atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell summarizes the amoral materialist ethic:
“Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way.” (“Why I am not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects,” p. 115)
Next, materialist epistemology and metaphysics dispossesses man of soul, free will, conscience, mind, and reason, thereby dehumanizing (animalizing) man and totally destroying not only the worth, dignity, and meaning of human life, but the possibility of freedom. The essence of this annihilation is captured in the following quotes:
Man is “but fish made over...” declared biologist William Etkin (Greg L. Bahnsen, Pushing the Antithesis, p. 224). And his life is but a “partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and continually interactive, self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states,” explained J.D. Bernal (1901-1971), past Professor of Physics at the University of London (The Origin of Life, p. xv). Furthermore, “The universe cares nothing for us,” trumpets William Provine, Cornell University Professor of Biology, “and we have no ultimate meaning in life.” (“Scientists, Face It! Science and Religion Are Incompatible,” The Scientist, Sept. 1988)
Man... “must be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic pattern. He must think of himself as an animal, capable of only animalistic reactions. He must no longer think of himself…as capable of ‘spiritual endurance,’ or nobility.” By animalizing man his “state of mind…can be ordered and enslaved.” (“Degradation and Shock,” Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics, Chapter viii)
Finally, Evolutionary Humanism posits the notion that despite the fact that man is “but fish made over…” there are in fact, some exceptions to this rule. For it happens - by chance of course - that some lucky “species” and “races” of the human animal are more highly evolved (superior) and therefore enlightened than the others, who are - unluckily for them - less evolved and as a consequence, subhuman. Paired to this view is the idea that if a species or race does not continue to evolve (progress up the evolutionary ladder), it will become extinct. Together, these ideas lead logically to the deadly conclusion that in order to preserve the fittest of the species - or the spiritually evolved, as is the case with Spiritual Communism - it is morally incumbent upon the superior to replace (via the science of eugenics and population control) and/or liquidate the subhumans. In his book, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin foresaw this eventuality:
“At some future period...the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world...the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated.” (Descent, 2nd ed., p. 183)
In practice, the materialist worldview is a hellish recipe for catastrophe, as was amply demonstrated by the 20th century’s two most blood-soaked political movements - pagan Nazism and atheist Communism. Both rejected God, and both were animated by Darwinism.
Nazi Germany
Hitler’s murderous philosophy was built on Darwinian evolution and preservation of favored species. In his book Evolution and Ethics, British evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith notes,
“The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice.” (p.230)
It was Darwinism that inspired Hitler to try to create - by way of eugenics - a superior race, the Aryan Man. In pursuit of his ambition, Hitler eliminated what he considered were inferior human animals, among which were for example, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, and Christians.
Evolutionism in Nazi Germany resulted in gas chambers, ovens, and the liquidation of eleven million “useless eaters” and other undesirables. Evolutionist Niles Eldridge, author of Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life, reluctantly concurs. Darwin’s theory, he acknowledges,
“...has given us the eugenics movement and some of its darker outgrowths, such as the genocidal practices of the Nazis.” (p. 13)
The Soviet Union
Even though Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto before Darwin published his “On the Species,” the roots of Communism are nonetheless found in Darwinism. Karl Marx wrote Fredrich Engels that Darwin’s Origin,
“...is the book which contains the basis in natural science for our view.” (Conway Zirkle, Marxian Biology and the Social Scene)
Stephane Courtois, one of the authors of The Black Book of Communism, relates that,
“In Communism there exists a sociopolitical eugenics, a form of Social Darwinism.” (p. 752)
Vladimir Lenin exulted that,
“Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another (and) that they were created by God, and hence immutable.” (Tom DeRosa, Fatal Fruit, p. 9)
Lenin exercised godlike power over life and death. He saw himself as, “the master of the knowledge of the evolution of social species.” It was Lenin who “decided who should disappear by virtue of having been condemned to the dustbin of history.” From the moment Lenin made the “scientific” decision that the bourgeoisie represented a stage of humanity that evolution had surpassed, “its liquidation as a class and the liquidation of the individuals who actually or supposedly belonged to it could be justified.” (The Black Book of Communism, p. 752)
Alain Brossat draws the following conclusions about the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the ties that bind them:
“The ‘liquidation’ of the Muscovite executioners, a close relative of the ‘treatment’ carried out by Nazi assassins, is a linguistic microcosm of an irreparable mental and cultural catastrophe that was in full view on the Soviet Stage. The value of human life collapsed, and thinking in categories replaced ethical thought…In the discourse and practice of the Nazi exterminators, the animalization of Other…was closely linked to the ideology of race. It was conceived in the implacably hierarchical racial terms of “subhumans” and “supermen”…but in Moscow in 1937, what mattered…was the total animalization of the Other, so that a policy under which absolutely anything was possible could come into practice.” (ibid., p. 751)
21st Century America
Ronald Reagan loved God and America. America he said is, “the moral force that defeated communism and all those who would put the human soul into bondage.” (Republican National Convention, Houston, Texas, 8/17/1992)
Even though he was optimistic about America’s future he nevertheless cautioned that America must maintain her reliance on God and her commitment to righteousness and morality. He liked quoting Alexis de Tocqueville’s insightful analysis of the source of America’s greatness:
“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret and genius of her power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” (Michael Reagan, In the Words of Ronald Reagan)
As America moves into the 21st century, we have yet to admit a shameful, dark secret. Evolutionism…the creation myth, that empowered Nazism and Communism, is being taught to America’s youth in our governmentcontrolled schools. The animalization of Americans is well advanced and coupled to a corresponding slow collapse of human worth. Already we hear of human life spoken of in dehumanizing categories such as “vegetable,” “non-persons,” and “uterine content.”
Ominously, Evolutionary Humanism has also outstripped Judeo-Christian precepts in our universities, judiciary, federal bureaucracy, corporations, medicine, law, psychology, sociology, entertainment, news media and halls of Congress. As Biocentrism, it fuels the nonhuman animal rights project, the gay rights movement, radical feminism, and the increasingly powerful and influential green environmentalist program, which demands that America submit to the draconian mandates of the Kyoto Treaty.
America, the “moral force that defeated communism” is on the verge of completely rejecting God, the natural order, and moral absolutes and instead, embracing the godless religion of evolution, amorality, and the unnatural.
Evolutionary Humanism is the most dangerous delusion thus far in history. It begins with the “animalization of Other,” in tandem with the elevation of the “superior,” for whom this serves as a license to make up their own rules, abuse power, and force their will onto the citizens. This is accompanied by a downward spiraling process that pathologizes the natural order, moral ethics, virtue, and social taboos while simultaneously elevating narcissism, tyranny, cruelty, nihilism, confusion, perversion, sadism, theft, and lying to positions of politically correct “new morality,” which is then enforced through sensitivity training, speech codes, hate crime laws, and other intimidation tactics. If not stopped, as history warns us, this rapidly escalating downward process leads inevitably to totalitarianism, enslavement, and eventually mass murder.
In a portent of things to come,
evolutionist B.F. Skinner said: “A scientific analysis of behavior dispossesses autonomous man and turns the control he has been said to exert over to the environment. The individual...is henceforth to be controlled...in large part by other men.” (David Noebel, Understanding the Times, p. 232)
Paul was a super naturalist. A person who is free to interpret amazing events as either being super natural, or of not being so (albeit he was of a faith that interpreted certain specific events as necessarily being super natural).
A naturalist (at least the way I use the word--which I think is pretty conventional) holds a doctrine that super natural interpretations of events are universally invalid. They will usually never express it this way, because people like to think of themselves as open minded et al. But the fact is, if you hold that there is no super nature, then you hold that no event is super natural.
However this doctrine is arrived at, once in place it is quite immune to any contrary evidence. For any remotely feasible alternative explanation to a super natural explanation is automatically preferred. Moreover, even when no apparent natural explanation seems remotely feasible, a naturalist holding such a doctrine will presume that there is some unknown trick, mistake, lie, error, or something else that invalidates an otherwise convincing proof of super-naturalism.
Now firmly held unshakable doctrines are nothing new. But the really funny thing about this doctrine, is that the people holding it think of themselves as being skeptics and great believers of following evidence and reason.
This comparison is a canard.
In the game of "telephone" a message is whispered once in an ear.
In Hebrew tradition, the message is taught, memorized, and continuously repeated back by the student over a life time, within in a community of people that can correct errors in each other.
Try this kind of game of "telephone":
1) Take 100 people in a room. Spend several hours working with them until you are positive they have the message correct.
2) Have 50 of them teach the same message to a room full of another room of 100 people for hours until they are convinced it is correct.
3+)Continue for a few dozen times...or if your simulating the number of generations until the NT was written you were done before step 2!
The message will be dead on. Because the mechanism is far more reliable then whispering once into an ear.
Even as someone who is no textual critic I know enough to recognize the quackery involved in the "telephone" game analogy!
The evidence for the big bang theory seems to be a severe counter example to this idea.
Everybody seems to agree that nothing comes from nothing. Before the Big Bang theory, naturalists simply considered the universe to be eternal. Super naturalists were divided on the point.
But the Big Bang evidence suggests that the entire universe and all its laws and physical properties did not not simply always exist. It doesn't prove this absolutely, but it gives us a point at which it is hard for any science to look beyond.
But to defend against the God-centric notions of the Big Bang theory in secular academia, it is now supposed that the entire natural universe is not the entire natural universe...so the word "cosmos" came into common use, and some very intriguing notions took shape. The most amusing being the multi-verse view, in which every possibility is balanced out in some alternate universe invisible to us. Now the multi-verse "theory" seems to be a bit of a stretch for me. But if it is true, presumably there must be an infinite number of other universes, with an infinite fraction of them having life, with an infinite fraction having horse-like life, with an infinite fraction of them having horse-like life which is pink and horned.
Of coarse such pink, horned, horses can not be seen or studied, because they are invisible to us in this universe. You just have to have faith in them I guess.
Nobody likes being fooled by a charlatan, and I'm all for exposing them. I have many Christian friends who don't appreciate them either. I will grant that it is certainly easier for a religious charlatan to temporarily fool those of the same religion. Just as it is easier for a "missing link" hoax to temporarily fool Darwinists. But don't mistake that for acceptance in either case! An exposed charlatan has no credibility. Although the point at which they are "exposed" is debated with various biases.
However, it seems you are taking the existence of religious charlatans as evidence against religion. Certainly you must understand this is hardly any kind of valid argument.
There have been cottage industries of all kinds of charlatans, some with fake cures like snake oil, or whatever else. Yes many have been religious. Now science charlatans are somewhat newer. They have only been around sense science has been around. But face it, they are around in spades. They usually fool the non-erudite in any case. Good theologians can spot phony Christianity better than the more gullible common Christian, just as a good scientist can spot scientific quackery better than the gullible public in our science-respecting culture.
Charlatans use fake science, because real science has credibility with people. They also use fake religion because real religion has credibility with people.
No Ender, bringing up charlatans gets you no where except as another distraction.
” But you do not ask the obvious question.... which John? John the Presbyter? John the Evangelist? John the Apostle?”
Not an important question since all three names may refer to the same man. But assuming that each name applies to a different individual, just to give your latest straw a chance, they were still three first century Christians close to the events that had just transpired.
It’s only within the confines of your little game of telephone that it would be hard for a first generation to pass on their knowledge to the next. In the real world I’ve never seen a teacher who whispers his knowledge to a student in one sentence and then tells him to pass it on. I always experienced that as a child’s game. Your experience evidently is different, which should explain why you think that argument has any merit.
Oh I wish. Its been many years since I got to fight in an SCA battle.
The Qumran and the Masada scrolls show that the Old Testament text was still not stabilized near the end of the first century AD.
One of the many things I am not an export on are the dead sea scrolls. However, from everything I do know, your conclusion sounds pretty zany. So I googled it, and found tons of dull dry info that gave me no relevant insight before I ran out of patience.
So I must ask, do you have a source you can point that lends support for this non stabilization.
As for asking who I am arguing with. I make it a habit to try to refine and/or correct my views to be more in line with truth. Since I believe it is truth that sets us free. So any argument that you have made that seems it might have merit, I have tried to consider. So far I think you make a much worse case for naturalism then I had already made for myself...and not found as convincing as that for Christianity.
Sorry if some of that arguing with myself spilled over. I think we all do that a little...or it at least I would like to think that.
“His argument focuses away from the NT itself, and focuses on how the NT was interpreted by “the church fathers”, who seemingly to be any proclaimed Christian in church history with an anti-semitic slant. “
Maybe he finds the NT inconvenient for his purposes.
” On the other hand, I kind of thought of the writers of the NT and their contemporaries as the “church fathers”.”
You should, because they are. Those would be “the Apostolic fathers”. Theologians up to about the 500s tend to get included in lists of the church fathers, depending on who makes the list.
“My own position has been that following Christ’s commands to and ethical example are the epitome of what it means to be Christian, “
You’d soon find yourself embroiled in a debate over works versus grace with that position, although neither side would disagree that the moral precepts are worth emulating.
“It is my experience that the “conflict between religion and science” is not generated by the scientists. The history of that conflict is invariably one of reaction by religionists to scientific knowledge they object to… not any active effort by scientists to prove religion false. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but they prove the rule rather than call it into question”
It appears that your knowledge of the subject is conventional and not very informed. Rather than open such a large subject I’ll just recommend the works of Stanley Jaki. The question is of course epistemological, and not one of science versus religion. It’s metaknowledge. Science doesn’t and can’t define itself, a point Jaki develops in his writing on Goedel. Moreover if non-repeatable events happened in Christ’s life then science would record them as data, it wouldn’t simply discard them because they don’t fit an imposed paradigm of naturalism. In fact at that point naturalism would reveal itself as rigid and non-scientific, choosing repeatability over data it can’t explain within the limitations imposed by naturalism.
“The simple truth is that the more and more we learn about the universe, the less and less there appears to be for God to do.”
“The evidence for the big bang theory seems to be a severe counter example to this idea.”
A good choice, Andy. Mathematician/ astronomer Fred Hoyle coined the term ‘Big Bang’ to disparage the idea. He refused to accept the Big Bang as being good science because he recognized its odd similarity to the opening of Genesis, and he was going to have none of that. That would eventually change for Hoyle, one of the pioneers of the anthropic principle.
Piltdown Man.
Piltdown Man was even used as evidence by Clarence Darrow in the Scope’s Monkey Trial, which is certainly amusing. The hoax ran for 40 years.
And of course right now we have ‘anthropogenic global warming’, which the high priesthood of the science establishment has been selling us for a good number of years. AGW is science, you know, or so we’ve been told, and doubters have been held up as the heretics they are.
Alas, it now seems that some of the AGW evidence has, er, been faked. The Church of Scientism is being surrounded by superstitious peasants wearing Hayek and Popper masks, jeering cries of “Positivism!” as they hurl rocks and garbage at the hunkered down high priests of scientific charlatanism.
http://isv.org/catacombs/isaiah_MT_vs_1QIsa.htm
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Why Use the Dead Sea Scrolls instead of the Masoretic Text to translate Isaiah?
Why is the base text for Isaiah the Great Scroll of Isaiah? Why was 1QIsa substituted for the MT?
In our view 1QIsa is more reliable than the two surviving Masoretic Text manuscripts. More on this, below.
It is completely out of accord with the 1st principle of translation posted on-line.
At best, this accusation misunderstands the principle. Our answer is that or use of the Great Isaiah Scroll is fully in accord with our first principle: Here’s what our first principle states, as quoted exactly from our Principles of Translation page:
For the Tanakh, or Old Testament, the Masoretic text as published in the latest editions of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Quinta is used as the base text, in consultation with other ancient Hebrew texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and a select number of ancient versions (the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Targums). All significant departures from the base text, as well as all significant textual variants, are indicated in footnotes.
With respect to Isaiah’s famous book, the operative phrase “in consultation with other ancient Hebrew texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls” is applicable. In the case of Isaiah, we consulted with 1QIsa so much that it became quickly evident that in translating the book of Isaiah, the MT must be supplanted by 1QIsa, aka the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran Cave One because 1QIsa is more reliable than the MT.
We make no statement as to the comparative reliability of the MT to the other MSS of the DSS. For now, we only comment on the contents of Qumran Cave One.
It is not commonly known to lay Bible readers that the entire ancient corpus of Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts consists of only two texts: Codex Leningradensis and the Aleppo Text. Both date from within 100 years of each other, give or take a decade or so, and in round numbers we date them from about 950 and 1050 AD.
In contrast, the DSS Great Isaiah Scroll dates from mid-2nd century BC, at the latest, and maybe as early as the mid-200’s BC. It’s 1200 years or more older than the MT manuscripts that have survived over the centuries. In our view, 1QIsa is the more reliable manuscript.
Along the way to rendering one of the first high-quality English language translations of 1QIsa with scholarly footnotes that will be made generally available to the public, a suspicion that’s grown on us while making the ISV OT rendering has come to the forefront of our analysis of the MT text: this is our growing theory that certain parts of the MT tradition came about during the Middle Ages as a polemic response to the Christian interpretation of the Tanakh as that tradition is sustained in the NT MSS.
The explanations of the events of the NT (as depicted by those NT writers) have a tendency to cite the LXX, since the NT was largely composed originally in Greek, or when citing the Tanakh, NT writers occasionally proffer what appears to be a Targum; i.e., a dynamically produced, spontaneously crafted translation from the original Hebrew or Aramaic Tanakh into Greek, somewhat after the fashion of a modern United Nations-like dynamic translation. In doing all of this, NT writers who are citing the OT as proof of a prophecy fulfillment
sometimes make citations that are inconsistent with the MT readings. But these renderings do not appear to have been inconsistent with the LXX or with their Targum-like personal translations. Nor, it would appear, are these citations by NT writers inconsistent with 1QIsa in the DSS, even though occasionally the NT writer citations of the OT are inconsistent with the MT. So we’ve been wondering why the MT says things that the DSS don’t contain. We think the anti-NT interpretational grid for the MT arose during the 4th century as a response to Constantine’s somewhat anti-Semitic influence on the Jewish Hebrew scholarly community. So we’re relying on 1QIsa over the MT’s Aleppo Text and Codex Leningradensis. To sum up, when we can use a Hebrew MS that is 12 centuries older than the MT, we’ll use it rather than MT.
Good point.
But its kind of a continuum. Seems scientific method needs to get less rigid the closer it gets to studying the actions of intelligent beings. Sociology and psychology are softer sciences than biology which is softer than chemistry and physics. For understanding people, having relationships and using intuition and empathy work better.
Theology is most at the extreme. We can not understand God through science any more than an microscopic organism can understand us through science. However we can have a relationship with Him.
The problem many have with this is that God is more sophisticated than us and out of our control. He refuses to be what we imagine he ought. And He stubbornly persists at being what we can't comprehend. And yet we can "get" Him when we love Him.
I have only seen or read of the "anthropic principle" in terms of an argument used to defend naturalism against the apparent design of this particular universe to produce "observers".
The argument seems completely fallacious to me by the way...but I have a freaky ability with logic and abstraction (got me through college even though I never studied)...so I understand how people could be fooled by it.
Is this where Fred Hoyle was coming from?
bttt
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