Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is currently developing the science standard for some 26 states. Now is the time to take action and speak out against the indoctrination of young minds with the bad science of evolutionary theory. If the science standards pass as they are written now, Darwinian evolution will be a required topic in your child’s science education if you live in one of the states that adopts this standard. The NGSS is currently accepting input from the public over the next few days (until June 1) on their proposed science standards in the form of a survey on their website (www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards). We strongly recommend that you take five minutes and speak out for God and the biblical view of origins. Now may be the only time for many years (or ever) to let your voice be heard in an effective way on this matter.

The Villa Rica church of Christ in Georgia is taking a lead in this effort, and have developed a website to help you in this process. If you need help getting straight to the critical issues in the science standard, click here (http://www.unity-in-christ.org/Articles/christians4science_is_an_apologe.html). At the top of that Web page are two red rectangle links that will be helpful to you in sifting through the information on the NGSS website.

Please let your voice be heard. There is absolutely no doubt that the promulgation of evolutionary theory in America’s school system is one of the most effective ways that Satan has “taken advantage of us” (2 Corinthians 2:11) over the last 50 years, turning Americans and the world away from the God of the Bible. But we are not “ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). Remember the famous words of exhortation credited to Edmund Burke, a British statesman from the 1700s: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Take up the sword of truth, and fight with us.

The post Affecting the "Next Generation Science Standards" for the Lord appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Sadly, the America that we inhabit today is a very different country (religiously speaking) than it was when I grew up in the 1980s, and drastically dissimilar to the country in which my father was reared in the 1940s. In 1947, for example, 89% of Americans identified themselves as Christian Protestants or Catholics, in addition to the millions of other “religious” Americans (e.g., Jews, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.; Gallup and Lindsay, 1999, p. 7), which would have left comparatively very few skeptics, agnostics, and atheists.

The odds of you crossing paths with an atheist, agnostic, or skeptic at some point in the next few months are pretty high. The likelihood of your children, grandchildren, nephews, or nieces running into atheistic professors or skeptical students in high school or college is very high (considering many public schools and universities are breeding grounds for non-religious Americans). More than ever, Christians need to equip themselves with the tools and weapons to help them “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Being the time of the year when many are purchasing items for others, we hope that you will consider equipping your friends and family members with soul-saving, life-enriching materials. Why not order your younger children or grandchildren a subscription to Discovery, A.P.’s monthly children’s magazine on Scripture and science? Why not consider arming your teens with Truth Be Told: Exposing the Myth of Evolution? Why not purchase multiple copies of our newest book A Christian’s Guide to Refuting Modern Atheism and give them away to college students who may very well be struggling for the first time in their lives with knowing how to defend their belief in the one true God of the Bible? At the very least, why not send your friends or family members a link to this site, where they can join the millions of others who have obtained thousands of pages of free electronic Christian evidence material?

The Lord has blessed Apologetics Press with a 30+ year history. During that time, supporters of this work have enabled us to produce a plethora of material on Christian evidences. We believe that making available solid materials on the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, etc. is more important today than ever before in America’s history. Are you armed and ready for the fight? Have you helped to prepare your family and friends for this eternally important spiritual warfare? Why not take action today and make a difference? Please feel free to call upon us if we can be of any assistance (1-800-234-8558).

REFERENCES

Gall, George Jr. and Michael Lindsay (1999), Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing).

Kosmin, Barry (1991), The National Survey of Religious Identification, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCwQFjAD&url= http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jewishdatabank.org%2FArchive%2FNSRI1990- Research_Report_with_Selected_Tabulations.pdf&ei= nH_1TIvqG8WBlAfd5Jz4BQ&usg=AFQjCNHASEXKYZTsxzKlRe24U8-4foBJQA.

Kosmin, Barry A., Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar (2001), American Religious Identification Survey, www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris.pdf.

Kosmin, Barry A. and Ariela Keysar (2009), American Religious Identification Survey, www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf.

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One of the most outspoken defenders of freethought is a man named Dan Barker. Prior to his “deconversion” into freethought, he was a zealous denominational preacher and missionary. In his most famous written work describing his new-found atheism, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, he includes an entire chapter titled, What is a Freethinker? At the end of this chapter, Barker says, “Freethought allows you to do your own thinking…. Freethought is truly free” (1992, p. 136). Obviously, Mr. Barker wants everyone who comes in contact with freethought to believe that it is an avenue of thinking that allows each individual to go where his or her thoughts lead.

Upon further investigation, however, freethought is not so free after all. On the very first page of his chapter on freethought, he contends, “No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah.” So, according to Mr. Barker, since he and his group of freethinkers do not think they see enough evidence for the Bible’s inspiration, then all “freethinkers” must reject conformity to the Bible. What happened to the idea that freethought allows “you to do your own thinking.” Again, on the same page he wrote, “Freethinkers are naturalistic” (p. 133), meaning that freethinkers cannot believe in anything outside the realm of what can be measured scientifically using the senses. What if certain evidences compel a person to believe in a supernatural deity? According to freethought, a person is not free to follow that type of evidence. Once again, freethought proves to be much less “free” than we have been told.

Another telling statement from Barker’s pen comes on page 134, where he says, “Individuals are free to choose, within the limits of humanistic morality.” Freethought, then, allows a person to choose freely any set of ethical and moral standards, as long as those standards conform to the “humanistic morality” adopted by Barker and his fellow “freethinkers.” But what if those moral standards fall outside the realm of “humanistic morality?” Then a freethinker must choose some other standard—or cease to be a freethinker.

In one of his concluding paragraphs, Barker states: “A multiplicity of individuals thinking, free from the restraints of orthodoxy, allows ideas to be tested, discarded or adopted” (p. 135). Barker subtly omits the other restraints such as naturalism and humanism, from which freethinkers are not free. In essence, freethinkers, according to Dan Barker, are those people who think like him and his fellow freethinkers. If a person does not think like the humanistic, naturalistic Dan Barker, then that person must be an enslaved thinker, not a freethinker. In reality, “freethought” is a misnomer and is not free after all. In fact, it is one of the “least free” ways to think that is available in the marketplace of ideas. In actuality, the only thing that can ever make a person free is the truth (John 8:32). From the statements quoted above, it is evident that Dan Barker and his fellow freethinkers are not really interested in freedom but, rather, are interested in forming a group of “freethinkers” that toes the party line on such false concepts as naturalism and humanism.

REFERENCE

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith In Faith—From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation).

The post Freethought: Not So Free After All appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Part I of this two-part series appeared in the July issue. Part II follows below, and continues, without introductory comments, where the first article ended.]

Not only does atheistic evolution devalue human life, it also taints many of the most important areas of human interaction. Sexuality is one area of human behavior that has been completely disrupted by the erroneous concepts of evolution and atheism. In a work he titled Ends and Means, atheist Aldous Huxley wrote:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption…. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom (1937, pp. 270, 273, emp. added).

Following Huxley’s argument, if we assume that the world was not created by God, and that there is ultimately no real meaning to human existence, then we can have sex with whomever, whenever, and in whatever way we choose. Evolutionary atheism offers sexual deviance a blank check to be filled out in whatever way each “naked ape” chooses. Numerous examples can be shown in which atheistic evolution is used to explain and defend sordid sexual perversions.

Rape and Evolution

Working under the assumption of naturalistic evolution, and knowing the ethical implications of such, Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer co-authored a book titled A Natural History of Rape, published by the MIT Press in 2000. In their preface they stated that they “would like to see rape eradicated from human life” (p. xi). A noble thought—to eradicate such a detestable practice. Their self-professed purpose is to educate their readers as to the causes of rape. They feel this education will help their readers understand rape better, and be more fully equipped to initiate programs that will prevent rape more efficiently than the current programs.

Yet, as noble as their suggested aim may be, Thornhill and Palmer embarked on an impossible task. Since they apply naturalistic, evolutionary thinking to rape, they are forced to say, in essence, that there is really nothing ultimately wrong with the practice (although they do not like it and want to see it eradicated). In the third chapter, titled “Why Do Men Rape?,” the authors note: “The males of most species—including humans—are usually more eager to mate than the females, and this enables females to choose among males who are competing with one another for access to them. But getting chosen is not the only way to gain sexual access to females. In rape, the male circumvents the female’s choice” (2000, p. 53).

Comparing humans with animal species, the authors view rape as a natural way for males to circumvent the selection process. In fact, they claim: “Human rape arises from men’s evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates” (p. 190, emp. added). They further state that “[e]volutionary theory applies to rape, as it does to other areas of human affairs, on both logical and evidentiary grounds. There is no legitimate scientific reason not to apply evolutionary or ultimate hypotheses to rape” (p. 55).

In their proposed “scientific” reasons why men rape women, Thornhill and Palmer suggested that in some cases heavy metals such as lead “disrupt psychological adaptations of impulse control,” which may lead to a “higher rate of criminality” (p. 58). They stated: “Lead may account for certain cases of rape, just as mutations may” (p. 58, emp. added). Thus, rape may simply be caused when a male of a species is exposed to an excess of some type of heavy metal like lead or by mutations. Sam Harris added: “There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape. But no one would argue that rape is good, or compatible with a civil society, because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors” (2006, pp. 90-91). Joann Rodgers quipped: “Rape or at least rape-like acts clearly exist in many species, giving additional weight to both rape’s ‘natural’ roots and its ‘value’ in our biological and psychological legacy” (2001, p. 412). She further commented: “Even rape, fetishes, bondage, and other so-called aberrant sexual behaviors are almost certainly biologically predisposed, if not adaptive, and may therefore be what biologists call ‘conserved’ traits, attributes or properties useful or essential to life across all cultures and genomes” (p. 11, emp. added).

The fallacy with this line of thinking is that it flies in the face of everything humans know about moral decisions. Furthermore, it transforms a vicious, morally reprehensible activity into something that may occasionally be caused by mutations or other phenomena that exempt the rapist from taking responsibility for his actions. Such “scientific” explanations for an immoral action like rape are absolutely appalling. When boiled down to its essence, as Thornhill, Palmer, Harris, and Rodgers, have so well illustrated, proponents of naturalistic evolution can never claim that any activity is wrong in an ultimate sense. This being the case, any action that a person chooses to do would be considered just as morally right as any other action, since all human behavior would be the by-product of evolution. As Darwin himself said, “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added). If a man follows his impulse to rape a woman, atheists cannot say, and more and more will not say, it is wrong.

Homosexuality

In the section dealing with abortion (in part one of this series), we noted how evolutionists often appeal to nature to justify immoral behavior. They claim that if animals can be found to exhibit a certain behavior, it is then moral for humans to engage in that behavior as well. Evolutionists have followed this line of reasoning in their defense of homosexuality. For example, the Oslo Natural History Museum opened the world’s first exhibit documenting cases of “homosexual” behavior in nature. One of the statements in the exhibit reads: “We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear—homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature” (Doyle, 2006).

In a Live Science article titled, “Animal Sex: No Stinking Rules,” the author wrote:

Animals flout established rules when it comes to the game of love and sex. In fact, the animal kingdom is full of swingers. Bonobos are highly promiscuous, engaging in sexual interactions more frequently than any other primate, and in just about every combination from heterosexual to homosexual unions. Mothers even mate with their mature sons…. Bonobo societies ‘make love, not war,’ and their frequent sex is thought to strengthen social bonds and resolve conflict. This idea could explain why bonobo societies are relatively peaceful and their relatives, chimpanzees, which practice sex strictly for reproduction, are prone to violence (n.d.).

Of course, the fallacy of such thinking has already been exposed. Immoral behavior cannot be justified by referring to animal behavior. Furthermore, homosexuality is certainly “against nature,” that is, the natural way that God designed humans to function. The inspired apostle Paul condemned homosexuality:

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due (Romans 1:26-27, emp. added).

Homosexuality controverts human nature in at least two fundamental ways. First, on a basic physical, anatomical level, homosexuality disregards the natural use of the sexual organs of men and women. Males and females were designed to be sexually compatible in order to reproduce and bear offspring (see Genesis 1:28). If homosexuality was a natural, genetic occurrence (which it is not—see Harrub and Miller, 2004), the genes responsible for it would quickly disappear due to the inability of same sex couples to reproduce. Second, God designed men and women to be capable of a relationship, in marriage, unlike any other human relationship. When a man and a woman are joined together, they become “one-flesh,” a biblical phrase that describes the epitome of intimacy and compatibility (Genesis 2:23). God specifically designed Eve, and all future women, to be perfect helpers suitable for Adam and subsequent men. And, while it is true that sinful humans often fail to achieve the intimacy and oneness designed by God, it is not because of faulty design, but of people’s sinful decisions. God designed men and women to be naturally compatible both physically and emotionally. Homosexuality circumvents that inherent compatibility.

Sex Behind the Bike Sheds

In the United States of America, one would be hard pressed to find a person who does not understand that teenage pregnancy among unwed mothers is a colossal problem in this country (as well as many others). Contributors to the official Web site of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, explain: “Despite hitting the lowest level in 30 years, 31% of teenage girls get pregnant at least once before they reach age 20” (“The National Day…,” 2008). The site further informs its readers that 750,000 teens per year get pregnant. In order to curb this destructive trend, the government sanctioned a day designated as “The National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy,” the seventh annual of which occurred on May 7, 2008. Organizations that partnered in this effort included The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Medical Association, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the March of Dimes, the National 4-H Council, and a host of other well-known groups.

In the official Teen Discussion Guide of “The National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy,” the authors noted: “Sex has consequences—both physical and emotional.” They further stated: “Not having sex is the best and safest choice to prevent pregnancy…” (“Teen Discussion Guide,” 2008). In a section of the guide titled “Fact or Fiction,” the authors wrote: “Fact: Abstinence is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy” (2008). It is abundantly clear that the general population of approximately 300 million people in the U.S. recognize teen pregnancy as a problem and would like to see it stopped.

The only sure solution to teen pregnancy is equally clear—total sexual abstinence among unmarried teenagers. When thinking about ideas or philosophical frameworks that would encourage such abstinence, where would one turn? The obvious answer is to the New Testament. The Bible repeatedly stresses the need for sexual purity, and condemns sexual activity outside of the marriage bond. Hebrews 13:4 makes that point abundantly clear: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” The apostle Paul admonished his readers to “put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5, emp. added; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:18). The New Testament clearly and consistently presents sexual guidelines that, if followed, would prevent 100% of out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy.

When attention is turned to the philosophy of atheistic evolution, the situation is much different. Not only do the logical implications of evolution not prohibit teen pregnancy, they actually encourage and justify it. In June 2006, Dr. Lawrence Shaw, deputy medical director at the Bridge Centre in London, spoke at the 22nd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (“Teenage and 60-Year-Old…,” 2006). In his speech, he explored the alleged evolutionary history of humans, and how that heritage affects present human behavior. Speaking directly to the issue of teen pregnancy, Shaw stated:

Therefore, before we condemn our teenagers for having sex behind the bike sheds and becoming pregnant, we should remember that this is a natural response by these girls to their rising fertility levels. Society may “tut, tut” about them, but their actions are part of an evolutionary process that goes back nearly two million years; whilst their behaviour may not fit with Western society’s expectations, it is perhaps useful to consider it in the wider context (as quoted in “Teenage and 60-Year-Old…,” 2006, emp. added).

Shaw’s rationale is in complete harmony with the implications of evolution, while at the same time completely at odds with what is morally justified. In Sex: A Natural History, Joann Rodgers wrote about a high school sophomore who was longing to entice the local football star into a “few stolen kisses” or a sexual “backseat tumble.” Concerning this teen, Rodgers wrote:

Her physiological need, her reproductive status, and her strategies are not altogether removed from that of the Florida black beetle, Lara the bonobo, or the castle-bound Guinevere longing for Lancelot. Athleticism and body building, one-night stands, romantic love, and jealousy, along with infidelity, monogamy, and homosexuality, are so universally demonstrable across species and cultures that they have long been presumed in large measure to have been drawn through the filter of sexual evolution and biology” (2001, p. 11).

According to evolution, promiscuous teenagers are not morally responsible for negative sexual behavior. They simply are programmed to pass on their genes to the next generation. Teenagers who are getting pregnant might not fit into “Western society’s expectations,” but they are not doing anything immoral or wrong—according to the theory. They are simply acting on their evolutionary impulses that span back some two million years, just like black beetles and bonobos.

Evolution and Adultery

Why would a person make a solemn vow to be sexually faithful to his spouse in a committed marriage relationship, but then break that vow and commit adultery with another person? Is there anything morally wrong with adultery? As with other deviant sexual practices, evolutionary theory explains adultery in purely naturalistic terms, absolving adulterous perpetrators of any moral delinquency. In her article titled “Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous,” Jeanna Bryner said: “Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that men are more likely to have extramarital sex, partially due to the male urge to ‘spread genes’ by broadcasting sperm. Both males and females, these scientists say, try to up their evolutionary progress by seeking out high-quality mates, albeit in different ways” (n.d.). Bryner quoted Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, who said: “We’re special in this regard [the tendency to be monogamous—KB], but at the same time like most mammals, we are a polygynous species.” Bryner then explained: “Kruger said humans are considered ‘mildly polygynous,’ in which a male mates with more than one female” (n.d.). According to atheistic evolution, adultery is not a morally debased breach of a marriage contract, but rather simply the outworking of the “evolutionary urge” to pass on one’s genes to the next generation in the most effective way possible.

Joann Rodgers noted: “Indeed, lifelong monogamy appears to be as rare in us as in the animal world, at least among the so-called alpha or most powerful males and females” (2001, p. 341). Rodgers further stated: “Other evidence for a natural tendency to infidelity emerges from how easily and simply our behavior and our biochemistry can be subverted to the game” (p. 341, italics in orig.). She paralleled human sexual behavior with studies done on birds, such as the reed warbler, bluebirds, and the pied flycatcher, as well as other animals, such as primates and prairie voles. Concerning these studies, she said that “evidence for the prevalence and reward of promiscuity in females is considerable” (p. 342). Rodgers concluded:

And in humans and most animals, adultery and infidelity—what Fisher calls “nature’s Peyton Place”—are widespread, common, tolerated, and in fact reinforced by our biology. Only if promiscuity really maximizes a woman’s reproductive edge is it worth both the risk and her having evolved those subtle deceits such as hidden ovulation and the capacity to hide or fake orgasm (p. 343).

Notice that Rodgers takes it to be a matter of fact that humans naturally commit adultery. She reasons that such is the case because adulterous females maximize their reproductive “edge.” In fact, she is so bold as to state that if adultery were not evolutionarily productive, it would not exist, and the fact that it occurs so often, both in humans and in animals, is evidence that it is beneficial as far as evolution is concerned.

What does Rodgers have to say about the feelings of guilt and shame that often accompany adulterous relationships? She admitted that “[g]uilt and shame always seem to be part and parcel of sexual cheating” (p. 341). But she suggested that “shame, guilt, and concepts of sexual morality evolved just as surely as our tendency to stray” (p. 379, italics in orig.). Analyzing adultery, then, from an evolutionary standpoint, it is simply a natural, inherited behavior, that is often accompanied by the evolved emotions of shame and guilt, but it has several practical, reproductive advantages and that is why it persists. According to such evolutionary thinking, humans should hardly even attempt to regulate sexual activity or apply moral constraints to it. Rodgers quipped: “What seems to be the case is that human societies do best when they live and let live, up to a point, in order to keep our social responsibilities and our biological drives in some balance” (p. 353, emp. added).

Such thinking is debased and illogical. Sexual misconduct is not a product of evolution, it is the product of selfish decisions made by the parties involved. Society cannot clear its bespattered conscience with a single swipe of the evolutionary eraser. We must face the fact that we as a society are acting immorally, and we must resolve to teach the one philosophy that can remedy the situation: there is a God in heaven and we must live according to His Word.

Pedophilia

Since sexual behavior such as promiscuity before marriage, adultery, and homosexuality are generally viewed by atheistic evolutionists as “mainstream” and harmless when involving consenting adults, most evolutionists have no problem openly declaring them to be products of evolution. Yet it is difficult, though not impossible, to find an “honest” evolutionist that will extend the logical implications of atheistic evolution to fringe, grotesque sexual behaviors such as pedophilia. In truth, if adultery and promiscuity are nothing more than the outworking of evolutionary urges, are not all sexual behaviors? Who is to say which behaviors are “moral” and should be maintained, or which ones are “immoral” and wrong? Such is the quagmire into which evolutionists have plunged themselves.

In a chapter titled “Bad Sex,” Joann Rodgers wrote: “In addition, even the criminal justice system is coming to recognize that while pedophilia and other forms of exploitive sex must be punished in order to protect victims, the perpetrators may also be victims—not necessarily of any abuse but of their biological predispositions” (2001, p. 429, emp. added). She then quoted psychiatrist Fred Berlin, who said: “Nothing in the research suggests that perversions are ‘volitional’ or that their expression is a failure of self-control” (p. 429, emp. added).

Notice the implications involved in these statements. Pedophiles allegedly are victims of their biological predispositions. Furthermore, their actions are not “volitional” (based on their own choices or freewill), nor are their actions a failure to control their urges. One has to wonder why, then, such behavior should be punished. If it is not volitional, or controlled by a person’s will, we cannot expect punishment to alter the behavior. Furthermore, if pedophilia is not a lack of self-control, why would we expect punishment to hinder those contemplating committing such acts in the future? If pedophiles are biologically predisposed to sexual perversion, cannot will themselves in any other direction, and are not suffering from a lack of self-control, punishment can neither change their behavior nor discourage them (or others) from future involvement in it. If evolution is true, then all sexual behaviors, including pedophilia, homosexuality, necrophilia, bestiality, polygamy, and promiscuity are equally “moral” options. As Rodgers wrote:

In the origin and development of species, no surviving component of sex, can be considered unnatural or unnecessary. All aspects of sex observable in animals today, no less than sexual reproduction itself, are what biologists and psychologists call “highly conserved.” All aspects of sex are the evolutionary winners across the eons of natural selection, of trial and error. They persist in us and every other creature precisely because of their importance in survival (2001, pp. 4-5, italics in orig.).

Not only is sexual perversion and promiscuity a direct and logical implication of atheistic evolution, but such sexual laxity is one of the primary aims of the atheistic community. In 2007, atheistic writer Christopher Hitchens wrote a book titled god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens has been critically acclaimed as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time,” according to the London Observer. The Los Angeles Times stated that he is a “political and literary journalist extraordinaire.” In god is not Great, Hitchens repeatedly argues that biblical sexual purity and monogamous sexual fidelity are not only undesirable, but actually destructive. In his list of four irreducible objections to religious faith, he included that faith “is both the result and cause of dangerous sexual repression” (2007, p. 4). Just six pages later, he wrote that it is absurd to think that someone could know that there is a God and “to know what ‘he’ demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality” (p. 10). Later in the book, Hitchens wrote:

The relationship between physical health and mental health is now well understood to have a strong connection to the sexual function, or dysfunction. Can it be a coincidence, then, that all religions claim the right to legislate in matters of sex? The principle way in which believers inflict on themselves, on each other, and on nonbelievers, has always been their claim to monopoly in this sphere (p. 53).

In opposition to the “sexual repression” that Hitchens assigns to all religions, he stated: “Clearly, the human species is designed to experiment with sex” (p. 54). He also stated: “Sexual innocence, which can be charming in the young if it is not needlessly protracted, is positively corrosive and repulsive in the mature adult” (p. 227).

In his final chapter titled “The Need for a New Enlightenment,” Hitchens concluded his book with a plea to banish all religions. He wrote:

Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman…. Very importantly, the divorce between sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse (p. 283, emp. added).

From Hitchens’ writings, it is abundantly clear that one of his primary purposes for getting rid of God is so he, and those who adopt his atheistic propositions, can “experiment” sexually as evolved animals without any fetters of conscience. [NOTE: Many of the religions that Hitchens discusses are guilty of approving unbiblical injunctions regarding sex that deserve denunciation, such as forbidding to marry. Hitchens’ point, however, is clear: all religions, including New Testament Christianity, should be abolished so that no sexual restrictions hinder unregulated sexual experimentation.]

Hitchens is certainly not alone in his desire to see atheism propel human sexuality into an unregulated realm of experimental promiscuity. Militant atheist Sam Harris, in his Letter to a Christian Nation, attempted to explain to Christians that sexuality has nothing to do with morality. He wrote:

You [Christians—KB] believe that your religious concerns about sex, in all their tiresome immensity, have something to do with morality…. Your principle concern appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offence at something people do while naked. This prudery of yours contributes daily to the surplus of human misery (2006, p. 26).

Harris further commented that “any God who could concern Himself with something as trivial as gay marriage…is not as inscrutable as all that” (p. 55).

Other atheists have advanced the banner of sexual anarchy into realms such as pornography. David Mills, in Atheist Universe, titled chapter nine “Christian Fundamentalists and the ‘Danger’ of Internet Porn” (2006, p. 190). In that chapter, Mills extrapolates from his atheistic philosophy that pornography is harmless and morally neutral. He stated: “When viewed in historical perspective, it is difficult to believe that teenage males are genuinely harmed by sexual images…. No credible sociological or psychological study of this question has discerned any harmful effects whatever of a teenage male’s viewing photos of nude women or of adult copulation” (p. 197). Mills further proposed that senseless religious moralizing is to blame for the fact that pornography has ever been stigmatized as immoral. He brazenly asserted: “When all the religious and moralistic blathering is dismissed, opponents of internet porn have failed utterly to document any empirical ‘harm’ to teenage males…” (p. 198).

Mills is demonstrably wrong in his assertion that no documented empirical evidence verifies that teenage males are harmed by pornography. Numerous studies document that, among other deleterious effects, viewing pornography “can lead to anti-social behavior,” “desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offence,” and “leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction” (Rogers, 1990). According to one study of rapists, half of those surveyed “used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim” (1990). In addition, heavy exposure to pornography “encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape” (1990).

Mills, Hitchens, Harris, and many of their fellow atheists are attempting to strip away all moral “regulations” from human sexuality. Make no mistake: atheism justifies sexual conduct of any kind, and those atheists who understand this point are demanding that all societal regulations on sex be abolished. As Joann Rodgers aptly summarized:

Animals, insects, and bacteria, with their multiple desires, mutinous genders, alternative sex lives, and sometimes violent mating habits, behave in ways that we humans, in our arrogance, consider graceless if not immoral. And yet what we may consider profane in nature is indeed profound…. With evolutionary biology as our guide, however, we are better able to see what has long been concealed in our nature and nurture, and that the profound is not at all profane (2001, pp. 40-41, emp. added).

Of course, atheists do not sit idly by while their philosophy is accused of grotesquely immoral implications. They fire back with the idea that millions have been abused, tortured, and murdered at the hands of “Christians.” Atheistic apologists then proceed to detail horrible crimes that took place during the Salem Witch Trials, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition. David Mills wrote: “The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch burnings, the torture of ‘infidels’ were all carried out in the name of the Christian God. While it is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for perversions of its teachings, it is nonetheless indisputable that, historically more people have been slaughtered in the name of the Christian religion than for any reason connected to atheism” (2006, p. 48). Hitchens’ book god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything contains copious examples of crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of religion. The second chapter of his book is titled “Religion Kills.” In it, he discussed several countries he visited. He stated: “Here then, is a very brief summary of the religiously inspired cruelty I witnessed in these six places” (2007, p. 18). The paragraphs that follow that statement document multiple tortures and murders done in the name of specific religions.

Hitchens and others can easily document atrocities performed in the name of religion. But does this prove that all religion is false, and that if a person can spot a flaw or comprehend a fallacy in one religion, then he has effectively disproved the validity of all religions? Absolutely not. Can you imagine what would happen if this type of argument were used in other areas of life? Apply such thinking to food: since many foods are poisonous and have killed people, all foods should be avoided. Apply the thinking to electricity: since many people have died while using electricity, all electrical use is detrimental to society. Or apply it to activities like swimming: many have drowned while swimming, thus all swimming leads to drowning and should be avoided. What if the logic were applied to surgery? Since it is true that thousands of people have died during or as a result of surgery, then all surgery should be avoided, because it leads to death or is in some way physically detrimental to society. Obviously, the ridiculous idea that all religion is detrimental to society, simply because it can be proven that some religions are, should be quickly discarded by any honest, thoughtful observer.

New Testament Christianity does not stand or fall based on the validity of competing religions. In fact, Hitchens and others are right in asserting that many religions are detrimental to society. But they are wrong to lump true Christianity in with the rest of the useless lot. New Testament Christianity is unique, logically valid, historically documented, and philosophically flawless. It does not crumble with those religions that are filled with “vain babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Timothy 6:20). Instead, New Testament Christianity, as personified in the life of Jesus Christ, shines forth as the truth that makes men free (John 8:32).

Furthermore, it should be noted that atheism is not discredited based on the behavior of its adherents. Some atheists are kind to others, hard-working, and considerate. Does this prove that atheism is true? No. On the other hand, some atheists shoot their classmates because they consider them less fit. Does the brutal, immoral behavior of these individuals discredit atheism as a philosophy? Not necessarily. No philosophy can be correctly assessed based solely on the behavior of those who claim to follow it. Hitchens correctly stated: “The first thing to be said is that virtuous behavior by a believer is no proof at all of—indeed is not even an argument for—the truth of his belief” (2007, pp. 184-185).

Having said that, we must hasten to state that a philosophy can be correctly assessed by considering only the behaviors which are based on the correctly derived, logical implications of the philosophy. In regard to the crimes done in “the name of Christianity,” even atheists admit that such crimes were justified by twisting the teachings of the New Testament. Notice that Mills conceded: “While it is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for perversions of its teachings, it is nonetheless indisputable that, historically more people have been slaughtered in the name of the Christian religion than for any reason connected to atheism” (2006, p. 48, emp. added). Harris made a similar statement: “You probably think the Inquisition was a perversion of the ‘true’ spirit of Christianity. Perhaps it was” (2006, p. 11, emp. added). An honest reading of the New Testament lays bare the lucid fact that activities such as the witch hunts and inquisitions were not behaviors based on the logical implications of the teachings of Christ in the New Testament. Jesus taught people to treat others with love, kindness, and respect—the way they, themselves, wish to be treated (Matthew 7:12).

Notice, however, that the behaviors and views decried in this series about the fruits of atheism are directly derived from a proper understanding of atheism, and are propounded by the atheists themselves. Who said that atheistic evolution destroys all moral absolutes? Who stated that parents should have the option to kill a child a month after it is born? Who proposed that humans are no better than bacteria, and that 90% of the human population needs to be eliminated? Who suggested that sexual promiscuity, teen pregnancy, rape, and homosexuality are natural products of the evolutionary process? Evolutionary atheists are the ones promoting these ideas. Radical Christian fundamentalists are not building rhetorical straw men by concocting outlandish, grotesquely immoral behaviors out of thin air. On the contrary, the immoral actions and attitudes arising from atheistic evolution are clearly spelled out and advocated by the atheists themselves. If a person who claims to be a Christian kills a one-month-old child because the child is a hemophiliac, that person violates every principle derived from an accurate understanding of New Testament teaching. If an atheist does the same, he does so with the full force of a proper understanding of atheistic evolution justifying his behavior.

The concept of God is the only rational basis for an ultimate moral standard. When the concept of God is eradicated from a philosophy or society, that philosophy or society cuts off its ability to make moral decisions. In turn, it forfeits the ability to “eradicate” such actions as rape, theft, murder, or any other immoral vice. As John Paul Sartre appropriately commented, “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself” (1961, p. 485). When the Bible succinctly stated, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’ they are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1), it offered accurate, divine commentary on every person, society, or philosophy that would abandon the notion that God exists—“They are corrupt.”

In truth, the false philosophy of naturalistic evolution fails on many accounts, not the least of which is its inability to provide a foundation for ethics. The denial of a divine, ultimate standard of morality throws one into hopeless confusion about how actions such as rape should be viewed. Naturalistic evolutionists who are honest with their theory’s implications can say they do not “like” things like rape, or they think it is best that rape be stopped, or that they think it might be more beneficial to the majority for the action to be limited or eradicated, but they have no grounds on which to say it is absolutely, morally wrong.

In stark contrast to the foundationless ethics of naturalistic philosophy, the concept of God provides the perfect rationale on which to base moral determinations. There is a God who sees both “the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). He will call every person into account for his or her actions (Revelation 20:12-15). Therefore each individual is responsible to that God for any actions he or she commits in violation of His moral standard found in the Bible (Ephesians 3:3-4). Rape, murderous abortion, school slayings, genocide, and other such heinous crimes against humanity are not biological, evolutionary by-products passed down to humans from some mammalian precursor, nor are such crimes biological “malfunctions” caused by mutations. Such actions are sinful, morally reprehensible crimes against humanity and God by individuals who have chosen to ignore the ultimate moral standard God manifested in His Son Jesus Christ and recorded in His Word, the Bible.

“Animal Sex: No Stinking Rules” (no date), Live Science, [On-line], URL: http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=&cat=polygamous.

Bryner, Jeanna (no date), “Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous?” Live Science, [On-line], URL: http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080319-llm-monogamy.html.

Darwin, Charles (1958), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, ed. Nora Barlow (New York: W.W. Norton).

Doyle, Alister (2006), “Birds and Bees May Be Gay: Museum Exhibition,” [On-line], URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061012/sc_nm/environment_homosexuality_ dc;_ylt=AhEiR4DtDaCUi1h7KCssWvms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlY wM5NjQ-.

Harris, Sam (2006), Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).

Harrub, Brad and Dave Miller (2004), “This is the Way God Made Me: A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the ‘Gay Gene,’” Reason & Revelation, 24[8]:73-79, August, [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2553.

Hitchens, Christopher (2007), god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve).

Huxley, Aldous (1937), Ends and Means (London: Chatto & Windus).

Mills, David (2006), Atheist Universe (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press).

“The National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy” (2008), [On-line], URL: http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/national/default.aspx.

Rodgers, Joann (2001), Sex: A Natural History (New York: Henry Holt).

Rogers, Jay (1990), “The Documented Effects of Pornography,” The Forerunner, [On-line], URL: http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0388_Effects_of_Pornograp.html.

Sartre, Jean Paul, (1961), “Existentialism and Humanism,” French Philosophers from Descartes to Sartre, ed. Leonard M. Marsak (New York: Meridian).

“Teen Discussion Guide” (2008), [On-line], URL: http://www.stayteen.org/quiz/assets/2008_ND_teen_guide.pdf.

“Teenage and 60-Year-Old Mums are Consequences of Evolution” (2006), European Society of Human Reproduction & Embryology, [On-line], URL: http://www.eshre.com/emc.asp?pageId=795.

Thornhill, Randy and Craig T. Palmer (2000), A Natural History of Rape (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

The post The Bitter Fruits of Atheism [Part II] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: For several decades now, evolution has received preeminent exposure throughout American culture via public schools, natural history and science museums, television programming, national parks guide booklets, popular magazines, children’s toys and clothing, movies and cinema, and the list goes on. What have been the results of such widespread, unilateral propaganda? Has the teaching of evolution exerted a positive influence on society? Have people been enriched, elevated, and enobled by the teaching of evolution? Atheistic evolutionists do not relish taking responsibility for the logical implications and consequences of their belief system. Nevertheless, read for yourself the first installment in a series on the bitter fruits of atheism and its progeny, evolution.]

On February 12, 1998, William Provine, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the distinguished Cornell University, took to the podium on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He was invited to deliver the keynote address at the second annual Darwin Day, a day dedicated to commemorating the life and teachings of Charles Darwin. In an abstract of that speech, on the Darwin Day Web site, Dr. Provine’s introductory comments are recorded in the following words: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent” (Provine, 1998). Provine’s ensuing message centered on his fifth statement regarding human free will. Prior to delving into the “meat” of his message, however, he noted: “The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them” (1998).

It is clear then, from Provine’s comments, that he believes naturalistic evolution has no way to produce an “ultimate foundation for ethics.” And it is equally clear that this sentiment was so apparent to “modern naturalistic evolutionists” that Dr. Provine did not feel it even needed to be defended. Oxford professor Richard Dawkins concurred with Provine by saying: “Absolutist moral discrimination is devastatingly undermined by the fact of evolution” (2006, p. 301).

Comments from such high-profile evolutionists provide an excellent springboard from which to examine the logical consequences of belief in naturalistic evolution. If it is true that humans evolved from non-living, primordial slime, then any sense of moral obligation must simply be a subjective outworking of the physical neurons firing in the brain. Theoretically, atheistic scientists and philosophers admit this truth. Charles Darwin understood it perfectly. He wrote: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added). On a pragmatic level, however, when a person or group of people actually allow the theoretical idea to influence their actions, the brutality of evolution’s immorality is brought to light, and its absurdity is manifested.

It is an easily ascertainable fact that belief in atheistic evolution devalues human life, demoting it to the base level of animal status. Such thinking logically leads to the adoption of measures that destroy innocent human life, but are still viewed by atheistic thinkers as “moral.” For instance, in 1983, Peter Singer published an article in the prestigious magazine Pediatrics titled “Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?” In the article, he contended that there is no moral burden to keep alive human infants who are born with mental retardation or other developmental problems such as Down’s syndrome. The entire article presents a case against the sanctity of human life, and suggests that the lives of some animals would be much more valuable than the lives of mentally retarded children. In fact, he alluded to the fact that modern, evolutionary teaching has destroyed the idea of the sanctity of human life:

We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation…. Our better understanding of our own nature has bridged the gulf that was once thought to lie between ourselves and other species, so why should we believe that the mere fact that a being is a member of the species Homo sapiens endows its life with some unique, almost infinite, value?… If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant. Only the fact that the defective infant is a member of the species Homo sapiens leads it to be treated differently from the dog or pig. Species membership alone, however, is not morally relevant…. If we can put aside the obsolete and erroneous notion of the sanctity of all human life, we may start to look at human life as it really is: at the quality of life that each human being has or can achieve” (Singer, 72[1]:128-129 emp. added).

In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins expressed the same idea when he wrote: “Notice now that ‘pro-life’ doesn’t exactly mean pro-life at all. It means pro-human-life. The granting of uniquely special rights to cells of the species Homo sapiens is hard to reconcile with the fact of evolution…. The humanness of an embryo’s cells cannot confer upon it any absolutely discontinuous moral status” (2006, p. 300, italics in orig., emp. added).

In his book Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism, self-proclaimed Darwinian James Rachels stated that when the true moral implications of evolution are understood,

human life will no longer be regarded with the kind of superstitious awe which it is accorded in traditional thought, and the lives of non-humans will no longer be a matter of indifference. This means that human life will, in a sense, be devalued, while the value granted to non-human life will be increased. A revised view of such matters as suicide and euthanasia, as well as a revised view of how we should treat animals, will result (1990, p. 5, emp. added).

He further noted: “The big issue in all this is the value of human life…. The difficulty is that Darwinism leaves us with fewer resources from which to construct an account of the value of life” (p. 197, emp. added).

According to atheistic evolution, whether a human child lives or dies should depend on the level of potential suffering, intelligence or lack thereof, mental retardation, or physical handicap. If resources are so limited that an intelligent chimpanzee and a human child cannot both be kept alive, then the child’s intelligence or threshold of suffering should be compared to the chimpanzee’s. If the chimp happens to be more “intelligent” or more capable of suffering, then the “simple” fact that the child is a human should not confer any special moral status. Thus, according to this line of thinking, it would be morally right to eliminate the human child in favor of the chimpanzee. Rachels presented this idea quite clearly:

An infant with severe brain damage, even if it survives for many years, may never learn to speak, and its mental powers may never rise above a primitive level. In fact, its psychological capacities may be markedly inferior to those of a typical rhesus monkey. In that case, moral individualism [of which Rachels is a proponent—KB] would see no reason to prefer its life over the monkey’s (1990, pp. 189-190).

The absurdity of such thinking flies in the face of everything that humans have understood to be moral. The framers of the Declaration of Independence understood the special place that humans hold. They penned the famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (1776). Notice that the Declaration framers believed that humans had certain rights that were “self-evident.” In fact, the framers simply recorded this idea that had been understood by humanity for millennia.

What happens when individuals, who believe that humans should not be given any special moral status, put their belief into action? James Rachels shed a sickening light on that question when he concluded:

Some unfortunate humans—perhaps because they have suffered brain damage—are not rational agents. What are we to say about them? The natural conclusion, according to the doctrine we are considering, would be that their status is that of mere animals. And perhaps we should go on to conclude that they may be used as non-human animals are used—perhaps as laboratory subjects, or as food (1990, p. 186).

Population Elimination

Forrest Mims III is the Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science. He edits a publication titled The Citizen Scientists. On March 3-5, 2006, Mims attended the 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science, which was held at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Mims related the events that occurred during that meeting in an article titled Meeting Doctor Doom (2006). [Unless otherwise noted, the following quotes and facts are derived from that article.]

At the meeting, Dr. Eric R. Pianka, “the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist,” delivered a speech to about 400 attendees. Just before Pianka spoke, Mims noted that an official of the Academy was involved in a conversation with the cameraman who was recording the meeting. The conversation resulted in the cameraman pointing “the lens of his big camera to the ceiling and slowly walking away.” Mims started taking notes on the speech when Pianka began by warning the audience that most people are not ready to hear what he had to say to the assembly.

Mims noted that one of Pianka’s main points was that humans should not be given special status among other animals. “Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, ‘We’re no better than bacteria!’” In his speech, Pianka suggested that the Earth cannot survive the current human population increase, and that something needs to be done “to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.” Pianka then mentioned several ways this might occur. “His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days instead of years.” The speech ended with a question-and-answer period. Mims noted: “Immediately almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even cheered.”

Of course, many within the evolutionary community did not want to connect themselves closely with the idea that an evolutionary ecologist seems to think that his evolutionary ideas need to lead to the mass destruction of five billion humans. They quickly accused Mims of misrepresentation. On April 6, 2006, Nick Matzke wrote:

The wingnut echo chamber has recently gone insane over the idea that Eric Pianka, a distinguished and much-loved ecologist at UT, advocates mass genocide by ebola in order to bring down world population. The allegation was leveled by disgruntled creationist Forrest Mims, and rapidly spread to the blogosphere via places like Dembski’s blog (three posts!) and Telic Thoughts, and then went to the Drudge Report and caused a national media firestorm appearing in my local paper by Monday morning. I smelled a rat from the beginning, and now I have been proved right. KXAN News36 in Austin, TX, has just debunked the whole thing (2006, emp. added).

Matzke’s statement that the information from News36 debunked “the whole thing” was far from the truth. In fact, in a letter dated April 10, 2006, Assistant Professor Dr. Kenneth R. Summy, the Vice-Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, wrote:

My overall impression of Dr. Pianka’s presentation was a ‘doomsday’ message that life on earth is about to end, and the sooner the human population crashes the better. I hope he was joking or being sarcastic when he stated that a pandemic of ebola virus would be great for the earth? [sic] no sane person would really believe that (2006).

Dr. Summy further noted:

Forrest Mims did not misrepresent anything regarding the presentation. I heard these statements myself, and would be willing to bet that most of the audience attending the presentation got the same impression that I did. In my opinion, the message contained in the keynote address detracted from what was otherwise an excellent meeting (2006).

The following statements by a student “defending” Dr. Pianka add further credence to Mims’ record: “Dr. Pianka’s talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe…. He’s a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right” (“Dr. Eric R. Pianka…,” 2006; see also “Revisiting…,” 2006).

Additionally, Dr. Pianka personally posted several student evaluations of his teaching. One student commented: “I don’t root for ebola [sic], but maybe a ban on having more than one child. I agree…too many people [are] ruining this planet” (“Excerpts from Student Evaluations,” 1999). Another wrote: “Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola [sic] is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness” (“Excerpts from Student Evaluations”).

The fact is, Dr. Pianka’s evolutionary concepts of ecology push him to conclude that humans are no better than bacteria and that the human population needs to be dramatically reduced. As much as many of his fellow evolutionists would like to distance themselves from such radical thinking, they cannot logically do so. Atheistic evolution implies that humans are no better than bacteria. They may have more capacity to suffer, they may have more complex brains and body structures, but in the end, one living organism is only as valuable as another. If you have the moral right to destroy millions of bacteria because they are hindering the “progress” of humanity, you have the same moral right to destroy billions of humans because they are causing ecological problems for other, equally valuable, organisms on the planet.

Abortion

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines abortion as: “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus” (“Abortion,” n.d., emp. added). In the United States, this murderous practice has been legal since January 22, 1973, and has resulted in the deaths of more than 48 million innocent human lives in this country alone. If the abortions performed in Europe and Asia during the same time period were added to this figure, the death toll would easily reach into the hundreds of millions. Is it immoral to terminate the lives of unborn human children?

According to the atheistic evolutionary community, abortion is not an immoral practice. In fact, it is often viewed as something moral and right. One line of reasoning used to justify the practice is the idea that humans should not be treated differently than animals, since humans are nothing more than animals themselves. The fact that an embryo is “human” is no reason to give it special status. Dawkins wrote: “An early embryo has the sentience, as well as the semblance, of a tadpole…. One school of thought cares about whether embryos can suffer. The other cares about whether they are human…. Secular moralists are more likely to ask, ‘Never mind whether it is human (what does that even mean for a little cluster of cells?); at what ages does a developing embryo, of any specie become capable of suffering?’” (2006, pp. 297-298, italics and parenthetical items in orig.). Dawkins identifies himself as a “secular moralist” who would not factor into the moral equation the idea of “humanness.” How would he and other “secular moralists” decide if a human embryo should live? He noted:

A consequentialist or utilitarian is likely to approach the abortion question in a very different way, by trying to weigh up suffering. Does the embryo suffer? (Presumably not if it is aborted before it has a nervous system; and even if it is old enough to have a nervous system it surely suffers less than, say, an adult cow in a slaughterhouse.) (2006, p. 293, parenthetical item in orig., emp. added).

The modern atheistic moralist simply “weighs up suffering.” If the human embryo has not yet reached the stage at which a nervous system develops, then it is less valuable than an animal that does have a nervous system. And even if it does have a nervous system, it probably does not suffer as much as a cow in a slaughterhouse. Thus, it would be more moral to stop killing cows in a slaughterhouse than to stop allowing humans to abort their children. As atheistic writer Sam Harris noted: “If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst [three-day-old human embryo—KB]” (2006, p. 30). He further stated: “If you are worried about human suffering, abortion should rank very low on your list of concerns” (p. 37).

The moral bankruptcy of such thinking is brutally obvious. Since when is the amount of suffering the criterion by which moral decisions of human life and death are made? Yet that is exactly what Dawkins and his fellow atheistic moralists contend. He wrote: “Of course, it could be argued that humans are more capable of, for example, suffering than other species. This could well be true, and we might legitimately give humans special status by virtue of it” (2006, p. 301). According to Dawkins, it would be logically permissible to kill any person as long as they do not suffer, or others (like parents or siblings) do not suffer because of their deaths. Suppose, then, a society decides that five-year-old orphans with no siblings are less than ideal and need to be eliminated. In keeping with Dawkins’ morality, if policemen sneak up behind the children and deliver an immediately lethal bullet to their brains so that they never feel any pain, then such actions could be as morally viable as killing adult cows in a slaughterhouse. Dawkins and his fellow atheistic thinkers have absolutely no grounds on which to assert that killing five-year-olds in this fashion is “wrong.”

Peter Singer admits the reality of this logical implication of atheistic evolution. In his chapter titled: “Justifying Infanticide,” Singer concluded that human infants are “replaceable.” What does Singer mean by “replaceable”? He points out that if a mother has decided that she will have two children, and the second child is born with hemophilia, then that infant can be disposed of and replaced by another child without violating any moral code of ethics. He explained: “Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him. The total view treats infants as replaceable” (2000, p. 190).

He went on to argue that many in society would be aghast at killing an infant with a disability like hemophilia, but without good reason. He argued that such is done regularly before birth, when a mother aborts a child inutero after prenatal diagnosis reveals a disorder. He stated:

When death occurs before birth, replaceability does not conflict with generally accepted moral convictions. That a fetus is known to be disabled is widely accepted as a ground for abortion. Yet in discussing abortion, we say that birth does not mark a morally significant dividing line. I cannot see how one could defend the view that fetuses may be “replaced” before birth, but newborn infants may not (2000, p. 191).

Singer further proposed that parents should be given a certain amount of time after a child is born to decide whether or not they would like to kill the child. He wrote: “If disabled newborn infants were not regarded as having a right to life until, say, a week or a month after birth it would allow parents, in consultation with their doctors, to choose on the basis of far greater knowledge of the infant’s condition than is possible before birth” (2000, p. 193). One has to wonder why Singer would stop at one week or one month. Why not simply say that it is morally right for parents to kill their infants at one year or five years? Singer concluded his chapter on infanticide with these words: “Nevertheless the main point is clear: killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all” (p. 193, emp. added). When the logical consequences of atheistic evolution are so clearly spelled out by its adherents, the prospects are grisly indeed.

Another line of reasoning used to justify abortion (and various other immoral practices) is the idea that since humans are animals, it is right for them to behave like animals. Charles Darwin himself proposed in a chapter of The Descent of Man: “My object in this chapter is to shew that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (1871, p. 446). Thus, it is suggested that if we can find an example of animals engaging in an activity, that would provide enough moral justification needed for humans to practice the same. Applying this idea to abortion, Barbara Burke wrote: “Among some animal species, infant killing appears to be a natural practice. Could it be natural for humans too, a trait inherited from our primate ancestors? Charles Darwin noted in The Descent of Man that infanticide has been ‘probably the most important of all checks on population growth throughout most of human history’” (1974, 185:653).

Notice that Burke recognizes the fact that humans kill their offspring, and justifies the practice by referring to “analogous” activities in the animal kingdom. Maybe, she reasons, humans kill their infants or unborn children because they inherited the murderous practice from their animal ancestors. By reasoning in this fashion, she attempts, not only to suggest that killing human infants is not morally neutral, but that it could be morally right if the practice is used to check population growth. In this regard, James Rachels wrote:

Finally, if one is nevertheless tempted to believe that humans are psychologically unique, it is useful to remember that the whole enterprise of experimental psychology, as it is practiced today, assumes otherwise. Animal behaviour is routinely studied with an eye to acquiring information that can then be applied to humans. Psychologists who want to investigate maternal behaviour, for example…might study the behaviour of rhesus monkey mothers and infants, assuming that whatever is true of them will be true of humans—because, after all, they are so much like us (1990, p. 166, emp. added).

In response to such thinking, several points need to be considered. Humans are not animals. There is no documented evidence verifying the false idea that humans evolved from lower organisms (see Harrub and Thompson, 2002). In fact, all observable evidence verifies that humans maintain a completely unique status in regard to their mental, emotional, and cognitive components (see “In the Image…,” 2001; Lyons and Thompson, 2002). To justify human behavior based on behavior observed in the animal world exhibits a grotesque ignorance of everything humans understand about morality. Ten percent of the diet of an adult Komodo dragon often consists of its cannibalizing young Komodo dragons. Would anyone be so irrationally disturbed as to suggest that, because we see infant cannibalism in Komodo dragons, it would be natural for humans to eat their young as well? Apparently so. James Rachels wrote: “The whole idea of using animals as psychological models for humans is a consequence of Darwinism. Before Darwin, no one could have taken seriously the thought that we might learn something about the human mind by studying mere animals” (1990, p. 221, emp. added).

If all conceivable human behavior can be justified based on the idea that it mimics animal behavior, then why not abolish all laws, allow stronger humans to kill the weaker ones, allow mothers to eat their babies, allow men to murder sexual rivals, allow women to murder and cannibalize their lovers after intercourse, and simply chalk up such a deplorable situation to “nature”? The logical consequences of such philosophical justification are as obvious as they are ridiculous. The ploy to justify abortion (and other equally reprehensible immoralities) by suggesting that it is “natural” is little more than an attempt to cast aside all moral constraints and debase society to the point of mindless bestiality. Yet such is the logical result of atheism.

Death in the Name of Atheism

Not all atheists are grotesquely immoral people. In fact, many of them would be viewed as moral individuals who do not steal, murder, abuse their children, or violate laws. The point to be made is not that all atheistic thinkers are living out the logical implications of their beliefs. The point is that the philosophy of atheism logically implies that immorality is acceptable or non-existent. It is true that most atheists do not put the implications of their belief into practice, but it is also true that some do, and that their actions cannot be construed to be anything other than what they are—the logical consequences of atheistic, evolutionary thinking.

Of course, “respectable” atheists deny that people commit heinously immoral crimes at the instigation of atheism. As Dawkins has stated: “Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism” (Dawkins, 2006, p. 278, emp. added). His assertion is patently false. People often do evil things in the name of atheism. These people understand their evolutionary atheism to be a primary contributing factor to their evil actions, and the full weight of atheism’s logical conclusions justifies their behavior.

April 20, 1999 will go down in U.S. history as the date of one of the most nefarious, murderous criminal acts in modern times. Two teenage boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, after months of elaborate planning, opened fire on their schoolmates, killing 12 of their peers and one teacher, injuring 23 others, and then committing suicide. Evidence posted on the Web and in written documents showed that the two teens had concocted detailed plans to kill hundreds of students with homemade explosives, but most of their macabre plans went awry.

Hundreds of police investigators, educators, political leaders, and other professionals delved into the reasons why Harris and Klebold snapped as they did. One eye-opening aspect of the research has been the very clear connection between the evolutionary idea of natural selection and Harris’ desire to kill his fellow humans. On the day of the shooting, Harris wore a white T-shirt with the words “Natural Selection” emblazoned on it (“Columbine,” 2008). This was not coincidental, but was designed to make a statement. According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Report, in a document found in his room, Harris wrote: “I would love to see all you f——-ds die. NBK. I love it! sometime [sic] in April me and V will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches” (as quoted in “Columbine,” 2008, emp. added). His diary also stated: “I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts. but [sic] before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit for, anything at all, especially life” (as quoted in “Columbine,” 2008, emp. added).

In his article titled “Kill Mankind. No One Should Survive,” Dave Cullen reported extensively on the investigation surrounding the Columbine massacre. He wrote:

“They do consider the human race beneath them,” one investigator said. Harris “talks a lot about natural selection and that kind of leads into his admiration of Hitler and Nazism and their ‘final solution’—that we, the human race have interrupted or disrupted natural selection by inventing vaccines and stuff like that. In one of his writings, he talks about that: ‘It would be great if there were no vaccines, because people who should have died would have died, and we wouldn’t be perpetuating this kind of stuff’” (1999, emp. added).

The Columbine killers’ evolutionary beliefs cannot be disconnected from their brutal slayings.

Another example of this type of relationship between atheism and immoral behavior comes from Finland. An 18-year-old man named Pekka Eric Auvinen marched into his school and shot and killed seven of his schoolmates as well as the headmistress. He then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. When such gruesome carnage occurs, we naturally ask, “Why?” What would drive a young man like Auvinen to commit such horrific atrocities? In Auvinen’s case, the answer is clear.

Auvinen explained the philosophy that led him to commit this dastardly mass murder. On a Web site message board post from before the slaying, he explained that he was a self-avowed “cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist” (“Teen Dead…,” 2007, emp. added). He went on to state: “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection” (2007, emp. added). There you have it. The reason he murdered eight innocent people is because he was an atheistic evolutionist who devalued human life and believed that he had the right to destroy any living being who he considered to be less fit than himself.

As much as evolutionists insist on separating themselves from such disgusting displays of immorality, the logical implications of their godlessness tie them indubitably to Auvinen’s actions. The only thing that separates Auvinen from other atheists is that he acted out the logical implications of his atheistic belief. It is high time atheism’s immorality is recognized, repudiated, and exposed for the reprehensible fruit it bears.

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most notorious serial killers in modern history. He murdered 17 men and boys, dismembered them, stored human body parts in his apartment, practiced homosexual necrophilia and cannibalized his victims (Dahmer, 1994, p. 10). He was convicted of 15 counts of murder and sentenced to serve over 900 years in prison. During his incarceration, he was murdered by another inmate.

When a person perpetrates such brutal and deranged crimes against his fellow man, natural questions that arise in the minds of those who hear the details include: Why would a person commit such heinous crimes? What would cause a person to become such a murderer? In Jeffrey Dahmer’s case, he supplied the world with the answer.

In 1994, Stone Phillips interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer and his father Lionel Dahmer for NBC’s Dateline. In that interview, Stone Phillips asked Jeffrey Dahmer several questions regarding the possible causes of Dahmer’s behavior. In one portion of the interview, Jeffrey explained that he took complete and personal responsibility for his actions, and his crimes could not be blamed on his parents, school, or other external circumstances. Following those remarks, Jeffrey said: “There comes a point where a person has to be accountable for what he’s done.” His father, Lionel, then asked him: “Let me ask. When did you first feel that everyone is accountable for their actions?” Jeffrey responded:

Well, thanks to you for sending that creation science material. Because I always believed the lie that evolution is truth, the theory of evolution is truth. That we all just came from the slime, and when we died, you know, that was it. There was nothing. So the whole theory cheapens life…. And I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true Creator of the Earth. It didn’t just happen (Phillips, 1994, emp. added).

Lionel Dahmer then began to discuss the period of time during Jeffrey’s upbringing that he thought most influenced Jeffrey’s murderous behavior. Lionel said: “At that period of time I had drifted away from a belief in a Supreme Being. And I never, as a result, passed along the feeling that we are all accountable. In the end, He owns us. And that basic concept is very fundamental to all of us.”

Stone Phillips then asked Lionel: “You feel that the absence, at least for a while, of a strong religious faith and belief may have prevented you from instilling some of that in Jeff?” Lionel responded: “That’s right.” Phillips then turned to Jeffrey and asked: “Is that how you feel?” Jeffrey responded to Phillips’ question: “Yes, I think that had a big part to do with it. If a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought, anyway” (Phillips, 1994).

To what, then, did Dahmer attribute his gruesome, horrifying crimes? He simply said he believed that evolution is true, that humans arose from primordial slime, and that there is no personal accountability inherent in the theory. Dahmer understood the logical implications of atheistic evolution perfectly. Dahmer’s behavior appalls society because he had the brains and drive to put the theoretical implications into practice in real life. When he did, society was justifiably outraged at his behavior. But such outrage is justifiable only in the context of a God to Whom all people are accountable. Without such accountability, Dahmer was right to conclude: “What’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?” Dahmer is yet another example of a person who committed heinously evil crimes in the name of atheism.

“Abortion” (2008), Merriam-Webster Dictionary, [On-line], URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abortion.

Burke, Barbara (1974), “Infanticide,” Science, 185:653.

“Columbine” (2008), [On-line], URL: http://home.arcor.de/hbredel/Buch/Columbine-English/ columbine-english.html.

Cullen, Dave (1999), “Kill Mankind. No One Should Survive,” Salon.com, [On-line], URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/09/23/journal/print.html.

Dahmer, Lionel (1994), A Father’s Story (New York: William Morrow).

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Harris, Sam (2006), Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).

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Rachels, James (1990), Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (New York: Oxford University Press).

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Singer, Peter (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (New York: Harper Collins).

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The post The Bitter Fruits of Atheism [Part I] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Ed Buckner, writing for the Council for Secular Humanism, asserted that “secular humanist morality” is “pro-family” (2003). This reflects a portion of the International Academy of Humanism’s A Declaration of Interdependence:

Parents have the responsibility to bring up their children and provide them with food, shelter, love, education, and cultural enrichment. Children have concomitant duties to discharge in regard to their parents, to love, honor, and support them, and to help care for them when they are sick or elderly. Two individuals who have freely entered into marriage or cohabitation have duties to each other so long as the relationship is viable. Moral devotion does not depend solely on blood-ties, but extends to those with whom one has developed ties of friendship (1988, Section 3).

Secularism also acknowledges the need for other social responsibilities:

Similarly, we also have moral responsibilities to others in the smaller communities in which we have everyday relationships: teacher and student, shopkeeper and customer, doctor and patient, factory worker and consumer, and so on. There are also duties and obligations that we as citizens have to the towns and nation-states in which we live and work (Section 3).

In Kurtz’s Humanist Manifesto 2000, we read similar language: “No doubt each person already recognizes multiple responsibilities relative to his or her social context: persons have responsibilities to family, friends, the community, city, state, or nation in which they reside” (p. 35).

Are these statements representative of the actual, logical fruits of secularism, or merely a veneer to make secularism more appealing? Are these ideals of special obligation to family (and, in turn, community) consistent with the overall thrust and many particulars of secular humanism?

Break from Secularist Tradition

The recent statements on secularism’s supposed family values break with previous landmark statements of the movement. Secular humanism has been openly antagonistic toward family-oriented values since at least 1973, although the logical implications of even the earlier secular humanism are anti-family (see Humanist Manifesto I, 1933). Perhaps specific anti-family messages were absent from the first Manifesto because the document was meant to be a general charter (with specifically religious overtones) of secular humanism. Secularists may have thought anti-family messages were too distasteful to the public in 1933. By 1973, however, humanists were ready to deal with the sexual revolution by providing a more detailed explication of their devious purposes. The second Manifesto illustrates this:

In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized…. [N]either do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil”….[A] civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire (1973, Section 6).

A secularist claims the right to do, essentially, anything he pleases. With a commitment to irresponsible sexuality rather than familial responsibility, however, the second Manifesto logically militates against the propagation of humanity via the family structure. Fittingly, the second Manifesto contains only passing reference to the traditional family—only to show that it needs democratizing (Section 8; cf. Kurtz, 2000, p. 57). On the other hand, the second Manifesto proposes a world community for the entire “human family” (Section 12, emp. added; Section 13).

Family vs. Self

In his 1978 Harvard University address, Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned about a “destructive and irresponsible freedom” in the West. “Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence.” Secular humanism, lacking Christian regulation, places society in precisely that predicament. Secularists cannot escape the conflict between its overarching priority on individual rights and the ideals of familial commitment. “[T]he individual must experience a full range of civil liberties in all societies. This includes a recognition of an individual’s right to die with dignity, euthanasia, and the right to suicide” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973, Section 7, emp. added). “Humanists believe that the right to…abortion, and divorce should be recognized” (Section 6; cf. Kurtz, 2000, p. 47). The arguments for advocates of euthanasia and abortion are encroachments on the inherent value of human life and therefore are destructive to human life and potential families (see Colley, 2007b; Harrub, 2002).

Coupling this with the humanists’ favored right to “the control of one’s own body…sexual preference and orientation,” and “reproductive freedom” (A Declaration…, 1988), we infer the clearly implied message: It does not matter what you do concerning your own family, as long as you recognize the whole world as your family, and avoid telling someone else what to do; your responsibility is to fulfill your own sexual passions with indiscriminate abandon.

Wendy Kaminer, writing for the Council for Secular Humanism, alleged that traditional religion is responsible for the high divorce rate in the “Bible-belt” (2001). However, research has shown that other factors, such as marriage at younger ages in certain areas, contribute to failed marriages (see Stanton, 2007). Adherence to biblical principles could not possibly cause divorce (see Malachi 2:16; Matthew 19:9), but secular humanism allows for the dissolution of families via divorce whenever a marriage partner perceives that his marriage has caused inconvenience (A Declaration…, 1988, Section 3). Because secular humanism reflects what we may label “selfist” ideals, psychologist Paul C. Vitz’s comments on the practical fruits of selfism are pertinent:

It is certainly no accident that many case histories in selfist literature are people in conflict with their spouses or families over some self-defined goal. With monotonous regularity the selfist literature sides with those values that encourage divorce, breaking up, dissolution of marital or family ties. All of this is done in the name of growth, autonomy, and “continuing the flux” (1977, p. 83).

Extensive research by Elizabeth Marquardt, a scholar with the Institute for American Values, argues persuasively that there is no such thing as a “good” divorce, because children of divorce suffer psychologically and emotionally (2006). But then again, the second Manifesto prescribes care for children only to the degree that it seeks to indoctrinate them with the religion of secularism (see “Favorable Climate…,” 2000).

Family values are inconsistent with statements such as this: “[I]ndividuals should not be unduly restrained, restricted, or prohibited from exercising a wide range of personal choices. This includes…freedom to pursue one’s own lifestyle, so long as one does not prevent others from exercising their rights” (Kurtz, 2000, p. 47). Children need the near-constant attention of their parents, but what if the parents happen to be secular humanists who have their own agenda? Not to mention pre-born children who need care rather than destruction.

Where in secular humanism’s alleged “pro-family” stance might we fit the promotion of homosexuality (e.g., Kurtz, 2000, p. 48; Humanist Manifesto II, 1973, Section 6)? According to the Bible, homosexuality is a sinful practice (Romans 1:22-29; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; cf. Miller and Harrub, 2004). And, while biblical evidence against homosexuality would not faze a thoroughgoing secularist, it would seem that, because homosexuality also causes serious health risks and prohibits procreation (see Byrd, 2006), humanists would stand against homosexuality in the name of preserving human life and creating new families. Obviously, they do not.

Secular humanism, dedicated to the whim of individual humans, is antithetical to family values, regardless of the occasional lip-service humanists give to familial obligations. Webber summarized the issue:

The secular humanists…always seem to stand on the side of human freedom. They defend the right of the mother to abort her child; the right of the pornographer to promote and sell his smut; the right of homosexuals to teach their way of life in schools as a “neutral” option so students can make their own choices; and they campaign for the right to show X-rated movies, as well as the right to treat delicate sexual matters in a free and open way on TV, in the classroom, and in the theater. The danger of the secularist point of view is that it promotes a sick, narcissistic society in which no one thinks in terms of anything but “my” rights (1982, p. 49).

Secular humanists have lost sight of the need for balance between individual rights and personal responsibility.

Family vs. State

Shadia B. Drury wrote for the Council for Secular Humanism: “[C]onservatives are nostalgic for traditional societies in which the individual was buffered from the terrifying power of the state by ‘intermediate institutions’ such as the family and the church” (2007). Her implication is that, where the state is empowered by the majority of humans, it should possess unlimited authority over the family and even may (probably should!) eradicate the religious establishment. In effect, the state may impose its standard of truth, justice, and virtue as long as the majority has elected the decision-making officials.

The logical, practical fruit of humanism is tyranny. The 13th affirmation of the first Manifesto reveals that humanists are the sole regulators of “[t]he intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life…” (1933). The 14th affirmation gives insight concerning how this revolution might be accomplished: “The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted” (1933). Waggoner wrote: “The purpose and program of humanism is to evaluate, transform, control, and direct all associations and institutions. The state is the means by which such is accomplished—however, whenever, wherever, and in whatever areas the state may choose” (1988).

Secular humanism’s deference to the state has serious implications for families. If a government determines that families should be limited to two children, a position some are advocating for England’s families, then citizens would have a moral responsibility to comply (Vidal, 2007). China already imposes a one-child limit on its families (see Mcelroy, 2001). And, since the government has declared abortion legal in America, its citizens should support abortion rights fully. When a government determines to present all elementary school students with specifically atheistic indoctrination, then parents need to accept gratefully the new curriculum. If a government outlaws Christianity, then Christian families would be obligated to abandon their religion instantly, with no regrets. After all, the 1980 Declaration unveils democracy as the humanists’ vehicle for expunging theistic religion from society, and establishing humanism as the world religion. Examples of actual and potential governmental encroachments on families could be multiplied, and each would be consistent with the logical fruits of secular humanism.

Other than opportune popular consensus and perhaps “sentimental appeal to human experience,” secular humanism has no logical basis for calling human beings to care for one another in families, because each person is responsible only to fulfill his own self-determined purposes. As secular humanism positioned itself against the sanctity of life and traditional, biblical theism (see Colley, 2007a; Colley, 2007b), it proclaimed itself logically antithetical to the traditional, biblical family structure. It seeks to replace the family with the individual, as the basic unit of society. Quite simply, secular humanism offers no particular respect to nuclear families and their extended families, because social responsibility is not to one’s family, but to the whole world. Tragically, secular humanism’s values are destructive to everyone in the world who adopts them.

Secular humanism is an atheistic form of humanism. Has the time “passed for theism” (Humanist Manifesto I, 1933)? In 1982, Eternity published “A Christian Humanist Manifesto,” in which the authors attempted to give a Christian assessment of the value and purposes of humanity in response to secular humanism. In it, we read of the values that undergird the traditional family:

In contrast to secular humanism, therefore, Christian humanism does not hesitate to speak of absolute truth, goodness, beauty, love, morality, the sanctity of life, duty, fidelity, hope, and immortality. These are not empty religious sentiments, but the natural language of those who know even if partially, of their creation and redemption by a loving God.

This ideology is suited perfectly for families, because it stems from the One Who instituted marriage and the family in the long ago. He, not man, is the measure of all things.

Buckner, Ed (2003), “Don’t Secular Humanists Believe in the Golden Rule and in Being Good to People, and Isn’t That in the Bible?” Council for Secular Humanism, [On-line], URL: http://secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=columns&page= goldenrule.

Byrd, Dean (2006), “The American Journal of Public Health Highlights Risks of Homosexual Practices,” National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, [On-line], URL: http://www.narth.com/docs/risks.html.

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Colley, Caleb (2007b), “Secular Humanism and the Value of Human Life,” [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/3377.

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Drury, Shadia B. (2007), “‘Judicial Activism’ and the Conservative Revolution,” Council for Secular Humanism, [On-line], URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page= sbdrury_26_3.

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Harrub, Brad (2002), “The Inherent Value of Human Life,” [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/132.

Hill, Reuben, (1947), “The American Family: Problem or Solution?” The American Journal of Sociology, 53[2]:125-130, September.

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Kaminer, Wendy (2001), “Marriage, Religion, and the Law,” Council for Secular Humanism, [On-line], URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/kaminer_21_4.html.

Kurtz, Paul (2000), Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus).

Marquardt, Elizabeth (2006), Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (New York: Crown).

Mcelroy, Damien (2001), “Chinese Region ‘Must Conduct 20,000 Abortions,’” Telegraph, [On-line], URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MBO41XZJLB0B DQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2001/08/05/wchin05.xml.

Miller, Dave and Brad Harrub (2004), “An Investigation of the Biblical Evidence Against Homosexuality,” [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2577.

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Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (1978), “Address at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises,” Columbia University, [On-line], URL: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/ harvard1978.html.

Stanton, Glenn T. (2007), “Divorce and Cohabitation,” Focus on the Family, [On-line], URL: http://www.family.org/socialissues/A000000629.cfm.

Vidal, John (2007), “UK Needs a Two-Child Limit, Says Population Report,” The Guardian, [On-line], URL: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/thinktanks/story/0,,2123540,00.html.

Vitz, Paul C. (1977), Psychology As Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Waggoner, Robert (1988), “The Statist Face of Humanism,” [On-line], URL: http://biblicaltheism.com/statistface.htm#_ftn3.

Webber, Robert E. (1982), Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

The post Secular Humanism Is Not for Families appeared first on Apologetics Press.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article was written by one of A.P.’s auxiliary staff scientists. Dr. Houts holds a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Dr. Houts has received numerous awards, including a NASA Certificate of Appreciation for Exceptional Leadership. His professional activities include serving as Chairman of the Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion. Dr. Houts was employed by Los Alamos National Laboratory for 11 years, serving in various positions including Deputy Group Leader. He presently serves as the Nuclear Research Manager for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Part II will follow next month.]

One of the greatest deceptions perpetrated by atheists and humanists is that the theory of evolution is somehow “science.” The reality is that “evolution” has nothing to do with science, but is merely a tenet of certain false religions opposed to God. It is important for Christians to realize that evolution is simply another erroneous belief, and that they need not be intimidated into believing that the theory is supported by true science. It is also important that Christians not become suspicious of science just because evolutionists and atheists falsely claim it supports their worldview.

The science that put men on the moon and has yielded tremendous advances in computers, medicine, and other fields, is observable, testable, and repeatable. When a theory is developed, experiments can be devised to determine if it is false. This true science is referred to as “operational science.” In recent years, the term “science” has been broadened to include many areas that typically do not meet the criteria for operational science. These include social science, political science, and others.

Even further removed from operational science is so-called “origins science.” Origins science is not observable, testable, or repeatable. Theories related to origins science typically are constructed so that no matter what the evidence, its adherents can claim it supports their worldview. In origins science, evidence related to the origin of the Universe (and everything therein) is interpreted within a given framework. To the atheist or humanist, everything must be explained without God. To the Christian, the Genesis creation account is the basis for our understanding. The evidence Christians see is interpreted within the framework of the Bible.

Webster defines “religion” as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith” (Webster’s Ninth…, 1988, p. 995). Christianity falls into this category. So do the hundreds of false religions that have plagued mankind for millennia. Matthew 7:13-14 indicates that the majority of people will be deceived. Despite the overwhelming evidence God has given, they will choose to create their own religion, or adhere to a false religion promoted by their society.

A famous event occurred nearly 3,000 years ago, when Elijah found himself confronting 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Ashera. Those false prophets ate at the queen’s table (1 Kings 18:19), indicating that they were among the most respected and trusted people in society. Although they obviously were wrong, their position and power had so influenced the people that when Elijah stated “If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him,” “the people answered him not” (1 Kings 18:21). Many (if not most) of the people undoubtedly knew that Baal had come from the imagination of men. However, the fact that so many “important” individuals in their society promoted Baal either caused them to doubt God, or intimidated them to the point that they were unwilling to stand firm for God.

A similar situation exists today. Concerted efforts to indoctrinate people into believing evolution have been ongoing for decades. However, polls continually show that the majority of Americans believe in God, and believe that He created the Universe and life (see Miller, 2007, [10]:37, 40-R). While that is good news, the promotion of evolution by many “important” people in our society likely has caused many of those polled either to doubt God, or be intimidated to the point that they are unwilling to stand firm for God. This is the main reason it is important to realize that evolution is simply another false religion, and that the temptation people face when confronted with that religion is nothing new.

Interpreting the Evidence

In origins science, the interpretation of evidence strongly depends on a person’s religious beliefs. For example, consider the changes that we see in life. Antibiotic-resistant populations of bacteria seem to develop in days, new “kinds” of cats and dogs are bred routinely, and wild animals adapt to changing environments. To both the evolutionist and the creationist, these small changes represent “microevolution.” But to an evolutionist, over a very long period of time, large amounts of microevolution lead to macroevolution, capable of turning dinosaurs into birds or an ape’s ancestor into man. Evolutionists believe there is no need for God, because in their mind the diversity of life on Earth can be explained by macroevolution, starting with a “simple” life form. In their religious framework, the genetic information needed to produce all of the life that we see today developed via macroevolution (Campbell, 1996, p. 454).

To a Bible-believing Christian, biological changes are the result of natural selection, mutations, or selective breeding acting on God’s original created kinds. The genetic information needed to produce the variety of the life we see today was present in the original created kinds, put there by God in the original, perfect Creation.

A century ago it would have been difficult to take the discussion further. However, advances in science and technology now confirm that physical and analytical evidence strongly favors the Christian framework. For example, every observable instance of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics has been traced to one of the following three mechanisms (Campbell, p. 340):

1. Some bacteria in the population are already resistant to the antibiotic, and become the dominant strain via natural selection (information neutral);
2. The genetic information needed for resisting the antibiotic is obtained via plasmid transfer from another bacteria (information neutral); or
3. Resistance to the antibiotic results from an information-neutral or information-losing mutation (information neutral or information negative).
4. In all cases, genetic information is either conserved or lost. In no case do we observe new information being generated—which is required for macroevolution to be even theoretically possible.

Our scientific knowledge of bacteria is totally consistent with the Genesis account (genetic information provided by God during the creation week). In no way does that scientific knowledge support evolutionists seeking to explain how vast amounts of new genetic information could be generated through random mutations. Information-increasing mutations have not been observed. None of the examples provided in the most popular biology textbooks support the premise that evolution of life occurs by information increase. On the contrary, many of the examples actually show the opposite of evolution—information decrease (Patterson, 2006, pp. 59-61).

“New” Breeds

When new breeds of cats and dogs are developed, genetic information is almost always lost, or is at best conserved. For example, a pair of wild dogs typically can be used to develop a breed of very large dogs or a breed of very small dogs (or both) in just a few decades, through selective breeding. However, in developing those new breeds, genetic information is lost. While the original pair of wild dogs had the genetic information to produce large dogs and small dogs, the new breeds of dogs have much less genetic information or variability. Great Danes cannot be bred from Chihuahuas, and Chihuahuas cannot be bred from Great Danes—the required genetic information has been lost. In less extreme cases much genetic information can be conserved, but in no case is information added. The evidence observed from selective breeding is once again consistent with the Christian framework, and inconsistent with the evolutionary/atheistic framework.

Changes in Wild Populations

Changes in wild populations also can be examined in greater detail. Two favorites of biology textbooks (e.g., Johnson, 1998) are Darwin’s finches and peppered moths. In both of those cases, genetic information merely is conserved and no new genetic information is developed. For example, the peppered moth story typically states that two types of peppered moths exist: speckled and dark. The moths live among birch trees. In a clean environment, the speckled moths blend in much better with the birch bark than the dark moths. The dark moths are more readily eaten by birds, resulting in a population consisting of 95% speckled moths and 5% dark moths. However, during the industrial revolution, the birch trees became covered with soot, and then the dark moths were camouflaged better than the speckled moths. The population distribution reversed, with 95% of the moths being dark and 5% being speckled.

It has been noted that the peppered moth story recorded in many biology textbooks may be largely fabricated (Wieland, 1999, 21[3]:56). However, even if true, the story has nothing to do with demonstrating macroevolution. At all times, the genetic information for producing both speckled and dark moths was present in the population. At no time was new genetic information (as needed for macroevolution) generated. The evidence again is consistent with the Christian framework, and does nothing to support the evolutionary framework.

Homologous and Analogous Structures

Another topic where the interpretation of evidence is influenced strongly by one’s religious beliefs is homologous and analogous structures. Homologous and analogous structures are structures in different species that are similar. A typical example is similarities in the structure of a bird wing, a dolphin fin, and a human arm.

From a biblical viewpoint, similar structures are exactly what one would expect. God created all life, and it would be surprising if there were no physical similarities between species. Wings, fins, and arms all bear stress, and similarities in design would be expected for performing that function. Bicycles, cars, and airplanes all have wheels. Although those wheels are different, they have obvious similarities and similar functions. Bicycles, cars, and airplanes all have wheels because they have a common designer (humans). Humans choose to use wheels to perform certain functions.

To the Christian, homologous structures are structures in different species that are similar because God created all life. To the evolutionist, however, homologous structures are structures in different species that are similar because of common ancestry (Johnson, 1998, p. 178). To the evolutionist, wings, fins, and arms are not similar because God designed all three, but because they share a common fish ancestor (Miller and Levine, 1998, p. 405). Expanding on the previous analogy, to the evolutionist, bicycles, cars, and airplanes all have wheels not because of a common designer, but because they all started out as tricycles.

Both the Christian interpretation of homologous structures and the evolutionist interpretation of homologous structures end with a statement of faith. Neither statement (e.g., “similar because God created all life” or “similar because of common ancestry”) has a scientific basis—they are beliefs based on one’s worldview. However, only the atheistic interpretation is given in the five biology textbooks that were reviewed (Campbell, 1996; Johnson, 1998; Kaskel, et al., 1999; Miller and Levine, 1998; Starr and Taggart, 1984). [NOTE: For a discussion of biblical faith being based on knowledge and evidence, see Miller, 2002; Sztanyo, 1996; Thompson, 1994.]

There are many well-known cases where homologous structures could not have shared a common ancestor (within an evolutionary framework). For example, at a superficial level frog digits appear similar to human digits. However, it is now known that they develop in a completely different way, and could not share a common ancestor (Sadler, 1995, pp.154-157). Even most biology textbooks admit numerous cases of apparent similarities with no plausible way for the two species to be “related.” A typical example is similarities between sharks and dolphins (Johnson, p. 320).

To accommodate these cases, evolutionists coined another term: “convergent evolution.” Convergent evolution is defined as “the independent development of similarity between species as a result of their having similar ecological roles and selection pressures” (Campbell, p. G-6). Evolutionists often refer to these similarities as “analogous structures” (Starr and Taggart, p. 497).

This illustrates another key (non-scientific) feature of the theory of evolution. The theory is constructed in such a way that no matter what the evidence, evolutionists can claim it supports their religion. If a bird is brightly colored, it evolved vivid feathers to attract a mate. If a bird’s plumage is drab, it evolved that drabness to provide camouflage. If similar structures are derived from similar gene sequences, it is because the two species share a common ancestor. If similar structures occur in species that are genetically quite different, it is because of “convergent evolution.” No matter what the evidence, in the eye of the believer, evolution is true.

One criterion for determining if a theory is scientific is if it is falsifiable. In other words, the theory must be constructed in a way that an experiment could be devised to prove it false. In the discussion of similarities between organisms, the theory of evolution is purposely constructed so that no experiment can prove it false.

Although the discussion is non-scientific, articles promoting evolution often use similarities between organisms in their attempt to convince readers that the theory is true. One recent example is National Geographic’s article, “Was Darwin Wrong?” (Quammen, 2004, 206[5]:31). Examples also abound in most biology textbooks.

Origin of Life

Another area where the religious nature of the theory of evolution can be seen is the discussion of the origin of life. From a Christian perspective, the Bible tells us how life was created during the week of Creation. Life is evidence of God’s handiwork. In contrast, humanistic and atheistic religions require that the existence of life somehow be explained without God. In the 21^st century, most humanists and atheists have chosen to put their faith in the theory of evolution.

When the theory of evolution was being popularized in the late 1800s, it was easy to speculate about “simple” life forms originating in warm ponds laden with chemicals or in similar locales (Darwin, 1887, p. 202). Leading evolutionists freely speculated or even fabricated “evidence” in support of their religion (Grigg, 1996, 18[2]:33-36). However, advances in science have shown that these speculations and fabrications are nonsense.

For example, we now know that the simplest life form is far more complex than anything humans have ever made. It is far more reasonable to claim that a space shuttle can randomly assemble and launch itself than to claim that a simple life form can arise spontaneously from random chemical interactions.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on biotechnology. Biotechnology employs some of our brightest Ph.D.s, working in incredibly sophisticated laboratories. However, despite this tremendous investment of money, talent, and equipment, no one ever has come close to making life from non-life. Relatively simple techniques such as cloning (which essentially involves transferring pre-existing DNA from one organism to another) make national headlines when achieved, but to an objective observer do nothing more than show how amazing and complex life truly is (see Butt and Lyons, 2005 for numerous other examples).

In response, many evolutionists (and the textbooks they write) point to experiments such as the Miller-Urey experiment to show that what they call the “building blocks” of life could potentially form spontaneously. However, these so-called “building blocks” are no closer to being a living organism than the atoms they comprise.

A typical textbook discussion (e.g., Miller and Levine, 1998, p. 405) of the Miller-Urey experiment may be summarized as follows.

1. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey re-created the early atmosphere by mixing methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water together.
2. By passing an electric spark through the mixture, they showed that organic compounds could form spontaneously.
3. The results of this experiment were spectacular and exceeded Miller and Urey’s wildest dreams.

By invoking emotion (“wildest dreams”) and selectively presenting only a very small subset of the relevant information, the student is effectively misled. What most textbooks fail to mention is far more telling. Consider a few examples:

1. Even most evolutionists now agree that the atmosphere simulated by Miller and Urey could not have existed. Ammonia and methane would have been destroyed by ultraviolet light. Hydrogen could have been present in small amounts only, as it is able to escape earth’s gravity. In the current opinion of evolutionists, carbon dioxide and nitrogen always have been present. Despite this evidence, the textbook boldly asserts, “Stanley Miller and Harold Urey re-created the early atmosphere.”
2. In a watery environment, amino acids do not bind together in long chains, but break apart. In a watery environment, only one in 10²⁰⁰ (one followed by 200 zeroes) of the amino acids can exist in a chain of 100 amino acids, roughly the length of the smallest protein. Biology texts tend to avoid completely this fatal flaw in “primordial soup”-type scenarios. However, evolutionists recognize the problem and have made numerous attempts to address it. These include postulating the presence of condensing agents (inadequate even with optimistic chemical conditions that are impossible given other evolutionary assumptions), postulating a heat source to drive off water (which destroys some vital amino acids and results in highly randomized polymers), and others. All attempts have failed to show a realistic way for spontaneously assembling the long chains of amino acids needed to form even a simple useful protein. [NOTE: An excellent summary of (failed) attempts by evolutionists to address this issue is given in Sarfati, 1998a, 12[3]:281-284.]
3. Amino acids exist in left- and right-handed forms, and life uses only those that are left-handed. Miller-Urey type experiments result in an even (racemic) mix of left-and right-handed amino acids, incapable of forming proteins. In the incredibly unlikely event that a chain of 100 amino acids could form (see the previous paragraph), the odds that all of those amino acids would be left handed are ~ one in 10³⁰. For more typical protein sizes (400 amino acids), the odds are ~ one in 10¹²⁰. This fatal flaw is also ignored in biology textbooks, although the authors obviously are aware it exists. For example, Campbell discussed racemization (the slow conversion of the pure L-amino acids in proteins into a mixture of L- and D-amino acids) as a means for determining how long an organism has been dead (1996, p. 457). However, during the book’s extensive discussion on the theory of evolution, the issue is not even mentioned. As with the polymerization issue, desperate attempts have been made to address the chirality (molecular handedness) issue. These include polarization by ultraviolet or other light sources, optically active quartz, the weak force, clay, and numerous other scenarios that, when analyzed or tested, prove far too inefficient to improve significantly the odds of spontaneously forming a left-handed amino acid. [NOTE: An excellent summary of these failed attempts is given in Sarfati, 1998b, 12[3]:263-266.]
4. Less than two percent of the products formed in the Miller-Urey experiment were amino acids. The major products were carboxylic acids and tar, both of which are toxic to life and also far more likely to bond to amino acids (thus breaking any developing chain) than amino acids themselves.
5. To form a chain of amino acids, bifunctional monomers are required. If a unifunctional monomer bonds with the chain, the chain is terminated. Miller-Urey type experiments produce at least three times as many unifunctional monomers as bifunctional monomers. This fact also makes the odds of randomly assembling a long chain of amino acids impossibly low.
6. Many famous evolutionists have calculated the odds of a cell or even just the proteins in a cell randomly assembling. These odds (again calculated by evolutionists themselves) so discredit the theory that they typically are not mentioned in discussions of the topic. The famous atheistic astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle calculated the odds of even just the proteins of an amoeba arising by chance at one in 10^40,000, i.e., one followed by 40,000 zeroes (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1981, p. 130). Harold Morowitz, former professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, calculated the odds that a simple, single-celled organism might randomly assemble itself from pre-existing building blocks as one in 10^{100,000,000,000}, i.e., one followed by 100 billion zeroes (Morowitz, 1968, p. 98). Carl Sagan and other famous evolutionists (including Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA) have come to similar conclusions (Sagan, et al., 1973, pp. 45-46). Calculations such as these were the basis of Sir Fred Hoyle’s famous quote that the probability of spontaneous generation “is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein” (Hoyle, 1981, 294[5837]:105). Hoyle went on to say that he was at a loss to understand “biologists’ widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious” (294[5837]:105).

The suppression of evidence against the theory of evolution is not limited to discussions of Miller-Urey type experiments, but those discussions are revealing. An objective scientist obtains and considers all available evidence. The demonstrated desire of evolutionists to suppress or ignore evidence that contradicts an atheistic worldview provides yet another example of how evolution is religion, not science. This suppression is not isolated, and is obvious in most high school and college level biology textbooks.

True science is the enemy of the atheist and evolutionist. In recent years, many evolutionists have attempted to shift the origin of life debate into areas where it is more difficult to apply operational science. One example is the theory that life somehow arose elsewhere in the Universe, and was then transported to Earth. Although postulating events “elsewhere in the Universe” does nothing to change the fundamental reasons why evolution cannot occur, the postulate fogs the issue enough to comfort those committed to finding an atheistic explanation for life’s origin.

The significance of “discoveries” in space also is frequently overstated or distorted to mislead the reader. For example, in the article, “Are we Martians? Maybe, Study Says” (2000), several professors and researchers discuss organic molecules that have been found in space. Throughout the article, terms like “primitive life forms,” “ancestral cells,” and “microbes” are tossed about. Only at the end of the article is the reader given some clue as to what has actually been found. A sentence states: “Among the chemicals detected was acetylene, a building block for benzene and other aromatic molecules that, in turn, can form complex hydrocarbons, the chemical stuff of life.” In other words, because we have detected C₂H₂ in space (readily predicted from a freshman-level chemistry course), we are supposed to have increased confidence that we might be Martians. In reality, C₂H₂ is not noticeably closer to being a living organism than carbon or hydrogen alone.

An article in Sky & Telescope concerning the Galileo probe to Jupiter, gives a more honest representation. In addition to giving measured, quantitative results from the probe, one paragraph in the article notes the following:

Another blow to scientists’ expectations was the paucity of complex organic molecules, which laboratory studies had suggested should be present. Some researchers have even postulated that pre-biotic compounds or even life itself might exist in the Jovian atmosphere. Yet the mass spectrometer found nothing fancier than simple carbon-based species like ethane (C₂H₆). “There aren’t any little critters floating around in the clouds,” concludes Niemann (Beatty, 1996, 91[4]:21). [NOTE: “Niemann” refers to Hasso B. Niemann, of NASA/Goddard, who led one of the teams analyzing results from the probe.]

Vestigial Structures

A typical definition of “vestigial structure” is a “structure that is remnant of an organism’s evolutionary past and has no function; from the Latin vestigium, meaning footprint” (Johnson, 1998, p. 868). In talking about vestigial structures, Charles Darwin stated “far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been anticipated in accordance with the views [evolution—MH] here explained” (Darwin, 1859, p. 350).

The idea of vestigial structures was further promoted in 1895 by German anatomist Robert Wiedersheim (Wiedershiem, 1895), who claimed to have identified 186 vestigial structures in the human body. Like Darwin, Wiedersheim also claimed religious significance for vestigial structures, stating that vestigial organs “which remain inexplicable by the doctrine of special creation or upon any teleological hypothesis, can be satisfactorily explained by the theory of selection” (p. 3).

Once again, true science has proven to be the enemy of the evolutionist. As scientific knowledge increased, structures were removed from Weidersheim’s list. Today, functions have been found for all of Wiedershiem’s 186 “vestigial” structures. Rather than providing support for evolution, the vestigial structures argument is merely an example of scientific ignorance (and atheistic arrogance) being used to promote a false religion.

Perhaps the most well-known “vestigial” structure was the vermiform appendix. Until late in the 20^th century, there were no clearly identified functions for the appendix. In addition, it was established long ago that rupture of the appendix can result in a life-threatening infection. The combination of ignorance regarding function and the severity of acute appendicitis led many to regard the appendix as worse than useless. Evolutionists seized on that opinion to declare the appendix a vestigial organ, evidence (in their eyes) that their theory was true.

Recent advances in biology, however, have identified numerous functions for the vermiform appendix, especially in early childhood. For example, researchers quoted in New Scientist note the following:

Although it used to be believed that the appendix had no function and was an evolutionary relic, this is no longer thought to be true. Its greatest importance is the immunological function it provides in the developing embryo, but it continues to function even in the adult…. The function of the appendix appears to be to expose circulating immune cells to antigens from the bacteria and other organisms living in your gut. That helps your immune system to tell friend from foe and stops it from launching damaging attacks on bacteria that happily co-exist with you. By the time you are an adult, it seems your immune system has already learned to cope with the foreign substances in the gastrointestinal tract, so your appendix is no longer important. But defects in the appendix and other immune sampling areas may be involved in autoimmune diseases and intestine inflammation (“The Last Word,” 2003, 177[2381]:65).

The same article notes that during fetal development, endocrine (hormone-producing) cells appear in the appendix. These cells produce peptide hormones that control various biological mechanisms (177[2381]:65).

Other structures previously considered “vestigial” include the plica semilunaris, human hair, tonsils, the coccyx, the thymus gland, the pineal gland, and others. Important functions have been identified for each of these structures as well. Although now abandoned by many evolutionists, the argument that vestigial structures provide evidence for evolution is still mentioned in many textbooks and the popular media (e.g., Selim, 2004, 25[6]:42-46). An analogous argument flared up in the late 1990s, when evolutionists claimed that significant portions of human DNA are “junk” left over from our evolutionary past. As our knowledge of DNA increased, that argument quickly faded. Although we still have much to unravel about how DNA functions, we now know that sections of DNA called “junk” just a few years ago have many important functions.

Ironically, even if they had been real, vestigial structures would have been consistent with the creation account. There have been over 6,000 years of natural selection and genetic degradation since Adam sinned. It is expected that many of our organs do not function as well as they did at the original perfect Creation. It is also possible that some functions may have been lost completely. [NOTE: An excellent summary of the “Vestigial Structures” argument is given in Bergman and Howe, 1990, pp. 1ff.]

Evolution as a State Religion

The concerted effort to promote evolution goes far beyond the use of biased or misleading technical discussions. A quote from The Humanist provides a great deal of insight.

I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool, day care, or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all of its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism (Dunphy, 1983, 43[1]:26).

Many parents would rebel against a public school system that overtly stated a goal of indoctrinating their children with humanism. But in schools where the humanist agenda is being pushed, more subtle means are used. Since evolution is taught under the guise of science, it has become a very useful tool for promoting humanism and other forms of atheism.

Many public school textbooks contain telling quotes. For example, Campbell states: “Darwin gave biology a sound scientific basis by attributing the diversity of life to natural causes rather than supernatural creation” (1996, p. 413). The author makes clear that in his view, science is incompatible with the Bible. He also fails to note that the two fundamental assertions of Darwin have been shown false. There is no such thing as a “simple cell” that could randomly arise in a “warm little pond,” and there is no evidence that mutations add genetic information to life that already exists. A more accurate statement is: “Darwin attempted to give biology an atheistic basis by attributing the diversity of life to natural causes rather than supernatural creation.”

Miller and Levine attempt to support evolution by setting up an incorrect creationist straw man and then tearing it down. They assert:

The vast majority of Europeans in Darwin’s day believed that the Earth and all forms of life were divine creations, produced a few thousand years ago over a span of one week. Since that original creation, both the Earth and its living species were thought to have remained fixed and unchanged. By the time Darwin set sail on the Beagle, there were numerous discoveries of evidence—fossils of extinct animals, for example—that this traditional view could not explain (1998, p. 223).

The statement provides two important pieces of misinformation. First, the types of changes Darwin observed (variation within a kind) were documented over 3,000 years before Darwin in Genesis 30:32-42. However, by attributing an erroneous belief to the Bible (although no evidence is provided that the “vast majority of Europeans” actually held the belief as stated), the attempt is made to discredit the Bible. Second, the Genesis Flood (and the climate changes it likely produced) provides an excellent explanation for the fossil record, the ice age, and the extinction of animals. Rather than being inexplicable by the “traditional view,” the fossil record and other observations we make in the present are best explained by the Bible.

Other examples abound. For instance, the teacher’s editions of many textbooks encourage teachers to mislead students by equating changes that result from the application of intelligence to the random changes that supposedly produce evolution. Examples include comparing improvements in athletic shoes (Miller and Levine, 1998, p. 216) and changes in auto design (Kaskel, et al., 1999, p. 616) to evolution. If a student can be persuaded to link the theory of evolution to something they know to be true, they are more likely to accept the theory—even if the link is completely illogical. In the Teacher’s Edition of Biology: Visualizing Life, teachers are urged to “emphasize that evolution is considered a scientific fact” (Johnson, 1998, p. 175).

Evolution is promoted at taxpayer expense in many other ways. Public natural history museums often have multi-million dollar displays about evolution, typically with the same religious, unscientific bias that permeates most textbooks. The National Academy of Sciences (whose members, according to a recent poll in Nature, are 72.2% atheistic and 20.8% agnostic [Larson and Witham, 1998, 394[6691]:313]) recently was funded to develop a guidebook for indoctrinating students into evolution, titled Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. Tips include encouraging religious students to believe that “God used evolution,” or that evolution is somehow compatible with the Bible (National Academy of Sciences, 1998, p. 58). Attempts to encourage students to worship multiple “gods” are reminiscent of Jeremiah 11:13.

Much can be learned from the account of Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). The Israelites had been largely deceived by false religions, and their leadership was fully committed to those false religions. Queen Jezebel’s reaction when Elijah proved her religion false is equally telling. Rather than thanking Elijah and then setting her country (and herself) back on the right course, she swore to kill him. A similar situation exists today. The evidence for God is clear. However, rather than being thankful for that evidence, many people go to extremes to defend the false religions they have chosen to follow. Methods used to promote the theory of evolution are examples of this extremism.

False religions have opposed God throughout recorded history, and will continue to do so until Christ returns. Romans 1:20-22 states:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.

Denying God is inexcusable. Although evolutionists may profess to be wise, the theory of evolution is nothing more than a fundamental tenet of atheistic religion. It has nothing to do with true science.

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The post Evolution is Religion—Not Science [Part I] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

The initial Manifesto most plainly declares humanism to be a religious enterprise. The very first section (or article) states: “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created” (1933, emp. added). Religionists familiar with the goals and practices of secular humanism may be surprised at the high praise of traditional religion in this seminal treatise:

Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult) established for realizing the satisfactory life…. [T]hrough all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life (Humanist…, 1933, Preface, parenthetical items in orig.).

So the secularist’s problem is not with religion per se, but with religious beliefs and practices that are antithetical to certain humanist norms and objectives. Secularists reject “salvationism,” which they regard as based on mere “affirmation” (Humanist…, 1973). Practically all religion other than humanism falls into the category of religion that humanism would oppose. So, religion must be restructured into a humanist “faith” or belief system.

The first Manifesto unveils the humanists’ desire to reshape modern religion. “The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional values…. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience” (1933, Preface). In a sense, humanists see themselves as saving people from theistic religion: “There is a great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century…. Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created” (Preface-Section 1).

Because theistic religion is so “out of date” according to secularists, a mammoth adjustment is in order. Religion of practically every kind must be eliminated or restructured.

Today man’s larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation (Humanist…, 1933, Preface).

Humanists seem to have as their primary religious activity expunging God from society and the minds of people (see “Humanists Praise…,” 2007; “‘Church Polling Place…’,” 2006). Only when God is out of the picture may humanists convert all humans to the religion of humanism (and this is precisely what they intend to do; see Ericson, 2006; Lyons and Butt, 2007).

Before we examine how the humanist position on religion is contradictory and wanting of evidentiary support, consider that humanists and other religionists who seek the truth would agree that we should try to know the facts before forming opinions or committing to values—especially when organized religion attempts to dictate those opinions and values. Humanists and theists disagree, however, on the question of what truths are available. Underlying humanism is the assumption that it is impossible to know such fundamental truths as “God exists” or “the Universe was created by an intelligent Designer” or “the Bible is the Word of God,” therefore we should deny them or profess ignorance as to their truth or falsity (see Thomas, 1981, 123[2]:46,51). On these points, and many others, humanists and other religionists disagree.

Humanists and many other religionists (including Christians) agree that certain positions held by religious people may prove dangerous to both soul and body. Richard Dawkins, the 1996 Humanist of the Year, offered a critique of an outrageous religious view of violence: “One of the stories told to the young Muslim suicide bombers is that martyrdom is the quickest way to heaven—and not just heaven but a special part of heaven where they will receive their special reward of 72 virgin brides” (“Is Science…?,” 1997). Sometimes, religion goes wrong. However, we disagree that religious error is sufficient grounds for dismissing all religion. It is possible to be right in religious belief and practice, as we will see. [NOTE: Just as any religionist may harm humanity in the name of his religion, a humanist may harm humanity in the name of humanism; see Colley, 2007.]

Humanists offer their rationale for universal religious overhaul. The first Manifesto cites “man’s larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood,” as well as “new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience” (1933, Preface). Then, humanists suggest that religions fail in their objective to provide man with “satisfactory life,” because they are outdated (Preface). Observe that even humanists acknowledge religion’s role of interpreting “the total environing situation,” giving people a “world view” (Preface). Religion is a tool by which people understand the whole human situation. The humanists’ point (that a new world religion is necessary) is valid only if their rationale is justified by the evidence.

First, what of the claim that our larger understanding of the Universe calls for a new, universal religion? Certainly, the scientific world learned many things about the Universe in the decades prior to 1933, when the first Manifesto was published, and science continued to find more in the years after 1933. However, we have learned nothing about the Universe which makes a fundamental difference to the beliefs or practices of orthodox religion. While it is true that each year brings exciting discoveries which further demonstrate the existence of God and the intricate design of His creation, nature always has provided us with abundant evidence for the existence and power of the Almighty, and for the reliability of His Word (see Thompson, 2004). Notably, the “Big Bang” hypothesis of the origin of the Universe was developed in 1927, just six years prior to the first Manifesto. Although the Big Bang is nowhere mentioned in the treatise, perhaps some of the 34 signers were thinking of the Big Bang when they based their arguments on a “larger understanding” of the Universe. Of course, the Big Bang idea has been destroyed thoroughly as a scientific possibility (Thompson, 2004, pp. 19-130).

Religious people—even religious scientists—were aware of the complexity of the Universe for centuries prior to 1933, and argued that orthodox religion and scientific understanding of the Universe are not mutually exclusive, and may logically coexist. (One need look no further than a history of the creationist Isaac Newton [1642-1727].) If humanists believe that only a modern, “larger” understanding of the Universe is sufficient reason for abandoning all religion save humanism, they must show how such a modern understanding completely inverts all historic religious sensibilities about the Universe. Because they cannot do this, secular humanism logically fails, falling short of its self-imposed obligatory standard.

Second, the Manifesto offers man’s “scientific achievements” as a reason why we should abolish all religion except humanism. We wonder what modern “scientific achievement” was so phenomenal and groundbreaking that all religion should be restructured into humanism. Such an achievement is cited in neither the first nor the second Manifesto. Long before 1933, scientists had provided sufficient scientific evidence for the existence of God, and no one had disproved the evidence by 1933 (it still has not been disproved).

For example, creationist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) demonstrated the impossibility of spontaneous generation, showing that an intelligent Designer must have been responsible for the Universe (see Butt, 2002). Pasteur’s finding went undisputed until 1933, and it remains undisputed today. If humanists believe that only modern scientific achievements provide sufficient grounds for abandoning all religion save humanism, they must show how such achievements completely counteract all historic religious sensibilities about science and human nature. Because they cannot do this, secular humanism logically fails, having fallen short of its chosen obligation.

Third, humanists propose that all religionists should become humanists because, in the years leading to 1933, modern man developed a “deeper appreciation of brotherhood” (Humanist…, 1933, Preface). Admittedly, this is a somewhat subjective area; it is difficult to be certain that humans possessed a generally greater or lesser appreciation for each other at any given time. Possibly this is a topic for sociologists and/or historians, but since the first Manifesto offers no specific evidence or frame of reference to support their claim of enhanced brotherhood, we may speculate.

Some people living in the decades prior to 1933 may have felt a deeper appreciation of brotherhood, but this was temporary. World War I was touted as being “The War to End All Wars” (“The War…,” 1998), so its conclusion likely led to a general recognition of brotherhood and feeling of camaraderie among Americans. The framers of the Manifesto were products of these times, living under a brief cultural milieu of brotherhood. Yet, World War II followed just a few years later. If the end of World War I brought a sense of heightened brotherhood to the framers of the first Manifesto, it was short-lived.

Further evidence of the framers’ skewed perspective is the fact that the first Manifesto was produced during the Great Depression. Consider this description of the circumstances surrounding the Depression:

The United States had emerged from the war as the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, whose national economies had been greatly weakened by the war itself, by war debts, and, in the case of Germany and other defeated nations, by the need to pay war reparations. So once the American economy slumped and the flow of American investment credits to Europe dried up, prosperity tended to collapse there as well. The Depression hit hardest those nations that were most deeply indebted to the United States, i.e., Germany and Great Britain. In Germany, unemployment rose sharply beginning in late 1929, and by early 1932 it had reached 6 million workers, or 25 percent of the work force. Britain was less severely affected, but its industrial and export sectors remained seriously depressed until World War II. Many other countries had been affected by the slump by 1931 (“Great Depression,” 1997, 5:443).

An economic crisis of such magnitude would tend to produce a sense of brotherhood among a vast number of Americans who shared the struggle to survive.

However, the framers of the first Manifesto probably were unaware that the murder rate in America was reaching a peak in 1933, the very year they published the Manifesto (Gomez-Sorzano, 2006, p. 2; cf. McIntyre, 2000). Furthermore, nothing in the last seven decades of American history suggests that we are any closer to true “brotherhood,” than we were in the 1920s. After the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and more recent conflicts, one is challenged to see where a heightened sense of brotherhood fits. From this perspective, it seems the times which produced the first Manifesto may have seemed brotherly, but enduring sodality remained elusive.

Then, there is the question of whether biblical theism promotes brotherhood. If the Bible is the Word of God (as has been demonstrated; see Thompson 2003a), then it is the religious authority on the topic of brotherhood, and it promotes brotherhood. For example, the apostle Paul stressed that people may be Christians regardless of their nationality, social status, or gender: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus prayed to His Father: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20-21, emp. added). Observe that Jesus prayed for unity not only for those who worked with Him during His ministry, but also for all those who would believe in Him in the future. This suggests that the unity of which Jesus spoke and Paul wrote was intended to be unlimited by time period. Therefore, the Christian ideal of brotherhood would apply even during 1933. As Packer and Howard noted, “[T]he Christian vision…seems to have brought not only consolation but also joy and courage to hundreds of millions of people for two millennia now, and this despite the troubles of which, as expected, they have had what might seem to be more than their fair share. Unlike other religions, Christianity has leaped all boundaries of culture, race, intellect, sex, age, and preference…” (1985, pp. 54-55).

Obviously, Christians may fail to adhere to the ideals of brotherhood inherent in their faith, but that is the fault of the individual adherents, not the religious system itself. Since humanists can prove neither that the time period which generated the first Manifesto was especially brotherly, nor that religion fails to promote brotherhood in modern times, their case for a new world religion cannot rely on this third argument.

Fourth, humanists suggest that “new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience” make traditional religion outdated (Humanist…, 1933, Preface). This vague assertion is of little help, because humanists failed to pinpoint what kind of new conditions, knowledge, and experience had such drastic, disastrous implications for theistic religion. Perhaps we should assume that these changes are related to the scientific advances addressed above. Similarly ambiguous language introduces the second Manifesto: “Dramatic scientific, technological, and ever-accelerating social and political changes crowd our awareness” (1973; Section 1). However, at least the second Manifesto offers a few practical, if nonspecific, examples, such as moon travel and progress in communication technology (Section 1).

Note that by making this argument, humanists tacitly agree that biblical theism was not outdated prior to the era just before 1933, and they stated it overtly, as documented earlier. Doubtless certain conditions changed during the period around the turn of the 20th century. Theistic religions, however, typically present themselves as enduring and relevant regardless of circumstances. The Bible, for example, calls Christians to be “faithful until death” (Revelation 2:10). Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Mark 13:31). Generally speaking, theism showed no plan to become irrelevant or outdated prior to 1933. Such a religion would merit no human allegiance.

The humanists’ stated argument is that traditional religion was effective at some point, but later became futile, due to the “vastly increased knowledge” of humanity. But if there ever was a time when traditional religion could provide “the abundant life” (John 10:10) through faith in an unchanging God who created and controls the Universe (James 1:16-17; Colossians 1:16), then the lessening of human ignorance would not cheapen the benefits available through that religion. Put simply, humans who are blessed by religion would not be robbed of a single blessing simply by knowing more about some of their blessings (such as the natural world, traveling to the moon, or communication technology). Humanists admitted in the Preface of the first Manifesto that religion was effective at one time. They cannot prove that religion is less effective now. Furthermore, it is easy to observe that Christianity helps people (see Thompson, 1999, 19[1]:7).

If there were no way of knowing that God exists and that He has prescribed religious practice which pleases Him, and enlightens and enhances practitioners, then secular humanists would have a strong case against Christianity. However, there is convincing, irrefutable evidence that God exists, that the Bible is a revelation from Him, and that Jesus Christ is His Son (see Thompson 2003b, Thompson 2003a; cf. Myers, 1994; Butt and Lyons, 2006). When we follow the religious doctrine of Christ and His apostles, as presented in the Bible, then we can be assured that our religion has heavenly authority (see Colossians 3:16-17; cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).

May a person be both a humanist and a Christian? The answer depends entirely on our conception of humanism. Classical humanism is not necessarily antithetical to Christianity, and where applied properly, will give the Christian a greater appreciation and understanding of humanity and how it relates to God. J.D. Thomas wrote:

Classical humanism is an older form that flowered in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was impelled by the finding of manuscripts and documents of ancient Greece and other cultures where intellectual and other pursuits had reached a high level. This humanism is quite unlike the one of today with its rigorous atheism. The classical view simply came to appreciate man more because of his abilities and attainments, of which they had become more fully aware. Although not religious, per se, they were not anti-religious, as is the humanism of today (1981, 123[2]:46, emp. in orig.).

The “Christian humanist” would encourage humans to look to Christ for ultimate fulfillment in life. In so doing, the Christian would point out that “all secular attempts to find a way by which we mortals may live fully and freely seem to end finally in inward desolation, or at best in a stoic refusal to succumb in face of what must horrify us beyond all else, namely the end of our own being” (Packer and Howard, 1985, p. 52).

Because secular humanists believe that all theistic religion must be thrown out or completely restructured, they are evangelistic in their attempts to convert people to their false religion (see Waggoner, 1999). However, their rationale for this drastic upheaval is faulty. As we answer secularists by advocating a theistic, biblical, Christian worldview, may we be just as eager to convert the lost to true New Testament Christianity, the only right religion (Matthew 28:18-20). We must recognize the deception involved in secularism and dedicate ourselves to the truth of God (John 8:32).

Butt, Kyle (2002), “Biogenesis—The Long Arm of the Law,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1769.

Butt, Kyle and Eric Lyons (2006), Behold! The Lamb of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

“‘Church Polling Place is Unconstitutional’ Says Suit Launching Nontheist Legal Center” (2006), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.humanistlegalcenter.org/cases/cp/cppressrelease.html.

Colley, Caleb (2007), “Secular Humanism and Statism,” [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/3307.

Dawkins, Richard (1997), “Is Science a Religion?,” The Humanist, [On-line], URL: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html.

Ericson, Edward L. (2006), “The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion,” American Ethical Union, [On-line], URL: http://www.aeu.org/ericson2.html#Experience.

Gomez-Sorzano, Gustavo (2006), “Decomposing Violence: Terrorist Murder in the Twentieth Century in the U.S.,” Munich Personal RePEc Archive, [On-line], URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1145/01/MPRA_paper_1145.pdf.

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“Humanists Praise Pete Stark for ‘Coming Out’ as a Nontheist” (2007), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/press/petestark.php.

Kurtz, Paul (2000), Humanist Manifesto 2000, Council for Secular Humanism, [On-line], URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=main&page=manifesto.

Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2007), “Militant Atheism,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3195.

McIntyre, Lee (2000), “The Murder Mystery,” Regional Review, [On-line], URL: http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/rr2000/q1/mcin00_1.htm.

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The post Secular Humanism and the Reorganization of Religion appeared first on Apologetics Press.

The 34 liberal humanist authors of the first Manifesto used their final affirmation to explain their general stance on life: “We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow” (1933, parenthetical items in orig., emp. added). Later, Humanist Manifesto III (2003) confirmed, “Humanists are concerned for the well being of all.” Indeed, secularists seek to convince society that they place a fundamental, ultimate, overarching premium on human life.

Is this actually the case? What, for example, is the humanist position on abortion? Because it has been proven logically and scientifically that human life begins at conception (see Harrub, 2002), the question concerning the rightness or wrongness of abortion is an appropriate test of the fundamental value an individual or group attaches to human life. Consider the lengthy opinion of the British Humanist Association:

The current law is permissive: it does not impose abortion on anyone who does not want one or want to perform one. So even within the law, individuals have to make moral choices. [NOTE: Do not miss the humanistic deference to the state; see Colley, 2007b—CC] How do humanists pick their way between these conflicting ideas? Humanists value life and value happiness and personal choice, and many actively campaigned for legalised abortion in the late 1960s. Although humanists do not think all life is “sacred” they do respect life, and much in this debate hinges on when one thinks human life begins. Humanists tend to think that a foetus does not become a person, with its own feelings and rights, until well after conception.

Because humanists take happiness and suffering into consideration, they are usually more concerned with the quality of life than the right to life, if the two come into conflict. The probable quality of life of the baby, the woman, rights and wishes of the father and the rest of the family, and the doctors and nurses involved, would all have to be given due weight. There is plenty of room for debate about how much weight each individual should have, but most humanists would probably put the interests of the woman first, since she would have to complete the pregnancy and probably care for the baby, whose happiness would largely depend on hers. She also exists already with other responsibilities and rights and feelings that can be taken into account – unlike those of the unborn foetus which cannot be so surely ascertained (“A Humanist Discussion…,” 2006).

One might expect that those touting the value of humanity would seek to preserve every human life at nearly any cost. Secular humanism, however, diminishes the value of human life in society through abortion and other means, despite claims to the opposite.

Two philosophical mistakes cause this contradiction. First, secular humanists believe that mankind is the product of strictly naturalistic processes (see Colley, 2007a). Because humanity is merely a higher form of ordinary animal life, the life of a human is of no more intrinsic value than the life of any animal. “Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change” (Humanist…, 2003). So, a secularist logically views humans as he views all “other” animals, measuring their worth “entirely by their usefulness, actual or potential, to the community” (Packer and Howard, 1985, pp. 157-158). A human life is a commodity, and just as in a cattle market, circumstances dictate the value of the commodity. An evolutionary concept of origins is the first mistake which leads secular humanism to denigrate the human life it claims to prize, and compromise the rights it claims to defend.

The second reason secularists contradict themselves in this discussion is that that they place an ultimate premium on collective human reason (with rationality) as a foundation for ethics. “Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. There is no substitute: neither faith nor passion suffices itself…. [R]eason must be tempered by humility, since no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue” (Section 4, Humanist…, 1973, emp. added). Later, secularists made their point even more clearly:

We are committed to the use of the rational methods of inquiry, logic, and evidence in developing knowledge and testing claims to truth. Since human beings are prone to err, we are open to the modification of all principles, including those governing inquiry, believing that they may be in need of constant correction. Although not so naïve as to believe that reason and science can easily solve all human problems, we…. know of no better substitute for the cultivation of human intelligence (Section 7, A Secular…, 1980).

The devastating problem with this approach is that, as even secularists recognize, different people reason in different ways and reach conflicting conclusions. Secular humanists, logically, are reduced to a vain attempt to ascertain the consensus of all people at a given time in order to develop moral imperatives. Only after finding the consensus of all human opinion may secularists impose their own interpretation of the data as rules for living.

Furthermore, according to this pattern of thought, if the reasoned consensus of the day acknowledged the sanctity of life in the womb, then secularists would be bound to accept and defend it, until the general consensus changed. On the other hand, if the majority reasoned that all sick children under age five and all people over age 85 should be drowned, consistency would demand that secularists go along with such maniacal genocide.

Secular humanists make lofty, unrealistic, impractical claims to pure democracy as a basis for ethical ideals, all the while basing these ideals on their own subjective ideology. As Ridenour noted, “Secular humanism has no set of moral absolutes like the Ten Commandments. At best, it comes up with numerous ‘suggestions’ for what people should do, based on their experience in the society in which they are living…” (2001, p. 195). The secularists’ subjective ethical approach leads them to contradict their general statements affirming life. Contradictions like this are evident in every major tenet of secularism (see Colley, 2007a; Colley, 2007b).

Webber summarized the secularist’s problem: “The secularist can speak about the value of human life, yet fail to have an ultimate reason why life is valuable” (1982, p. 71). Then, “In the secular society, spawned by the loss of belief in a God to whom we are accountable, it has become fashionable for modern man to be free—free from covenantal agreements, free from the responsibility to raise children, free to pursue his own selfish desires” (p. 74, emp. added). According to secular humanism, a human’s right to live goes only as far as his evolutionary development and strength. His right to kill, though, also goes that far. As Packer and Howard have noted:

[M]any humanists will justify the killing by abortion of a new person forming in its mother’s womb, and the killing by starvation of handicapped new-borns and by euthanasia, the killing of old persons who can no longer function skillfully and productively in society or in their own families. The same thinking was invoked to justify the killing, in Nazi Germany, of six million Jews lest their genes and influence should somehow corrupt the master race. The principle is the same in each case; some human beings are to be eliminated (a gruesome euphemism, suggesting excretion) from the social system for the convenience of other human beings who are strong enough to maintain a claim to be better developed than their victims. Ideological might thus becomes right, and cool clinical murder, a recognized social convention (1985, p. 141, parenthetical item in orig.).

Unsurprisingly, while secularists have claimed to believe in the value of human life, they also have belied a conviction to the contrary. The Humanist magazine revealed something very interesting when it observed that humanism derives “the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny” (“Definitions,” emp. added). To simplify this statement, we might say that humans are responsible for taking care of themselves. Of course, harsh reality reminds us that not all humans are capable of taking care of themselves. The issue of how human society should treat its weakest members is a treacherous problem for humanists. The International Humanist and Ethical Union stated that “human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives” (“Glossary,” 2007). The Morains, prominent humanist authors, have agreed that humans must rely upon one another (“Chapter Three,” 1998). Preborn children, infants, and some elderly people are, to various degrees, incapable of “shaping their own lives,” and are reliant on the care of others. It seems that humanism provides little, if any, protection for fragile people such as these. It is doomed to allow or promote the very “suffering” it intends to “reduce” (Humanist…, 2003).

If humanists want a worldview that consistently affirms human life in every way, they should set aside their illogical atheistic bias in order to investigate honestly the Christian perspective. According to the Christian worldview, humans are different from animals because humans are endowed with an immortal spirit (see Genesis 2:7; Matthew 10:28; 16:26). This implies that human life has intrinsic value and cannot be taken indiscriminately (see Job 10:11-12; Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 49:1; Galatians 1:15). While there are various types of Christian humanism (see “Welcome…,” 2006), a Christian, biblical view of humanity is in harmony with Webber’s statement: “It is the conviction of an authentic Christian humanism that all life is of value” (1982, p. 79). Packer and Howard echo, “To the Christian, every human being has intrinsic and inalienable dignity by virtue of being made in God’s image and realizes and exhibits the full potential of that dignity only in the worship and service of the Creator” (1985, p. 157).

Christianity also provides ultimate fulfillment. Jesus offers the “abundant” life (John 10:10), which includes a sure expectation of an eternal life to come (Mark 10:30; John 3:15-16). Far from coaxing weak-minded people to take leaps of blind “faith,” Christianity upholds human reason, requiring its adherents to believe only in those things which are reasonable and rational (see Warren, 1972). It demands that we protect innocent people, regardless of the consensus of humanity as a whole, which, as secularists and theists admit, will be erroneous in many cases (Proverb 6:16-19; cf. Matthew 27:3-4; Exodus 23:2; Matthew 7:13-14). Authentic love for human life requires that we protect it, whether or not secular humanists admit it.

Colley, Caleb (2007a), “Secular Humanism and Evolution,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3336.

Colley, Caleb (2007b), “Secular Humanism and Statism,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3307.

“Definitions of Humanism” (2006), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/humanismdefinitions.php.

“Glossary,” (2007), International Humanist and Ethical Union, [On-line], URL: http://www.iheu.org/glossary/#term203.

Harrub, Brad (2002), “The Inherent Value of Human Life,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/132.

“A Humanist Discussion of…ABORTION” (2006), British Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1223.

Humanist Manifesto I (1933), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html.

Humanist Manifesto II (1973), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto2.php.

Humanist Manifesto III (2003), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.php.

Morain, Lloyd and Mary (1998), “Chapter Three,” American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/publications/morain/chapter-3.html.

Packer, J. I. and Thomas Howard (1985), Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco, TX: Word Books).

Ridenour, Fritz (2001), So What’s the Difference? (Ventura, CA: Regal).

A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980), New Jersey Humanist Network, [On-line], URL: http://www.njhn.org/humanism_info/declaration.html.

Warren, Thomas B. (1972), When Is An “Example” Binding? (Moore, OK: National Christian Press).

Webber, Robert (1982), Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

“Welcome to the Christian Humanist” (2006), The Christian Humanist, [On-line], URL: http://christianhumanist.net/default.aspx.

The post Secular Humanism and the Value of Human Life appeared first on Apologetics Press.

In Luke 24:49, Jesus promised that the apostles would be “endued with power from on high,” i.e., they would receive the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:1-4; cf. Joel 2:28). This implies the existence of a power greater than humanity—a power capable of bestowing power upon humans and even orchestrating human events. Of course, the Bible identifies this “power on high” as being the one eternal, omnipotent Creator of the Universe—God (see Colley, 2004a; Colley, 2004b ).

The very idea of such miraculous power is antithetical to secular humanism. According to secular humanism, there is no identifiable “power from on high,” at least no power relevant to humanity. The first and second articles of the first Humanist Manifesto make these points plainly: “FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process” (1933; cf. Romans 1:25-28). The authors of the Secular Humanist Declaration further argue that evolutionary theory is “supported impressively by the findings of many sciences” (1980).

Humanist Manifesto II makes the argument more bluntly: “As non-theists, we begin with humans, not God, nature not deity…. [H]umans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves” (Section 1, 1973). Then, “[a]s in 1933 (the publication date of the first Manifesto—CC), humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons…is an unproved and outmoded faith” (Preface, 1973).

The secular humanists’ progression leads directly from a denial of God to an affirmation of naturalistic evolution. Special creation by God, and random evolution absent any divine guidance, are the only two possible accounts of human origins (Thompson, 2004, pp. 1-4). And while there are certain differences between various stripes of non-Christian humanists, virtually all secular humanists side with Darwinism (Geisler, 1999, pp. 337-338). According to this approach, there is no good reason for any religion other than humanism to exist, and “Salvationism” is pernicious (Preface, Humanist…, 1973). In fact, secular humanists realize that religion poses a threat to the propagation of evolutionary theory:

Today the theory of evolution is again under heavy attack by religious fundamentalists…. There may be some significant differences among scientists concerning the mechanics of evolution; yet the evolution of the species is supported so strongly by the weight of evidence that it is difficult to reject it. Accordingly, we deplore the efforts by fundamentalists (especially in the United States) to invade the science classrooms, requiring that creationist theory be taught to students and requiring that it be included in biology textbooks. This is a serious threat both to academic freedom and to the integrity of the educational process. We believe that creationists surely should have the freedom to express their viewpoint in society. Moreover, we do not deny the value of examining theories of creation in educational courses on religion and the history of ideas; but it is a sham to mask an article of religious faith as a scientific truth and to inflict that doctrine on the scientific curriculum. If successful, creationists may seriously undermine the credibility of science itself (A Secular…, 1980, Section 9, parenthetical item in orig.).

The secular humanist would agree with the late, eminent evolutionist of Harvard, George Gaylord Simpson: “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material” (1967, p. 345). However, the secular humanist recognizes the special abilities of man that differentiates him from other animal life (for an overview of these abilities, see Harrub and Thompson, 2003, pp. viii-ix).

The humanist position is contradictory in that it proposes to extol the value and significance of humanity, while promoting a theory which weakens the inherent worth of humanity. As secular humanists insist that humanity descended from animal life via evolution, they impart, however unwittingly, the concept that humans are of no more appreciable ultimate value than animals. Consider the words of internationally renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl, witness to numerous horrors in Nazi prison camps:

Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values. If the man in the concentration camp did not struggle against this in a last effort to save his self-respect, he lost the feeling of being an individual, a being with a mind, with inner freedom and personal value. He thought of himself then as only a part of an enormous mass of people; his existence descended to the level of animal life (1984, p. 70, emp. added).

Secular humanism, logically, is doomed to reach the unhappy conclusion that, due to its unbreakable tie to Darwinism, it guarantees failure in accomplishing its stated purpose.

First, consider whether evolution provides philosophical grounds for adequate social goals. A social goal is one that, if accomplished, will benefit a group of people. The only social goal of evolution is more evolution—that the species may continue to improve. Evolutionists cannot logically impose any other social goals because evolution is profited solely by time and chance, neither of which are subject to human influence. It is nonsensical to speak of creating time or chance, and just as ridiculous to speak of people controlling their own rate of evolution.

The secular humanist may be allowed only such goals as are inherent in nature itself, for he asserts that man is merely a part of nature and the product of evolution. So, what of the “social” purposes of various creatures in the animal kingdom? Surely even the most strident Darwinist would refuse to normalize or universalize the “social goals” of, say, the lion. Social responsibility is not a leonine strength. The lion has no better social goals than killing and eating other animals (even people) when he is hungry. He merely acts in accordance with his “selfish genes,” which tell him that he is hungry. The hungry lion feels no further ethical or moral obligation to any larger social goals. For a Darwinist, the social reality is that “plants and animals prey on each other to survive,” and humans have no grounds to establish any higher standard of life (see Ridenour, 2001, p. 170).

Secular humanists “envision values and morals having a basis in whatever makes us human” (apart from our spiritual self, of course, Major, 1999b). However, studies in genetics have produced no evidence of any moral code within human or animal genes (1999b). There is a sense of urgency in the secular humanists’ appeals because they wish to bring an end to Judeo-Christian ethics and any other religious influences on society (1999b; for a further consideration of evolution and ethics, see Major, 1999a). Without any ethical foundation in human genetics, the atheistic humanist is left without any basis for adequate social goals.

Next, we must ask whether evolution allows the secular humanist to acquire personal satisfaction or fulfillment. The secular humanist insists that a man must reach his full human potential by self-actualization in order to achieve ultimate personal satisfaction. There are many diverse theories concerning the path to human fulfillment, and it is impossible to prove scientifically whether any one plan is better than others. However, we may objectively assess how well a particular approach accounts for and explains the circumstances and how much understanding and hope it offers.

Secular humanists claim that knowledge comes through reason with scientific experimentation (never through divine revelation). “The assumption in this approach is that we as human beings are in control of the whole process of gaining knowledge” (Goldsworthy, 1991, p. 38). This is “autonomous reason,” seeking to understand the world apart from a Creator. The Declaration of 1980 encouraged its readers to resist “unthinking efforts to limit technological or scientific advances” (Section 8). But science and reason, alone, do not fulfill humanity. Consider Ridenour’s words: “Manifesto II trustingly claims that man’s goodness will guide him in using technology for the good of humankind by carefully avoiding harmful and destructive changes. But again, the humanist faces the problem of who is to determine what is really good for humankind” (2001, p. 194).

This problem is due to naturalism. “What governs the ‘reasonable’ in humanistic thinking is not the idea that we know it all now, but the assumption that man’s knowledge-gaining is completely independent of any outside or supernatural help. The only world to be known is the natural world which is open to our senses” (Goldsworthy, pp. 38-39). Because of secular humanism’s abhorrence of the supernatural and consequential attachment to naturalistic evolution, it is inadequate to fulfill us—it offers nothing outside the realm of natural human experience to give meaning to life. Secular humanism gives us no hope to understand or contextualize the often bewildering crisscross of events that coerce human lives to take various directions. Just as the theory of evolution leaves the biologist with more confounding questions than comforting answers, secular humanism leaves the individual with no foundation for understanding his existence, purpose, future, and fulfillment. Therefore, the earnest enquirer should look for another solution.

We have shown that secular humanism, by necessarily evoking naturalistic evolution, is at war with itself. Christianity, in contrast to secular humanism, is fully consistent with itself and human experience. While there are non-theistic forms of Christian humanism (see “Welcome to…,” 2006), we may label as “Christian humanist” the follower of Christ who believes that a relationship with God is the only means to authentic human fulfillment. In so believing, the Christian attaches great value to humanity (both physical and spiritual parts), because God does (Genesis 1:26ff; Matthew 16:26; cf. Harrub, 2002). Christianity never cheapens the value of humanity.

As McDowell stated: “Sometimes humanism is defined as the study of the worth and dignity of man as such worth is given to him by God…. [W]e must be careful not to build a false case about all uses of the word humanism and then attempt to refute that false case.” (1993, pp. 316-317). Or, as Packer and Howard put it: “…Christianity is the true humanism, since it has for its purpose the forming and freeing and exalting of our true humanness. The Christian story is ordinarily said to be about salvation from sin. But that means nothing different from what we are saying, for it is sin that dehumanizes, and it is only in the matrix of holiness that authentic humanness takes shape” (1985, p. 52). One need look no further than the tragic third chapter of Genesis to see the accuracy of this assessment.

In Jesus, we see the glory of humanity at its fullest potential. Again, from Packer and Howard: “Morally and spiritually, intellectually and experientially, motivationally and relationally, the incarnate Son of God stands before us as perfect man, the one totally human being that history knows” (p. 53). In fact, the Christian humanist and the secular humanist share a desire for humanity to be fulfilled, but differ concerning the path to fulfillment and how to define “fulfillment,” i.e., spiritual oneness with God vs. physical, fleshly gratification. The Christian humanist believes that the keys to understanding existence, and the role of humanity in the world, are found in the Bible. He believes in the potency of the Bible because of the powerful evidence of its supernatural origins (“The Inspiration…,” 2001). The Bible reveals specific information about the God Who has revealed Himself in a limited way via His natural creation (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20-21).

Despite the secular humanists’ prediction that the 21st century “can and should be the humanistic century,” (Humanist…, Preface, 1973), there is a growing recognition that secular humanism is devoid of hope for eternity and fulfillment during physical life. Regardless, two things undeniably are true: First, that “the clash of systems between Christianity and secular humanism is building” (Webber, 1982, p. 55), and second, that the Gospel of Christ still has the best answer to man’s problems: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Colley, Caleb (2004a), “The Eternality of God,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2565.

Colley, Caleb (2004b), “The Omnipotence of God,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2566.

Geisler, Norman (1999), Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Goldsworthy, Graeme (1991), According to Plan (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Frankl, Viktor E., (1984), Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press).

Harrub, Brad (2002), “The Inherent Value of Human Life,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/132.

Harrub, Brad, and Bert Thompson (2003), The Truth About Human Origins (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Humanist Manifesto I (1933), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html.

Humanist Manifesto II (1973), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto2.php.

“The Inspiration of the Bible” (2001), Apologetics Press, [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/pdfs/courses_pdf/hsc0108.pdf.

Illustrated Oxford Dictionary (2003), (New York: Oxford), revised edition.

Major, Trevor (1999a), “Ethics and Darwinism [Part I],” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/70.

Major, Trevor (1999b), “Ethics and Darwinism [Part II],” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/73.

McDowell, Josh (1993), A Ready Defense (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson).

Packer, J. I. and Thomas Howard (1985), Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco, TX: Word Books).

Ridenour, Fritz (2001), So What’s the Difference? (Ventura, CA: Regal).

A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980), New Jersey Humanist Network, [On-line], URL: http://www.njhn.org/humanism_info/declaration.html.

Simpson, George Gaylord (1967), The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Thompson, Bert (2004), The Scientific Case for Creation (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Webber, Robert (1982), Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

“Welcome to the Christian Humanist” (2006), The Christian Humanist, [On-line], URL: http://christianhumanist.net/default.aspx.

The post Secular Humanism and Evolution appeared first on Apologetics Press.

A prime example is the secular humanist’s position on the state as it relates to personal freedom. Inherent in humanism is the idea that humanity is free to determine its own values (see Geisler, 1999, p. 342). Because a democracy is the highest collective voice of mankind, humanists apportion extreme power to the democratic state. In the third major coalition treatise, the then-Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism’s A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980), we read:

As democratic secularists, we consistently defend the ideal of freedom, not only freedom of conscience and belief from those ecclesiastical, political, and economic interests that seek to repress them, but genuine political liberty, democratic decision making based upon majority rule, and respect for minority rights and rule of law. We stand not only for freedom from religious control but for freedom from jingoistic government control as well…. [I]ndividuals and groups should be able to compete in the marketplace, organize free trade unions, and carry on their occupations and careers without undue interference by centralized political control. The right to private property is a human right without which other rights are nugatory. Where it is necessary to limit any of these rights in a democracy, the limitation should be justified in terms of its consequences in strengthening the entire structure of human rights (emp. added).

Furthermore, “Any effort to impose an exclusive conception of Truth, Piety, Virtue, or Justice upon the whole of society is a violation of free inquiry.” The idyllic democratic government which does only the will of the people while avoiding imposition is appealing, and humanists base its conception on their optimistic perception of each man as generally good, possessing the potential to solve all of his problems, and doing what he sees fit, so long as it encroaches on no rights of others (see A Secular…, 1980; Waggoner, 1987; Geisler, 1999, p. 339) (whether the humanist conception of humanity is scriptural is for another article). Therefore, the humanistic hope (and assumption) is that the majority of humans always will choose wisely, and freedom will reign more pervasively and more often.

However, the logical, practical fruit of humanism is deceptively tyrannical. The 13th affirmation of the first Manifesto reveals that humanists are the sole regulators of “[t]he intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life…” (1933). The 14th affirmation gives insight concerning how this revolution might be accomplished: “The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted” (1933). The 1980 Declaration unveils democracy as the humanists’ vehicle for expunging religion from society, and establishing humanism as the world religion. Waggoner wrote: “The purpose and program of humanism is to evaluate, transform, control, and direct all associations and institutions. The state is the means by which such is accomplished—however, whenever, wherever, and in whatever areas the state may choose” (1988). The question of whether secular humanism is succeeding has been discussed (see Graham, 2005).

Shadia B. Drury wrote for the Council for Secular Humanism: “[C]onservatives are nostalgic for traditional societies in which the individual was buffered from the terrifying power of the state by ‘intermediate institutions’ such as the family and the church” (2007). Her implication is that, where the state is empowered by the majority of humans, it should possess unlimited authority over the family and even may (probably should!) eradicate the religious establishment. In effect, the state may impose its standard of truth, justice and virtue as long as the majority has elected the decision-making officials. Such is a democratic twist on statism: contemporary rulers may determine the relative value of laws. Consequently, the humanists’ prized “right to property,” “right to privacy,” and other freedoms may be stripped anytime the majority elects officials who desire to appropriate private property as asset to the humanistic government. Thereby secular humanism contradicts itself.

Secular humanists regret that “in communist countries, the power of the state is being used to impose an ideological doctrine on the society, without tolerating the expression of dissenting or heretical views” (A Secular…, 1980). They are saddened by the Holocaust (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973). They lament instances when democratic societies have repressed “free sexual expression” via perversions such as homosexuality (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973; cf. Miller and Harrub, 2004).

Upon what basis does the humanist decry a democratic government’s imposition upon personal freedom? The self-appointed “democratic humanists” promote “a socialized and cooperative economic order,” but in giving primacy to the secular (not spiritual) democratic state, they have allowed for any amount of tyranny.

Secular humanism is not the only form of humanism. While there are non-theistic forms of Christian humanism (see “Welcome to…,” 2006), we may label as “Christian humanist” the follower of Christ who believes that a relationship with God is the only means to authentic human fulfillment. In so believing, the Christian attaches great value to humanity (both physical and spiritual parts), because God does (Genesis 1:26ff; Matthew 16:26; cf. Harrub, 2002). A Christian humanist suggests that man arose, not through random naturalistic processes, but through a special creation by an intelligent Designer. Consequently, the Christian humanist views human life as intrinsically valuable, and sees the only possibility for humanity to be truly fulfilled and saved eternally in terms of a relationship with Christ, which is prescribed in the Word of God. Men need divine guidance (Jeremiah 10:23). Christian humanists insist that access to the transcendent and the “abundant life” is available only through a biblical, theistic worldview (John 10:10; 14:6).

The Christian humanist’s biblical worldview includes a sensible approach to the government, which Paul addressed (Romans 13:1-5). The Christian humanist submits to the government, pays his taxes (Matthew 22:21), and strives to live peaceably with all men (Romans 12:18; Hebrews 12:14). However, the Bible teaches that governmental power is limited (Luke 20:25). The Christian will not allow obedience to manmade laws to override his devotion to the law of God (Acts 5:29).

Drury, Shadia B. (2007), “‘Judicial Activism’ and the Conservative Revolution,” Council for Secular Humanism, [On-line], URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page= sbdrury_26_3.

Geisler, Norman (1999), Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Graham, Adam (2005), “The Church and Statism,” [On-line], URL: http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/6115.html.

Harrub, Brad (2002), “The Inherent Value of Human Life,” [On-line], URL: http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=159.

Humanist Manifesto I (1933), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html.

Humanist Manifesto II (1973), American Humanist Association, [On-line], URL: http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto2.php.

Miller, Dave and Brad Harrub (2004), “An Investigation of the Biblical Evidence Against Homosexuality,” [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2577.

Packer, J. I. and Thomas Howard (1985), Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco, TX: Word Books).

A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980), New Jersey Humanist Network, [On-line], URL: http://www.njhn.org/humanism_info/declaration.html.

Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), [On-line], URL: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol= 367&invol=488.

Waggoner, Robert (1987), “Insights into Humanism,” [On-line], URL: http://www.biblicaltheism.com/insighthuman.htm#_ftn18.

Waggoner, Robert (1988), “The Statist Face of Humanism,” [On-line], URL: http://biblicaltheism.com/statistface.htm#_ftn3.

“Welcome to the Christian Humanist” (2006), The Christian Humanist, [On-line], URL: http://christianhumanist.net/default.aspx.

The post Secular Humanism and Statism appeared first on Apologetics Press.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Saturday, May 2, 1885

Braden was an experienced preacher, debater, and author. In his lifetime, he presented more than 3,000 lectures, and held more than 130 regular debates—eighteen of which were with the Mormons (Carpenter, 1909, pp. 324-325). In 1872, Braden even challenged the renowned agnostic Robert Ingersoll to debate, to which Ingersoll reportedly responded, “I am not such a fool as to debate. He would wear me out” (Haynes, 1915, pp. 481-482). Although Braden was despised by some, his skills in writing and public speaking were widely known and acknowledged. In February 1885, Clark Braden introduced himself to the townspeople of Liberal (Keller, 1885, p. 5; Moore, 1963, p. 38), and soon thereafter he wrote about what he had seen.

In an article that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 2, 1885, titled “An Infidel Experiment,” Braden reported the following.

The boast about the sobriety of the town is false. But few of the infidels are total abstainers. Liquor can be obtained at three different places in this town of 300 inhabitants. More drunken infidels can be seen in a year in Liberal than drunken Christians among one hundred times as many church members during the same time. Swearing is the common form of speech in Liberal, and nearly every inhabitant, old and young, swears habitually. Girls and boys swear on the streets, playground, and at home. Fully half of the females will swear, and a large number swear habitually…. Lack of reverence for parents and of obedience to them is the rule. There are more grass widows, grass widowers and people living together, who have former companions living, than in any other town of ten times the population…. A good portion of the few books that are read are of the class that decency keeps under lock and key….

These infidels…can spend for dances and shows ten times as much as they spend on their liberalism. These dances are corrupting the youth of the surrounding country with infidelity and immorality. There is no lack of loose women at these dances.

Since Liberal was started there has not been an average of one birth per year of infidel parents. Feticide is universal. The physicians of the place say that a large portion of their practice has been trying to save females from consequences of feticide. In no town is slander more prevalent, or the charges more vile. If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that its inhabitants are the devils (as quoted in Keller, 1885, p. 5).

According to Braden, “[s]uch are the facts concerning this infidel paradise…. Every one who has visited Liberal, and knows the facts, knows that such is the case” (p. 5).

As one can imagine, Braden’s comments did not sit well with some of the townspeople of Liberal. In fact, a few days after Braden’s observations appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he was arrested for criminal libel and tried on May 18, 1885. According to Braden, “After the prosecution had presented their evidence, the case was submitted to the jury without any rebutting evidence by the defence (sic), and the jury speedily brought in a verdict of ‘No cause for action’ ” (as quoted in Mouton, n.d., pp. 36-37). Unfortunately for Braden, however, the controversy was not over. On the following day (May 19, 1885), a civil suit was filed by one of the townsmen—S.C. Thayer, a hotel operator in Liberal. The petition for damages of $25,000 alleged that Clark Braden and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an article in which they had made false, malicious, and libelous statements against the National Hotel in Liberal, managed by Mr. Thayer. He claimed that Braden’s remarks, published in the St. Louise Post-Dispatch on May 2, 1885, “greatly and irreparably injured and ruined” his business (Thayer v. Braden). However, when the prosecution learned that the defense was thoroughly prepared to prove that Liberal was a den of infamy, and that its hotels were little more than houses of prostitution, the suit was dismissed on September 17, 1886 by the plaintiff at his own cost (Thayer v. Braden). Braden was exonerated in everything he had written. Indeed, the details Braden originally reported about Liberal, Missouri, on May 2, 1885 were found to be completely factual.

It took only a few short years for Liberal’s unattractiveness and inconsistency to be exposed. People cannot exclude God from the equation, and expect to remain a “sober, trustworthy” town. Godlessness equals unruliness, which in turn makes a repugnant, immoral people. The town of Liberal was a failure. Only five years after its establishment, Braden indicated that “[n]ine-tenths of those now in town would leave if they could sell their property. More property has been lost by locating in the town than has been made in it…. Hundreds have been deceived and injured and ruined financially” (Keller, p. 5). Apparently, “doing business with the devil” did not pay the kind of dividends George Walser (the town’s founder) and the early inhabitants of Liberal desired. It appears that even committed atheists found living in Liberal in the early days intolerable. Truly, as has been observed in the past, “An infidel surrounded by Christians may spout his infidelity and be able to endure it, but a whole town of atheists is too horrible to contemplate.” It is one thing to espouse a desire to live in a place where there is no God, but it is an entirely different thing for such a place actually to exist. For it to become a reality is more than the atheist can handle. Adolf Hitler took atheism to its logical conclusion in Nazi Germany, and created a world that even most atheists detested. Although atheists want no part of living according to the standards set out by Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament, the real fruits of evolutionary atheism also are too horrible for them to contemplate.

Although the town of Liberal still exists today (with a population of about 800 people), and although vestiges of its atheistic heritage are readily apparent, it is not the same town it was in 1895. At present, at least seven religious groups associated with Christianity exist within this city that once banned Christianity and all that it represents. Numerous other churches meet in the surrounding areas. According to one of the religious leaders in the town, “a survey of Liberal recently indicated that 50% of the people are actively involved with some church” (Abbott, 2003)—a far cry from where Liberal began.

There is no doubt that the moral, legal, and educational systems of Liberal, Missouri, in the twenty-first century are the fruits of biblical teaching, not atheism. When Christianity and all of the ideals that the New Testament teaches are effectively put into action, people will value human life, honor their parents, respect their neighbors, and live within the moral guidelines given by God in the Bible. A city comprised of faithful Christians would be mostly void of such horrors as sexually transmitted diseases, murder, drunken fathers who beat their wives and children, drunk drivers who turn automobiles into lethal weapons, and heartache caused by such things as divorce, adultery, and covetousness. (Only those who broke God’s commandments intended for man’s benefit would cause undesirable fruit to be reaped.)

On the other hand, when atheism and all of its tenets are taken to their logical conclusion, people will reap some of the same miserable fruit once harvested by the early citizens of Liberal, Missouri (and sadly, some of the same fruit being reaped by many cities in the world today). Men and women will attempt to cover up sexual sins by aborting babies, children will disrespect their parents, students will “run wild” at home and in school because of the lack of discipline, and “sexual freedom” (which leads to sexually transmitted diseases) will be valued, whereas human life will be devalued. Such are the fruits of atheism: a society in which everyone does that which is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6)—a society in which no sensible person wants to live.

Abbott, Phil (2003), Christian Church, Liberal, Missouri, telephone conversation, April 7.

Barnes, Pamela (2003), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, telephone conversation, March 12.

Becker, Hathe (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise, December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.

Brand, Ida (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise, December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.

Carpenter, L.L. (1909), “The President’s Address,” in Centennial Convention Report, ed. W.R. Warren, (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company), pp. 317-332. [On-line], URL: http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/wwarren/ccr/CCR15B.HTM.

Haynes, Nathaniel S. (1915), History of the Disciples of Christ in Illinois 1819-1914 (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company), [On-line], URL: http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/nhaynes/hdcib/braden01.htm, 1996.

Keller, Samuel (1885), “An Infidel Experiment,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Special Correspondence with Clark Braden, May 2, p. 5.

Moore, J.P. (1963), This Strange Town—Liberal, Missouri (Liberal, MO: The Liberal News).

Mouton, Boyce (no date), George H. Walser and Liberal, Missouri: An Historical Overview.

Thayer, S.C. v. Clark Braden, et. al. Filed on May 19, 1885 in Barton County Missouri. Dismissed September 10, 1886.

Thompson, Bessie (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise, December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.

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But, as one digs deeper into Barker’s book, it quickly becomes clear that those sentiments do not find a willing practitioner in the person of Dan Barker. In his chapter on prayer, Barker wrote:

Don’t ask Christians if they think prayer is effective. They will think up some kind of answer that makes sense to them only. Don’t ask them, tell them: “You know that prayer doesn’t work. You know you are fooling yourself with magical conceit.” No matter how they reply, they will know in their heart of hearts that you are right (1992, p. 109, emp. in orig.).

From Barker’s statement about what should be “told” to those who believe in prayer, it is easy to see that he does not necessarily believe his previous statement that “no one can tell you what to think,” or that a person should use his own mind “to find out what is true.” In fact, what Barker is really trying to say is that a person should only think for himself if such thinking will lead him to believe that there is no God, or that prayer does not work, or that all religion is nonsense. If thinking for himself leads a person to believe in the efficacy of prayer or the existence of God, then that person should be “told” what to believe.

In truth, the Bible demands that each person weigh the evidence for himself or herself. First Thessalonians 5:21 states: “Test all things; hold fast what is good.” Among those things that should be tested are the writings of skeptics like Barker. When blatant inconsistencies pepper their pages like so many spots on a Dalmatian, then those writings should not be “held fast.”

REFERENCE

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith In Faith—From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation).

The post Telling People What to Think appeared first on Apologetics Press.

• “You are arrogant and hate God.”
• “Your heart is in the wrong place.”
• “You are cold, empty, and pessimistic.”
• “You are an angry person.”
• “You are too stupid, limited, or afraid to see what is obvious to everyone else.”

After denying these allegations, Barker stated: “A strong clue that a person is arguing from a position of weakness is when character, rather than content, is attacked. Bertrand Russell pointed out that ad hominem is a last-ditch defense of the losing side” (1992, p. 88). Therefore, according to Barker (who agrees with Russell), a person who uses arguments that attack character is a person who is fighting desperately on the losing side.

While the truth of Russell’s statement may be questioned (since there are many ill-informed ad hominem arguers who happen to be on the right side), it nonetheless is quite interesting that Barker falls headlong into his own pit by repeatedly attacking character rather than focusing on real evidence.

In fact, only a few pages earlier, Barker wrote an entire chapter titled “Ministers I Have Known,” in which he proceeded to attack the general character of ministers he has known. On page 78, Barker commented, “When I think of ministers I have known…I picture the overweight perspiring Foursquare preachers, waving their hankies, shouting and prancing about the stage, ruling their churches like little kingdoms.” Just one paragraph later, he included in this list the “skinny Mexican pastor in Nogales whose second wife was pregnant with his twelfth child!… And the televangelist I know who ran off with his secretary and was back on the air in less than two years.” The rest of the chapter consists of the same attack on the general character of ministers, as Barker views them. Near the end of the chapter, Barker wrote: “I have a friend who says if you were to take all the preachers in the world and lay them end to end, it would be a good idea just to leave them there.”

Now, let us apply Barker’s own reasoning to his chapter on ministers. The entire chapter attacks the character of ministers, and thus would be classified as an ad hominem argument (from the Latin meaning “to attack the man”). But, according to Barker, those who use such arguments are using “a last-ditch defense” and are on “the losing side.” In this instance, I agree wholeheartedly.

Again, in his treatment of those who are against abortion, Barker stated: “This is the real drive behind the antiabortionists: misogyny [hatred of women—KB]. I don’t believe that any one of them cares a hoot for a fetus” (p. 213, emp. added) Such a statement is definitely a bold, ad hominem attack on the motive and character of those who disagree with abortion. I, for one, can say with certainty that I do not hate women. However, I also can say with certainty that an unborn baby is innocent, and that God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Proverbs 6:17). It is on this basis that I must stand as an antiabortionist. Once again, using Barker’s own thoughts, he must be “arguing from a position of weakness.”

Please note that this article has not attacked Barker’s character. He is not referred to as a misogynist or anything of the kind; nor are any moral indiscretions alleged in an attempt to discredit his arguments. On the contrary, his own words have been used to show that, if his thinking is indeed correct about ad hominem arguments, then he is arguing from “a position of weakness rather than content,” and such an argument is a “last ditch defense of the losing side.”

REFERENCES

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith In Faith—From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation).

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ALTRUISM AND THE SELFISH GENE

Soon after Edward O. Wilson published Sociobiology, Richard Dawkins generated an equal amount of controversy (and many more sales) for his book, The Selfish Gene (1989). Neither book devoted much space to human society specifically. It was clear, nonetheless, that Wilson and Dawkins each saw an important application—indeed, a reason for their books’ existence—in what they had to say about Darwinian evolution and human culture.

Unlike Wilson, Dawkins was concerned not so much with the biological basis of behavior in general, but rather with the biological basis of selfishness and altruism in particular. He argued, as the title of the book suggests, that genes are selfish: they will do whatever it takes to ensure that their carrier—the individual—makes more copies of these genes (Dawkins, 1989, p. 19). Evolution, therefore, has ensured that our behavior brings about the preferential survival of the genes we carry. Those behaviors are “selfish” because they preserve our genes at the expense of competing genes contained in other “survival machines.”

What, then, can we say about unselfish behavior? There are times when creatures seem to act for the benefit of others at the expense of their own survival. This has been a problem for sociobiology because traditional Darwinism has emphasized the individual—it is the individual’s own traits that will determine whether it leaves a greater number of viable offspring. If a bird helps a breeding pair build its nest and feed its young, without breeding itself, then it would seem to be a loser in the struggle for life. While this individual is busy helping others, it is missing out on the opportunity to produce heirs of its own. One response is to tell some sort of just-so story that extols the benefits of altruistic behavior for the entire species. However, this idea of “group selection” is highly contentious, even among the closed ranks of evolutionary biologists. For a start, it does not explain how the gene for altruism can survive over the long term. If an individual carrying this mutation behaves unselfishly and, as a result, leaves fewer or no offspring, then the mutation will die out. Also, the group needs to discourage cheaters—individuals that take advantage of altruists to further their own selfish interests, and thus neutralize the benefits of altruism for the species as whole. Dawkins (1989) suggests this might be avoided if altruism were directed only toward individuals, such as close relatives, who are likely to carry the same gene. Under this “kin selection,” genes for altruism cause their carriers to act in a way that enhances the survival of the same genes in other carriers. Cheating still is possible. A mutation could arise that mimicked the identifying features of individuals that carried the gene for altruism. This introduces the need for some sort of policing strategy. It might not rid the group of cheaters, but it will make the cost high enough to limit their numbers. The problem now is that the difficulties have multiplied. The evolutionists sought to explain a highly complex social behavior in biological terms, and ended up having to explain other complex behaviors, such as cheating and policing.

Even so, it is not altogether clear that they have explained anything. This is not to say that altruism might not have a biological cause in social animals (although we have yet to find the gene for altruism, and no one knows how that gene would work to produce altruistic behavior). It is just that Darwinian accounts face a number of difficulties. The real issue, especially when we consider human societies, is how Dawkins defines altruism. He starts out with the individual (1989, p. 4), but ends up at the level of genes. So although the individual’s behavior seems to defy Darwinian selection, the gene for altruism will be selected if it increases the survival chances of the same gene in close relatives. Sure, the altruistic behavior costs the individual, but if all its siblings and cousins act altruistically, then the gene will increase its long-term prospects of survival.

This sleight-of-hand is typical of reductionism. We were asked to think of one thing, but were shown another. We were expecting an explanation of an individual’s altruism, but were given a story about a gene’s selfishness. If this is the case—if altruistic behavior just is selfishness—then it hardly seems fair to call this an explanation of altruism. If I continue to act for the benefit of others, only if they continue to act for my benefit, then that is not altruism as we normally construe the word. This behavior is more like “selfish benevolence” than altruism (Nunney, 1998, 281:1619).

Dawkins might respond that the “selfish gene” is just a metaphor. After all, genes are neither good nor bad in a moral sense. Still, Dawkins wants to say that altruistic behavior is not real—it is only apparent. Surely the reverse is true—it is the selfishness of the gene in Dawkins’ model that is only apparent.

It is no wonder that Dawkins asks us to separate the biological from the psychological. He does not want us to worry about hopes, desires, and beliefs. It does not matter, in his view, whether our donation was motivated by expected tax write-offs, or whether we saved a drowning enemy. But can we do this? Does our mental state at a particular time make no difference? If so, why have human societies drawn a distinction between selfishness and altruism, or between manslaughter and murder? If Dawkins wants to explain human behavior in terms of human biology, he had better not ignore human psychology.

At best, Dawkins has given us a hypothetical explanation of why social animals might act with the most charity toward their closest relatives. However, the biological causes underlying this behavior remain completely unexplained, and we have no reason to think that altruism is only “apparent” in human societies.

FROM GENES TO MEMES

Despite trying to explain one aspect of human behavior (altruism) in genetic terms, Dawkins wanted to use something other than genes to explain cultural evolution. At this point he introduced the term “meme.” Just as genes are passed from one generation to the next and acted upon by natural selection, so memes are copied from one brain to the next and are acted upon by cultural selection (Dawkins, 1989, p. 192). Under this newly coined word, Dawkins listed uniquely human concepts such as “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothing fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” Successful memes, like successful genes, are better at making more copies of themselves. Examples would be denim jeans and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

Actually, Dawkins does not intend to produce a theory of cultural evolution; he invented memes to show the universality of Darwinism (Miele, 1995; also Hurst and Dawkins, 1992; Dawkins, 1994). In other words, he wants to show that if Darwinism works on anything that can be copied, even ideas, then it must have worked on our genes. Unfortunately, others have taken his rhetorical device seriously. Following the mass suicide of Heaven’s Gate members, an article in Newsweek drew on the “new science of memetics” to suggest that their self-destructive ideas, or “mind viruses,” could find new hosts through the popular media (Cowley, 1997). There is now a Journal of Memetics.

However, the analogy between genes and memes, and viruses and ideas, fails completely. Dawkins acknowledged some of these criticisms (1982, p. 112), although they did not perturb him. Here are some reasons why we should be skeptical:

• Changes in genes (mutations) occur randomly, whereas changes in ideas are not random. An apple’s falling from a tree is a random event; Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity, inspired from such an event, is itself nonrandom. His ideas on calculus and gravity did not emerge randomly from shapes and figures on a page.
   
• Genes store information, whereas cultural features may or may not store information. A book is a meme that carries complex, specified information. Blue jeans are a meme, too, but it is hard to say how they carry information. Obviously we can study the jeans and, depending on our current state of knowledge, we might be able to determine where and how they were made, and what materials were used. Whereas the information we gather from blue jeans is subjective (it depends on us), the information in a strand of DNA is objective (it is there regardless of any intelligent observers).
   
• Genes exist only in the organism, whereas cultural elements may exist outside the human brain. Although Dawkins credits the brain with inventing memes, and although memes can travel directly from brain to brain, they can reside on other media such as books, tapes, or digital media. This means that a tune, say, can be stored on a compact disc before it reaches another human brain. Dawkins likes to talk about memes as a kind of “mind virus” because a virus contains information and can exist outside the cell. However, a virus depends totally on transmission into the cell before copying occurs, whereas someone can make a million copies of a music CD without ever listening to the tunes it carries.
   
• Cells copy genes exactly, whereas minds copy cultural elements with changes. Whenever a cell undergoes division, it makes a new copy of the entire genetic code, and rarely makes any mistakes. It is the nature of the human mind, however, to filter just about everything it absorbs. We take in very few ideas and repeat them verbatim. Sometimes we don’t even bother to repeat them. Fashions and technologies, by their very nature, change at a much higher rate than the genetic copying mechanisms of living cells.
   
• Genes are discrete, whereas cultural elements can blend. Through his experiments on peas, Mendel showed that the units of heredity are separate and occur in pairs. This means, for instance, that you could inherit a gene for black hair from your father, and a gene for blonde hair from your mother (assuming, for the sake of simplicity, that there is just one pair of genes for hair color). But your hair is not going to be a mixture of black and white; it may turn gray later on in life, but that is another matter. The actual color will reflect whichever variety of the gene is most dominant (probably black in this case). However, two totally different ideas can come together to form a third. The English language is a hodge-podge of other languages. Weddings, funerals, and holiday activities can be a blend of traditions from both sides of the family.
   
• Gene copying is Mendelian, whereas transmission of cultural elements is Lamarckian. Darwin’s main competitor was the Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829). He advanced a theory of evolution which said that changes acquired during a lifetime will pass to the next generation. If a giraffe strengthens its leg and neck muscles to reach higher branches, then the next generation will inherit these characteristics. If you cut the tail off each generation of rats, eventually rats will be born with no tails. Thanks to Mendel, we know this theory is not true. The traits are passed on in discrete, heritable units we call genes. The offspring will have these traits, not the traits we accumulated during our lifetime. However, Lamarck’s theory is true for ideas. We do acquire ideas during our lifetime, and we do pass them on to our children. If a father acquires a belief in God, he can talk to his children about it, but they cannot inherit this belief genetically.

BACK TO EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS

Dawkins’ unsuccessful analogy highlights the inherent problem in applying biological principles to aspects of human culture. Nonetheless, there is a tremendous push to popularize Darwinism—to take it beyond stuffy labs and dusty fossils—and show everyone that it is not “just another” scientific theory. That is why, I suspect, evolutionists end up meddling in ethics. How did this happen? Sociobiology was supposed to be nothing more than a description of why we value certain behaviors. Dawkins, in particular, has been very emphatic about not wanting to make ought out of is (Miele, 1995; Dawkins, 1989, pp. 2-3).

Nonetheless, these writers really do seem to have a larger “vision” for an evolutionary ethic. Listen to Wilson’s sense of frustration in the following passage: “Scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologized” (1980, p. 287). He concludes that a deeper understanding of human biology “will make possible the selection of a more deeply understood and enduring code of moral values” (Wilson, 1978, p. 196). So he seems to have changed his mind: he really does want to do more than describe ethics in biological terms.

To his credit, Richard Dawkins shies away from framing an evolutionary ethic. Like Thomas Huxley, Dawkins believes we should resist evolutionary forces and subvert our genetic heritage (Dawkins, 1989, pp. 200-201). He is keen to explain how evolution molded tree-swinging ancestors into lumbering, humanoid robots, as long as he does not have to live next to them. “My own feeling,” Dawkins cautions, “is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live” (Dawkins, 1989, p. 3). Having said that, I guess we can all breathe a sigh of relief. He goes on to suggest two values: “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to.” In other words, let the robots arise and overthrow their genetic masters! Dawkins does not explain why we should swim against the tide of our survival instincts. Apparently, Dawkins just thinks that a world of generous, selfless people would be a better place in which to live.

ANYTHING BUT GOD

Honestly, Wilson and Dawkins really seem to want as many Christian neighbors as possible. As we have seen already, one of Christ’s most important messages was to put others first; this is the altruism desired by Dawkins. Further, the Bible balances the concerns of groups and individuals that Wilson would like to see within human societies (1978, pp. 196-199). In the New Testament, we find that the church is to form a unified body, while each member plays a crucial role (1 Corinthians 12:27). It sets high standards for husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and employees, and governments and citizens (1 Peter 2:12-3:7), yet these ties do not come ahead of our personal relationship with God (e.g., Luke 14:25-27; Matthew 22:21).

Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and fan of Dawkins, has made an interesting comment along these lines. He points out that biblical ethics is a case of going from what the Bible says, to what we should or should not do. Whether you can make this move depends on your view of Scripture. If you claim that the Bible contains wise sayings, but is the product of human hands, then you are on no better ground than an evolutionist who derives his ethical precepts from Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Now,” Dennett points out, “if you believe that the Bible (or some other holy text) is literally the word of God, and that human beings are put here on Earth by God in order to do God’s bidding, so that the Bible is a sort of user’s manual for God’s tools, then you do indeed have grounds for believing that the ethical precepts found in the Bible have a special warrant that no other writings could have” (Dennett, 1995, p. 476, emp. in orig.). In other words, it is reasonable to go from God’s ought (“Thou shalt”) to our ought (“I should”), as long as you believe that God communicated directly to man.

The only valid Christian ethics, then, is a Christian ethics based on accepting the divine inspiration and authority of God’s Word. Espousing a “Christian ethic” without these beliefs will not work any more than espousing an evolutionary ethic based on Darwinism.

What are the alternatives? Obviously, for evolutionists, Christianity is out of the question. This leaves only one live option: secular humanism. Although Wilson, Dawkins, and Dennett would have you believe that they can offer a scientific view of ethics, they all end with the humanist’s plea to fulfill our potential as autonomous, thinking beings (Wilson, 1978, pp. 195-196; Dawkins, 1989, pp. 200-201; Dennett, 1995, pp. 468,476-477,481). The “evolution” in evolutionary ethics seems nothing more than a nod to nature for creating a brain mysteriously capable of moral judgments, and a body predisposed to self-preservation. There really is no basis—no set of facts—from which to defend or justify secular humanism, except the assumption that we must look to ourselves, and ourselves alone, for what is right.

Although these writers offer only a vague outline of evolutionary ethics, and offer no reasonable support, they are most definite about their intense dislike of Christianity. Wilson hopes that scientific materialism—a bringing together of humanism and evolution—will replace religion as “the more powerful mythology” (1978, p. 207). His attack is two-fold (1978, pp. 191-192).

First, he wishes to overcome the seemingly invincible idea of a Creator God by using scientific materialism as his siege machine. He is confident that humanistic scientists will come up with more ideas to explain the origin of life or the Universe without God, and eventually will undermine the foundations of a belief in divine creation. And second, he wishes to explain away religion. If scientific naturalism can “explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material phenomenon,” then theology will not survive as an independent intellectual discipline.

In Dawkins’ opinion, the “God meme” survives because “it provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that the injustices of this world may be rectified in the next. The ‘everlasting arms’ hold out a cushion against our own inadequacies which, like a doctor’s placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary” (Dawkins, 1989, p. 193). Responding to the success of religion, he says: “Religion is a terrific meme. That’s right. But that doesn’t make it true and I care about what’s true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see it stamped out” (Miele, 1995). He calls religion a “bore” and God a “naive personification” (Thomas, 1997, p. 11).

Finally, like Wilson, Dennett believes that evolutionists should engineer the extinction of religion as a vital force in society. Darwin’s “dangerous” idea (i.e., Dennett’s view that evolution has implications for every part of our existence) will create a “toxic” cultural environment for fundamentalist religion (1995, p. 515). The only place for religion will be a kind of cultural zoo; churches will become museums. “Save the Baptists! Yes of course,” Dennett says, “but not by all means. Not if it means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world…. Misinforming a child is a terrible offense” (1995, p. 516; emp. in orig.). His “final solution” is a promise to undo a child’s religious training:

If you insist on teaching your children falsehoods—that the Earth is flat, that “Man” is not a product of evolution by natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity (1995, p. 519).

The agenda, then, is quite clear: there is no proven biological basis for an evolutionary ethic; there is no reasonable connection between Darwinism and culture or values; but anything will do as long as it is couched in the language of science or nature, and as long as it can displace religion in general, and Christianity in particular.

CONCLUSION

Charles Darwin has left a huge legacy for the modern era. Although his theory has difficulties, many people viewed Darwinian evolution as the only reasonable solution that avoided any appeal to a Creator God. It came at a time when people were looking to shed the constraints of church authority and its influence over education and society. The existing powers had a vested interest in maintaining order and the status quo as a matter of divine economy. There was little room within that power structure for talk of change—either in nature or society. Darwin’s theory challenged these conventions by implying that change, not stability, was the usual state of life on Earth. Reformers interpreted this change as progress—specifically, progress toward a freer, stronger, wealthier society. Many of them believed that this could only occur by unconstrained competition, as outlined by Thomas Malthus. Out of these swirling social currents emerged Herbert W. Spencer’s social Darwinism (despite the name, Darwin never endorsed this application of his theory). Spencer’s idea struck a popular nerve by suggesting that social institutions should step aside and allow nature to cull the poor and destitute, thus creating a fitter race of beings.

Eventually, social Darwinism fell out of favor for several reasons: (1) many people did not want, and would not permit, large-scale starvation among the unemployed and working poor; (2) wars and the changing fortunes of industrialized nations destroyed the notion of inevitable progress; and (3) contrary to the prejudiced Victorian outlook, scientists came to realize that neither technology nor material wealth was a good indicator of a given culture’s complexity or survivability.

The latter quarter of the twentieth century has seen a revival of cultural Darwinism, especially in the form of Edward O. Wilson’s sociobiology. Ostensibly, this field of study differs from Spencer’s view in wanting to describe, rather than prescribe, human behavior. Some of these accounts are proving highly controversial, especially those that attempt to describe adultery, rape, domestic violence, infanticide, and other abhorrent behaviors in terms of evolutionary theory. The usual explanations include motivations of self-preservation and an unstoppable urge to multiply one’s genetic heritage at almost any cost. However, these accounts resemble Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. In fact, there is a great lack, if not an outright absence, of solid evidence showing the causative relationship between genetics and complex human behavior.

Richard Dawkins has taken a different approach by proposing that human culture evolves apart from biology, but still according to Darwinian principles. He has coined the term “meme” to describe units of cultural inheritance, and intends to draw a strong analogy with genes. However, ideas, tunes, fashions, and other so-called memes follow neither Darwinian selection nor Mendelian rules of inheritance and transmission.

Despite the promise of merely describing behavior, the popularizers of Darwinian orthodoxly give the impression that evolution can (and will) point toward a system of ethics based on biology. Certainly this is the case with Wilson. He believes that a greater knowledge of genetics will reveal a moral code more suited to our genetic constitution. Apart from the poor prospects of finding such a connection, there seems to be no adequate justification for going from what is the case in biology, to what ought to be the case in human culture.

Dawkins believes evolution created a brain capable of making moral judgments, but avoids proposing an evolutionary ethic. If anything, Dawkins views our evolutionary heritage as a peculiarly human challenge. We are in a unique position, he believes, to act against our selfish genes.

Although couched in scientific terms, all these writers have a humanistic agenda. Specifically, they envision values and morals having a basis in whatever makes us human (apart from our spiritual self, of course). There is a sense of urgency in their appeals because they wish to bring an end to Judeo-Christian ethics and any other religious influences on society.

Yet, as Dennett points out, if God exists and the Bible is His Word, then a Christian ethic is on the firmest ground of all. God has provided principles and rules by which we are to act, and has promised to enforce those laws. But there is more. The Incarnation brought us a message of purpose, self-discipline, selflessness, and love for all mankind. Dawkins and company want a reason to be good, but it is not to be found in their world view.

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was extracted, and has been significantly revised, from a chapter I wrote for inclusion in Dangerous ’Isms, edited by B.J. Clarke (Southaven, MS: Power Publications, 1997).]

REFERENCES

Cowley, Geoffrey (1997), “Viruses of the Mind: How Odd Ideas Survive,” Newsweek, p. 14, April 14.

Dawkins, Richard (1982), The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of Selection (Oxford: Freeman).

Dawkins, Richard (1989), The Selfish Gene (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press), second edition.

Dawkins, Richard (1994), “Universal Biology,” Nature, 360:25-26, November 5.

Dennett, Daniel C. (1995), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster).

Hurst, Laurence D. and Richard Dawkins (1992), “Life in a Test Tube,” Nature, 357:198-199, May 21.

Miele, Frank (1995), “Darwin’s Dangerous Disciple: An Interview With Richard Dawkins,” Skeptic, 3[4]:80-85.

Nunney, Leonard (1998), “Are We Selfish, Are We Nice, or Are We Nice Because We Are Selfish?,” Science, 281:1619,1621, September 11.

Thomas, David (1997), “The Man Who Put the Win into Darwin,” The Express, pp. 10-11, January 5.

Wilson, Edward O. (1978), On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Wilson, Edward O. (1980), Sociobiology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), abridged edition.

The post Ethics and Darwinism [Part II] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

“Right” and “wrong” do exist. They are not merely “evolved inclinations” that have been humanly contrived in order to introduce a sense of order and security into society. Nor are “right” and “wrong” subjectively determined so that, practically speaking, each person functions as his own law-maker. Rather, morality is to be measured by the laws and principles of divine revelation, as made known in the inspired writings of the Bible. Ultimately, morality is grounded in the very nature of God Himself. “[A]s he who calls you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy” (1 Peter 1:15). Though such a concept is almost wholly rejected by modern society, there is ample evidence to support it.

Let us contemplate briefly some of the principles contained in Scripture that assist us in putting “right” and “wrong” things into proper focus.

1. “Wrong” is not determined by the perpetrator’s moral sensitivity to an act. A wrong act is still wrong whether or not the violator is aware of it, or whether or not he feels comfortable with the situation. Saul of Tarsus did not know that he was doing wrong when he persecuted Christianity (see Acts 23:1; 26:9; 1 Timothy 1:13), but he was violating the will of God nonetheless. Ignorance is no excuse (Acts 17:30). In modern society, for example, many have entangled themselves in adulterous “marital” relationships. Frequently it is argued that such liaisons may be sustained because the parties “did not know” the intricacies of God’s marriage law when the unions were made. The logic is fallacious. Will a similar argument eventually be offered to defend the concept of same-sex “marriages”?

2. “Right” is not established merely by what man is able to accomplish by means of his genius and/or ability. Pragmatism does not provide the criteria for ethics. One human being presumptively can take another’s life, but that does not make the act moral. Two unmarried youngsters are able to conceive a child apart from the sacred vows of matrimony, but the act is illegitimate nonetheless. “Might” does not make “right,” and autocratic decisions relating to moral matters are condemned in Scripture (see Habakkuk 1:11). Radical attempts at human genetic engineering, or cloning, may be accomplished eventually through the manipulation of genetic laws, but the achievement, in and of itself, does not license the practice as ethical. The issue must ever be: Is a procedure consistent with the principles of God’s inspired revelation?

3. “Right” and “wrong” are not determined by what is legal. In the Roman world of the Caesars, infanticide was legal, but it was not moral. In some ancient cultures, a woman was not a person; she was mere property to be abused, or disposed of, at the whim of her husband. There are few who would defend the ethics of this custom. Homosexuality is legal, but it is moral perversion (Romans 1:26-27). The destruction of human life by means of abortion has the sanction of civil law, but the practice is abominable before the eyes of the Creator (Proverbs 6:17).

4. “Right” and “wrong” are not grounded in what a majority of the population “feels” is ethical. Jesus Christ is a King; He has not implemented a democracy to determine, by majority vote, how human beings ought to live. In the first place, man never can be his own guide. “O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Second, fallible opinion, multiplied a thousand times, does not change wrong into right. Moses solemnly warned: “Thou shall not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). It hardly is necessary to remind ourselves that the path of the majority is the way of destruction (Matthew 7:13-14).

5. “Wrong” is wrong, whether or not one is ever caught. In the isolated environment of ancient Egypt, separated from his kinsmen, Joseph might well have rationalized an illicit relationship with Potiphar’s wife on the ground that his indiscretion never would be known by his family. His reasoning, however, was: “[H]ow then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). There will be a time when the “skeletons come out of the closet” and “the chickens come home to roost.” Many things that have been perpetrated in darkness will be revealed in light, and secret evils will be proclaimed from the rooftops (see Luke 12:3). Secrecy does not sanctify!

6. “Wrong” does not become right by virtue of passing time. It is certainly the case that the public’s conscience sometimes becomes dull with the passing of years, so that what once was horrifying eventually becomes commonplace. But wrong still is wrong, though a millennium passes. Eventually, there will be accountability (2 Corinthians 5:10).

May God help us to examine our practices by the illumination of His glorious Word (Psalm 119:105), and to determine “right” and “wrong” issued upon that reliable basis.

The post Wrong is Always Wrong appeared first on Apologetics Press.

The willingness to appropriate evolution, and the motivations behind it, has changed little in the last hundred years. Darwinism continues to attract an enthusiastic bevy of supporters who see the work of natural selection in every part of the Universe, from physics to psychology, and from genes to human culture.

As I hope to show in this article, the attempt to derive ethics from Darwinism is flawed fundamentally, and the implications certainly are not consistent with a Christian world view. Also, I would like to look at a relatively new idea that attempts to extend biology into the realm of sociology via an extremely bad analogy. Darwin, it seems, was right to be suspicious: even he would not condone the subjecting of all human endeavor to the workings of natural selection.

SOCIAL DARWINISM

The Obsession with Progress

It is easy to underestimate the social and historical context in which Darwin operated. This is not to say, in the spirit of relativism, that natural selection, like any theory of science, is true only for a certain time and place. However, we have to remember that Darwin wrote during the Victorian era—a time in which Englishmen and women were enamored with the ideal of progress (Gregory, 1986, p. 379). This, really, was a carryover from the Enlightenment. It was an optimistic view that humanity would improve itself through education and liberty.

The beneficiaries of England’s spreading empire and booming industry could see how far they had come, how “right” it seemed that their nation should be so great, and how this exalted condition must be written into the course of “nature.” The liberals of that day wanted government to step out of nature’s way. They thought that an individual could improve his lot in life only by greater personal freedoms and less government interference (Desmond and Moore, 1991, pp. 217,294-295).

When putting on its kindest face, this view seemed to express a hope that God was working providentially through some sort of natural process to bring about a better world or, what really mattered, a better England. There was hope for the poor after all, but God, not man, would see to it. In its grimmest form, progress came by blind, ruthless competition. Nature had sorted society into the privileged few and the starving masses. Laws that favored the poor were futile because they ran contrary to the what the forces of nature had wrought. One day, the poor might find themselves in a better position, but only if the conditions of nature changed accordingly.

Serious proposals along these lines existed long before Darwin’s views on the natural world took shape. For instance, the seventeenth century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, described humanity as being in a “war of all against all.” As far as he could tell, a properly organized society was just a convenient way to rise above that constant struggle. In 1798, Thomas Malthus put forward his “principle of population,” which argued that strife and famine occurred when the rate of population growth exceeded available resources. It was in this period that Europe was starting to experience a population boom, mainly through a decrease in mortality. In 1800, the world’s population numbered perhaps one billion; it doubled in the next 130 years. Celibacy was about the only form of population control entertained at that time, although it was no more practiced than it is today. This left only two possibilities: either provide more resources, or allow war, disease, and starvation to run their course.

The work of Malthus attracted Darwin’s attention, too, although more for its scientific applications. Darwin realized that the descendants of a single pair of mice, or humans, or elephants, would overrun the world in a few generations. Yet this was not happening. Why? Because, Darwin concluded, nature preserves only those individuals that have the instincts, behaviors, and physical traits necessary for survival. Producing more offspring than can possibly survive “is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms” (Darwin, 1859, p. 63). This suited some of Darwin’s readers just fine. Seeing the Malthusian principle in all of nature served only to reinforce their belief that large “adjustments” in population were a fundamental feature of the world, and not something to be avoided by social welfare.

English philosopher, Herbert W. Spencer, became the most famous proponent of this reading. His utter commitment to the inevitability of progress led him, on principle, to adopt a strongly evolutionary outlook. In his view, progress permeated everything; nothing could stay the same. Matter, animals, and human societies began in an indistinguishable, homogenous form, and progressed to a state of increasing specialization and individuation. Just as there were many types of bees, and many types of deer, each adapted to its own special place in nature, so an advanced human society was one in which there was a “division of labor.” Of course, this just happened to describe industrialized Britain of the nineteenth century. If this were the latest stage of development, then it must be the highest stage of evolutionary progress. Those individuals who survived this stage would be “the select of their generation.” When Spencer penned these words in an article on Malthus in 1851, the Great Famine in Ireland had taken a million lives, and blindness due to malnutrition was becoming widespread. But for Spencer, Ireland’s misfortunes merely showed what happened when people multiplied beyond their means of support (Desmond and Moore, 1991, p. 394). The best course of action, Spencer argued, was an extreme laissez-faire economy and government. Individuals should be allowed to do whatever they want. Let them exercise restraint or multiply at will—nature would determine the outcome.

After reading Darwin, Spencer came to adopt natural selection as the force behind this progress, but the exchange of ideas went both ways. Spencer convinced Darwin to adopt his own phrase, “survival of the fittest,” in place of Darwin’s cherished “natural selection.” According to Spencer, and others, Darwin’s phrase left the impression that nature might have some sort of intelligence or mind that was doing the selecting. Darwin agreed only grudgingly, and the evolutionist never had a high opinion of Spencer’s work. Ironically, the volatile mix of inevitable progress and Malthusian theory came to be known as “social Darwinism.”

Spencer garnered respect both at home and in the United States. The momentum grew in this country with the work of sociologist William Graham Sumner. As in England, social Darwinism was seen to endorse the uneven distribution of wealth and power, and lend credence to ruthless business practices. Not surprisingly, the famous tycoons of the late 19th century adopted Spencer and Sumner as their intellectual guides. After reading Spencer, Andrew Carnegie “remembered that light came as a flood and all was clear.” James J. Hill proclaimed: “The fortunes of railroad companies are determined by the law of the survival of the fittest.” Similarly, John D. Rockefeller concluded: “The growth of the large business is merely survival of the fittest…. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely working out of a law of nature.” Both Hill and Rockefeller ran operations that were found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Apparently, competition was good, but no competition was even better! After making their fortunes, Rockefeller and Carnegie won renown as philanthropists, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to education, museums, and research, but rarely if ever to the poor directly.

As a popular doctrine, Spencer and Sumner’s social Darwinism fell out of favor on both sides of the Atlantic. Several horrifying events, such as the American Civil War, and certainly the First World War, dashed the romantic, Victorian illusion of inevitable progress. Also, scientists—the people who handled Darwin’s theory on a day-to-day basis—came to realize that the biological process of evolution had little or nothing to do with the organization of human society. It was impossible to judge that one form of society, or one group of individuals within a society, was “more evolved” than any other.

Arguments Against Social Darwinism

Apart from going out of fashion, social Darwinism made a number of critical errors. First, the people most in tune with Darwinism consciously rejected the idea of progress toward fixed goals or ideals. In the process of evolution, there must be no design or purpose. Bertrand Russell diagnosed this obsession with progress as a “human conceit” first staggered by its kinship with the ape, and then recovered through a “philosophy” of evolution (1981, p. 24).

As Darwin envisioned it, a species may appear to make progress one moment, only to become extinct the next, depending on the whims of nature. In an early notebook, Darwin wrote: “In my theory there is no absolute tendency to progression, excepting from favourable circumstances.” His young disciple, Thomas Henry Huxley, took pains to get this message across. In his view, the idea that evolution leads to perfection is a fallacy that pervades “the so-called ‘ethics of evolution’” (1896, p. 80). Huxley drew a distinction between the “natural process” of change at the biological level, and the “ethical process” of change in society. Progress in human societies would come by resisting, not following, our natural desires. Although he denied it at first, Darwin eventually came to believe that humans were able to rise above their “natural” states. He even sent money to the South American Missionary Society so that they could “civilize” the natives of Tierra del Fuego (Desmond and Moore, 1991, pp. 574-575).

Huxley’s distinction highlights a second and fatal weakness in social Darwinism. From the process of natural selection, people like Spencer wanted to derive an ethical system. They wanted to suggest what was right and wrong, or good and bad, based on Darwin’s observations. Yet such a move from nature to morality always has proved highly problematic. How, exactly, do you get from is to ought? We may be able to describe the actions of the majority, for instance, but why should this prescribe the standards of morality? Many people may find a certain activity pleasurable. Does this make the activity good or right? One law may benefit more people than another. Does this make that law good or right? Most people traveling on a particular stretch of highway may be going 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limits. Should we now condone the actual average speed?

So, even if natural selection works in nature by changing the size of finch beaks or preserving antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, how can it be right or wrong in a moral sense? If a lioness attacks and kills a baby zebra, is that right or wrong? If a late snow storm kills a newborn lamb, in what way is this good or bad—morally speaking? Human sensitivities aside, we understand that this is “nature’s way.”

Is that not the whole point, though? We cannot put our sensitivities aside. We imagine ourselves in the place of the zebra or the lamb, and we cringe because we would not want to be in their place. Yet, despite these feelings, we cannot hold nature responsible for what it does.

This is what makes recent talk of extending human rights to animals, such as great apes (gorillas, chimps, and orangutans), seem fundamentally confused. Since these animals appear to have a consciousness or self-awareness like humans, so the argument goes, we ought to include them in the moral sphere. Other activists feel that this is too narrow: we need to extend the moral sphere beyond ourselves and great apes to any sentient creature that can suffer or feel pain. But is this enough? What about fears, beliefs, or hopes? By reasonably good analogy we extend our own knowledge of such mental states to other people. But the analogy begins to break down as we go further afield. What does suffering really mean for a chimp? a sparrow? a trout? a newt? These questions are not just rhetorical. The fact is, we don’t know what it’s like to be a newt, and vice versa.

And why stop at consciousness or sentience? People who advocate bringing animals into the moral sphere have a name for their opponents: “speciesists.” It’s a mouthful, but the comparison to “sexist” or “racist” is supposed to be obvious. So why don’t we call these advocates “consciousnessists” or “sentientists” or some other equally unpronounceable slur, depending on where they happen to draw the line of admissibility into the moral sphere? The problem with all these suggestions is that they are just as arbitrary as any attempt to draw the line based on skin color or sex. The boundary of the moral sphere is drawn, not by brain functions or biology, but by the potential for moral agency. Being a moral agent means being able to choose between right and wrong, and being able to act on that choice. Only then can the results of our choosing be judged worthy of blame or praise, yet judging involves others deciding whether we could have acted differently. As far as we know, humans are the only earthly creatures capable of being moral agents. This is not to say that animals could not be the recipients of moral concern, but this makes them moral patients, not moral agents. As agents, we hold other agents responsible for their actions, regardless of whether those actions are directed toward plants, animals, people, property, or whatever. If a man acted cruelly toward an animal, it is not the animal that judged those acts to be cruel, but other moral agents. The animal may have experienced pain or suffering, but we have no idea whether it could grasp the concept of cruelty in any moral sense.

This is not intended to be the last word on the animal rights movement. What I hope to have shown, however, is that all sorts of difficulties arise when we go to nature for our morality. Animal rights advocates make comparisons between animal and human suffering, and leap from there to a demand for moral equality, ignoring the significant question of what it is to be moral. Social Darwinism makes the same sort of mistake. As Huxley saw so clearly, you cannot leap from evolution (which has little if anything to do with human social relationships) to morality (which has everything to do with human social relationships). The processes working on human biology, and the processes working within human society, operate at two different levels.

Social Darwinism and the Bible

At the risk of stating the obvious, the teaching of Christ is incompatible with social Darwinism. This is not to say that the Christian life does not include competition and struggle. After all, it was Paul who said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). He assured the Ephesians that we wrestle, not “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (6:12). And the apostle Peter, perhaps more than any other New Testament writer, reinforced the inevitability of suffering for one’s faith, and encouraged watchfulness and strength in the face of adversity (e.g., 1 Peter 1:6-7,13; 2:19-21; 3:14,17-18; 4:1,12-16,19; 5:8-9).

In Christianity, however, competition and struggle are means to an end, not an end in itself. For someone who believes he lives in a dog-eat-dog world, the aim is to be top dog. But for Christians, the ultimate goal is to spend eternity in heaven with God, the highest good is to love God, and the second highest good is to love our neighbor (Mark 12:29-31). When an argument broke out among the disciples, Christ assured them that if “anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). And it was Christ Who left us the greatest example by putting the whole of humanity ahead of His own life (John 3:16-17). In this world, at least, an ethic that always puts the interests of others above the interests of self is not the best survival strategy.

As we have seen, the better course of action for the social Darwinist is to allow “nature” to take its course. At most, like the great American philanthropists mentioned earlier, he would allow the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. We may think this has a parallel in a famous biblical passage: “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (1 Thessalonians 3:10). However, the Bible shows a great deal of compassion toward the poor. Under the Mosaic law, for example, the poor were granted the following provisions: they were not to pay interest on loans (Exodus 22:5); they were allowed to use a field, vineyard, or olive grove that was left at rest every seventh year (Exodus 23:11); they were allowed to gather from the corners of the field, and to pick up any grain, grapes, and olives left over after the harvest (Leviticus 19:9-10); they were not to be discriminated against, and the rich were not to be favored, in judicial matters (Leviticus 19:15); their labor was not to be abused or exploited (Leviticus 25:34ff.; Deuteronomy 24:12-15); and when in need, they were to receive loans (interest-free) or outright gifts (Deuteronomy 17:7-11; cf. 17:1).

We should note, also, that Paul’s instructions to the Thessalonians applied to those who could work, and chose not to. It did not apply, for example, to orphans and widows without any means of support (James 1:27; 1 Timothy 5:3-16). Finally, there were times when the will and ability to work were not enough, and direct donations were needed (as we see in the relief sent to Judea; Acts 11:28-29).

A critic might allege that such examples prove that we are, in the end, selfish brutes. Human society has adapted by inventing rules that keep our overwhelming desires for self-preservation and self-gratification in check. Did Paul not say, “with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:25)? Actually, this seems to be a classic chicken-and-egg problem. In other words, which came first: the desire to lie, wage war, steal, and murder in a peaceful society, or the desire for harmony, love, and compassion in a dangerous, violent society? Evolution would have us believe that the second scenario is true—that ethics came along after the emergence of the human species from an ape-like ancestor. However, the Bible comes down on the side of the first scenario—that it was man’s initial condition to be peaceful, and then came Satan. If the rules had not been violated—if there had been no sin—then Adam and Eve would have remained in paradise (Genesis 3:22-24). God’s laws exist, not to stop us from being who we are (rational creatures able to make choices both good and bad), but to judge the choices we make (2 Corinthians 5:10).

SOCIOBIOLOGY

Social Darwinism, in the form advocated by Spencer, has not survived to the current era as a viable intellectual idea. You still may hear people mention “survival of the fittest” to justify some particularly ruthless business practice or political strategy. Unfortunately, in cases like these, any justification will do, including an appeal to Scripture (this is one reason why I wanted to lay out the biblical view).

Nonetheless, new Darwinian views of society arise on occasion. A few paragraphs earlier, I took sides with Huxley in arguing that the process of natural selection has little if any application to human social relationships. Today, there is a view that the course of evolution has everything to do with human society. This is a subtle shift. It is not a case of going back to Spencer. No one would be foolish enough to bring up social Darwinism—at least not in so many words.

Let me begin by casting this new approach in a generous light: Rather than trying to invent an ethical system based on evolution (as did Spencer), these new ideas attempt to explain morality in evolutionary terms. Usually these ideas fall under the heading of sociobiology—a term coined by Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson. As he defined it, sociobiology is “the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior” (1980, p. 4). The “all” here refers to all animal societies, and not just human society. According to evolutionary theory, humans are just animals descended from other animals. There is no comfortable divide, not even in morality. Regardless of quaint words such as “marriage” or “adultery,” what we find in the mating strategies of chimps, rats, or fruit flies applies directly to human practices and conventions.

Yet, is it reasonable to reduce morality to biology? As we saw in the case of animal rights, there does seem to be a fundamental divide between humans and animals. This is not because they have feathers or scales and we don’t, but because they lack the capacity for moral agency. Is there something, therefore, about our “quaint” morality that we can explain away as nothing more than animal urges? Is the propagation of our genes our sole mission in life?

Sociobiology nearly always seems to answer, “Yes.” For example, a survey among university students in Australia found that women were more attracted to slim men. There does not seem to be much of a story there, so medical reporter Melissa Sweet (1997) went digging for something more interesting to say. She ended up consulting Dr. Tim Flannery, of the Australian Museum, who simply dismissed this trend as a “passing fad.” In reality, women could care less about appearance. To ensure “evolutionary success,” all women really care about is their prospective mates’ “status, power and money.” So, wives think mistakenly that they came to love their husbands, perhaps attracted initially by a sense of humor, or strength of character, or even good looks. But no, when a wife tells her husband, “I love you,” she really is saying “I value your ability to pass my genes on to the next generation.” What, then, could cause these young Australian women to disregard their evolutionary dispositions? Is this a behavior that will prove evolutionarily unsuccessful and, as a result, a whole generation of Australians will have less chance of survival? Will those women who desire status, power, and money in a man, and ignore “less important” features such as kindness or good looks, pick the best mates, and in so doing pass this “superior” sense of survival on to their daughters? Eventually, will the behavior trait of preferring-slim-men go the way of the dodo? Perhaps there are a number of “cuddly” young men who hope so.

The strongest, and most sobering examples can be found in the area of marriage and family. There is, for example, the “Cinderella effect,” which shows that stepchildren occupy a dangerous position in society (Daly and Wilson, 1988). In the U.S., according to homicide statistics from 1976, infants (aged 0-2 years) living with one or more substitute parents are 100 times more likely to suffer fatal abuse than infants living with natural parents. Similarly, statistics from Canada for 1974-1983 show that children in this same age group are 70 times more likely to die at the hands of stepparents.

The explanation for this effect, according to Daly and Wilson, is that evolutionary selection has favored such homicidal behavior. It is in the interests of the stepfather to withhold parental support from offspring who do not carry his genes. He does this by killing any stepchildren, especially babies that require a long-term commitment of resources. As proof, scientists cite similar behavior among nonhuman populations. In the case of the Hanuman langurs (a type of monkey that lives in India), males eventually lose their harem to a challenger. The new male frequently will kill his predecessor’s infant offspring. Theoretically, the mothers would stop nursing, thus making them available to mate and produce the successor’s own offspring. This behavior would ensure that a new male would make as many living copies of his genes as possible before he, too, was chased out of the harem (Zimmer, 1996, pp. 73-74).

If similar behavior occurs in humans, so the argument goes, then culture does not exempt us from such evolutionary forces. How, then, do we explain the “Brady Bunch” effect? That is to say, why is it that most stepparents get along quite well with their stepchildren without murdering them? According to Daly and Wilson, this is a matter of reciprocity, otherwise known as “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Or, to put it in evolutionary terms, “I’ll not get in the way of your genetic legacy if you’ll not get in the way of mine.” What we interpret as love or altruism becomes a cultural mask for genetic self-interests.

However, the evidence does not demand this interpretation, even in those few cases where stepparents mistreat their stepchildren. The statistics seem to show no more than the following: (a) people are more likely to be in conflict with someone nearby that they know (i.e., a family member), than with someone further away whom they do not know (i.e., a perfect stranger); and (b), when family conflict occurs, the most defenseless members are vulnerable to a person with the least parental attachment. It is quite a leap to conclude that unknown genes from some unknown past are predisposing men to kill other men’s babies.

GENES AND BEHAVIOR

Where, in fact, is the proof that evolution has selected a trait for wiping out one’s stepchildren? Another way of posing this question is to ask, “Where is the gene for infanticide?”

The point is this: genes store the code that a cell uses to make proteins. These proteins may have one or more roles to play in forming structure (hair, bone, etc.), regulating functions (hormones), transporting substances, defending against intruders (antibodies), or catalyzing chemical reactions (enzymes). So, what proteins incite a man to kill his stepchild? Does a child emit some sort of chemical, like a pheromone, that causes a violent reaction among all genetically unrelated people in close proximity? [We may have met some children like that, but it would be nice to see the evidence supporting those feelings!] Would it not be evolutionarily more advantageous to preserve a gene for something (again, like a pheromone) that endears a child to both its parent and stepparent? Does a human adult male really benefit from infanticide? If he murders the children of his wife’s former marriage, would the reciprocity principle not go by the way side? Could the wife trust her infanticidal husband if they had children of their own?

These questions, and their lack of answers, highlight the problem of applying natural selection to features of human populations. In this case, it is very difficult to say how or why natural selection would have preserved a genetic trait for infanticide. This especially is true given the relatively low incidence of infanticide in human societies when compared to animals such as the Hanuman langurs. Thankfully, infanticide remains an abnormal behavior, and cannot be an important survival strategy in our own species.

A comment by Stephen Jay Gould seems appropriate at this point. While he admits that evolution could have programmed humans to, say, distinguish between members of our own group and members of other groups, this in itself does not compel us to wipe them out. Here is an outspoken evolutionist who rejects the idea that genes determine behavior. His comments relate to genocide, but they could apply to infanticide, rape, adultery, or other behaviors attributed to our supposed evolutionary heritage:

An evolutionary speculation can only help if it teaches us something we don’t know already—if, for example, we learned that genocide was biologically enjoined by certain genes, or even that a positive propensity, rather than a mere capacity, regulated our murderous potentiality. But the observational facts of human history speak against determination and only for potentiality (Gould, 1996).

Stepfathers have the potential to murder their stepchildren. Ethnic groups have the potential to wipe out other groups. Spouses have the potential to be unfaithful. As crime statistics and news stories show, humans seem to be capable of nearly unlimited wickedness and cruelty. However, we know that most humans for the majority of history have survived quite well without engaging in these activities on a widespread, consistent basis. It is very difficult, therefore, to invoke natural selection—a supposed regularity of nature—to preserve such traits.

[to be continued]

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was extracted, and has been significantly revised, from a chapter I wrote for inclusion in Dangerous ’Isms, edited by B.J. Clarke (Southaven, MS: Power Publications, 1997).]

REFERENCES

Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson (1988), “Evolutionary Social Psychology and Family Homicide,” Science, 242:519-524, October 28.

Darwin, Charles (1859), On the Origin of Species (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, reprint of first edition).

Desmond, Adrian and James Moore (1991), Darwin (New York: Warner Books).

Gould, Stephen Jay (1996), “The Diet of Worms and the Defenstration of Prague,” Natural History, 105[9]:18-24,64,66-68, September.

Gregory, Frederick (1986), “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in God & Nature, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 369-390.

Huxley, Thomas H. (1896), “Evolution and Ethics: The Romanes Lecture, 1893,” Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays (New York: D. Appleton).

Russell, Bertrand (1981 reprint), Mysticism and Logic (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble).

Sweet, Melissa (1997), “Size Does Count, but for All the Wrong Reasons,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 12.

Wilson, Edward O. (1980), Sociobiology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), abridged edition.

Zimmer, Carl (1996), “First, Kill the Babies,” Discover, 17[9]:72-76,78, September.

The post Ethics and Darwinism [Part I] appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomenon [sic] are its byproducts. In Darwin’s world we are not helpless prisoners of a static world order, but, rather, masters of our own fate. And from a strictly scientific point of view rejecting biological evolution is no different from rejecting other natural phenomenon [sic] such as electricity and gravity (Levine and Miller, 1994, p. 161, emp. added).

Let us reflect upon several things that are smuggled into this little paragraph.

First, note that the paragraph concludes by suggesting that the theory of evolution is as well established as electricity or gravity. Aren’t we all familiar with the fact that electricity is a reality? And who doubts the law of gravity? The implication behind the statement is quite clear—if one does not accept Darwinian evolution as a basic law of science, one is stupid. This is an obvius attempt at intimidation.

Second, if one accepts evolution (which one must if one is to be viewed as intelligent), then such requires accepting “materialism.” This is the notion that there is nothing in existence that is not material in nature. This clearly is designed to dismiss the idea that there is a nonmaterial (i.e., spirit) Being Whom the Bible identifies as “God.” Supposedly, it is a violation of constitutional law to suggest that God exists; it is not an infraction of constitutional law to suggest that He does not exist! Further, the allusion to the exclusively “material” nature of all that exists denies that the human being has a soul. This implies, of course, that one is not accountable for one’s conduct in terms of any sort of eternal judgment.

Third, the authors suggest that “spiritual” phenomena are but by-products of the evolution process. Spiritual concepts are thus but a quirk of nature that may or may not be useful, depending on the whim of the individual. How, pray tell, does a discussion of the “spiritual” fit into a biology textbook?

Fourth, the authors affirm that Darwinism demands that we accept the conclusion that we are “masters of our own fate.” One would suspect that this phrase was borrowed from the infidel William Henley, in his famous poem, Invictus: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” It suggests that man is his own “god” and that he can manage his own destiny without any need of instruction from a creator.

The school system may not be teaching our children merely readin’, writin’, and ’rithmetic. It may be instructing them in atheism, hedonism, and dozens of other soul-destroying ideologies. Christian parents must take responsibility for the education of their children. Every day we must inoculate against the corrupting influences of society. Work at it!

REFERENCES

Levine, Joseph and Kenneth Miller (1994), Biology: Discovering Life (Boston, MA: Heath), second edition.

The post Religion in the Classroom appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[The gifted T.B. Larimore (1843-1929) once delivered a discourse titled: “The Iron, Silver, and Golden Rules” (see Srygley, 1949, 1:190-207). That presentation furnished the seed thoughts for this article.]

Jesus had been teaching in Galilee, the northern region of Palestine. Great throngs followed Him, and doubtless He was weary. Accordingly, He took His disciples and ascended a mountain in the vicinity of Capernaum—traditionally, Kurn Hattin, rising 1,200 feet just west of the shimmering Sea of Galilee. It was on this occasion that Christ taught that cluster of exalted truths that has come to be known as “the Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7).

Within that presentation is this memorable declaration: “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, even so do you also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). This saying has been given a metallic designation; it is called the “golden rule.” And that appellation has given rise to two other philosophical canons of human conduct known as the “silver rule” and the “iron rule.” Every rational individual, to a greater or lesser degree, will adopt one of these maxims as a guiding principle for his or her conduct. Let us reflect upon how these schools of thought relate to human activity.

THE IRON RULE

The iron rule is the rule of power and force. Its motto is: “Might makes right.” One can do what he is big enough to do. The principle is alluded to in the book of Habakkuk. God had promised that He would raise up the Chaldeans (Babylonians) to punish the southern kingdom of Judah for its grievous sins. This pagan force was a suitable tool in the providential arsenal of Jehovah to accomplish this mission because its disposition was: “My god is my might” (Habakkuk 1:11). But it is an egregious mistake to deify one’s physical prowess!

Advocates of the iron rule have been legion throughout history. Cain, who murdered Abel because his evil works were in stark contrast to his brother’s (1 John 3:12), and because he had the strength to do it, was the first practitioner of this nefarious rule.

Military leaders have found the iron rule quite convenient. Alexander the Great, known as the greatest military leader of all time, is a prime example. In the short span of twelve years, he conquered the antique world from Macedon to India. An example of his disposition may be seen in his capture of the city of Gaza in southwest Palestine. He took the governor, Betis, bored holes through his heels and, by chariot, dragged him around the city until he was dead (Abbott, 1876, p. 176). The military exploits of Julius Caesar are too well known to need elaboration. His inscription, given after the defeat of Pharnaces II in Pontus, says it all: Veni, vidi, vici—“I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Charles Darwin gave scientific respectability to the iron rule with the publication of The Origin of Species (1859). The full title was: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. “Natural selection” was Darwin’s tooth-and-claw law of the jungle. Species survive, thrive, and develop by destroying their weaker competitors. In a companion volume, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin vigorously argued the point:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man (1871, p. 130).

Adolf Hitler, in a political way, implemented Darwin’s iron-rule policies before and during World War II. In his ambitious scheme to develop a master race, the mad Fuehrer slaughtered millions of Jews, as well as those who were mentally and/or physically handicapped.

America adopted the iron rule as official policy in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme court, in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, determined that a woman has the right to destroy her unborn child in order to facilitate her own interests. Since that time, millions of innocent, defenseless children have been executed at abortion clinics and hospitals in this nation.

Each lock on every door and window throughout the world is testimony to the iron rule. The penal institutions of the various nations are monuments to the rule of force. Every corrupt political official who manipulates his power for personal advantage lives by this system. Bully husbands/fathers who abuse their families are iron-rule devotees. Even those within the church, like Diotrephes (3 John 9-10), who bludgeon others into submission, are apostles of this system of intimidation.

Few have the effrontery to openly advocate this brutish ideology; but there are legions who practice it—to one degree or another.

THE SILVER RULE

The silver rule often has been described as “the golden rule in a negative form.” It is the golden rule without the gold. “What you do not wish done to you, do not do to others.” In this mode, it has found expression in the literature of many different cultures. For example, among the Greeks, Isocrates and Epictetus taught the silver rule. The latter condemned slavery on the ground that one should not do to others what generates anger in himself. William Barclay, the famous scholar so long affiliated with the University of Glasgow, has chronicled a number of these cases in his commentary, The Gospel of Matthew (1958, 1:276-281).

The renowned Jewish rabbi Hillel said: “What is hateful to yourself, do to no other.” Some have described this concept as a reflection of selfish egoism that withholds injury for personal reasons (see Lenski, 1961, p. 295). In the apocryphal Book of Tobit there is a passage in which Tobias says to his son: “What you yourself hate, do to no man” (4:16). Confucius (551-479 B.C.), a Chinese philosopher, also taught the silver rule. Tuan-mu Tz’u inquired of him: “Is there one word that will keep us on the path to the end of our days?” The teacher replied: “Yes. Reciprocity! What you do not wish yourself, do not unto others” (Confucius, XV, 24).

The unifying feature of all these sayings is that they are negative in emphasis. They forbid much; they enjoin nothing. The silver rule would forbid you to steal your neighbor’s purse, because such is hateful to you. On the other hand, if one finds a purse containing $200 in the mall parking lot, the silver rule is mute. It, in effect, leaves you with the option—“finders keepers, losers weepers.”

In 1964, there was a case that shook this country at its very foundation. Catherine Genovese was returning from a night job to her apartment in the respectable Kew Gardens area of New York City. As she approached her home in the early hours of that April morning, she was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant. He stabbed her repeatedly, fleeing the bloody scene as she screamed for help, only to return—when no one responded to her cries—stabbing her again and again, until she died. Subsequent police investigation revealed that thirty-eight residents of the neighborhood admitted that they witnessed at least a part of the attack. No one went to her aid; not a soul telephoned the police—until after she was dead!

The nation was incensed. A United States senator from Georgia read the New York Times’ account of the incident into the Congressional Record. Everyone wanted to know, “How could this have happened?” The answer is not difficult to deduce. Many people live by the principle of the silver rule: “It’s not my problem”; “it’s no skin off my nose”; “mind your own business”; and “take care of ‘numero uno.’ ”

Following the Genovese tragedy, two professors from Harvard University wrote an article analyzing this episode. They alleged that their essay was not “intended to defend, certainly not to excuse” the conduct of the Kew Gardens neighbors. On the other hand, they argued: “We cannot justly condemn all the Kew Gardens residents in the light of a horrible outcome which only the most perspicacious could have foreseen” (Milgram & Hollander, 1964, pp. 602-604). With typical academic confusion, the professors reasoned: (a) Big cities are “organized on a different principle.” Friendships are not based upon “nearness”; those who might have helped the unfortunate woman were simply not nearby. (b) It must be borne in mind that these neighbors did not commit the crime; one must focus upon the murderer, not other people. (c) It is difficult to know what any of us would have done in a similar circumstance. (d) Hind sight is always better than foresight. (e) People hesitate to enter a violent situation alone; but organization takes time, and there wasn’t enough time that night. (f) No one knows “the quality” of the relationship that Miss Genovese had with the community. (g) A “collective paralysis” may have seized the neighbors. (h) People in the city are hardened to street life; the “street” is often symbolic of the vulgar. (i) Heroic efforts frequently backfire. A young man named Arnold Schuster, while riding the subway, recognized the notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton. He reported this to the police, and the criminal was arrested. Before a month passed, Sutton made arrangements to have Schuster killed. (j) There are “practical limitations” to initiating the “Samaritan impulse,” and if one acted upon every “altruistic impulse” he could scarcely keep his own affairs in order, etc.

We have detailed the foregoing list of rationalizations because they illustrate a sterling example of “silver-rule” logic!

THE GOLDEN RULE

Finally, there is the golden rule—so designated in the English-speaking world since the mid-sixteenth century. Though some argue that there is little, if any, significant difference between the silver rule and the golden rule, and that the contrast has been “exaggerated” (Hendriksen, 1973, p. 364), most scholars contend that the golden rule marks “a distinct advance upon the negative form” (Tasker, 1906, 1:654). D.A. Carson has noted that the positive form is “certainly more telling than its negative counterpart, for it speaks against sins of omission as well as sins of commission. The goats in [Matthew] 25:31-46 would be acquitted under the negative form of the rule, but not under the form attributed to Jesus” (1984, 3:187). F.F. Bruce commented: “The negative confines us to the region of justice; the positive takes us into the region of generosity or grace…” (1956, 1:132; emp. in orig.). Let us consider several elements of this famous principle.

First, when all facts are considered, the golden rule represents, in a succinct and formalized fashion, a unique approach to human conduct. Jesus’ statement captured the very essence of “the law and the prophets.” While some contend that others (e.g., Confucius) came close to expressing the sentiment of the golden rule (see Legg, 1958, 6:239), most investigators argue that Jesus was the first to state it in its purest form. Barclay asserts: “This is something which had never been said before. It is new teaching, and a new view of life and of life’s obligations…. [T]here is no parallel to the positive form in which Jesus put it” (1958, 1:277,278; emp. in orig.). Professor Harold Kuhn suggested that Jesus’ words on this occasion “inaugurate a new era in person-to-person relationships” (1973, p. 267). Tasker conceded: “[T]here is little evidence of the existence of any pre-Christian parallel to the positive rule” (1906, 1:653). Votaw, in surveying the matter, observed that the negative form, as reflected in ancient Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Oriental writings, suggests the fact that a desire for goodness is innate to humanity; nevertheless, Jesus presented the rule in a positive form and “gave it new force and sphere” that is “peculiar to the Gospel” (1906, p. 42).

Second, the golden rule is grounded in divine revelation, and thus provides valid motivation for its implementation. Jesus said: “this is the law and the prophets.” His statement suggests that the golden rule is a summary of everything the Old Testament attempted to teach in terms of ethical conduct (cf. 22:36-40). Carson made this important observation: “The rule is not arbitrary, without rational support, as in radical humanism; in Jesus’ mind its rationale (‘for’) lies in its connection with revealed truth recorded in ‘the Law and the Prophets’ ” (1984, 3:188). In other words, it is founded on belief in God, and the intrinsic worth of man which issues from that premise (cf. Genesis 9:6). Just where is the logical/moral motivation for noble human conduct apart from evidence-supported divine revelation? It simply does not exist. I have argued this case extensively elsewhere (see Jackson, n.d., 2[3]:136ff.). Additionally, some see the conjunction oun (“therefore”) as connecting the golden rule to what had just been said. In particular, “we ought to imitate the Divine goodness, mentioned in ver. 11” (Bengel, 1877, 1:204).

Third, the golden rule is universal, applying to every segment of life. Jesus said: “All things, therefore, whatsoever….” If legislators enacted all laws premised upon the Lord’s instruction, society would be wonderfully altered. If homes operated on this principle, would there be marital infidelity, divorce, or child abuse? If our schools were allowed to teach the golden rule, with its theological base (which the modern judiciary has forbidden), would not the academic environment be enhanced remarkably?

Fourth, the golden rule requires action. It does not countenance passivity, but says “do you unto them.”

Fifth, the golden rule commends itself to reason. It assumes that an honest person, properly informed concerning principles of truth and fairness, would have a reasonable idea of what is right for himself. Therefore, he should render the same to others (see Clarke, n.d., p. 96). Remember, Jesus is teaching disciples—not someone who has no sense of moral responsibility. The rule contains the presumption of some moral sensitivity.

Finally, we must not neglect to mention that the golden rule is very special in that it is consistent with the other components of Christ’s teaching as revealed in the Gospel accounts (e.g., Matthew 22:37-40). Moreover, the personal character of Jesus Himself was (and remains) a living commentary on the rule in action.

THE CRITICS

Some, like Dan Barker (a former Pentecostal preacher who converted to atheism), have suggested that the golden rule should be characterized as “bronze,” since it is vastly inferior to the silver rule. Barker argued that if one were a masochist, the golden rule would justify his beating up on someone else (1992, pp. 347-348). His argument assumes that it is rational to be a masochist! Others, not quite so much of the fringe element, have suggested that the golden rule might at least be improved: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” Such a view, however, is fatally flawed, and even someone who is as ethically confused as Joseph Fletcher (the famed situation ethicist) has acknowledged such (1966, p. 117). The weak may want you to supply them with drugs, or indulge them with illicit sex, etc., but such a response would not be the right thing to do. If I am thinking sensibly, I do not want others to accommodate my ignorance and weakness.

Suppose a man is apprehended in the act of robbing the local market. A citizen detains the thief and starts to telephone the police, at which point the law-breaker says: “If you were in my place, you would want me to release you. Therefore, if you believe in the golden rule, you will let me go.” Is the thief’s logic valid? It is not. For if one’s thinking is consistent with principles of truth, he would realize that the best thing for him, ultimately, would be that he not be allowed to get away with his crime, that he not be granted a license to flaunt the laws of orderly society. The rule works—when properly applied by those who have some semblance of rational morality.

Even some of the enemies of Christianity have done obeisance to the value of the golden rule. John Stuart Mill wrote: “To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.” Thomas Paine declared: “The duty of man…is plain and simple, and consists of but two points: his duty to God, which every man must feel, and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by” (as quoted in Mead, 1965, pp. 192-193).

CONCLUSION

In his discourse on the three rules of human conduct, T.B. Larimore observed that Christ’s parable of the good Samaritan forcefully illustrates each of these philosophies of life (Luke 10:30ff.).

A certain Hebrew man was travelling the twenty-mile-long road that led through a barren region of crags and ravines from Jerusalem to Jericho. As he journeyed, he fell victim to robbers who tore off his clothes, beat him, and left him half-dead by the roadside. The bandits’ reasoning was: “We are several; you are one. We are strong; you are weak. You have possessions; we want them. Case closed.” Theirs was the clenched-fist rule of iron.

As the man lay wounded, unable to help himself, presently a Jewish priest came by, and then later, a Levite (one who served the priests in temple ceremonies). Both, likely horrified by the bloody scene, crossed to the opposite side of the road, and hastened their steps. Their respective thinking doubtless was: “This tragedy was not my fault. It’s none of my affair, etc.” They did not kick the afflicted Jew; they did not rifle his pockets. They simply passed on. They were silver-rule men.

Finally, a Samaritan (normally, a dedicated enemy of the Jews—see John 4:9) came by. He saw a fellow human in need and was moved with compassion. He tended the injured man’s wounds, set him on his own donkey, and conveyed him to a nearby inn where, amazingly, he paid for more than three weeks of lodging (Jeremias, 1972, p. 205)—and pledged even more! The Samaritan’s code of ethics was this: “But for the grace of God, I could be writhing in agony by the roadside. What would I desire on my behalf if our respective circumstances were reversed?” It did not take him long to find the answer, for his compassionate heart was bathed in the golden glow of divine love.

The golden rule is a thrilling challenge to contemplate. None of us observes it perfectly, but let us never criticize it. Rather, let us applaud it, and strive for its lofty heights.

REFERENCES

Abbott, Jacob (1876), History of Alexander the Great (New York: Harper & Brothers).

Barclay, William (1958), The Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster).

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith In Faith—From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation).

Bengel, John Albert (1877), Gnomon of The New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark).

Bruce, A.B. (1956), The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. R. Nicoll. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Carson, D.A. (1984), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Clarke, Adam (n.d.), Clarke’s Commentary—Matthew-Revelation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon).

Confucius, The Sayings of (1958), transl. James Ware (New York: Mentor).

Darwin, Charles (1871), The Descent of Man (Chicago, IL: Rand, McNally), second edition.

Fletcher, Joseph (1962), Situation Ethics (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster).

Hendriksen, William (1973), The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Jackson, Wayne (no date), “Jackson-Carroll Debate on Atheism & Ethics,” Thrust (Austin, TX: Southwest Church of Christ), 2[3]:98-154.

Jeremias, Joachim (1972), The Parables of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons).

Kuhn, Harold B. (1973), Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, ed. Carl F.H. Henry (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Legg, J. (1958), Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.).

Lenski, R.C.H. (1961), The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg).

Mead, Frank S. (1965), The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations (Westwood, NJ: Revell).

Milgram, Stanley and Paul Hollander (1964), “The Murder They Heard,” The Nation, June.

Srygley, F.D., ed. (1949), Letters and Sermons of T.B. Larimore (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate).

Tasker, J.G. (1906), A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark).

Votaw, C.W. (1906), Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark), extra volume.

The post Three Rules of Human Conduct appeared first on Apologetics Press.