Deny vote to Creationists? Are Theistic Evolutionists being honest?

One article and in entirety and then one interspersed...the towering arrogance and prejudice that would cause someone to assert anything like this shows you how dangerous Social Darwinism becomes.   As light dispels darkness, the teaching of Creationism using the same evidence available to Darwinists causes people to reject Darwin.   So Darwinists must be censors and job-deniers and prejudiced beyond reason against those with differing ideas and arguments.   One of my commenters suggested that he could see with his eyes closed?!  Hmmm.

 

Creationists should be denied the vote?

Published: 8 January 2011(GMT+10)
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Joseph Stalin (1879–1953)
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953)
Mr. Jody Jay Nagel, D.M.A., an associate professor of Music and Composition at Ball State University, wrote to us with a fact-free rant which included wanting to deny Christians the vote. A team from CMI-US answered the fallacies.
Creationism is just plain wrong. Your “evidence” is not evidence. Your attacks on the theory of evolution lack rationality. My children should not be required to live in a country where faith-based thoughtlessness is rampant and its practitioners are allowed to vote. In spite of all your whining, look around, and you’ll see there is no god. There will never be “heaven” on Earth, while you people believe Earth is nothing but evil. There will never be peace on Earth as long as there are theists inventing beliefs.
-Mr. Jody Jay Nagel, D.M.A.
Dear Mr. Nagel,
Creationism is just plain wrong. Your “evidence” is not evidence. Your attacks on the theory of evolution lack rationality.
Yet no rational evidence was provided for this claim.
My children should not be required to live in a country where faith-based thoughtlessness is rampant and its practitioners are allowed to vote.
Good news! Your children do not have to live in such a country. If you believe that the United States is too Christianized for your children, you are free to emigrate to any other country. Perhaps one of the EU countries will be godless enough for you (unless of course you object to the large Muslim populations in many of them). Or even better, one of the atheistic paradises you seem to love, like North Korea, Communist China or Cuba; shame that atheistic communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and its satellites otherwise you would have had many more atheistic paradises to choose from. It’s notable that these paradises refused their people the same right to emigrate.

I suspect though, if you were to compile a list of other country aside from the US, you would probably find that you would keep adding countries like England, Australia, Canada, South Africa and so on—Western countries whose principles of foundation were based upon Christianity and the Bible. These countries allow voting by the people because of their core foundational principles, so your view that we should not be allowed to vote would be in violation of the very freedoms you espouse. The anti-voting idea you espouse is reminiscent of the totalitarian regimes mentioned above who are responsible for more deaths that all ‘religious’ wars put together: 77 million in Communist China, 62 million in the Soviet Gulag State, 21 million non-battle killings by the Nazis, 2 million murdered in the Khmer Rouge killing fields.1 See also:
In spite of all your whining, look around, and you’ll see there is no god. There will never be “heaven” on Earth, while you people believe Earth is nothing but evil. There will never be peace on Earth as long as there are theists inventing beliefs.
We don’t believe that the earth is nothing but evil—we leave that to the Gnostic heretics, so beloved of some liberal theologians. We follow the Bible in teaching that the earth was originally “very good” but was tainted by man’s sin. While there are a lot of bad things in the world, we can still see the goodness of God’s creation in some of the wonderful design features and the beauty that God built into His creation. But we believe that sin prevents heaven being established on earth, until Jesus’ Second Coming.

I’m confused about your statement about theists “inventing beliefs.” Indeed, people who practice an established religion don’t invent our own beliefs; we accept the beliefs handed down to us. Christians accept biblical teaching, which came from Christ, for example, but the principle is equally true for other religions such as Islam and Judaism, even if we believe they are wrong. It is the people who are determined to believe nothing that must make it all up as they go, and follow Saint Darwin and Pope Dawkins.

Half a century ago, zoologist and physiologist Prof. G.A. Kerkut (1927–2004), an evolutionist himself, encouraged students to try to come up with scientific arguments against evolution. He was disappointed when they couldn’t, because he said that to “really understand an argument you will be able to indicate to me not only the points in favour of the argument but also the most telling points against it.” He even compared a student who “repeats parrot fashion the views of the current Archbishop of Evolution” with “behaving like certain of those religious students he affects to despise.” He explicitly encouraged the study of ‘scientific heresies’, and that the danger of a student’s being seduced by one was outweighed by the danger of being “brought up in a type of mental straitjacket.” (Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, 1960.)
And lastly, your view that somehow creation is antiscience really displays great ignorance about the limitations of science in its ability to test things that allegedly occurred in the past. For example, read ‘It’s not science, by an actual Ph.D. scientist. Respectfully, you would do well to research the subject more thoroughly before making such ill-informed comments about what biblical creationists believe. You can also read the world’s most popular book on the subject free on our website, Refuting Evolution, also by an actual Ph.D. scientist. Your opinion also ignores the fact that the biblical worldview was foundational for the birth of modern science in the West, while it had been stillborn in other cultures like ancient Greece and China.

The reality is, if you don’t take the time to be fully informed then you risk the same type of one-track, self-deluded thinking that led to the deaths of millions at the hands of Nazi and Stalinist type regimes—that their beliefs that some people were better (more evolved) than others, and that people who did not espouse their own views should be exterminated. See The Holocaust and evolution. So much for the peace you seemingly desire based on the alleged ‘science’ of evolution. History unequivocally shows that atheistic regimes were the most violent and effective killing machines ever. Compare that with the words of the founder of the Christian faith who said:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5;5–9).
In fact, if you are an atheist, then you have no logical foundation for your desire for a peaceful world. At least Christians do. We suggest that your view is based on emotional appeal rather than the seeming logic/science you profess. This is because evolution (that apparently you see all around us) desires dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest and the weak to be culled—exactly what Hitler tried to enforce due to his evolutionary Darwinian beliefs (see documentation). Also, a new book The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics by Denis Sewell (2009) notes that in the “years leading up to the First World War, the eugenics movement looked like a Darwin family business.” Specifically
“Darwin’s son Leonard replaced his cousin Galton as chairman of the national Eugenics Society in 1911. In the same year an offshoot of the society was formed in Cambridge. Among its leading members were three more of Charles Darwin’s sons, Horace, Francis and George. The group’s treasurer was a young economics lecturer at the university, John Maynard Keynes, whose younger brother Geoffrey would later marry Darwin’s granddaughter Margaret. Meanwhile, Keynes’s mother, Florence, and Horace Darwin’s daughter Ruth, sat together on the committee of the Cambridge Association for the Care of the Feeble-Minded … a front organization for eugenics” (p. 54).
Sincerely,
Lita Cosner, Jonathan Sarfati and Gary Bates
CMI–US

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Further reading

Reference

  1. Rummel, R.J., Death by Government, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Return to text.
And...

No Buzzing Little Fly — Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is So Important

A buzzing little fly is only a nuisance. The theory of evolution is no mere nuisance — it represents one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith and faithfulness in our times.
The folks at BioLogos ended the year 2010 by declaring “The Dawning of a New Day.” Darrel Falk, president of The BioLogos Foundation, wrote with both passion and anticipation as he reviewed the past year and the impact of BioLogos on the evangelical scene. If making a splash was their ambition, they certainly achieved it. And yet, Dr. Falk clearly seems frustrated that the task undertaken by BioLogos is so daunting.

He reports that BioLogos has “barely begun to deal with the issues in a substantive manner.” Furthermore, he explains that the task of convincing evangelical Christians to accept the theory of evolution represents no small challenge. “Why is the task so difficult?” he wonders.

Easy answer?  Christians tend to believe the Bible and the Bible does not have room or reason for including Evolution.




He suggests three reasons for this difficulty. First, he argues that the church pays far too much attention to a “scientific enterprise” that isn’t, in his view, scientific. He points specifically to the work of the Intelligent Design movement. Dr. Falk, representing the position of BioLogos, insists that the evolutionary “scientific enterprise” is the authoritative world of true science. “For hundreds of years now science has been successfully informing us about the natural world,” he insists. Of course, throughout the centuries, many scientific certainties have been embarrassingly overthrown.

Dr. Falk must not be a historian.  Until the 19th Century, the typical Western scientist believed in the Creator God as the originator of the Universe.
Those who oppose evolution “are taking the Church down a dead end road,” he asserts. Then, after chiding the church for paying too much attention to anti-evolutionary voices, he offers a sentence which, taken seriously, represents a breathtaking intellectual commitment:

Scientific knowledge is not deeply flawed and we cannot allow ourselves to be led down this pathway any longer.

That is nothing less than a manifesto for scientism. Science, as a form of knowledge, is here granted a status that can only be described as infallible. The dangers of this proposal are only intensified when we recognize that “scientific knowledge” is not even a stable intellectual construct. Nevertheless, these words do reveal why BioLogos pushes its agenda with such intensity.

Sure, if BioLogos is a front organization for Darwinists, it all makes sense.   Or if it is compromising Christians who do not have a moral absolute standards they are not going to keep holding on to any vestige of Christ.

Second, Dr. Falk explains that the difficulty of conducting serious disagreements among Christians is itself a limiting factor. “Can we stay Christians even when we disagree so sharply about all sorts of things?” he asks. Well, the good news for Dr. Falk is that the church has long experience with serious theological disagreements. The bad news is that many of these disagreements have turned ugly. In one sense, some degree of risk is involved simply because the stakes are potentially so high. The controversy between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century was not a calm debate followed by refreshments in the church basement. Both sides recognized that nothing less than the most basic understandings of Gospel, Scripture, and ecclesiology were at stake.

In our current context, I would suggest to Dr. Falk that he and his colleagues should make their arguments with clarity, submit them with charity, and expect the same in response. We will all be judged by both the spirit and the substance of our communications and arguments. At the same time, we do not serve the cause of Christ by denying the importance and implications of our disagreements. Dr. Falk and his colleagues at BioLogos believe, and I take them as sincere in their belief, that those of us who oppose evolutionary science are doing the church a great disservice, leading the church into an intellectual disaster, and robbing Christianity of intellectual credibility among scientists.

Those are significant concerns, and they cannot be asserted as if this is all an intellectual tea party. In return, those of us who oppose the BioLogos agenda of embracing evolution do so because we are concerned that their approach means nothing less than the church’s capitulation to scientism and the embrace of a fatal subversion of both biblical authority and the integrity of Christian theology. We, too, are animated by central, and not peripheral, concerns. My own goal is to write and communicate nothing that will, by any intemperate spirit, cause me to be embarrassed before the watching world or to bring shame upon the Gospel.

Thirdly, Dr. Falk suggests that, for some of us, “the theological challenges are enormous.” There can be no doubt that he is absolutely correct when he writes that “the theological issues associated with evolutionary creation seem so huge to so many evangelicals.”

He then asks:

Will we ever be able to show the followers of Albert Mohler, John MacArthur and others that Christian theology doesn’t stand or fall on how we understand Genesis 1 or the question of whether Adam and Eve were the sole genetic progenitors of the human race? These are extremely critical issues to many and the task of showing in a convincing manner that evangelical theology doesn’t depend on the age of the earth, and it doesn’t depend upon whether Adam was made directly from dust will likely take decades before it will be convincing to all.

That would be never.  The null set.   Try to convince people to play football without a ball.  Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, including Genesis and He asserted that Adam and Eve were real.   Will Christians believe the Son of God or some ordinary doof with a degree?

So, Dr. Falk sees the task as that of convincing us that evangelical theology “doesn’t depend” upon affirmations about the age of the earth or the historicity of Adam as “made directly from dust” — but Falk envisions this task as lasting decades “before it will be convincing to all.” With all due respect, I think he will need a longer calendar. Most frustratingly, Dr. Falk’s statement does not acknowledge the fact that the arguments published by BioLogos go far beyond even these important concerns. Articles at BioLogos go so far as to suggest that the Apostle Paul was simply wrong to believe that Adam was an historical person. A recent BioLogos essay argues that Adam and Eve were likely “a couple of Neolithic farmers in the Near East” to whom God revealed himself “in a special way.” There is a consistent denial of any possibility that Adam and Eve are the genetic parents of the entire human race. The BioLogos approach also denies the historical nature of the Fall, with all of its cosmic consequences. BioLogos has published explicit calls to deny the inerrancy of the Bible. The concerns do not stop here.

The Bible reveals Adam to be an historical human being, the first human being, and the father of all humanity. Adam is included in biblical genealogies, including the genealogy of Jesus Christ. If the arguments offered thus far by BioLogos for resolving the “theological challenges” associated with “evolutionary creation” are any indication of what is likely to come in the future, Dr. Falk and his colleagues will wait a very long time indeed for evangelicals to join their club.

The article mentions me at several turns, suggesting that I “attempted to squash [BioLogos], not with a swat, but with a few delicately placed strokes on his keyboard.” Dr. Falk responded: “BioLogos is not a little fly, however, and it is not going to go away.” Consistent with this assertion, Dr. Falk wrote, “We live in a scientific age and that is not going to change.”

As for me — I am said to represent “a view that takes on the entire scientific enterprise.” He then writes: “To this day, I have not been able to identify a single person who holds a science faculty position in any Biology, Geology or Physics Department at any secular research university in the world who would agree with Dr. Mohler’s view of creation.” Well … ouch. At this point, I am supposed to yield to the authority of science and relinquish my theological concerns and be quiet.

Science was founded on the basis of Christian beliefs and it will continue.   Once more scientists acknowledge God again the world we be a better place.

I am willing to accept the authority of science on any number of issues. I am fundamentally agnostic about a host of other scientific concerns — but not where the fundamental truth of the Gospel and the clear teachings of the Bible are at stake.

As I have stated repeatedly, I accept without hesitation the fact that the world indeed looks old. Armed with naturalistic assumptions, I would almost assuredly come to the same conclusions as BioLogos and the evolutionary establishment, or I would at least find evolutionary arguments credible. But the most basic issue is, and has always been, that of worldview and basic presuppositions. The entire intellectual enterprise of evolution is based on naturalistic assumptions, and I do not share those presuppositions. Indeed, the entire enterprise of Christianity is based on supernaturalistic, rather than merely naturalistic, assumptions. There is absolutely no reason that a Christian theologian should accept the uniformitarian assumptions of evolution. In fact, given a plain reading of Scripture, there is every reason that Christians should reject a uniformitarian presupposition. The Bible itself offers a very different understanding of natural phenomena, with explanations that should be compelling to believers. In sum, there is every reason for Christians to view the appearance of the cosmos as graphic evidence of the ravages of sin and the catastrophic nature of God’s judgment upon sin.
Dr. Falk ends his essay with a paragraph that includes this key sentence: “If God really has created through an evolutionary mechanism and if God chooses to use BioLogos and other groups to help the Church come to grips with this issue, then these three huge challenges will begin to melt away as God’s Spirit enables us to look to him and not to ourselves.” I will simply let that sentence speak for itself.

The Darwinists represent a challenge to the Church.   At the heart of Darwinist is atheism.   'Nuff said.

I do not believe that BioLogos is “a buzzing little fly.” To the contrary, I believe that it represents a very significant challenge to the integrity of Christian theology and the church’s understanding of everything from the authority and truthfulness of the Bible to the meaning of the Gospel. A buzzing little fly is only a nuisance. The theory of evolution is no mere nuisance — it represents one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith and faithfulness in our times.
I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.
Darrel Falk, “The Dawning of a New Day,” BioLogos, Friday, December 31, 2010. http://biologos.org/blog/the-dawning-of-a-new-day/


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We are heading for a philosophical clash...later this week~