Silly Wabbit! Darwinism is a religion!!!
Perhaps the most preposterous claim made by Darwinists of various stripes is that Darwinism is "science" while Intelligent Design or Creationism are religions. These worldviews listed below are all among the many religions of man:
Atheopathic = hatred of God
Atheistic= belief that there is no God
Agnostic= assertion that one does not or cannot know whether or not there is a God.
Theistic=belief in a God
Deistic = belief in some kind of Supreme Entity but not specifically God
Judeo-Christian = belief in the God of the Bible
Christian = belief in salvation specifically through the Son of God, Jesus Christ
Most of the great scientists before the era of Darwnism have been theists and deists if not Christians. The giants of the past consistently acknowledged a Creator. It is only recently that Darwinism has become a major if not the major faith amongst scientists. There is no faith that consistently ignores scientific evidence like Darwinism.
Column: Science and religion aren't friends
By Jerry A. Coyne
Religion in America is on the defensive.
Nothing like starting out with a nonsensical statement. Religion in America will continue as long as man continues because all men have some form of religion. If he is referring to his own religion, which is apparently atheistic naturalistic materialistic = Darwninism - then perhaps he is right. Darwinism is on the defensive in the light of new findings in science. But we shall see what he is trying to say...
Atheist books such as The God Delusion and The End of Faith have, by exposing the dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham, become best-sellers.
But rebuttal books like The Greatest Hoax on Earth and the success of the movie, Expelled, have also been popular. Coyne's fact-free assertion that such books have exposed "dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham" are completely devoid of accompanying evidence. Coyne is just a true believer in Darwinism, which makes him, rather ironically, quite religious!
Science nibbles at religion from the other end, relentlessly consuming divine explanations and replacing them with material ones. Evolution took a huge bite a while back, and recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head. We now know that the universe did not require a creator. Science is even studying the origin of morality. So religious claims retreat into the ever-shrinking gaps not yet filled by science. And, although to be an atheist in America is still to be an outcast, America's fastest-growing brand of belief is non-belief.
The paragraph above is a complete pile of crap, pardon my language. Science is actually based on belief in God. The first two assumptions scientists now make without even thinking are as follows - the Universe can be understood because the processes that operate in the Universe will be in some way orderly and comprehensible to the logical mind. These assumptions come from the great Christian scientists of the past, who assumed that since a Logical Mind created all things, all things would show evidence of logical processes. Much of what would be discovered would be understandable as well-designed. These are assumption stolen from the camp of Theists of all kinds. If the Universe is a random occurrence then there is no reason for atheists to assume or expect anything but random processes that are incomprehensible.
Here is where Coyne identifies himself as a liar. Science is not the property of atheists. Science is not metaphysical. Science is the study of the world we live in and how it works. All scientists have their own personal religion/worldview and all scientists bring their worldviews to work with them. Good scientists will allow the evidence to challenge their worldview while bad scientists will attempt to cram the evidence into their worldview no matter what.
But faith will not go gentle. For each book by a "New Atheist," there are many others attacking the "movement" and demonizing atheists as arrogant, theologically ignorant, and strident. The biggest area of religious push-back involves science. Rather than being enemies, or even competitors, the argument goes, science and religion are completely compatible friends, each devoted to finding its own species of truth while yearning for a mutually improving dialogue.
Here Coyne presents a false dichotomy. There is no inherent battle between religion and science. That battle is actually religion versus religion within science!
As a scientist and a former believer, I see this as bunk. Science and faith are fundamentally incompatible, and for precisely the same reason that irrationality and rationality are incompatible. They are different forms of inquiry, with only one, science, equipped to find real truth. And while they may have a dialogue, it's not a constructive one. Science helps religion only by disproving its claims, while religion has nothing to add to science.
Reminds me of an old Steely Dan album title, "Pretzel Logic". This is like saying that boats and water are entirely incompatible. There are no boats that can serve as water and perhaps you could make a boat out of ice but it would soon melt, so you cannot really make water serve as a boat. Science and faith have no choice but to operate hand in hand. Everyone has a worldview and we all begin our thought processes with presuppositions. Jerry Coyne cannot arbitrarily decide that his personal religion is synonymous with "science" because science cannot be a worldview.
Irreconcilable
"But surely," you might argue, "science and religion must be compatible. After all, some scientists are religious." One is Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian. But the existence of religious scientists, or religious people who accept science, doesn't prove that the two areas are compatible. It shows only that people can hold two conflicting notions in their heads at the same time. If that meant compatibility, we could make a good case, based on the commonness of marital infidelity, that monogamy and adultery are perfectly compatible. No, the incompatibility between science and faith is more fundamental: Their ways of understanding the universe are irreconcilable.
By now I think you can clearly see the idiocy of this assertion. Science and worldview are always linked and never the same thing. A car may need a driver in order to operate but you cannot call the driver a car nor can you call the car a driver. They both operate together.
Science operates by using evidence and reason. Doubt is prized, authority rejected. No finding is deemed "true" — a notion that's always provisional — unless it's repeated and verified by others. We scientists are always asking ourselves, "How can I find out whether I'm wrong?"
I can think of dozens of potential observations, for instance — one is a billion-year-old ape fossil — that would convince me that evolution didn't happen.
Really? Huh?
Physicist Richard Feynman observed that the methods of science help us distinguish real truth from what we only want to be true: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."
Hey, Jerry? You quoted this guy. You should think on what he is saying.
Science can, of course, be wrong. Continental drift, for example, was laughed off for years. But in the end the method is justified by its success. Without science, we'd all live short, miserable and disease-ridden lives, without the amenities of medicine or technology. As Stephen Hawking proclaimed, science wins because it works.
Stephen Hawking is a genius, supposedly, but his last book is an absolute fairy tale. Would you believe he gives forces that operate withing a material Universe for the creation of the Universe? I hardly think believing that gravity created the Universe can be called "science" as it is illogical and entirely untestable. Yes, science is a great thing and great scientists have improved our lives. Most of the great scientists of the last millenium have been Theists if not Christians. So if science "wins" then who are they playing against? Manchester United?
Does religion work? It brings some of us solace, impels some to do good (and others to fly planes into buildings), and buttresses the same moral truths embraced by atheists, but does it help us better understand our world or our universe? Hardly. Note that almost all religions make specific claims about the world involving matters such as the existence of miracles, answered prayers wonder-working saints and divine cures, virgin births, annunciations and resurrections. These factual claims, whose truth is a bedrock of belief, bring religion within the realm of scientific study. But rather than relying on reason and evidence to support them, faith relies on revelation, dogma and authority. Hebrews 11:1 states, with complete accuracy, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Indeed, a doubting-Thomas demand for evidence is often considered rude.
Now you are treading ground you do not understand. Christians do base their faith in large part on the Bible. What particular standard do atheists adhere to? Again, when you begin talking about metaphysical things you have left the field of science behind. We can compare atheism to theism within the realm of the metaphysical but that does not begin to touch on science.
And this leads to the biggest problem with religious "truth": There's no way of knowing whether it's true. I've never met a Christian, for instance, who has been able to tell me what observations about the universe would make him abandon his beliefs in God and Jesus. (I would have thought that the Holocaust could do it, but apparently not.) There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself. But how can you be sure you're right if you can't tell whether you're wrong?
This guy has not met a Christian who cannot explain the holocaust? It is called sin. In fact the holocaust is a direct result of believing in and acting upon Darwinist principles. So the Jerry Coynes of the past are the reason for the holocaust. Evil is in the world because of sin. The only way to deal with sin is to seek forgiveness from all of your sin and to trust Christ as your means of salvation and thereby giving your life to Him. Jesus Christ does transform people. Once you are saved, you may still be tempted to sin but in the depths of your soul you no longer wish to sin and prefer to avoid it. Sinning makes you uncomfortable if not miserable once you become a "new creature" in Christ.
The religious approach to understanding inevitably results in different faiths holding incompatible "truths" about the world. Many Christians believe that if you don't accept Jesus as savior, you'll burn in hell for eternity. Muslims hold the exact opposite: Those who see Jesus as God's son are the ones who will roast. Jews see Jesus as a prophet, but not the messiah. Which belief, if any, is right? Because there's no way to decide, religions have duked it out for centuries, spawning humanity's miserable history of religious warfare and persecution.
It is true that Christianity and Islam do not mix. Christian missionaries go to the corners of the Earth, teaching people to learn to read and write in their native languages and teaching them about God and good medicinal practices and so on and so forth. Islamic missionaries fly planes into buildings and blow up women and children as suicide bombers. Big difference~!
In contrast, scientists don't kill each other over matters such as continental drift. We have better ways to settle our differences. There is no Catholic science, no Hindu science, no Muslim science — just science, a multicultural search for truth. The difference between science and faith, then, can be summed up simply: In religion faith is a virtue; in science it's a vice.
What incomprehensible claptrap! There should be "just science" and everyone who does science should be willing to allow their worldview to yield when the evidence demands...but Darwinists will never yield. There is no more stubborn faith in the world of science than the dedicated Darwinist. The Ian Plimers and Richard Dawkins of this world have absolute blind faith in Darwinism no matter what the evidence.
But don't just take my word for the incompatibility of science and faith — it's amply demonstrated by the high rate of atheism among scientists. While only 6% of Americans are atheists or agnostics, the figure for American scientists is 64%, according to Rice professor Elaine Howard Ecklund's book, Science vs. Religion. Further proof: Among countries of the world, there is a strong negative relationship between their religiosity and their acceptance of evolution. Countries like Denmark and Sweden, with low belief in God, have high acceptance of evolution, while religious countries are evolution-intolerant. Out of 34 countries surveyed in a study published in Science magazine, the U.S., among the most religious, is at the bottom in accepting Darwinism: We're No. 33, with only Turkey below us. Finally, in a 2006 Time poll a staggering 64% of Americans declared that if science disproved one of their religious beliefs, they'd reject that science in favor of their faith.
Since Darwinism has been falsified by the discovery of DNA and the way cells and organisms operate and reproduce, it would appear that a staggering 100% of Darwinists choose their faith over evidence. Choosing to believe in Darwinism in the light of recent findings that show DNA to be more and more complex and that there is far more going on in both reproduction and simple living than previously thought is about as blind a faith as there can be.
'Venerable superstition'
In the end, science is no more compatible with religion than with other superstitions, such as leprechauns. Yet we don't talk about reconciling science with leprechauns. We worry about religion simply because it's the most venerable superstition — and the most politically and financially powerful.
Baloney. Darwinists control the grant money and the Universities and the news media. The NCSE is an entire organization devoted to censorship of non-Darwinists. Darwinists have the bully pulpit and they are fighting like mad to keep anyone from careful examination of their belief systems.
Why does this matter? Because pretending that faith and science are equally valid ways of finding truth not only weakens our concept of truth, it also gives religion an undeserved authority that does the world no good. For it is faith's certainty that it has a grasp on truth, combined with its inability to actually find it, that produces things such as the oppression of women and gays, opposition to stem cell research and euthanasia, attacks on science, denial of contraception for birth control and AIDS prevention, sexual repression, and of course all those wars, suicide bombings and religious persecutions.
More crap. Atheism does not have any valid claim for a moral code and Darwinism presupposes the survival of the fittest, therefore being in favor of racism and genocide and the will of the strong running roughshod over the weak.
And any progress — not just scientific progress — is easier when we're not yoked to religious dogma. Of course, using reason and evidence won't magically make us all agree, but how much clearer our spectacles would be without the fog of superstition!
As the following article will assert, the complete debunking of Darwinism would be a great boon to all of mankind. No superstition on Earth has caused more death of innocent lives than the logical living out of the Darwinist philosophy since the time it was popularized in the 19th Century!
Jerry A. Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. His latest book is Why Evolution is True, and his website is www.whyevolutionistrue.com.
Warning, based upon the article above, heading to that particular website may do harm to your brain cells!
Now here is an article that sheds light on the belief system that Jerry Coyne apparently wants us all to share...
The Religion of Nature: Social Darwinism by David Menton
by David N. Menton, Ph.D.
It has been said that no book, other than the Bible, has had a greater affect on society than Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Evolutionist Steven Jay Gould, wrote that following the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, "subsequent arguments for slavery, colonialism, racial differences, class structures, and sex roles would go forth primarily under the banner of science" (The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1981, p. 72). Darwin himself seemed to approve of the application of his evolutionary ideas to moral and social issues. In a letter to H. Thiel in 1869, Darwin said:
The feature of Darwinism most often cited by those who attempt to justify their moral and social views with "science" (evolution), is the concept of the "survival of the fittest." This application of Darwinian dogma to human society and behavior is known as Social Darwinism.
Originally published in St. Louis MetroVoice, September 1994, Vol. 4, No. 9 (Courtesy Missouri Association for Creation) Special thanks to Christian Cartoons (dot) com for the cartoons...look on facebook! Hat-tip to Karl Priest.
by David N. Menton, Ph.D.
It has been said that no book, other than the Bible, has had a greater affect on society than Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Evolutionist Steven Jay Gould, wrote that following the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, "subsequent arguments for slavery, colonialism, racial differences, class structures, and sex roles would go forth primarily under the banner of science" (The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1981, p. 72). Darwin himself seemed to approve of the application of his evolutionary ideas to moral and social issues. In a letter to H. Thiel in 1869, Darwin said:
"You will really believe how much interested I am in observing that you apply to moral and social questions analogous views to those which I have used in regard to the modification of species. It did not occur to me formerly that my views could be extended to such widely different and most important subjects." (The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin editor, D. Appleton and Co., 1896, Vol. 2, p . 294).
The feature of Darwinism most often cited by those who attempt to justify their moral and social views with "science" (evolution), is the concept of the "survival of the fittest." This application of Darwinian dogma to human society and behavior is known as Social Darwinism.
One of the most insidious features of Darwin's evolutionary speculation was that it sought to erase the fundamental differences between man and animals. This not only invited a comparison between man and the apes, but also between the "highest" and "lowest" humans. Blacks and American Indians were among the first to be singled out as being "lower" than Caucasians. In his book The Mismeasure of Man (Chap. 3), Steven Jay Gould pointed out that some anthropologists were not above falsifying their data to prove the "superiority" of the white race. For example, assuming brain size had something to do with intelligence (it doesn't), many anthropologists intentionally exaggerated the size of Caucasian skulls and underestimated the size of skulls from Blacks and Indians. Social Darwinism thus came to serve as a "scientific" justification for racism.
According to Bernhardi, a study of plant and animal life clearly showed that "war is a universal law of nature." (As quoted by Ashley Montagu in Man in Process, World Pub. Co., 1961, pp. 76-77). Bernhardi's book, published in 1911, had Germany's highest official sanction and approval -- three years later, Germany plunged the world into World War I.
"Darwin's book is very important and serves me as a basis of struggle in history...not only is a death blow dealt here for the first time to 'Teleology' in the natural sciences, but their rational meaning is emphatically explained." (As quoted by Conway Zirkle in: Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959, p. 86).
"Hegel's dialectical laws, translated into a materialist context, have become the official 'state philosophy' of many socialist nations. These laws of change are explicitly punctuational, as befits a theory of revolutionary transformation in human society. In the light of this official philosophy, it is not at all surprising that a punctuational view of speciation, much like our own, but devoid of references to synthetic evolutionary theory, has long been favored by many Russian paleontologists. It may also not be irrelevant to our personal preferences that one of us learned his Marxism, literally, at his daddy's knee" (Eldredge, Niles and Stephen Jay Gould, Paleobiology, Vol. 3, Spring 1977, pp. 145-146.).