Creation: Is Darwinism a Religion?
A Sunday guest post by my brilliant husband, Gregg.
Every Sunday, my clever husband offers me a “day of rest” by taking over the homemaker duties here. His primary topic, the Biblical Truth of Creation vs. Darwinism, is a subject that has broad reaching scientific, social, and metaphysical implications and is gaining more and more attention in our modern culture. For believers and non-believers alike, the primary purpose is to present scientific, historical, logical, and/or sociological data in an empirical and defensible fashion, as much as possible written in layman’s terms, and in a format suitable for supplementing any homeschool curriculum whether you choose to believe the Biblical account — or secular guesses — about the origins of human life on earth.
A Darwinian Primer
The 6 types of evolution taught in the average public school, the first 5 being types of Darwinian evolution, and the last being simple modifications or changes within kind and not described as “evolution” by those not afflicted with Darwinism are:
- Cosmic evolution
- Stellar evolution
- Chemical evolution (aka Alchemy)
- Abiogenesis—Life from non-life (aka Biopoesis or Prebiotic molecular evolution)
- Macro-evolution
- Micro-evolution (Changes within kind – not evolution, rather just “Parents bearing children”)
Have Faith, Fellow Believers in Almighty Darwin!
I get a lot of static from Darwinists who want to have their cakes and eat them too.
It seems they want to assert religious beliefs while emphatically claiming that they are not practicing a religion.
It seems they want to claim “evidence” based on faith while claiming that same evidence is somehow backed by science. They want to look down their naturalistic noses at me for my belief in supernatural events, while simultaneously believing in utterly inexplicable and apparently magical events.
This logically leads to the question, “Does Darwinism qualify as a religion?”
Does it have the same characteristics as a religious movement? Well, certainly, it has a doctrine, a dogma, numbers of near fanatical faithful, and even fundamentalist figureheads. Perhaps it should qualify as a cult?
Vance Ferrell compiled a book entitled “Science vs. Evolution” in which he listed quotation after quotation supporting the idea that, yes, Darwinism indeed is a religion. Regardless, here is the collection of quotations pretty much as is from the book.
Evolution has become a scientific religion which men come and bow before and yield their reasoning powers.
“In fact [subsequent to the publication of Darwin’s book, Origin of Species], evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to ‘bend’ their observations to fit with it . . To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all . . If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation, how has it come into being? . . I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me; but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.”—*H.S. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution,” Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p. 138 (1980) [emphasis his].
We do not know how it could have happened, we have no evidence, and appealing to it as our religion is no solution.
“We still do not know the mechanics of evolution in spite of the over-confident claims in some quarters, nor are we likely to make further progress in this by the classical method of paleontology or biology; and we shall certainly not advance matters by jumping up and down shrilling, ‘Darwin is god and I, So-and-so, am his prophet.’—The recent researches of workers like Dean and Henshelwood (1964) already suggest the possibility of incipient cracks in the seemingly monolithic walls of the neo-Darwinian Jericho.”—* Errol White, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, London 177:8 (1966).
The theory is merely an article of faith, part of the atheistic creed.
“The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith.”—*J.W.N. Sullivan, Limitations of Science (1933), p. 95.
It has become an orthodoxy that is preached with religious fervor. Only those lacking in faith hesitate to accept this theory with no evidence supporting it.
“Today the tables are turned. The modified, but still characteristically, Darwinian theory has itself become an orthodoxy. Preached by its adherents with religious fervour and doubted, they feel, only by a few muddlers imperfect in scientific faith.”—*M. Grene, “Faith of Darwinism,” Encounter, November 1959, p. 49.
It takes plenty of faith, boys, plenty of faith.
“Evolution requires plenty of faith: a faith in L-proteins that defy chance formation; a faith in the formation of DNA codes which if generated spontaneously would spell only pandemonium; a faith in a primitive environment that in reality would fiendishly devour any chemical precursors to life; a faith in experiments that prove nothing but the need for intelligence in the beginning; a faith in a primitive ocean that would not thicken but would only hopelessly dilute chemicals; a faith in natural laws of thermodynamics and biogenesis that actually deny the possibility for the spontaneous generation of life; a faith in future scientific revelations that when realized always seem to present more dilemmas to the evolutionist; faith in improbabilities that treasonously tell two stories—one denying evolution, the other confirming the creator; faith in transformations that remain fixed; faith in mutations and natural selection that add to a double negative for evolution; faith in fossils that embarrassingly show fixity through time, regular absence of transitional forms and striking testimony to a worldwide water deluge; a faith in time which proves to only promote degradation in the absence of mind; and faith in reductionism that ends up reducing the materialist’s arguments to zero and facing the need to invoke a supernatural creator.”— R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy (1981), p. 455.
Evolution would require incredible miracles, and it matters not whether they be fast or slow; they would still be incredible miracles.
“Slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one.”— *G.K. Chesterton (1925).
By deifying *Darwin, men have retarded the progress of science.
“Just as pre-Darwinian biology was carried out by people whose faith was in the Creator and His plan, post-Darwinian biology is being carried out by people whose faith is in, almost, the deity of Darwin. They’ve seen their task as to elaborate his theory and to fill the gaps in it, to fill the trunk and twigs of the tree. But it seems to me that the theoretical framework has very little impact on the actual progress of the work in biological research. In a way some aspects of Darwinism and of neo-Darwinism seem to me to have held back the progress of science.”—*Colin Patterson, The Listener (senior paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London).
Evolution is based on faith alone, for there is no fact to accompany it.
“What is it [evolution] based upon? Upon nothing whatever but faith, upon belief in the reality of the unseen—belief in the fossils that cannot be produced, belief in the embryological experiments that refuse to come off. It is faith unjustified by works.”—*Arthur N. Field.
Acceptance of evolution is still based on a great deal of faith.”— L.W. Klotz, Lutheran Witness Reporter, November 14, 1965 [college science teacher].
It has become the great religion of science.
“In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to ‘bend’ their observations to fit in with it.”—*H. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution,” Physics Bulletin 31 (1980), p. 138.
It gives to mankind the most incredible of deities: random chance.
“The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity: omnipotent chance.”—*T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal (1975), pp. 101-102.
It is a creed dispensed by the intellectuals to the great masses of mankind.
“Darwinism is a creed not only with scientists committed to document the all-purpose role of natural selection. It is a creed with masses of people who have at best a vague notion of the mechanism of evolution as proposed by Darwin, let alone as further complicated by his successors.”—*S. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator (1982).
It is an entrenched dogma that substitutes for religion.
“[Karl] Popper warns of a danger: ‘A theory, even a scientific theory, may become an intellectual fashion, a substitute for religion, an entrenched dogma.’ This has certainly been true of evolutionary theory.”—*Colin Patterson, Evolution (1977), p. 150.
It is the underlying mythology in the great temple of modern atheism.
“Evolution is sometimes the key mythological element in a philosophy that functions as a virtual religion.”—*E. Harrison, “Origin and Evolution of the Universe,” Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974), p. 1007.
*Lessl says that *Sagan’s boastful declarations, about evolutionary theory, actually changes matter and energy into a god with moral qualities.
“By calling evolution fact, the process of evolution is removed from dispute; it is no longer merely a scientific construct, but now stands apart from humankind and its perceptual frailties. Sagan apparently wishes to accomplish what Peter Borger calls ‘objectification,’ the attribution of objective reality to a humanly produced concept . . With evolution no longer regarded as a mere human construct, but now as a part of the natural order of the cosmos, evolution becomes a sacred archetype against which human actions can be weighed. Evolution is a sacred object or process in that it becomes endowed with mysterious and awesome power.”—*T. Lessl, “Science and the Sacred Cosmos: The Ideological Rhetoric of Carl Sagan,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 71:178 (1985).
The Truth
The truth is that Darwinism is a WORLD VIEW with philosophical assumptions that any other religious world view relies upon. In the fanatical extremes — Dennet, Dawkins, etc. — it is clearly a dogmatic and fundamentalist religion and rather exclusive in nature.
But there is no love in this religion. There is only disdain, arrogance, disgust, conflict, and ultimately — death. If one must have faith in something, I think I would rather have faith in a love that exceeds my ability to even comprehend it.
My faith has answers for the questions that Darwinists cannot explain. My faith is cogent, sound, and valid. My faith is complete and fulfilling and reasonable. My faith is in the Creator who created all things visible and invisible and who is an eternal, transcendent being in whom I find solace, comfort, and a peace that passes understanding. My faith enables me to love those who hate me, pray for those that persecute me, and know that I am given this life for a purpose.
Why would I trade all that to believe in cruelty, death, conflict, and magic?
I commit to you that I will publish every single comment that meets this blog’s commenting criteria. You may want to review that criteria before adding your opinion here.
God Bless you and yours.
Gregg
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Additional Posts dealing with Creation and Darwinism
I had never thought of Darwinism as a religion-but you make some very interesting points! The amount of faith required to believe what evolutionists believe is hysterical to me simply because I often hear how weak Christians are because they believe in something that can’t be scientifically proven! Thank you for your thought-provoking writing!