The Establishment Religion 1-17-10
There is a common belief among secular Americans that there are two ways to look at the origin of the universe issue: religious and scientific. This belief is held by many in the academic and scientific communities, and by not a few who self-identify as Christian. This belief is used in our courtrooms and classrooms to declare the teaching of evolution as scientific and the teaching of creation as religious. This belief also happens to be wrong. It is wrong not because the teaching of creation is not religious, because it is; the belief is wrong because the teaching of evolution is not scientific, but is rather religious as well.
The National Center for Science Education (http://ncse.com) is dedicated to “defending the teaching of evolution in schools” and to “keeping evolution in the science classroom and creationism out.” A recent article on their website described the dangers of a proposed bill before the State of Mississippi’s House Education Committee:
A bill in Mississippi is apparently the first antievolution bill of 2010. House Bill 586, introduced on January 12, 2010, and referred to the House Education Committee, would, if enacted, require local school boards to include a lesson on human evolution at the beginning of their high school biology classes. The catch: “The lesson provided to students … shall have proportionately equal instruction from educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution.”The legislative history of [Section 1] of state law suggests that it was intended to allow or encourage the presentation of antievolution material in science classes, as NCSE previously reported. (http://ncse.com/news/2010/01/antievolution-legislation-mississippi-005283)
Notice in this article that they are not worried about the dangers of teaching religion in the classroom, but rather they are worried about “proportionately equal” teachings from “scientifically sound arguments” that offer views antagonistic to evolution. They cannot allow students to be taught that evolution is anything but scientific fact. They do not promote it as a theory (as many Christians mistakenly believe they are supporting), but rather they insist it is the only allowable viewpoint.
In the biological sciences, evolution is a scientific theory that explains the emergence of new varieties of living things in the past and in the present; it is not a “theory of origins” about how life began. Evolution accounts for the striking patterns of similarities and differences among living things over time and across habitats through the action of biological processes such as natural selection, mutation, symbiosis, gene transfer, and genetic drift. Evolution has been subjected to scientific testing for over a century and has been (and continues to be) consistently confirmed by evidence from a wide range of fields. (http://ncse.com/evolution)
Here they claim it is “not a ‘theory of origins’ about how life began,” but then on another page they claim:
In the biological sciences, evolution is a theory of change that accounts for the pattern of similarities and differences among living things on earth throughout the earth’s history and across all the habitats and biomes that exist or have existed in that history. Evolution is a theory of emergence of new varieties of life forms, not a “theory of origins” that accounts for how life began. There are currently a number of proposed models and hypotheses for the beginning of life as we know it, but evolution begins after life is established on earth. (http://ncse.com/evolution/why-teach-evolution)
So, evolution doesn’t explain how “life” began, but it explains how all variation of that life happened, in “all the habitats and biomes (an ecological type such as a rainforest) that exist or have existed” in history. That’s all it does.
“Creation” is a philosophical concept: it is the belief that the universe depends for its existence upon something or some being outside itself … (A contrary and equally untestable philosophical assertion would be that the universe is uncreated, or self-subsistent.) By contrast, “evolution” is in the scientific category … In biology, evolution is the principle that all life is related through descent with modification from common ancestors. Science is the process of explaining phenomena by testing explanations against the natural world … Science also restricts itself to explaining things through natural, rather than supernatural, mechanisms. (http://ncse.com/religion/god-evolution)
Let’s understand this: “creation” is a philosophical concept because it says the universe depends on something or some being outside itself (God), and evolution would be equally a philosophical concept if it says the universe is “uncreated or self-subsistent.” Evolution is scientific because it says the universe can only be explained through “natural, rather than supernatural, mechanisms.” Doesn’t that mean “self-subsistent”? When they say “natural mechanisms,” don’t they mean through means that we can observe scientifically – meaning things within the universe itself (self-subsistent)?
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20 NIV)
Understand that the evolutionists are just as religious about denying God as we are about proclaiming him! They may claim otherwise, but their own words and deeds confirm that they view “science” (guesswork done by men) as being authoritative, while they view the Bible as philosophical at best and primitive foolishness at worst. But theirs are the foolish hearts that have been darkened and theirs is the thinking that has become futile (see Romans 1:21). Christians that yearn to be accepted by men, and so fall into the evolution trap had better wake up: you can only serve one master. The establishment religion of evolution cannot coexist with Christ.
-Charles Peterson