If we have ever been under attack, we are under attack now.
It is so highly ironic that 20 years ago, we were crying the loudest about being under "attack" from "the forces of godlessness", with evolutionism heading the list, followed by Marxism and humanism. But while I heard all of that from Christians, (even before I entered the fold), I heard nary a response from evolutionists. I scraped around and found two books: "Abusing Science. The Case Against Creationism" by Philip Kitcher, The MIT Press.
1982, and Did the Devil Make Darwin Do It? Modern Perspectives on the Creation-Evolution Controversy: Wilson, D. B., 1983, Ames, Iowa, Iowa University Press. that defended evolutionism against "scientific creationism". Even these; even the former billed as "the case against..." I found to be fair and not attacking the Bible, but only challenging creationists' attempts to forcefit the findings of archaeology into a literal young-earth reading of Genesis. (which supposed evidence faith should not rest on anyway!)
Darwinism and all of the other movements to some extent, weren't so much "attacking" us, as we were screaming just because of the fact that they existed, moreso than anything they were saying about us. How dare they impinge on our "godly Christian civilization"! That was the primary "attack"!
So we kept preaching from the stump, then warning of disaster as a jugment from God), and it must have looked and felt so good in our eyes all that time, but we were really showing the world our behind, especially with all the various types of scandals that would erupt in our own midst. Meanwhile, we were not giving much of an intelligent defense of the faith, but still trying to manipulate through fear, and then, when that no longer worked, we got more into sensationalism (mircales, "abundant life" gospel, etc). Still, society remained unconvinced, and continued to drift away from faith, and then when disaster finally began occurring on our shores, some of us triumphantly stood and proclaimed "see; I told you so"!
So now, we are paying the price dearly for all of this. "Science" now has for the first time really gone from the defensive to the offensive. By now, our leading scientific defense is a watered down derivative of "creationism" called "Intelligent Design", and it no longer dogmatizes on young earth, flood geology, and stuff like that. Its advocates are more civil than the "old school' creationists with all their conspiratorialism and condemnation. But it's too late. This theory now is ironically what is receiving the evolutionist backlash.
Just about every other day, an op-ed cartoon pokes fun at ID and the Bible and religion altogether, with mockeries featuring cavemen or others positing a "mud god" or "flying spaghetti monster", with the caption reading something like "the history of ID". More and more articles are written calling ID everything from trash and psuedo science to "a body of woo-woo". An article on the bird virus, can even take a passing pot shot at certain ideologies it calls "wishful thinking" that would seemingly just sit back waiting on God to deliver us while allowing viruses like that to take over; and let's not forget the endless references to Galileo and Bruno. It is then rubbed in how much we dogmatized in the past, and kept being pushed back, admitting we were wrong. So if we were mistaken on the world being flat or at the center of the world, then we must be wrong on evolution too. Then we have those in our midst who seem to agree with everything the scientists say, not realizing that their argument is ultimately not just that a process of evolution occurred (despite whatever the Bible says), but that this theory then makes God "unneeded" ("You can believe He exists, if you want, but it all could have happened without Him. Just like you once thought He created every lightning bolt and rainbow, and that was disproven, so now you think He directly created life and the universe and what about if that is disproven?").
It is so ironic, that with all that complaining of "persecution" we did in the past, now is the time, truly, when I cannot pick up the newspaper without seeing faith ridiculed! I then respond to a lot of this, like currently now on the New York Times discussion forum, where I am exposed to more such vitriol from some, such as the Bible being "crock", from "the nonsense of Genesis to the babble of Revelation".
They say ID is not science, we have no labs, no research, no attempt to bring any of our "findings" up for a Nobel, if they were so true. Just attacks on evolution, in an attempt to get "religion" into the science classroom. One of our strongest arguments, the second law of thermodynamics, is dismissed; by being claimed as being "distorted" or "misused", or even "a thermodynamics of their own, cooked up" by ID. Then, leaders like Behe and Johnson are accused of everything from outright "dishonesty" to not having all their marbles, or however they put it. Kansas is derided as a land of backwards buffoons, while that place in Pennsylvania is upheld as heralding the rightful victory for evolution. But meanwhile, they treat the criterion of "science" (empirical "testability", falsifiability, etc; basically all material "evidences") as if it were the true "absolute" in a world where they have long said there were no absolutes. If nothing else, agnosticism ("If we don't have the evidence, then we must confess we don't know") is held up as the true belief system, though they deny calling it that. However, many "know" for certain that the Bible is nonsense made up by an ancient unscientific "bunch of sheep herders" as one put it.
Now, it seems that the tables have turned, as it is the evolutionists making the triumphalistic claims of refuting the other side that the scientific creationists used to make, and we are now the ones in relative silence, just sending out newsletters about the latest judge's decision on homosexuality or other similar matters, or even taking the NBA's side in enforcing suits and ties on its players, as a recent bpnews e-mail argued. (What does suits and ties have to do with the Gospel? Its very foundation is under an attack never seen before here in our lifetimes, and this is what we argue for? It just shows us as a cultural movement whose time has passed) And most of our energy here seems to be still about whether God wills not to offer salvation to all, and how it must be so for Him to be "sovereign", and salvation be "monergistic"
Or arguments about Bush and some of these other politicians, as if they can really solve the problem. (Conservative, liberal, libertarian, neocon, etc; no matter who is in, we see one definite direction the country is going: liberal in morality and ideology, while conservative in fiscal and business matters! What is this about? Is anyone even aware of it?)
All of those moral battles are already lost if the intellectual leadership of society has concluded that we are just a bunch of ignoramuses whose beliefs are baseless, and our only response it to continue with ridiculous conspiracy or persecution rhetoric, about how our good old society is being destroyed, and we should return to the good old days. Which in itself takes for granted that we are the good guys, but without even proving that our views have basis. Even with Kansas, if the prevailing view is allowed to continue that they are so 'backwards', it is only a matter of time before a higher court overtunrs it. And the Republican party is no definite help!
We have got to do something; take a new course of action. Is it true that the ID leaders have no labs and no research? If so, Why? I have argued to the people that the criterion of "science" is itself manmade. But still, with both the old-line creationists as well as ID, we are tying to play their game on their field, so maybe our arguments about "Science" have still been wrong. We all know that untimately it comes down to "faith". The scientists know that too, but to keep trying to call it science looks dishonest, like pulling the wool over their eyes and sneak it in, if we are unable to do better at showing that it is truly scientific. I think our arguments should focus more on proving what the Bible is, and is not (manmade nonsense, etc), than disproving evolution.
For instance, I try to focus on the argument of how the universe could start in the first place, along with life. This is where you start to see some wavering. Like "that's abiogenesis, not the field of evolution". Some tried to argue that even "life" is not so cut and dry, since it begins with chains of RNA that "reproduce", but are not quite "living organisms" yet (like viruses). Of course, such an "intermediate stage" is readily taken as a "step" of, and therefore 'proof' of evolution. The same with the eye. So I added the argument of how a purely material process like that could create living, self-conscious entities. How did this whole drive to "survive' with the most "efficient" surviving start? This seems to get glossed over. Also, point out that while I may not be able to physically "prove" the miracles of the Bible, they cannot disprove that it ever happened. This then becomes more debates about how men conjure up all sorts of gods, with people then making things up on the spot to show I can't disprove them either, so why is the Bible any better. But they obviously just made it up, and can't show the same for the Bible, except for generalized speculation (we do not see these things happening today, there is no evidence for them, and religious leaders use untestable claims to control the masses). Also, am I the only one who questions why the same ideology that pushes for "scientific evidence only" also seems to push universal homosexual "tolerance", even though the "scientific evidence" favors heterosexuality? After all, that's the way we "evolved", in their view, isn't it? So why defend those trying to unnaturally change it? But we continue to take a "Because the Bible says so, and y'all know its wrong, so how dare you!" stance, or stick "our children" up as the pawns in the battles, but nobody is hearing any of this. None of it even attempts to prove it's wrong.
I would hope that others are praying and seeking what they shuld do to address this problem, and not just relying on the old traditional ways. Perhaps some should also participate in places like the newspaper and other forums, to make our voice heard for the real truth, and not what the Church did in the past. That, instead of just standing back and complaining about the "liberal bias" of these mediums.
[ November 22, 2005, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]
It is so highly ironic that 20 years ago, we were crying the loudest about being under "attack" from "the forces of godlessness", with evolutionism heading the list, followed by Marxism and humanism. But while I heard all of that from Christians, (even before I entered the fold), I heard nary a response from evolutionists. I scraped around and found two books: "Abusing Science. The Case Against Creationism" by Philip Kitcher, The MIT Press.
1982, and Did the Devil Make Darwin Do It? Modern Perspectives on the Creation-Evolution Controversy: Wilson, D. B., 1983, Ames, Iowa, Iowa University Press. that defended evolutionism against "scientific creationism". Even these; even the former billed as "the case against..." I found to be fair and not attacking the Bible, but only challenging creationists' attempts to forcefit the findings of archaeology into a literal young-earth reading of Genesis. (which supposed evidence faith should not rest on anyway!)
Darwinism and all of the other movements to some extent, weren't so much "attacking" us, as we were screaming just because of the fact that they existed, moreso than anything they were saying about us. How dare they impinge on our "godly Christian civilization"! That was the primary "attack"!
So we kept preaching from the stump, then warning of disaster as a jugment from God), and it must have looked and felt so good in our eyes all that time, but we were really showing the world our behind, especially with all the various types of scandals that would erupt in our own midst. Meanwhile, we were not giving much of an intelligent defense of the faith, but still trying to manipulate through fear, and then, when that no longer worked, we got more into sensationalism (mircales, "abundant life" gospel, etc). Still, society remained unconvinced, and continued to drift away from faith, and then when disaster finally began occurring on our shores, some of us triumphantly stood and proclaimed "see; I told you so"!
So now, we are paying the price dearly for all of this. "Science" now has for the first time really gone from the defensive to the offensive. By now, our leading scientific defense is a watered down derivative of "creationism" called "Intelligent Design", and it no longer dogmatizes on young earth, flood geology, and stuff like that. Its advocates are more civil than the "old school' creationists with all their conspiratorialism and condemnation. But it's too late. This theory now is ironically what is receiving the evolutionist backlash.
Just about every other day, an op-ed cartoon pokes fun at ID and the Bible and religion altogether, with mockeries featuring cavemen or others positing a "mud god" or "flying spaghetti monster", with the caption reading something like "the history of ID". More and more articles are written calling ID everything from trash and psuedo science to "a body of woo-woo". An article on the bird virus, can even take a passing pot shot at certain ideologies it calls "wishful thinking" that would seemingly just sit back waiting on God to deliver us while allowing viruses like that to take over; and let's not forget the endless references to Galileo and Bruno. It is then rubbed in how much we dogmatized in the past, and kept being pushed back, admitting we were wrong. So if we were mistaken on the world being flat or at the center of the world, then we must be wrong on evolution too. Then we have those in our midst who seem to agree with everything the scientists say, not realizing that their argument is ultimately not just that a process of evolution occurred (despite whatever the Bible says), but that this theory then makes God "unneeded" ("You can believe He exists, if you want, but it all could have happened without Him. Just like you once thought He created every lightning bolt and rainbow, and that was disproven, so now you think He directly created life and the universe and what about if that is disproven?").
It is so ironic, that with all that complaining of "persecution" we did in the past, now is the time, truly, when I cannot pick up the newspaper without seeing faith ridiculed! I then respond to a lot of this, like currently now on the New York Times discussion forum, where I am exposed to more such vitriol from some, such as the Bible being "crock", from "the nonsense of Genesis to the babble of Revelation".
They say ID is not science, we have no labs, no research, no attempt to bring any of our "findings" up for a Nobel, if they were so true. Just attacks on evolution, in an attempt to get "religion" into the science classroom. One of our strongest arguments, the second law of thermodynamics, is dismissed; by being claimed as being "distorted" or "misused", or even "a thermodynamics of their own, cooked up" by ID. Then, leaders like Behe and Johnson are accused of everything from outright "dishonesty" to not having all their marbles, or however they put it. Kansas is derided as a land of backwards buffoons, while that place in Pennsylvania is upheld as heralding the rightful victory for evolution. But meanwhile, they treat the criterion of "science" (empirical "testability", falsifiability, etc; basically all material "evidences") as if it were the true "absolute" in a world where they have long said there were no absolutes. If nothing else, agnosticism ("If we don't have the evidence, then we must confess we don't know") is held up as the true belief system, though they deny calling it that. However, many "know" for certain that the Bible is nonsense made up by an ancient unscientific "bunch of sheep herders" as one put it.
Now, it seems that the tables have turned, as it is the evolutionists making the triumphalistic claims of refuting the other side that the scientific creationists used to make, and we are now the ones in relative silence, just sending out newsletters about the latest judge's decision on homosexuality or other similar matters, or even taking the NBA's side in enforcing suits and ties on its players, as a recent bpnews e-mail argued. (What does suits and ties have to do with the Gospel? Its very foundation is under an attack never seen before here in our lifetimes, and this is what we argue for? It just shows us as a cultural movement whose time has passed) And most of our energy here seems to be still about whether God wills not to offer salvation to all, and how it must be so for Him to be "sovereign", and salvation be "monergistic"
Or arguments about Bush and some of these other politicians, as if they can really solve the problem. (Conservative, liberal, libertarian, neocon, etc; no matter who is in, we see one definite direction the country is going: liberal in morality and ideology, while conservative in fiscal and business matters! What is this about? Is anyone even aware of it?)
All of those moral battles are already lost if the intellectual leadership of society has concluded that we are just a bunch of ignoramuses whose beliefs are baseless, and our only response it to continue with ridiculous conspiracy or persecution rhetoric, about how our good old society is being destroyed, and we should return to the good old days. Which in itself takes for granted that we are the good guys, but without even proving that our views have basis. Even with Kansas, if the prevailing view is allowed to continue that they are so 'backwards', it is only a matter of time before a higher court overtunrs it. And the Republican party is no definite help!
We have got to do something; take a new course of action. Is it true that the ID leaders have no labs and no research? If so, Why? I have argued to the people that the criterion of "science" is itself manmade. But still, with both the old-line creationists as well as ID, we are tying to play their game on their field, so maybe our arguments about "Science" have still been wrong. We all know that untimately it comes down to "faith". The scientists know that too, but to keep trying to call it science looks dishonest, like pulling the wool over their eyes and sneak it in, if we are unable to do better at showing that it is truly scientific. I think our arguments should focus more on proving what the Bible is, and is not (manmade nonsense, etc), than disproving evolution.
For instance, I try to focus on the argument of how the universe could start in the first place, along with life. This is where you start to see some wavering. Like "that's abiogenesis, not the field of evolution". Some tried to argue that even "life" is not so cut and dry, since it begins with chains of RNA that "reproduce", but are not quite "living organisms" yet (like viruses). Of course, such an "intermediate stage" is readily taken as a "step" of, and therefore 'proof' of evolution. The same with the eye. So I added the argument of how a purely material process like that could create living, self-conscious entities. How did this whole drive to "survive' with the most "efficient" surviving start? This seems to get glossed over. Also, point out that while I may not be able to physically "prove" the miracles of the Bible, they cannot disprove that it ever happened. This then becomes more debates about how men conjure up all sorts of gods, with people then making things up on the spot to show I can't disprove them either, so why is the Bible any better. But they obviously just made it up, and can't show the same for the Bible, except for generalized speculation (we do not see these things happening today, there is no evidence for them, and religious leaders use untestable claims to control the masses). Also, am I the only one who questions why the same ideology that pushes for "scientific evidence only" also seems to push universal homosexual "tolerance", even though the "scientific evidence" favors heterosexuality? After all, that's the way we "evolved", in their view, isn't it? So why defend those trying to unnaturally change it? But we continue to take a "Because the Bible says so, and y'all know its wrong, so how dare you!" stance, or stick "our children" up as the pawns in the battles, but nobody is hearing any of this. None of it even attempts to prove it's wrong.
I would hope that others are praying and seeking what they shuld do to address this problem, and not just relying on the old traditional ways. Perhaps some should also participate in places like the newspaper and other forums, to make our voice heard for the real truth, and not what the Church did in the past. That, instead of just standing back and complaining about the "liberal bias" of these mediums.
[ November 22, 2005, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]
