CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION - THE WAR

Science never starts off with an answer or explanation.  It will start out with a guess or a theory or a hypothesis. It tests and tests and then the tests will point to a possibly different theory that may or may not be correct. Religion always starts off with the supposed answer. Religion is about arguments from authority and science is against such arguments for it wishes to let the evidence speak.

Science cannot and will not even consider starting off with the core assertion of Genesis that Eve was the mother of all the living. That is what her name means!

Science says that we need to be open and make all hypothesis verifiable or falsifiable. In other words, science is open to what new evidence may say. It may have beliefs and has no problem changing them when the evidence implies that the beliefs are false. Religion puts the God hypothesis beyond falsification. Nothing - not even people going to hell to spend eternity in unholiness and suffering disproves their God. To make the God hypothesis unfalsifiable is to declare science evil for science orders that. And it is particularly awful to be unscientific in relation to God because it is declared by Christianity to be such a central and absolutely important concept.

Religion telling us to believe in God and ignore evidence that contradicts this belief is bad enough. But it does not limit this attitude to the God doctrine. For example, Catholics say you shouldn't be sceptical about Jesus being at Mass in the form of bread and wine. There are countless examples.

Evolution is defined as living things progressing into more complicated things over a huge period of time but there is no ultimate goal.

Religion says there is but cannot answer us when we ask what the goal is. The answer that we are to spend eternity enjoying a relationship with God is very general. It is too general to be an answer. And it is about the enjoyment not the relationship. It is not really about God being the goal.

A Christian looks at the cruelty of evolution and argues or assumes that God has set up this seemingly cruel system for a purpose that justifies it. The atheist looks at the problem and admits it is cruel and horrid. Who then has the most compassion? Who has the most decency?

Evolution is defined as something that just happens. Religion denies this. Even if religion claims to believe that man and apes emerged from a common ancestor this is not evolution. It is a close relative.

Darwinism teaches that nature itself works to ensure that the fittest will survive and the weak will be destroyed or lose out. Eugenicists have used Darwinism to justify their attempts to breed strong people and destroy the weak and to refuse to help the poor and favour the rich and powerful and ruthless. But Darwinism says it must be left to nature. If you start claiming that some being is controlling evolution then that objection to manipulating eugenics is out the window. The Eugenicist could say like Hitler that he or she is a part of God’s plan to make a master race.

Some say that evolution is not survival of fittest but of those most adaptable to change. But those do the best job of being adaptable to change are the fittest so we are back where we started.

Christians deny survival of the fittest and thus are lying when they say they accept evolution.

All Christians object to the fact that the law of nature is that the fittest will survive and thrive. Everything in nature competes against everything else. The fittest person for the job will get the job. What about the sexy floozy who can’t type who gets a job as a secretary in a firm run by randy old goats? She is still the fittest person in her own way. She is there for what they want her for.

To pretend that survival of the fittest is not the law is to repudiate evolution. Whether evolution is true or not, survival of the fittest is a fact. Christians who accuse evolutionary theory of espousing survival of the fittest need to realise that.

I am not saying survival of the fittest is good. It is cruel and vicious and nature is red in tooth in claw. I am merely saying survival of the fittest is a fact.

If you accept evolution, then you are accepting that God has chosen to make us in such a way that it looks like as if there was nothing supernatural in that process. The thought that God uses evolution to make us is like saying that when the baker makes bread she does it in such a way that it looks like it was made without her. She would sure be going to a lot of effort to hide her existence. And so would God. When a Christian accepts evolution, he or she is undermining belief in God.

A God who hides is preventing us from using what he has done to help us understand and know him.

Christians often use the fact that evolution is described as a theory as an excuse for saying there is no evidence for it for it is just a theory. But no matter how much evidence there is for something science still refers to it as a theory. The reason for this is that science is about doubt and experimentation and going wherever the evidence leads.

Science has to make generalisations otherwise it is useless. Suppose someone claims that Padre Pio has cured them miraculously of a form of cancer that is always terminal. You can’t expect science to say, “This form of cancer is incurable and always results in death except for x and y and z who were cured by a miracle.” The Church itself says that the declaration that it is a miracle is only a statement of belief. It says the evidence says it was a miracle but it could be that it was a natural event mistaken for a miracle. It says it is a possibility that it is not a miracle. It merely says it is unlikely though. Anyway, it's possible that the cure shows that science is wrong about how incurable the illness is.

The Church says that if we believe in evolution we must still believe in Adam and Eve. The idea is that God used evolution to make them. The fact that DNA evidence has refuted the idea of Adam and Eve is ignored. Adam is far more important in scripture than Jesus Christ in the sense that if there was no Adam then Jesus didn’t need to come and save us. The Bible gives no clear hint that Adam and Eve are symbols.

The simplest reading and the most straightforward of Genesis is that Adam was made as a man by God out of dust there and then. Later Eve was made from his rib. The natural reading comes first and must be understood as the intended one. And it is clear that it was Adam as a grown man that the rib to make Eve was taken from. It is clear denial that men and women co-existed always. It was male first and then woman. This totally contradicts evolution. In fact any reading of the story in any other way is not a reading but a fantasy.

If you believe in God and miracles then the story makes perfect sense. It is strange to hold that Jesus did all the wonders the New Testament says and to deny Genesis. Is the talking snake really any worse than the talking demon in the gospel?

The New Testament says that the first Adam chose sin and death for us and the new Adam chose holiness and life for us. Paul does not oppose new Adam with old one. The two are symbolically one where Adam now does the right thing. They are like one man with two sides. This means that if Adam is a myth then Jesus is a fraud.

John Paul II is alleged falsely to have approved evolution in 1996. He wrote, "Theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being."

That does not read like a doctrine of evolution by natural selection. It fears that thinking man was the accidental product of natural selection is degrading. Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn noticed that the letter is not a yes to modern science or Darwinism but its opponent. He wrote to that effect in the New York Times in July 2005.

One would think that as long as you got a spirit it would not matter if it were created directly or through a process. The pope thinks the spirit concept gives you dignity. He denies that randomness makes us. Some feel that God has created randomness so God and evolution can agree. But the pope denies there is any randomness in how man became a living soul.

When science contradicts the Bible the Church says the Bible is being symbolic or non-literal. This is just another tedious Christian cop-out. For example, when the Bible God says that rabbits chew the cud, the theologians claim that it is referring to the fact that rabbits merely look as if they do. Others guess that it is about an extinct breed of rabbit that did chew the cud. They don't care that there is no evidence for these rabbits among the remains of rabbits from those times.

To make excuses for Bible errors and contradictions simply opens the road to credulity. Any rubbish can be made to look like it is not rubbish.

Those who say theism, belief in God, is compatible with evolution need to be asked which of the two is most important to them? Which one would they abandon if there was a choice? If they say theism then their science is biased and suspect. It is not real science. God by definition is the most important. God by definition refers to your ultimate concern.

Christianity says that God has made it natural to be good. But the fact remains that if evolution is true that it is also natural to be bad. Any good we have is nothing compared to the violence that has happened around us and before us. It is "more" natural to be bad! Everything naturally possible is natural for nature lets it happen. If nature gives you the desire for plastic surgery then it is natural - as unnatural as it seems it is using nature in an unusual way. Nature being bad does not necessarily mean you can be bad too if you want to be. It is a fact not a permission. In fact saying that God uses evolution to make us is in fact inferring that it is a permission. If evolution belief makes people bad then connecting it with God confirms it in its badness. If a doctrine is bad then it is bad but confirming it is only trying to support its badness and put the seal of approval on it. Thus it encourages you to be worse. It makes no sense to argue that if there is no God then it does not matter if we are bad or good for it's natural for it is possible that God could let nature go on as if he was not involved. Christianity says that when Adam and Eve decided to sin they broke the universe away from God so that it acts as if there is no God. God lets it have its own way. Thus God is irrelevant to the question. The doctrine that God is involved is a doctrine about God not a doctrine of God. It is not automatically true if there is a God. If morality is natural we all ignore the fact that immorality is natural too. That makes morality fundamentally dishonest an while it tells us to be honest!

And moralists disagree on what is actually natural or moral. People think their version of morality is the natural one. Even if they deny it is natural they are driven by the feeling that it is natural. As nature is full of combat it follows that when able people will shove their morality and religion down your throat. They ignore your disagreement with them for as far as they are concerned you don't disagree deep down. How could you when the morality is natural? Morality is used by evolution to set groups against each other so what can you expect? One fear people have of people who are "immoral" is that they will distort the way others are affected by nature and pervert them. So as nature is the Bible of morality people have to be forced to conform in order to protect nature. Moralism then as much good as it does has a dark side.

Christianity has no credibility. It cherry-picks from philosophy and science to create the illusion of rationality and credibility. It is really the enemy of science. Evolution and Christianity do not agree. The Christians that say it does are only hoping we don't test their claim carefully.
Darwinism is not a theory but a description of the fact that each individual has to be hostile at his or her core. Everything is a threat and a potential threat. To quote people like Peter Singer who say that you can base morality on Darwinism does nothing to refute this. Being good is a weapon even if it does not feel that way. How could the fruit on the tree be a threat to the hungry animal? How could it be hostile to take the fruit? The fruit if it were able would not allow itself to be eaten. Its life is taken. It is not about the animal’s wellbeing. To be not for wellbeing is to be against it.

Darwinism and the successful life mean we need to be aware of the hostility and how ingrained it is. Anything that tries to ignore it or lie that it is not there like religion does is only throwing people to the wolves. See the hostility and then you can protect yourself.