The Faith of Evolution
Some of those who believe in evolution are honest about the "science" of evolution (there is none). Here is what some of them have said:
Evolution - Absurd, Unsubstantiated Science that We Only Believe to Keep God Out: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
The Motive Is Sex and Political Power: "I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves... For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political."
Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, pp. 270 ff.
I Ignore The Facts Because I Can Not Accept There Is A God: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University
Those who believe in evolution commonly exclude the possibility of God's creation because it is a "faith". But which belief requires the greater faith?
Evolution Is Solely Faith Based: "Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."
Yockey, H.P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 67:377-398, 1977; quotes from pp. 379, 396.
The Bible Is Based On Hard, Scientific Facts We Can See and Touch: "I know of no finding in archaeology that's properly confirmed which is in opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the most accurate history textbook the world has ever seen."
Dr Clifford Wilson, formerly director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, being interviewed by radio by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR radio transcript No. 0279:1004).
Evolution - Absurd, Unsubstantiated Science that We Only Believe to Keep God Out: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
The Motive Is Sex and Political Power: "I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves... For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political."
Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, pp. 270 ff.
I Ignore The Facts Because I Can Not Accept There Is A God: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University
Those who believe in evolution commonly exclude the possibility of God's creation because it is a "faith". But which belief requires the greater faith?
Evolution Is Solely Faith Based: "Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."
Yockey, H.P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 67:377-398, 1977; quotes from pp. 379, 396.
The Bible Is Based On Hard, Scientific Facts We Can See and Touch: "I know of no finding in archaeology that's properly confirmed which is in opposition to the Scriptures. The Bible is the most accurate history textbook the world has ever seen."
Dr Clifford Wilson, formerly director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, being interviewed by radio by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR radio transcript No. 0279:1004).
posted by BrickBalloon
Read This Post In Our: Christianity in America Blog Archive
7 Comments:
MTA/Davis. You are an idiot. An utter and complete fool.
You persist in quoting without checking your source. If you had read Huxley's "Ends and Means" you would know that it is not related to the debate surrounding evolution or creationism.
I am most baffled by the fact that you have again misquoted. I have a copy of the book, and the page numbers do not agree. Based on variations that exist between publications I am prepared to accept that. However, the passage you butchered actually reads as:
"For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust. The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our political and erotical revolt: we could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever."You have taken a quote from an old book, not even remotely related to the debate you're engaging in, and changed it.
Firstly, I don't understand why you would do such a thing. Secondly, why choose Huxley, and why that book in particular? It's not as if he is an authoritative source on creationism, evolution, science or even truth. He's just a novelist. Thirdly, you engage in deception but point out the source you are apparently "quoting", thereby making it easy for people to expose you as the fraud you are.
Do you get some kind of kick out of lying to people?
With regard to Lewontin, the quote you so eagerly claim as furthering your scientific base in the creationist camp is from a book review! You can read a copy of it here
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/Lewontin1.htm
. I think if you bothered to read it you might find that you have misrepresented Lewontin. He is not espousing the view you think he is. He is talking about the difficulty that science has trying to communicate with religious people. In fact the very next sentence is "The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything."I feel that I should urge you again to try and lift your game to a higher level. At the least you should try to introduce an element of integrity.
Without it you're not just stupid, you're a stupid liar.
PS: There is no word in english spelt "Soley".
If you are going to invent word then perhaps you might share with your readers what their meaning is.
Dear Anonymous:
If you are the same anonymous as has posted several times here, I've never seen anyone blow so much smoke as you.
Guilty as charged. Not in favour of the smoke I've been blowing?
Your smoke makes me laugh..Is that immoral? Did I just break a law?(haha.. "Bot-bot" that is still funny)
I have found the comments of anonymous to not be worth my time responding to, as what he says and quotes are of no consequence. I've also found that those who bolster their arguments through personal attacks are typically doing this because:
1) Their own arguments are weak and ultimately not logically supportable. (As is the case here.)
2) The traits and motivations they have in themselves they assume are traits and motivations that exist in everyone else, and thus they assign their own traits and motivations to others.
These types of irrational arguments are usually only worth ignoring.
However, several people have asked for my comments. So here they are:
I'll address each of his points in turn:
With regard to the quote from Aldous Huxley, you have taken the last sentence of the quote I provided and expanded on just that last sentence based on a different edition of Huxley's book. However, I'm happy to go with your quote. Your quote has introduced no new information, but has provided additional material from Huxley that further supports the point made in the original quote--that the basis for Huxley's insistence that there is no meaning to life (that there is no God) is his desire for sexual freedom and his objection to other's political beliefs. He goes on to provide his strategy for defeating Christianity (God)--which was standing in the way of his sexual and political revolt--a strategy that is based on denying that there is any meaning to life whatsoever.
Your quote makes my point even better than the quote from the earlier edition of his book--that Huxley's desire that there be no meaning to life was rooted in his desire for sex (erotica) and political power. As a result of his desire for these things he must deny that life has any meaning.
Why did I pick a quote from Aldous Huxley? Apparently you only have limited acquaintance with his writings and their influence. Yes, he was a novelist. He was the author of "Brave New World", a novel whose overriding purpose was political philosophy. His novels typically had to do with merging science and mysticism to produce a perfect human race-- philosophy presented in the form of a novel. He was also a biographer, poet, playwright and essayist. He was the grandson of evolutionist Thomas Huxley and one of the most influential writers and philosophers of the 20th century. His writing started the American culture of the 60's.
Yes, the quote from Lewontin is from a review of a Carl Sagan book. I plainly state that in identifying the source of this quote. Are you saying that Lewontin is not expressing his true beliefs because he is writing a book review? That doesn't make sense.
Thank you for thoughtfully proving a link so that everyone can see this is a substantial N.Y. Times Book Review, not a book review such as we are familiar with from having to write them ourselves in school.
The Sagan book, and the book review, are about how evolution (Lewontin calls it science) and creationism are in opposition to each other. Earlier in the review Lewontin writes:
"For me the confrontation between creationism and the science of evolution was an example of historical, regional, and class differences in culture that could only be understood in the context of American social history."
That's the context of the review and the quote I provided--the confrontation between evolution and creationism. And in that context Lewontin, looking at the facts (the truth) that are plain and available to everyone, has to admit that there is no hard, science that supports evolution. I give him a lot of respect for his honesty.
So I find I must agree with the comment of Technowalker, you are just blowing a lot of smoke in an attempt to confuse readers and hide the truth.
P.S. Thank you for the kind correction of my typo in the word "solely". My two fingers are not always accurate and I'm happy to correct any typos.
With the thoughtful attitude you had in pointing out my typo, I would like to point out your typo of the word "words" in your P.S. comment. Unfortunately there is no way (that I know of) to correct comments.
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