Charles Darwin
Religion without Revelation
By Lloyd Gardner
I borrow my title from the book by famous evolutionist Sir Julian Huxley, considered by many to be the primary twentieth century architect of modern neo-Darwinism. This was his description of evolutionary thought—it is definitely a religion and it is a belief system that lacks any beginning in revelation. These are his words and thoughts, not mine, and they reflect the basic approach of all true believers in evolution.
Although there are many religious systems in the world, there are only two world views for people to choose from. There is the evolutionary world view that holds to the proposition that everything evolved from nothing and that nothing exists except the natural realm. Then there is the creation world view that everything was created by a spiritual being greater than the natural realm. This creator we know as God. Creationism has its roots in the belief that there is a God who has revealed Himself and the truth of the universe. Evolutionism is rooted in the idea that God cannot be the answer and that truth, therefore, exists only in the natural realm.
The only religions that embrace God as a person are Judaism and Christianity. Some may argue that Islam believes God to be a person but it is clear from their presentation of him that Allah is not the God of the Old and New Testaments. All new age oriented religions, which all have their basis in Hinduism, hold that God is an impersonal force present in all things and that the natural universe is in itself eternal. Some, like early Hinduism and certain spiritist religions, believe that there are many gods expressing themselves through the various aspects of nature.
Christianity has its historical roots in Judaism simply because Jesus was a Jew and it was in the context of Hebrew culture that He revealed Himself to the world. Many modern religious developments like Islam have tried to borrow many truths from Judaism and Christianity but any objective study of them will show clearly that they are distorted offshoots of the faith of the Bible.
That leaves us with two world views—evolution and biblical Christianity. Evolution is in itself a religion when we define religion broad enough. Religion in its broadest definition is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Atheists and evolutionists want to narrow this definition to include God and belief in the spiritual but this broader definition includes them as it should.
Evolution cannot be called a science because its tenants depend on faith.1 Evolutionist Peter Bowler in a review of In Search of Deep Space, by evolutionist Henry Gee, makes this startling statement:
We cannot identify ancestors or “missing links,” and we cannot devise testable theories to explain how particular episodes of evolution came about. Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions.2
In other words the theory of evolution is not based on observable facts but comes from the imagination of its proponents. It is accepted simply as a matter of faith.
Bryan Appleyard wrote in New Scientist journal, “Of course, the other thing about evolution is that anything can be said because very little can be disproved. Experimental evidence is minimal.”5
If nothing “can be disproved” evolutionists take the attitude that they can say whatever they want to say. This proves, of course, that evolutionary thought is not science. Science depends upon the very “experimental evidence” lacking in evolutionary thinking. One of the principles of the scientific method is that hypotheses be subject to the possibility of falsification. In other words, a scientist must be willing to place his idea in the scientific market place of ideas so that it can be proven or disproven. Evolution is not science but rather a poorly conceived religion.
Evolutionist Michael Ruse comes right out and says it bluntly:
Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.3
There you have it. “Evolution is a religion,” according to one of its most loyal proponents. In his book Ruse is addressing Darwinists themselves with the goal of clarifying for them their goals as he sees them. In so doing he must admit and in fact boldly declares that evolution should be promulgated as a religion.
Sir Julian Huxley, from whom I borrowed the title to this essay, believed that it was important for evolutionary humanists to construct something to take the place of belief in God. “That something,” he wrote, “of course, is the religion of evolutionary humanism, and that is what the leaders of evolutionary humanism are trying to do today.”4 Here Huxley openly and unabashedly accepts the label of religion. He even goes so far as to clarify the kinship of evolutionary philosophy with humanism, which is simply atheistic religion with a cushy name.
Evolutionists take the stand they do because they cannot accept the alternative world view. Their religion must reign supreme in the hearts and minds of people. Reviewing a book by the late Carl Sagan, Richard Lewontin admits this:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.6
“We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door,” Lewontin wrote. And he says they take this position in spite of the “patent absurdity of some of its constructs.” Can you imagine a creationist admitting that much of what his beliefs are constructed upon are patent absurdities? Of course not! Creationists actually believe what they teach and teach what they believe.
Notice also that Lewontin admits that evolutionists poison the water of their investigations. He says they must “create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations.”
Imagine a leader of a local church admitting that he creates the method of investigating the Bible that is guaranteed to produce certain explanations. That pastor would be dismissed from his position immediately because he admits that his truth quest is not genuine but designed to arrive at his preconceived notion of truth. So it is with evolutionary thought.
But evolutionists go much further than just poisoning their own thinking. They want to poison the minds of others as well. Evolutionist Mark Singham, in his book Teaching and Propaganda openly recommends the use of propaganda. You would hope that a book by that title would be aimed at teaching students to identify propaganda and to think for themselves. To the contrary, he recommends the use of propaganda in the cause of evolution:
And I use that trust to effectively brainwash them. . . . our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal—without demonstration—to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary.7
The word “brainwash” is especially disturbing. One would think that a philosophy with so many facts to back it up would not have to resort to brainwashing and propaganda. He also admits to skewing the evidence to support evolutionists’ preconceived positions. All of this because they cannot bear the alternative, that God created the heavens and the earth. Remember this the next time you read their account of a feathered dinosaur or a bird with teeth that must be a transitional fossil between dinosaur and birds.
One final comment by famous atheistic evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhanksy quoting Pierre de Chardin should be enough to prove that evolution is indeed a religion. He quotes de Chardin as saying, “Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow.”8 Such is the faith of evolutionists. Chardin would disagree with the premise of my title, Religion without a Revolution, because he seems to believe that evolution is its own revelation. According to this thinking evolutionary thought is the light of the world.
Evolutionists truly believe this. To them it is a way of thinking that all other ways of thinking must pass through. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12, ESV). Light comes, not from some ill conceived dogma lacking in elementary support, but from the One who revealed Himself clearly for all to see. Evolution is a darkness that leads to a place of stumbling and confusion. Those who follow that darkness will never find light.
Those who follow after the God revealed in Jesus Christ will not walk in darkness but will have a light to follow into truth and spiritual freedom.
I am aware that many evolutionists hate it when we creationists use their quotes against themselves. They call it “quote mining” in their attempts to discredit even what they have said about their own dogma. This essay has relied totally on their words to reach the conclusion that evolution is indeed a religion.
Notes:
1. Morris, Henry M., "The Scientific Case Against Evolution—Part I&II," (Impact No. 330, December 2000,2001), pp. i-iv.
2. Bowler, Peter J., Review of In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee (Free Press, 1999), American Scientist (vol. 88, March/April 2000), p. 169
3. Ruse, Michael, "Saving Darwinism from the Darwinians," National Post (May 13, 2000), p. B-3.
4. Huxley, Julian, Essays of a 4. Humanist (New York: Harper and 'Row, 1964), p. 125.
5. Appleyard, Bryan, "You Asked for It," New Scientist (vol. 166, April 22, 2000), p. 45.
6. Lewontin, Richard, Review of The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. In New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997.
7. Singham, Mark, "Teaching and Propaganda," Physics Today (vol. 53, June 2000), p. 54.
8. Theodosius Dobzhanksy (The American Biology Teacher, volume 35, number 3, March 1973, page 129)
By Lloyd Gardner
I borrow my title from the book by famous evolutionist Sir Julian Huxley, considered by many to be the primary twentieth century architect of modern neo-Darwinism. This was his description of evolutionary thought—it is definitely a religion and it is a belief system that lacks any beginning in revelation. These are his words and thoughts, not mine, and they reflect the basic approach of all true believers in evolution.
Although there are many religious systems in the world, there are only two world views for people to choose from. There is the evolutionary world view that holds to the proposition that everything evolved from nothing and that nothing exists except the natural realm. Then there is the creation world view that everything was created by a spiritual being greater than the natural realm. This creator we know as God. Creationism has its roots in the belief that there is a God who has revealed Himself and the truth of the universe. Evolutionism is rooted in the idea that God cannot be the answer and that truth, therefore, exists only in the natural realm.
The only religions that embrace God as a person are Judaism and Christianity. Some may argue that Islam believes God to be a person but it is clear from their presentation of him that Allah is not the God of the Old and New Testaments. All new age oriented religions, which all have their basis in Hinduism, hold that God is an impersonal force present in all things and that the natural universe is in itself eternal. Some, like early Hinduism and certain spiritist religions, believe that there are many gods expressing themselves through the various aspects of nature.
Christianity has its historical roots in Judaism simply because Jesus was a Jew and it was in the context of Hebrew culture that He revealed Himself to the world. Many modern religious developments like Islam have tried to borrow many truths from Judaism and Christianity but any objective study of them will show clearly that they are distorted offshoots of the faith of the Bible.
That leaves us with two world views—evolution and biblical Christianity. Evolution is in itself a religion when we define religion broad enough. Religion in its broadest definition is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Atheists and evolutionists want to narrow this definition to include God and belief in the spiritual but this broader definition includes them as it should.
Evolution cannot be called a science because its tenants depend on faith.1 Evolutionist Peter Bowler in a review of In Search of Deep Space, by evolutionist Henry Gee, makes this startling statement:
We cannot identify ancestors or “missing links,” and we cannot devise testable theories to explain how particular episodes of evolution came about. Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions.2
In other words the theory of evolution is not based on observable facts but comes from the imagination of its proponents. It is accepted simply as a matter of faith.
Bryan Appleyard wrote in New Scientist journal, “Of course, the other thing about evolution is that anything can be said because very little can be disproved. Experimental evidence is minimal.”5
If nothing “can be disproved” evolutionists take the attitude that they can say whatever they want to say. This proves, of course, that evolutionary thought is not science. Science depends upon the very “experimental evidence” lacking in evolutionary thinking. One of the principles of the scientific method is that hypotheses be subject to the possibility of falsification. In other words, a scientist must be willing to place his idea in the scientific market place of ideas so that it can be proven or disproven. Evolution is not science but rather a poorly conceived religion.
Evolutionist Michael Ruse comes right out and says it bluntly:
Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.3
There you have it. “Evolution is a religion,” according to one of its most loyal proponents. In his book Ruse is addressing Darwinists themselves with the goal of clarifying for them their goals as he sees them. In so doing he must admit and in fact boldly declares that evolution should be promulgated as a religion.
Sir Julian Huxley, from whom I borrowed the title to this essay, believed that it was important for evolutionary humanists to construct something to take the place of belief in God. “That something,” he wrote, “of course, is the religion of evolutionary humanism, and that is what the leaders of evolutionary humanism are trying to do today.”4 Here Huxley openly and unabashedly accepts the label of religion. He even goes so far as to clarify the kinship of evolutionary philosophy with humanism, which is simply atheistic religion with a cushy name.
Evolutionists take the stand they do because they cannot accept the alternative world view. Their religion must reign supreme in the hearts and minds of people. Reviewing a book by the late Carl Sagan, Richard Lewontin admits this:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.6
“We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door,” Lewontin wrote. And he says they take this position in spite of the “patent absurdity of some of its constructs.” Can you imagine a creationist admitting that much of what his beliefs are constructed upon are patent absurdities? Of course not! Creationists actually believe what they teach and teach what they believe.
Notice also that Lewontin admits that evolutionists poison the water of their investigations. He says they must “create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations.”
Imagine a leader of a local church admitting that he creates the method of investigating the Bible that is guaranteed to produce certain explanations. That pastor would be dismissed from his position immediately because he admits that his truth quest is not genuine but designed to arrive at his preconceived notion of truth. So it is with evolutionary thought.
But evolutionists go much further than just poisoning their own thinking. They want to poison the minds of others as well. Evolutionist Mark Singham, in his book Teaching and Propaganda openly recommends the use of propaganda. You would hope that a book by that title would be aimed at teaching students to identify propaganda and to think for themselves. To the contrary, he recommends the use of propaganda in the cause of evolution:
And I use that trust to effectively brainwash them. . . . our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal—without demonstration—to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary.7
The word “brainwash” is especially disturbing. One would think that a philosophy with so many facts to back it up would not have to resort to brainwashing and propaganda. He also admits to skewing the evidence to support evolutionists’ preconceived positions. All of this because they cannot bear the alternative, that God created the heavens and the earth. Remember this the next time you read their account of a feathered dinosaur or a bird with teeth that must be a transitional fossil between dinosaur and birds.
One final comment by famous atheistic evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhanksy quoting Pierre de Chardin should be enough to prove that evolution is indeed a religion. He quotes de Chardin as saying, “Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow.”8 Such is the faith of evolutionists. Chardin would disagree with the premise of my title, Religion without a Revolution, because he seems to believe that evolution is its own revelation. According to this thinking evolutionary thought is the light of the world.
Evolutionists truly believe this. To them it is a way of thinking that all other ways of thinking must pass through. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12, ESV). Light comes, not from some ill conceived dogma lacking in elementary support, but from the One who revealed Himself clearly for all to see. Evolution is a darkness that leads to a place of stumbling and confusion. Those who follow that darkness will never find light.
Those who follow after the God revealed in Jesus Christ will not walk in darkness but will have a light to follow into truth and spiritual freedom.
I am aware that many evolutionists hate it when we creationists use their quotes against themselves. They call it “quote mining” in their attempts to discredit even what they have said about their own dogma. This essay has relied totally on their words to reach the conclusion that evolution is indeed a religion.
Notes:
1. Morris, Henry M., "The Scientific Case Against Evolution—Part I&II," (Impact No. 330, December 2000,2001), pp. i-iv.
2. Bowler, Peter J., Review of In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee (Free Press, 1999), American Scientist (vol. 88, March/April 2000), p. 169
3. Ruse, Michael, "Saving Darwinism from the Darwinians," National Post (May 13, 2000), p. B-3.
4. Huxley, Julian, Essays of a 4. Humanist (New York: Harper and 'Row, 1964), p. 125.
5. Appleyard, Bryan, "You Asked for It," New Scientist (vol. 166, April 22, 2000), p. 45.
6. Lewontin, Richard, Review of The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. In New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997.
7. Singham, Mark, "Teaching and Propaganda," Physics Today (vol. 53, June 2000), p. 54.
8. Theodosius Dobzhanksy (The American Biology Teacher, volume 35, number 3, March 1973, page 129)
