The famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, said in his book The Blind Watchmaker: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."
Why did Dawkins say this?
Because Darwinian theory claims that totally new species evolved by random mutation. Thus nature works by chance, according to the Darwinist, and there is no need for God.
Yet Darwinists are having a harder and harder time explaining DNA and so many other evidences of an Intelligent Designer. As Dr. William Demski says in The Design Revolution: "Like compulsive gamblers who are constantly hoping that some big score will cancel their debts, evolutionary biologists live on promissory notes that show no sign of being redeemable."
3 comments:
I'm completely on board that Darwin's ideas were sent forth hoping for evidence to later substantiate them, and it hasn't happened. But does that make it a good idea to discount them totally? I just keeping thinking that every new breakthrough is one step closer to understanding how everything fits together. Darwinists don't have to be completely wrong for Christians to be right, and Christians don't have to be completely wrong for Darwinists to be right.
And I have to wonder where all of these rules have come from, most of the outlines for them are shadowy in the Bible at best. Why so many hardlined guides for something like this? Especially taken out of a book that is so obviously full of symbolism. And why would God want us to believe so fully without understanding? I believe there are many ways to understand and I know that people reach personal understandings, but all I've ever heard is that one has to believe with or without that understanding. Wouldn't God want informed, sighted followers? Wouldn't he want people to question him? Isn't that the ultimate moment of any parent's life, when their child grows up enough to wonder why? And why should a person be punished for using the brain that God gave them and trying to put together sensible ideas with what information God has given them? Could it be (this isn't a suggestion disguised as a question, just a question) that salvation and understanding God goes no further than a moment of lucidity and thankfulness? I know that sounds simplistic, but is it really a great deal more complicated, and if it is, why? Why would God have given us such ambigious evidence if we were to be punished for interpreting it the wrong way?
Trudy,
I don't think Darwinists are completely wrong about evolution. I believe in micro-evolution, not macro-evolution. I believe that species develop and change within the species (micro-evolution). I just don't believe that totally new species developed by chance without the guidance of God (macro-evolution).
Whatever one believes about parts of the Bible being symbolic, I think it is clear that the Bible teaches that God created the universe. There is no denying that this is in direct conflict with what Charles Darwin believed. Remember the quote that I gave in the post was from an atheist who saw Darwinism as confirming his atheism.
In challenging Darwinism, I'm not saying that God would punish us for using the brain that God gave us. Not at all. I think there is nothing to be afraid of to look for the truth wherever it might lead. Interestingly, it has been Darwinists who have been more reluctant to follow the scientific evidence wherever it might lead, for they refuse to consider the possibility that it might lead to an Intelligent Designer.
You ask several other questions, but I think your final question about what God requires for salvation is the key question: "Why would God have given us such ambiguous evidence if we were to be punished for interpreting it the wrong way?"
I don't think God's creation is ambiguous evidence. Right now I'm on a retreat in the mountains of North Carolina. I look outside my window and I see a beautiful sight that shouts to me, "Made by God!"
What's more, Jesus Christ's coming was not ambiguous, either. He clearly proclaimed that He was the way to God, and when He was nailed to the cross and buried, He arose from the dead, and then told His followers to proclaim the good news of salvation by faith in Christ to all the world. There is nothing ambiguous about that, either.
I don't mean that macro-evolution would have to take place without the guidance of God. I just mean that because you don't think it took place without his guidance doesn't mean it didn't take place.
I'm on board with God created the universe, but who's to say how he chose to create it? And I don't agree with Darwinism as it is, at all actually, but that doesn't mean that all of the ideas are wrong.
I guess I just mean that I don't think it works to outline Christianity in scientific terms. You look out your window and see beauty and you say it says "Made by God" but that's not anything scientificly substantial. That's something that supports a conclusion already drawn, not something that leads to the drawing of a conclusion. And you're absolutely right that the happenings of Jesus are not at all ambigious, if we could conclusively prove that they happened.
Again (because it sounds like this is becoming a heated issue (or maybe it just sounds that way)) I'm not arguing the existence of God or the right or wrong of anything. Ultimately, I just think it's a bad idea to try to present Christianity in scientific terms.
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