Bill Lockwood: The Religion of Evolution
The Religion of Evolution- “Either God or Evolution.”
by Bill Lockwood
Evolutionists, who believe that man’s origin can be explained by the theory that he has “evolved” from lower forms of life, frequently charge Bible believers with clutching an unfounded “faith” in God and Jesus Christ. This is ironic. Considering the fact that Bible faith is grounded upon historical evidence (Heb. 11:1) and it is the evolutionist who takes giant leaps into the dark, believing what he wishes without support of evidence, it is amazing that the evolutionary theory has become the modern cultural myth in the same vein as ancient legends. This cultural myth is the modernist religion.
First, many evolutionists classify their own theories as religious faith equaling a myth. In 1925 Louis T. More said, “The more one studies paleontology the more certain one becomes that evolution is based upon faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion” (Quoted by Bales, 1976, p. 47).
Philip Johnson, in his devastating review of Darwinism, wrote,
The continual efforts to base a religion or ethical system upon the evolution are not an aberration, and practically all the most prominent Darwinist writers have tried their hand at it. Darwinist evolution is an imaginative story about who we are and where we came from, which is to say it is a creation myth. (1991, p. 133)
Second, evolution as admitted to be only a theory, not a fact. This is not parallel to the Bible’s definition of faith, but it is parallel to the modern misconception of biblical faith in the minds of unbelievers. Michael Denton, an Australian molecular biologist, observed, “Darwin’s model of evolution is still very much a theory and till very much in doubt … it is impossible to verify by experiment or direct observation as is normal in science.”
Again, Denton wrote,
Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. Like the Genesis based cosmology it replaced, and like the creation myths of ancient man, it satisfies the same deep psychological need for an all embracing explanation for the origin of the world which has motivated all the cosmogenic myth-makers of the past …” (1985, p. 358)
If this is not shocking enough, consider what one hardened atheist/evolutionist proposed as to the origin of life.
Perhaps the primordial atom that then exploded was but an episode in the eternal (and perhaps cyclical) career of matter/energy. Possibly the super-sensuous first cause created that atom just before it blew up. Perhaps the primordial atom cane into existence spontaneously, i.e., out of nothingness without any cause (acausally), or perhaps it was self-created, whatever that might mean when applied to a primordial atom bent on exploding. (1993, p. 135).
Each of McKown’s alternatives is very unscientific! This is the material of which myths are made when one is “bent” on refusing to consider that an all-powerful God created the universe.
Third, some evolutionists even propose a god—after their own will. Consider Philip Johnson’s observation regarding Francis Crick. Crick is a Nobel prize winning scientist, a co-discoverer of DNA. Crick toyed with the idea of panspermia—the notion that life was “seeded” upon the earth in the long ago by alien space creatures.
Crick would be scornful of any scientist who gave up on scientific research and ascribed the origin of life to a supernatural Creator. But directed panspermia amounts to the same thing. The same limitations that made it impossible for the extra-terrestrials to journey to earth will make it impossible for scientists ever to inspect their planet … Those who are tempted to ridicule directed panspermia should restrain themselves, because Crick’s extra-terrestrials are not more invisible than the universe of ancestors that earth-bound Darwinists have to invoke. (1981, p. 110-11).
Not only have scientist seriously suggested panspermia, but Darwin himself clothes the process of “natural selection” with the qualities and attributes of an intelligent, creative being such as a “process” that “scrutinizes”, “rejects,” and “preserves.”
Fourth, evolution even proposes miracles—just as long as God is not the miracle-worker. Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheistic evolutionist, has argued that “an apparently (to ordinary human consciousness) miraculous theory is EXACLTY the kind of theory we should be looking for in the particular matter of the origin of life.”
Jacques Monod, an ardent evolutionist of yesteryear, described the “origin of the genetic code” as the major problem for evolutionists. “Indeed, it is not so much a problem as a veritable enigma” he mused. Thomas H. Huxley, who vociferously defended Darwinism, said he believed that “There is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity in Nature” (Life and Letters, I:259).
Francis Crick frankly admitted that “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”
The famous late American astronomer and naturalist Carl Sagan said, …the discovery of life on one other planet—e.g. Mars—can, in the words of the American physicist Philip Morrison, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘transform the origin of life from a miracle to a statistic’ (1977, p. 358).
Michael Denton concludes his work mentioned above with a notice of such admissions as Sagan offered with this,
The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle. (p. 264)
Fifth, evolutionary theory requires an unfounded type of “faith” in order for one to accept it. Robert Jastrow admits as much.
There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe, and every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event … This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid … (1978, p, 111-12)
Sixth, one scientist described what he called a “baptism” for those who accept evolution. That scientist was W.R. Thompson who called evolution a “fairy tale for adults.” The baptism to which he referred was the “baptism of ignorance” in which theorems rise to walk in language of “fact.”
Seventh, evolutionists maintain a creed. James Bales, long-time professor at Harding University, observed,
Since it is admitted that it has not been scientifically established, and since it is admitted that drastic changes have often taken place in these fields of study which supposedly sustain evolution, one would think that the majority of evolutionists would not be so strongly wedded to the hypothesis. However, they are and many of the bow down before the sacred cow of evolution and recite the creed: ‘I believe. My faith is the substance of fossils and other evidence which are but hoped for, and the evidence of descent which is not seen in the fossil record, the record in living nature, or the record in the lab. And yet, I do believe that the forces of nature which are now working produced results in the past which we cannot prove they are producing today. I believe in attributing to nature whatever power is necessary in order for nature to do everything which is required to create through evolution. (p. 53)
Eighth, one leading evolutionist of a century ago characterized teachers of evolution as priests. Paul LeMoine, one of the editors of the French Encyclopedia, was he who made that characterization. “Evolution is a sort of dogma in which the priests no longer believe that they maintain for their people (1937, in Bales, 1976).
Ninth, evolutionists practice their own conversion. As a matter of fact, all evolutionists, humanists, atheists, agnostics, and other classes of unbelievers, advocate their views so ardently so as to convert the unsuspecting. Those whom they seek primarily to convert are Christians and those who believe in the biblical account of Creation. This is because the “existence of an intelligent Creator is the only alternative to belief in life being created by matter and physical laws alone” (Taylor, 1991, p. 76).
There is no third alternative. Either God or evolution. However, the concept that of these two choices we have options between a “religious faith” and “science” is a mammoth-sized mistake. Both involve religious faith, but only one has any historical footing—God’s Book, the Bible.
James D. Bales, Evolution and the Scientific Method, 1976.
Francis Crick, Life Itself, 1981.
Michael Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, 1985.
Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, 1978.
Philip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 1991.
Delos McKown, The Myth-Maker’s Magic, 1993.
Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, 1977.
Paul S. Taylor, The Origins Answer Book, 1991.