Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Evolution and Christianity

I was in our local hospital today and found a small display of Christian literature. I found one that peaked my interest. It is called "Evolution and Christianity" and distributed by the Church of God in Christ Church, a Mennonite church, from St. Anne Manitoba Canada. It is in a question and answer format and says some remarkable stuff. First question is what is evolution? And it does a reasonable job explaining that. After that it gets bizarre. Next, question is what is meant by theory? There it jumps on to the old and long explainations of what a theory is according to creationist doctrine. It says; "a theory is an unproven idea that is intended to explain something." The kicker is the last part of the explaination. "A theory may seem reasonable, and it may be widely accepted. Even though it is supported by evidence, it is not necessarily a fact." There it was to be seen in black and white, evidence does not mean something is a fact! What, this is sheer denial and stated by a christian church. Let me state this is a slightly different way; evidence does not equal fact! That is like saying facts don't equal facts. The pamphlet then goes through some gyrations equating we don't know what light is or the illustration of the solar system was thought to be earth centered as a theory and was proven wrong. It then goes into the idea that creation is a theory and says that it can be called a theory for the same reason evolution is. Then it states that "no experiment can be done by a human to demonstrate creation." Only God was present when the world and universe was created and God told us in the Bible. Experiments can be done to show how evolution has happened. Astronomy can show that the universe is almost 15 billion years old by calculation using the red shift. They then say that it is a matter of faith. Next they ask what that is. Answer; "When ther is proof, faith is not necessary." And; "faith is believing in something which cannot be proven." That I agree with, faith is believing in something that cannot be proven. But according to their logic, if that is what you can call it, nothing is provable then, because evidence is not facts. They then go into evolution is faith and not all scientists believe in evolution. This is straight out of Answers in Genesis and the creationist play book. All bogus claims. The next part gets scary.
They ask: "Does it matter which I believe?" Answer is "Very much so, because our beliefs determine our actions." That I agree with however, "What harm is there in believing the theory of evolution?" Answer: "Evolution renders God unnecessary." They then go into the moral argument that without God we cannot be moral. This is totally false and proven by experiment and history. They are clearly twisting what is said by others, history, science etc. to fit their own narrow world views and a justification to elimanate evolution from thought. The next step is then the rest of science and we will right back in the stone age, excuse me the biblical age. They then ask can a christian believe in both the bible and evolution? Here they are very certain that only by compromising the Word of God. They then go into the oft and tired arguement of truth and that god is truth. Bible verses are used to justify this line of reasoning, if one can call it that. (John 14:6) "God loves truth, but that God actually is the truth." Then (Titus 1:2) "He cannot lie, because He Himself is the truth." This is circular thought and we have a name for this type of thinking in medicine, it is called schizophrenia. They then go into the only way to find truth is through praying and the bible. There are so many inconsistencies, out right lies and poor logic in this pamphlet that it is a insult to the human intellect. But it is also scary because it shows that the religious only believe in their truth, no one elses and facts are not facts, so evidence does no good in argueing with these people.

Peace
Skeptical DoDo

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The point of atheism and morality is not that no one can act morally without believing in God. This is a straw man argument of what any informed theist is saying.

The point is that there is simply no rationale to say that acting "morally" is better or wiser without God. Who's to say which morality is better?

If you want to be moral without believing in God, great, but there is simply no rationale to expect (or require) anyone else to be moral. If I can get away with something (that is, not get caught), why shouldn't I do whatever I want?