Who's the real hero?

How ironic that events abound today for evolutionist Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, but not for emancipator Abraham Lincoln's (Pioneer Press, Happy birthday, Darwin. Oh, you too, Lincoln.).

What does it say about a society when it largely overlooks the man who ended the evil of slavery in the United States, but widely celebrates the legacy of a man who unleashed the most unspeakable evils in the history of the human race?

How did Darwin do that? By dressing up with a veneer of scientific respectability a dehumanizing worldview that justifies genocide as survival of the fittest. Think Hitler, Stalin, Mao...

Darwinists should be apologizing to the world in shame, not celebrating.

Abraham Lincoln is the real hero whose birth 200 years ago today is cause for celebration.

Are Darwinian evolution's days numbered?

Here's an interesting story on the events which are working to undermine Darwinian naturalism -- the belief that the universe and all that exists, including you and me, developed through a random, chance, materialist process -- and the mechanism for that theory, the gradualism of natural selection. What's conspiring to discredit Darwin's theory are scientific discoveries of the last several decades.

For many this is an arcane, obscure, philosophical debate which occasionally hits the mainstream media in disputes between parents and school officials over the teaching of evolution in the schools.

However, what's at stake is much deeper and more earthshaking than that. Darwin provided a scientific justification for the scientific materialist philosophical perspective that the material is all that exists. There is no overarching meaning and purpose to the universe. There is no God. The implications are felt in all areas of life including ethics, morality, education, and law among others. The impact of evolutionary thinking on morality is nothing is fixed and knowable. It's all personal preference at best. If there is a moral standard, it's evolving. (How often have I heard that the family, marriage is an evolving social construct rather than rooted in the mind of God and our human nature.)

When Darwin's theory is fully discredited it will have wide ranging implications -- the rest of the super structure will fall.

Again, ideas have consequences for good or for ill.

Darwin, foreign policy and naivete on the Left

Sharon Schminkle, former a reporter for the Star Tribune and who now covers science and foreign affairs for the liberal online news journal, www.MinnPost.com recently wrote a piece entitled, "Here's hoping....for Charles Darwin's spirit."

In it she writes,

But somehow I wish his open-minded spirit and dogged intellectual honesty could visit our 2008 political arena where the question of how we humans got our origins will, once again, divide America.

Full disclosure: The editors asked me to write about my greatest wish for next year. This isn't my greatest wish, given wars raging around the world and many other reasons to worry about my children's future. But I've wanted to write this piece ever since I had a chance last summer to view Darwin's papers at Cambridge University in England.

Schooled by clerics, Darwin wrestled with faith in an omniscient creator even while he stretched his mental horizons to ponder evidence that mysteries of Earth's intricate life could be explained by a scientific theory.

"I am in an utterly hopeless muddle," Darwin wrote to his friend Asa Gray in November, 1860. "I cannot think that the world, as we see it is the result of chance; & yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design."

That muddle is central to my wish. It isn't easy to open the mind and think creatively about America 2008, its urgent needs and its role in the world. Such thinking requires the humility to drop partisan defenses and listen to the other side. It demands attention to the details of national policy at a time when the overwhelming preferences are entertainment and shopping.

Darwin did it and came up with a theory that gives a common thread to all life on earth — the lives of Christians and Muslims, Hutus and Tutsis, lowly microbes and astrophysicists.

Maybe this is my greatest wish after all. Maybe Darwin's spirit even could make a difference in those wars around the world.

After learning more about what Darwin actually believed and the consequences of his ideas, I take issue with Schminkle's description of him as this heroic figure who was driven by an "open-minded spirit and dogged intellectual honesty" and came up with a theory which "gives a common thread to all life on earth — the lives of Christians and Muslims, Hutus and Tutsis, lowly microbes and astrophysicists."

John West in his new book "Darwin Day in America" digs into Darwin's writings and develops an interesting picture of Darwin's work, beliefs and ideas. I think one could argue that Darwin did tremendous damage to the value of human life, notwithstanding Schminkle's claim that Darwin provided a common thread to all of life, by driving a wedge between faith and science and providing the intellectual/scientific rationale for "scientific materialism" -- the destructive philosophical belief that all of life and the universe is merely the result of a chance, mindless, purposeless process devoid of a Creator. Scientific materialism provided the intellectual basis for communism and the dehumanizing uses of science in the West for such things as eugenics. These ideas have been highly destruction to humanity.

Darwin himself rejected Christianity and theism. West notes in Darwin's first edition of The Origin of the Species that "[Darwin] claimed that he had probably been a theist because he saw the 'impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man...as the result of blind chance or necessity.' But that belief too had gradually eroded. 'The old argument of design in nature which formerly seemed to me to so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered.'" And in his Autobiography, Darwin said, "..I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic."

As West writes, "Stephen Jay Gould was right to argue that 'Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature,' and that according to his theory matter was 'the ground of all existence; mind, spirit and God as well, are just words that express the wondrous results of neuronal complexity.' ... Whether or not Darwin wished to call himself a materialist, his theory had the consequence of making a materialist understanding of man and society finally credible." (Again materialism is the belief that all there is is the material. Our minds, ethics, and ideas are merely the result of a godless, chance, random, material process and therefore have no intrinsic meaning or value.)

To then view Darwin as the model for looking at geo-political, foreign policy issues, as Schminkle suggests, is incredibly naive. Certainly, we should listen to various points of view and be humble, but to embrace Darwin and his ideas will only lead to the moral and intellectual confusion so evidenced by the cultural and political Left. The Left rejects notions of transcendent truth, the "fallenness" of man, e.g. that man is sinful and thus does evil, and the need, in the case of the U.S., to aggressively protect its citizens and confront evil acts carried out by individuals and encouraged by particular nations -- all critical elements in addressing the dangerous world we face. To embrace Darwin as the paradigm for deciding what our foreign policy should be is both naive and dangerous.

Ideas have consequences

By John Helmberger

Two stories in the span of one week regarding the tragedy of teen suicide beg for a response. On November 27th, the Mpls Star Tribune reported on Beltrami County’s number 1 ranking in Minnesota for suicides among youth and young adults (Suicides Haunt Beltrami).

Then on December 4th, the Pioneer press ran a story on the plague of teen suicides afflicting Jamestown, ND (Tackling taboos in a town beset by suicide).

Both stories underscored uncertainty about the causes of this anguishing problem. "There is no black box to search for with suicides," said a researcher with the National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. "We are still learning, still looking. The problem is that many times, unlike a disaster, we are unable to pinpoint exactly where to look because these stories themselves are so individualized."

The Star Tribune reported that suspected causes include poverty, isolation, chemical abuse and family fragmentation, all of which should be investigated.

But here’s a suggestion for the government and health officials who are trying to get to the bottom of the problem: look in the schools. Try examining the link between what we teach kids in Science about where they came from, and the value they place on their own lives.

With our schools and the media relentlessly indoctrinating kids with the idea that they are no more than an evolutionary accident of nature, should we be surprised when they conclude that their lives have no real meaning and aren’t worth living? Should it come as a shock that kids value themselves and their lives so little that they decide to end it all at alarming rates, sometimes over seemingly trivial problems? Maybe they’re just doing what grows logically out of what we’ve taught them to think.

Ideas have consequences.

It’s time for Darwinian naturalism to start taking responsibility for the hopelessness it feeds in young people.

Atheists and atheism on the defensive

Recent debates by atheist Christopher Hitchens with defenders of God and Christianity, author Dinesh D'Souza and Oxford scholar Alister McGrath highlights the changing intellectual climate regarding debates on the existence of God and the Christian God in particular. In a nutshell, atheists and their defenders are on the defensive. This is pointed out in an interesting article in World magazine written by Marvin Olasky.

Back in the days of the Scopes trial and even before that, Theists and Christians tended to be on the defensive. Today, the roles are reversed. Advances in science pointing to design and an Intelligent Designer and the utter devastation wrought by atheistic ideologies like Marxism and Nazism have changed the terms of the debate and provided powerful evidence for the theistic, Christian position.

In the debate between between D'Souza and Hitchens, you can sense it even in the tone of taken by the debaters. D'Souza said in essence, I'll debate you on your own terms, using science and reason while Hitchens reverted to name calling, generalities, and accusations. The latter usually occurs when the side you're defending is weak and lacks evidentiary support.

I saw this a few years ago when a state Senate committee took up the proposed science standards and the topic of evolution came up. Those who oppose the materialist foundations of evolution simply argued that new scientific evidence, drawing into question evolution and other scientific theories, be included in the discussion. The atheistic representative and other supporters of evolution saw a grand religious conspiracy at play and made broad, generalized accusations. Defenders of including new evidence simply made scientific arguments. It struck me that this mini-debate was a microcosm of Scopes in reverse. That same dynamic is being played out in many other venues on the broader topic of God v. no god and design in nature v. Darwinian materialism. As always, I believe the truth will ultimately win out.

"The train to Huxley's dehumanized Brave New World has already left the station."

The above is a line from Leon Kass' talk to the Manhattan Institute on the impact of scientific materialism or as he calls it "soul-less scientism" on efforts to reconstruct life using such technologies as “The Pill. In vitro fertilization. Surrogate wombs. Cloning. Genetic engineering. Organ swapping. Mechanical spare parts. Performance--enhancing drugs. Computer implants into brains. Ritalin for the young, Viagra for the old, Prozac for everyone. Virtually unnoticed, the train to Huxley's dehumanized Brave New World has already left the station."

The inroads by scientific materialism as embodied in Darwinian evolution is washing into every sphere of society, e.g. education, law, politics, science, ethics and, as Kass points out, issues of life and what it means to be human. The problem is materialism brings with it no moral, ethical framework for considering these issues.

I expect a few of these issues to come up in the next Minnesota legislative session -- cloning, surrogate wombs and egg selling.

At it's core it's a worldview conflict. On the materialist side is the belief that we're merely the result of a mindless, purposeless, chance process with no transcendent meaning or purpose. On the other side is the belief there is a God who designed and imbued creation with meaning and purpose. These two worldviews and their local extensions are currently wrestling for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world. The outcome will decide whether we slide into a new barbarism/Dark Ages or a period of human flourishing and hope.

The atheist as intolerant and narrow minded

There is an interesting column in City Journal written by Theodore Dalrymple entitled what "What the New Atheists Don't See. It on the new crop of atheist writers, Chrisotpher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins who are making the New York Times best seller list.

He takes to task the new atheists who cavalierly heaping scorn on religious folks and their belief in meaning and purpose beyond themselves. These folks say we can do it on our own without the help of God who transcends our little worlds. Dalrymple goes on to point out the consequences of men who think they can do it on their own. He says,

"Of course, men—that is to say, some men—have denied this truth ["we continue to long for a transcendent purpose immanent in existence itself, independent of our own wills."] ever since the Enlightenment, and have sought to find a way of life based entirely on reason. Far as I am from decrying reason, the attempt leads at best to Gradgrind and at worst to Stalin. Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man’s mental or moral economy.

He especially goes after Harris when he says,

This sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none, combined with adolescent shrillness and intolerance, reach an apogee in Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith. It is not easy to do justice to the book’s nastiness...

Harris tells us, for example, that “we must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it. Given the present state of the world, there appears to be no other future worth wanting.” I am glad that I am old enough that I shall not see the future of reason as laid down by Harris; but I am puzzled by the status of the compulsion in the first sentence that I have quoted. Is Harris writing of a historical inevitability? Of a categorical imperative? Or is he merely making a legislative proposal? This is who-will-rid-me-of-this-troublesome-priest language, ambiguous no doubt, but not open to a generous interpretation.

It becomes even more sinister when considered in conjunction with the following sentences, quite possibly the most disgraceful that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist: “The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.”

Let us leave aside the metaphysical problems that these three sentences raise. For Harris, the most important question about genocide would seem to be: “Who is genociding whom?” To adapt Dostoyevsky slightly, starting from universal reason, I arrive at universal madness.

Lying not far beneath the surface of all the neo-atheist books is the kind of historiography that many of us adopted in our hormone-disturbed adolescence, furious at the discovery that our parents sometimes told lies and violated their own precepts and rules. It can be summed up in Christopher Hitchens’s drumbeat in God Is Not Great: “Religion spoils everything.”

What are the consequences of the loss of the religious foundations of our society and culture? Dalrymple says,

The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And in my own view, the absence of religious faith, provided that such faith is not murderously intolerant, can have a deleterious effect upon human character and personality. If you empty the world of purpose, make it one of brute fact alone, you empty it (for many people, at any rate) of reasons for gratitude, and a sense of gratitude is necessary for both happiness and decency. For what can soon, and all too easily, replace gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.

He also makes the interesting observation that atheists often heap scorn on religious people for their metaphysical beliefs. Dalrymple points out that the atheist belief in Darwinian natural selection is also making a religious statement.

It is true that he would say that everything is part of God’s providence, but, again, this is no more (and no less) a metaphysical belief than the belief in natural selection as an all-explanatory principle.

What makes Dalrymple's comments especially interesting is he does not consider himself "a believer."