1. Mayday mayday mayday SoS Darwin! Is it really that bad? Guess so, if you go by BioLogos.
The skinny:
… you have heard about the “massive evidence” for Darwinism, right? No, that is a confusion cleverly created by Darwinist tax and donor burdens.
What they do is they cleverly confuse two concepts: One is evidence for evolution. Few doubt that, in my experience. Does anyone doubt, for example, that the tyrannosaur is no longer among us? Well, a simple question would be, can anyone produce one?
But the Darwinist always conflates it into evidence for Darwinism: That time and chance alone can produce intricate machinery within cells, which accounts for the life we see around us. That is flatly unbelievable. “
The fat:
Professor Karl W. Giberson vice-president of BioLogos asks, in Saving Darwin Can you still be a Christian and support the idea of evolution? He argues that we can save Darwin and still be Christians or theists.
But that begs the question: Why should we? Why should we care about saving Darwin? Darwin is in eclipse scientifically, for good reasons, and the question is what to do now.
Darwinism is kept in place by people I can only describe as atheist tax and donor burdens. They do not hesitate to lavish sickening obsequies on the old Brit toff. Christian tax and donor burdens who support these atheist tax burdens support them and pay no attention, so far as I can see, to the fact that the vast majority of their compatriots are pure naturalists (= no God and no free will). Indeed, their constant refrain is, if we don’t accept these people’s views, ours will not be believed or accepted.
As if that would ever happen in an environment where such people rule. It would be quite the laff riot if it did not involve serious public policy issues.
Next segment: 2. Christian Darwinism is not in trouble? No? Want to put it to a real test?
Note: You can read the whole thing here, as per below. I placed links back to the Post-Darwinist because they were already embedded anyway.
2. Christian Darwinism is not in trouble? No? Want to put it to a real test?
Well, let’s start with the fact that Christians and theists in general are decreasingly respected as sources of information in a society whose science is so largely governed by atheist tax and donor burdens. Look what happened to poor Michael Reiss, Church of England clergyman who was – heart and soul! – in favour of force feeding Darwinism to schoolkids, persuading them that they are merely hapless lumps of “evolution”.
It would never have occurred to Reiss to question the system; he only wanted to ‘”help” – the usual social worker’s wretched excuse for bad judgement and wrong action.
Reiss was driven out mainly because he was a clergyman. I bet he wouldn’t have been driven out if he were an atheist popularizer. In the shallow Brit culture today, he would have been lauded, except that his problem was that he really believed what others use only for gain – in power, prestige, or cash. And they are wiser than he was. That’s what it is good for,not because it is true.
Atheists and theistic evolution fellow travellers think they can kid us all, because it is so easy to get politicians to holler and thump stupidly for Jesus at prayer breakfasts – as long as it never means anything. But clearly, for whatever reason, that is not working now in North America, where lots of people still have kids or grandkids, and we need to think about a real future, not a pretend one. But Christian Darwinism still attracts funds, as the BioLogos Institute attests.
You think I am being too harsh? Thomas Cudworth said much the same thing here. Okay, forget him, for now. Look at Giberson’s piece at the BioLogos site, a former home of Francis Collins, better known for being a capable genomics administrator than a clear thinker, who is now part of the United States’ administration and avid supporter of human embryonic stem cell research.
Biologos is now a home, so far as I can see, for everyone who wants to persuade theists that the universe and/or life forms show no evidence of design (so, of course, human embryos can just be trashed, right? Just more stuff for the blender …).
Real test: But what credible real evidence is there that a deer-like creature turns into a whale? Fine with me if it is true, but how do we know it is true, apart from the need to advance the claims of Darwinism by huge speculations?*
*And don’t try to con us by claiming that Darwinism is the same thing as evolution. Increasing numbers of people just know better now.
Next segment: Why are we not all contented Darwinian cows?
3. Karl Giberson’s basic point: Why are we all not contented Darwinian cows?
Giberson’s basic point in “Would you like fries with that theory?” is that lay people should be contented cows when listening to scientists.
Well, first, what about the Altenberg 16, scientists seeking to rescue evolution from tax burden Darwinists?
And just shutting up and listening would get us where, exactly? My favourite Giberson lines:
My field is physics. I cannot imagine what it would mean for a layperson to deal with the data of physics and draw their own conclusions.
Well, physics can easily be divided into what can be demonstrated and what can’t. The prospects of getting an explorer probe out to Pluto or a Canadarm on the space shuttle could, at least in principle, be demonstrated or refuted. Multiple universes or competing Darwinian universes (Lee Smolin-style) cannot. Well, Giberson goes on, as profs tend to do:
Furthermore we rarely—if ever—apply this “Professor Everyman” style of reasoning to, say, medical diagnoses. If our child is sick we want our doctor to share the collective wisdom of the medical profession with us and tell us what to do, not hand us some charts and say “Here are the facts. Let me know what medications you want me to prescribe. Or if you think surgery is required.”
Well, excuse me. I sure want a say myself. And have always had one in the past. And my kids and grandkids are fine.
I don’t know what happens in Prof. Giberson’s community, but here we think that consensus is important, because it affects patient care – except in unusual, emergency situations, where no one need accept responsibility for an adverse outcome. I once saw a doctor on her knees on the floor of a hotel lobby, administering heart massage to an unconscious heart attack victim, while awaiting emerg backup.
However, in a normal surgical situation, the doctor offers the patient a chance to choose, or a parent a chance to choose on behalf of a minor child. That is quite different. The reality is that, today, matters are often complex. Many people simply refuse further conventional treatment, and they are by no means less aware than the physician of what that means. They need to live with whatever outcome either way, and if one outcome means more suffering than another, they need to determine at what point conventional treatment has run its course. Onward, research!! But why the parent is a worse judge than the physician in such difficult cases, is out of my reach.
In a typical modern community, where we have clean water, vaccinations, absence of constant violent crime, etc., obvious solutions work, and we just provide them. We call that “applied science” – known locally as “engineering.” But we cannot extrapolate applied science to all difficult cases.
Next segment: 4. Maybe the coffin is still empty because no one actually bought it?
4. Maybe the coffin is still empty because no one actually bought it?
While we are here anyway, Karl Giberson also wrote, at the Huffington Post, “Intelligent Design’s Coffin Is Still Empty”. That would not surprise a lot of people; if it were not for court orders and tax funding, it is Giberson’s Darwinism’s coffin that would not be empty. But here is what he actually says:
ID’s coffin is far from being nailed shut. Several things are propping it open:
1) The complex designs of many natural structures that have not yet been explained by science. As long as there are ingenious devices and intricate phenomena in nature (origin of life, anyone?) that we cannot understand, there will be ID arguments.
2) The remarkable, finely-tuned structure of the cosmos in which the laws of physics collaborate to make life possible. Many agnostics have had their faith in unguided materialism shaken by this, most recently Anthony Flew.
3) The widespread belief that God — an intelligent agent — created the universe. The claim that an intelligent God created an unintelligent universe seems peculiar, to say the least.
4) The enthusiastic insistence by the New Atheists that evolution is incompatible with belief in God. Most people think more highly of their religion than their science. Imagine trying to get 100 million Americans to dress up for a science lecture every Sunday morning — and then voluntarily pay for the privilege.
ID’s coffin will remain open — and empty — as least as long as these props remain. Science is working successfully only on the first prop above and is a long way from having explained all the mysteries of nature. The argument that because science has explained many things, it can explain all things, is not entirely compelling in a world as wonderful as this one. Many people think that sounds like blind faith. And long lists of bad designs in nature are not really more effective than short lists, especially when they seem attached to an anti-religious agenda.
Not what he would apparently like, of course.
Anyway, who experiences the universe as unintelligent? I never found it so. Giberson’s whole schick is patronizing beyond the level of disgust, and one can only pity any theist taken in by it. Most of the Americans who go to church/synagogue/mosque/gurdwara, etc., are as fully capable as Giberson is of making reasonable decisions about their lives, much as he obviously doubts it, from his tone and manner.
And so what follows from Giberson’s performance? The very slightest tap on the wrist to aggressive atheists attempting to dominate the public square. Fact is, “science” will never get anywhere with key questions as long as it is wedded to materialism. And what about these “bad designs” in nature? As all things must die, bad designs are a way of building in the fatal flaw. If noting could die, nothing could be born. That would sure put an end to any kind of evolution.here for the next segment:
So, in other words, the answer can never be design. So the late Antony Flew, the best known 20th century academic atheist must be an idiot if he changed his min d.
Go here for the next segment: 5. Here is what troubles me most about this whole Giberson and Biologos front for Darwinism
5. Here is what troubles me most about this whole Giberson and Biologos front for Darwinism
The project of rescuing Darwin is, and should be, unattractive at best to a Christian. Darwin honestly believed that African Americans were closer to baboons than white Euro-Americans were. And, let me begin by saying that that was and remains an entirely logical and obvious outcome of Darwinism. Darwinism teaches that varieties split into separate species, and also that relentless struggle for survival between such groups is the engine of massive progress, including the creation of the intricate machinery inside all of our cells.
Oh yes, the Darwinist will acknowledge that there are other engines of evolution, but Darwinism is the only one he is really interested in, because that is the one that excludes divine action. Darwinism is purely random except for naked and ruthless competition (God = 0). That is why Darwinism is the only theory of evolution that is generally controversial – and for good reason, in my view.
It is both the creation story of atheism and generally lacking in real, specific evidence, other than paltry stuff that no one would dispute (changes in size of finch beaks) or stuff that runs counter to Darwinism’s claims (antibiotic resistance usually develops through junking complex equipment, not creating it).
Yet, Darwinism simply cannot be true within the life of this universe. The data is in, and it does not work for Darwinism. So why believe it?
Karl Giberson believes it.
Raised a fundamentalist who firmly believed in creationism, Giberson abandoned his creationist beliefs while working on his Ph.D., but not his belief in Christianity. This book explores the history of the controversy that swirls around evolution and shows why – and how – it is possible to believe in God and evolution at the same time.
The cover of his book features a fetching picture of Jesus, which is totally unlike the one that causes my fellow parishioners and me to fall to our knees. Not a fetching picture at all, but rather a reminder that the lamb of God took away the sins of the world by suffering. Hardly Darwin’s “survival of the fittest.” He was the fittest, but did not survive. And after that, what can I say?
For whatever reason, in the face of massive lack of evidence for Darwinism, some self-declared Christians say that we would all be better off to embrace Charles “survival of the fittest” Darwin.
Oh, wait, you have heard about the “massive evidence” for Darwinism, right? No, that is a confusion cleverly created by Darwinist tax and donor burdens.
What they do is they cleverly confuse two concepts: One is evidence for evolution. Few doubt that, in my experience. Does anyone doubt, for example, that the tyrannosaur is no longer among us? Well, a simple question would be, can anyone produce one?
But the Darwinist always conflates it into evidence for Darwinism: That time and chance alone can produce intricate machinery within cells, which accounts for the life we see around us. That is flatly unbelievable.
One thing belief in Darwinism would do is relieve us of a burden of guilt, right? We can make all issues of racism or eugenics into political correctness issues, rather than issues of fact. To this day, Darwinists become evasive when I ask them to confess well-known Darwinist sins re racism and eugenics.
More re Karl Giberson.