Here Is How Gnosticism Informs Evolution

_{Cornelius Hunter
June 11, 2013

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Evolution professor John Avise ends his book, Inside the Human Genome, with a gnostic crescendo. The National Academy of Sciences member writes: Read more

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Most evolutionists do not even know what "Gnosticism" is.Mung_{June 15, 2013
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The problem with attempting to combine gnosticism with evolutionary theory is that it takes evolution out of the realm of pure scientific theory and puts it into the realm of materialistic philosophy. Stephen Jay Gould wrote of science and religion being non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). The essential problem, as Dr. Stephen Meyer pointed out when being interviewed by Lee Strobel (The Case for a Creator, p. 75) is that "biblical religion makes very specific claims about facts. It makes claims about the universe having a beginning, about God playing a role in creation, about humans having a certain kind of nature, and about historical events that are purported to have happened in time and space."Barb_{June 12, 2013
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Gnosticism seems to be gaining some favor among theologians today. Believing that knowledge (gno?sis in Greek) could be derived in a mystical way, Gnostics combined apostate Christianity with Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism and became a widespread religious and philosophical movement that polluted the faith of some believers. Gnostics believed that spiritual things are good and that all matter is evil. Reasoning that all flesh is evil, they rejected marriage and procreation, claiming that Satan originated these. Some of them believed that since only that which pertains to the spirit is good, it does not matter what a man does with his physical body. Such viewpoints resulted in extreme life-styles, either asceticism or fleshly indulgence. The Gnostic claim that salvation came only from mystical Gnosticism, or self-knowledge, left no room for the truth of God’s Word. In December 1945, near Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt, peasants chanced upon 13 papyrus manuscripts containing 52 texts. These fourth-century documents have been attributed to a religious and philosophical movement called Gnosticism. Mixing elements of mysticism, paganism, Greek philosophy, Judaism, and Christianity, the movement was a contaminating influence on some professed Christians.—1 Timothy 6:20, 21. The “Gospel of Thomas,” the “Gospel of Philip,” and the “Gospel of Truth,” found in the “Nag Hammadi Library,” present various mystic Gnostic ideas as if coming from Jesus. The recently discovered “Gospel of Judas” is also counted among the Gnostic gospels. It portrays Judas in a positive light as the only apostle who really understood who Jesus was. One expert on this gospel notes that it describes Jesus as “a teacher and revealer of wisdom and knowledge, not a savior who dies for the sins of the world.” The inspired Gospels teach that Jesus did die as a sacrifice for sins of the world. (Matthew 20:28; 26:28; 1 John 2:1, 2) Clearly, the Gnostic gospels are intended to undermine, rather than strengthen, faith in the Bible.—Acts 20:30.Barb_{June 12, 2013
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Besides the Cambrain doubt, I think Darwin's other 'horrid doubt' is devastating as well:
"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin - Letter To William Graham - July 3, 1881
Though CS Lewis had used the argument from reason earlier, Alvin Plantinga has since refined the argument more precisely:
Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe Carter Excerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind Alvin Plantinga - Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r34AIo-xBh8
Even Dawkins agrees with the premise of Plantiga's argument:
Why No One (Can) Believe Atheism/Naturalism to be True - video Excerpt: "Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life." Richard Dawkins - quoted from "The God Delusion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QFsKevTXs
supplemental quotes
"Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." Alfred Russell Wallace, New Thoughts on Evolution, 1910 The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
bornagain77_{June 11, 2013
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OT: What was Darwin's Doubt? Author Stephen C. Meyer answers - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBabIzTUJP8bornagain77_{June 11, 2013
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Understanding its pathetic limitations, and imbecility of those who try to make a god of it, the great scientists have tended to despise science. Or, rather, the scientism you speak of. A classic case of this was the panentheist, Einstein, who effectively mocked scientism, and hardly cast honest science in the most glorious light, when, among other maverick comments, he remarked that he rated imagination higher than intelligence. One good thing that will come of the ultimate exposure of the imbecility of the way in which the materialists cling so desperately to evolution, in the teeth of an endless panorama of contradictory research findings, is that it will be plain to all that our worldly intelligence needs a sound basis of spiritual wisdom, from which to draw our assumptions. Otherwise, a formal intellectual is as likely, indeed, more likely, to be an actual cretin, in terms of his level of thinking than the average guy. What does it profit if a man if he should gain the whole world - including perhaps a harem of curious composition - and lose his own soul.Axel_{June 11, 2013
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The problem is that Science won't play ball. Science tells us that religion is all an evolutionary fairy tale. Science tells us that we are chunks of meat that have randomly assembled over the eons and will disassemble one day. Oh, Science is more than happy to let us debate how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, but it proclaims ultimate superiority in matters of real significance such as the meaning of life, ultimate causes and to whom we are answerable. Science mocks religion except when it can use it for its own purposes. The great irony, and Dr. Hunter notes this time and time again, is that Science is its own religion with high priests, rituals and exclusive claims to the truth.OldArmy94_{June 11, 2013
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