Richard Weikart’s new book, Death of Humanity

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 5, 2016

Books of interest, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic. has a new book out, The Death of Humanity.

Here’s some info from Evolution News & Views:

Although Weikart points out the many sources at work in diminishing the centrality humanity in our social and moral relations, one that recurs is Darwinism. This is for good reason. Darwin himself expressed the two foundational sources of the attack on anthropocentrism, an assault that unfortunately “is becoming mainstream in our ‘culture of death'” (4). First is the notion that regard for our special mental attributes is little more than self-centered arrogance. The second, related to the first, is that human beings are really not unique and are, in fact, just another kind of animal.

As to the first proposition, it was years before the Origin of Species, as early as spring 1838, that Darwin wrote privately “Why is thought being a secretion of the brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves” (Darwin’s Notebooks, 291). Weikart gives another from the Notebooks, quoting Darwin, “thought, however unintelligible it may be, seems as much function of organ, as bile of liver” (55). Darwin expressed the second proposition more publicly when he suggested that the difference between man and animal was one of degree, not kind (Descent of Man [1871]). Darwin’s materialistic view of the mind, the denial of the soul, and the conflation of human and animal attributes are covered in Chapter 2, “Created from Animals.” The absurdity of these ideas is captured in PETA spokesperson Ida Newkirk’s statement, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals” (50). More.

Note: With his first book, Weikart had the same type of experience as Michael Denton. Denton had wanted to call his book “Darwinism: A Theory in Crisis,” but the publisher insisted on calling it Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Similarly, Weikart had intended to call his first book “From Haeckel to Hitler,” but the original publisher insisted on the title above, which once again, pretty much emptied the cave…

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Comments

Sorry, jimmontg, one final thought: If Jesus did not fulfil the law, and to the letter; then he did not keep the law from the Father, being disobedeint to the Father. Therefore, he broke the law; his own law: he died in his sins; we remain in ours, and his kingdom cannot stand. mw

Hi jimmontg, just a further thought: "For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’" (Romans 15:3) We should at least then try to love the Commandments that Jesus loved, as he himself is the truth of divine law (Jn 14:6), as the Father is the truth (Jn 17:17), in the essence of the Holy Trinity, and from Sinai. Jesus died for us loving divine law in obedience to divine law, because humans have not done so since the beginning/Genesis. Jesus upheld the Decalouge (Matt 5:17:20). He said those who distorted divine law were "hypocrites" (Matt 15:3-9). Therefore, he did not please himself, as such. Of course, we cannot possibly love as God does. No matter; his love makes up, which we, being generated in perfection, still cannot match his perfection, and certainly not in a fallen state, but forgiven; because he loved us at our worst, to his death. mw

Thanks jimmontg # 24: I appreciate your comments. mw

MW@16 Do you know why Martin Luther said Love God and do as you please? Jesus did precisely as He pleased. As His Love of the Father was perfect it would have been impossible for Him to displease The Father, Jesus did exactly as He pleased even down to "sweating blood as it were" in His Humanity, His Divinity was held back to the point of a cross. Martin Luther was accused of antinomianism for that statement by people who believed the way to please God was keeping His rules. It's like pleasing your wife because you love her and she pleases you for the same reason. Doing what your spouse wants because you have too can make for a joyless marriage. I used to go to a church that believed in "total sanctification". You couldn't be a Pastor or Elder without achieving a totally sinless state. I asked the pastor once if he loved God and his neighbors 24/7. He actually thought he did. "If we say we have no sin the truth is not in us." He didn't have a good answer except to quote Romans to me. I told him that if his interpretation of Romans was correct then we had a bona fide Biblical contradiction. Needless to say we stopped going there. I gave a talk one time there on a Sunday night about what living by faith in Grace was about and how that is how I had to live if I wanted to stay off drinking. I didn't think I was very good or really had that much to say. I couldn't believe how many people were crying and they were coming up to me thanking me for helping them. The funny thing is, was that I hadn't intended to talk about Faith and Grace, the Holy Spirit, I suppose, led me that way. I actually started with all my notes and small speech about alcoholism and ended up ignoring the notes. It was a very legalistic denomination and still is. So many joyless Christians "living by the rules" instead of trying to love God and living for The Rulemaker. Makes a difference you know. jimmontg

Robert #22
We were different , since the reformation, by protestantism motivating the common people. Leading to a rising curve which raise everyone.
Magna Carta and The Peasants' Revolt both happened before Martin Luther was born. That's just two examples off the top of my head.
This is the English and then Americans. in fact in England it was the only nation where protestant fought protestant for protestant reasons.
When was that then? Mostly it was a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The Puritans were a small off-shoot which is why the left England.
the Christian right is the origin for the higher moral and intellectual curve in the Anglo-American civilization. America proving this by the segregation of the puritan from the anglican. The north was superior morally and intellectually.
Did you know that Algebra is an Arabic word? Did you know that Muslims scholars named many of the stars in the heavens? Our number system was not developed by Christians.
80% of all sciency or inventions came from the Anglo American peoples. All political and legal ideas worthwhile came from us. Everything fun. Always the good guys in wars.
80%? Really? Do tell where you get that statistic from.
The rest of the world no one pretends contributed anything. You can score it. I’m talking about real people in real civilization. not a few cats on some list.
You are amazingly ignorant of the development of mathematics and science. ellazimm

ellazimm The origin of the western world , different from the rest of the world and in ancient times, was a rising curve in the common peoples morals and intelligence. Before that civilizations only had a upper class curve. The common people didn't matter. We were different , since the reformation, by protestantism motivating the common people. Leading to a rising curve which raise everyone. So our upper classes did better then the rest of the world. They still did everything smart. Following this curve the most PROTESTANT peoples did better. The most were those most segregated by protestant motivations. This is the English and then Americans. in fact in England it was the only nation where protestant fought protestant for protestant reasons. the Christian right is the origin for the higher moral and intellectual curve in the Anglo-American civilization. America proving this by the segregation of the puritan from the anglican. The north was superior morally and intellectually. Now this can be scored in all human accomplishment. 80% of all sciency or inventions came from the Anglo American peoples. All political and legal ideas worthwhile came from us. Everything fun. Always the good guys in wars. Now its a curve. yet its a great curve. Other protestant nations contributed but in a lower curve. The Catholic nations did a tiny bit but relative to numbers and nations almost nothing. The rest of the world no one pretends contributed anything. You can score it. I'm talking about real people in real civilization. not a few cats on some list. No persons ever made a difference to mankind. After the folks around Jesus it was Martin luther but even he needed everyone to agree and help. this is about mankind. In the western world(protestant world) it was uniquely about the common man. We prevailed because of the people and not a few upper class elites. today all the world is getting better because all the peoples are getting moral and smarter. Finally they move up after seeing us do it. Robert Byers

jimmontg I do agree it was the unique motivation from puritanism and so the great segregation of religious groups that , on a curve, raised up america. I don't think trivial cults mattered . Too few. I don't think islam is a problem although simple issues of foreign identies is a problem or possibly. Europe needs to embrace identity and rights based on that and then contracts with foreign immigrants. Then everyone keep to the contract. europe never kept contracts while America, little bit britain, are defined by keeping contracts. The revolutionary war and the civil war being case in point. Robert Byers

mohammadnursyamsu prefers to have the (thinking from emotion instead of intelligent reason) heart destroy their head? I like to make intelligent choices. Using my head to think wisely makes my heart happy. But that's me. GaryGaulin

Natural selection theory works as a catalyst in the commonly human head vs heart struggle, the head destroying the heart. mohammadnursyamsu

New Poll Reveals Evolution's Corrosive Impact on Beliefs about Human Uniqueness: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/04/new_poll_reveal102751.html Richard Weikart writes: ------------ "Many critics of my earlier scholarship will be disconcerted to see this data, which powerfully supports my arguments about the way that Darwinism devalues human life, a key point I explain further in my new book." ------------ If the Judeo-Christian God created through evolution theory, not only would he cast out divine law, he would devalue human life, and God would devalue the God-Man Jesus. In other words, God would cast out God. mw

Mung # 14:- ------------ "This book explains first why the Judeo-Christian sanctity-of-life ethic has declined historically since the Enlightenment." ------------ If we can abort one divine law: that six days means the opposite to clearly spoken words, then we can abort all divine law as they are all from that same stable of divine commands. It is no use cribbing about the rest of death dealing philosophies, because if one divine law is deemed flawed, the rest must be rejected due to possible flawed contamination (from God)? Still, Yahweh spoke clearly: "While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); and they said, ‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?’ And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, ‘Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.’ So the three of them came out. Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. And he said, ‘Hear my words: When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become leprous, as white as snow." (Num 12:1-10) The point of that quote: besides that God can evolve things micro instantly; if we believe God spoke "clearly" to Moses; clear, then clearly means clear! Heavens above, God came down himself to clear the issue. What an experience! Such experience is invalidated by consensus science in order to bend the knee to Darwin, who scoffed at miracles. However, which brings us back to a main point; the book by Richard Weikart: Darwinism has brought nothing but decline in various standards. It has robbed the world of the miraculous. For theistic evolutionists, it has shoehorned common descent into scripture and totally disfigured it. Consensus science rules, but cannot consent to miracles, much less in a major miracle; origin in six days. It has gained the world, but has lost its soul. mw

jimmontg # 11, thank you for your comments: ----------- "What does 2067 have to do with anything and what Sabbath commandment in Genesis?" ------------ 2067 for Britain is a projected data that say Jesudaeo-Christianity will have reached the end of the road. Therefore, it has plenty to do with the state of that faith. The Genesis Sabbath Commandment, Yahweh clearly gave to Moses at Sinai. It points back to Genesis, and to the immediacy of the Sabbath worship in remembrance of six day creation. In addition, it potentially looks forward to the Transfiguration, where Jesus spoke to the lawgiver Moses, given through Yahweh. Jesus upheld the Decalouge to the letter. The spirit of the law has never been annuiled. Modified in mercy yes. ------------ You say, "Now I love God and do as I please." ------------ Jesus, as God in part and God in whole, some believe; loves God, lived in obedience to please the Father. He certainly did not do what he pleased. The summary Commandments, which Jesus commanded - to love God and the neighbour as the self, covers the Ten Commandments; as Jesus said: he came not to destroy but to fulfil the law. He fulfilled the law under obedience for our sake. Therefore, he fulfilled that God created in six days. Yes, that is impossible according to modern consensus science. But so is the parting of the dead sea, the Immaculate Conception, raising the dead, raising himself from the dead, and ascending into heaven. Let alone, from a Catholic or Orthodox view; though including some Protestants, that Jesus becomes piece of consecrated bread, at will. Boy, is that scientifically impossible! If we say for the word of God Almighty, such power is impossible, when Jesus said for God, all things are possible, who should we believe? As for tithing, we are no longer under Temple laws, and dietary laws, as the Temple no longer exists. mw

Robert #12
Most of that list are people who never really mattered and are Kings etc.
A majority of the people i listed in comment #5 were NOT political. In fact I focused on mathematicians, scientists and artists. So did Martin Luther not really matter? Descartes? Niels Bohr? Copernicus? Raphael? I don't understand your criteria.
Europeans ALL were very servile, like the rest of the world, and thats why they lingered behind in civilization accomplishments relative to a high score of the Englishman. or Anglo-American civilization.
What accomplishments are your referring to? Art? Mathematics? Architecture? Legal systems? What is it that the English did so much better? (Just to be clear, I am an American living in England.)
The reason for this being religious motivation of larger numbers and this from the Puritan/Evangelical protestant motivation leading to a rising curve in the common people and so raising all classes.
Where did Protestantism begin? It wasn't in England. The Puritans were an English branch of Protestantism The Evangelical movement had English participants but also folks from the Moravanian Church and Luthern Pietists. The main thrust was probably English but not the only one. And, as far as science and mathematics is concerned, their influence was negligible at best. Can you point to some important scientific, artistic, architectural or mathematical discoveries that came about because of Evangelicalism? And what do you mean by 'a rising curve in the common people'? What does 'raising all classes' mean? Are you saying all people are better off in America or England or Canada than they are in . . . say . . . Germany? Or Sweden? Or Austria? Or Norway? What do you mean by classes? Are there classes in Canada? Weren't you arguing on another thread that part of Canada's problems were due to foreigners arriving since WW II? Are they part of a class? A class you seemingly want to get rid of? ellazimm

This book explains first why the Judeo-Christian sanctity-of-life ethic has declined historically since the Enlightenment. Second, it depicts the deleterious consequences this has had on contemporary society. Third, it demonstrates the poverty of many secular alternatives to the Christian vision of humanity, such as materialism, positivism, utilitarianism, Marxism, Darwinism, eugenics behaviorist psychology, existentialism, sociobiology, postmodernism, and others. Finally, it defends the sanctity of human life on a variety of fronts - abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, suicide, eugenics, and transhumanism, among others. Mung

RB@12 You have a pretty good bead on a lot of Europe for the last couple hundred years. They do tend to be followers and passive as far as their governments go. The English, besides the Puritan effect is also that their society isn't as homogenous as let's say Holland or Sweden, even France. They've always had their Scots, Welsh and West Country differences as well as the religious influence too. Don't forget Henry the 8th and his break with Rome too. Coming to the New World really set the differences apart. There was a lot of isolationist groups once you got too far from the coast.Only in America could so many cults grow and prosper. Some of that was due to Charles Finney and his "burned over districts" in New York and a lot of cults did follow his crusades for want of a better name. Mormonism and Jehovah witnesses being the most notable groups and the Millerite to the Seventh Day movements also. Have you ever read "Made In America" by Scott Horton? It gives a light overview of a subject that would take many books, but it's a start. I believe Europe is waking up to it's muslim problem and I foresee a lot of strife on the horizon. Indeed I told my son that he would probably see WW3 in his lifetime. I hope not, but it seems to be shaping up that way. The insanity of Islam almost guarantees it. jimmontg

ellazimm Most of that list are people who never really mattered and are Kings etc. Its not a rejection of others. Its not a rejection of others. Its about real curves in attributes. Spirit, moral, smarts, etc etc. You can score it and the score is in. Europeans ALL were very servile, like the rest of the world, and thats why they lingered behind in civilization accomplishments relative to a high score of the Englishman. or Anglo-American civilization. The reason for this being religious motivation of larger numbers and this from the Puritan/Evangelical protestant motivation leading to a rising curve in the common people and so raising all classes. I want euros to sharpen and brave up. They can do it but they must stop lack of self confidence. Robert Byers

MW@10 What does 2067 have to do with anything and what Sabbath commandment in Genesis? It wasn't given until Mt Sinai and Moses. History confirms the early church met on the first day of the week and the disciples of the Apostles baptized babies. So what difference does it make? I already know your arguments. I heard them all and was heavily influenced by all the "Biblical arguments for this and that based on this law or that principle and how I had to tithe if I wanted to not be under a curse. Believe it or not it was reading the Puritans that set me free. Now I love God and do as I please. jimmontg

“Although Weikart points out the many sources at work in diminishing the centrality humanity in our social and moral relations, one that recurs is Darwinism;” the reviewer writes of “The Death of Humanity,” by Richard Weikart. The following letter from me to the editor of the Catholic Times, England, was published, 1st April, 2016. It followed a previous letter by me published 26th February, 2016, which reported the Spectator had extrapolated from the National Census of the UK, that the end of Judaeo-Christianity in Britain is 2067, http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/06/2067-the-end-of-british-christianity/. In conjunction; in Iceland, (the constitution stipulates that the state church of Iceland is the Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran Church), 25 year olds an under, no longer believe that God created the world, http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/00-icelanders-25-years-or-younger-believe-god-created-world-new-poll-reveals. It is clear; Darwinism is intellectually destroying the Judaeo-Christian faith. However, my letter of the 1st April: “The carpenter God had no formal academic training; apart from his mother, scripture, and the Father. Today, we have PhDs, professors, jury persons, article writers and so on, telling us Jesus/Yahweh be flawed or totally wrong about the Creation. Today, Catholic educators basically teach a muddled and muffled theology, not daring to criticise the flaws in the humanistic government educationalist approach to origins. Two things God has a hand in joining together, husband and wife, and the first six days of creation joined to the first blessed Saturday Sabbath rest; the basis of our Easter Sunday sabbath worship back to Sinai. Jesus arose from the dead on the first day of the week, equated to the Genesis Sabbath Commandment which points and confirms a key truth of Genesis: the first Sunday, when the first unknown light was later recorded. We may assume that light was from the glory of Jesus; as creation was through Jesus, “the light” (Jn 1:1-10), (Jn 12:35), (Jn 8:12), (Col 1:15-19). Both those laws (divorce and the upholding of the Decalogue to the letter), Jesus stuck by in his teaching. Two things God asked us to remember; he created in six days (Exod 20:8-11) and to remember him in the Eucharist, from the last supper (Lk 22:19). A carpenter arose from the dead at Easter. Think about that compared to present humanist and shackled Catholic evolutionist teaching; a God that can regenerate himself from dead crucified matter in an instant. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25). Jesus cannot be chance resurrected mutated life genetically drifted from the dead! He is God of life at his will; he is our true life origins God stated in stone. If evolutionism is true, then our resurrection from the dead should surely be in imperceptible incremental steps over billions of years in keeping with such theory?” Therefore, if the Faith continues to teach that evolutionism can be shoe horned into a divine law; the Genesis Sabbath Commandment, such is intellectually and theologically powerfully deluded (2 Thess 2:9-11), and 2067 will be at the door very soon. God is true Educator; he first must educate us in divine truth. He cannot say one thing for it to mean totally the opposite, but that is also what theistic evolutionist consensus science has created by hijacking Darwinism in order to justify disbelief in a divine law, because it is not in accord with human science, and creationism cannot be explained. Too true; miracles cannot be explained. Darwin rejected miracles; he had to do in order to inflate common descent ideas. Still, the Big Miracle affects data, big time. That is why we should rely on the word of Yahweh from Sinai, upheld by Jesus/God in part and God in whole, who kept all divine law for our sake. mw

Berlinski did not provide any scientific evidence. The scientific evidence I presented (click on my name above) more or less agrees by showing that humans are indeed in the image/likeness of a trinity of intelligence levels. But that's science and you are clearly against that, even when it agrees with the premise of your theory you are supposed to be promoting. GaryGaulin

Gary, your silence on the plethora of evidence/substance in BA's posts is quite telling. A habitual shot at DI is all you have? Why not take Berlinski on? Your challenging his conclusions, were you to attempt to refute them, would be most entertaining to observe. AnimatedDust

bornagain77, then who is paying you for this "compelling evidence that we are indeed made in the image of God"? One of the affiliates of the Discovery Institute? GaryGaulin

GG, and why should it matter one iota to you, after being shown compelling evidence that we are indeed made in the image of God, whether I get paid for writing or not? Perhaps you want to know my shoe size as well? Of related note:
Matthew 22:19-21 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Context
As the Fathers of the Church read this passage, they recognize that the coin is made with the image of Caesar, but man is made in the image of God. http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/10/money-in-image-of-caesar-and-man-in.html
bornagain77

Robert #4
Yet the point with europeans was they were servile. All of them. They could be persuaded to anything as they are today. only the anglo American civilization was more intelligent and this because of puritan/evangelical passion and numbers.
What about Charlemagne? Napoleon? Martin Luther? Bismark? Galileo? Descartes? Euler? Gauss? Leibnitz? Fermat? The Bernoullis? Pascal? Da vinci? Raphael? Michalangelo? Titian? Vermeer? De Gaulle? Poincare? Fourier? Fresnel? Bohr? Copernicus? Kepler? Brahe? Fibonacci? Voltaire? Those are just the non-'Anglo's I can come up with quickly off the top of my head that were not servile or were intellectual giants. ellazimm

Whjen i read Darwins stuff he did imply people were genius. He thought Herbert spencer was for figuring out what music was and I think darwin thought he was. Good luck to the book. i don't agree evolutionism greatly affected humanity in its morality. I see it affecting the european educated classes but that was then a tiny minority. They indeed were not there to stop ideas or promote humanity ideas. Yet the point with europeans was they were servile. All of them. They could be persuaded to anything as they are today. only the anglo American civilization was more intelligent and this because of puritan/evangelical passion and numbers. Equating evolutionism with hitlerism has been very affective. Nothing like left wingers getting clobbered with their own ideas of race problems and then evolutionism blame . its hilarious to see them squirm. I don't think evolutionism influenced Adolph but he did see it as true and used it . By the way do evolutionists say racial concepts , like Arayan ones, dealing with smarts and charactor are NOT TRUE? Seems to me they do agree with Adolph but just want to change winners and losers! I think evolutionists need to a book to settle this matter before they are swamped by it. they will be swamped anyways but isheesh by these dumb ideas!!! Robert Byers

bornagain77, do you get paid for writing this? GaryGaulin

As to:
quoting Darwin, “thought, however unintelligible it may be, seems as much function of organ, as bile of liver” (55).
Well, I now know where Norbert Weiner got his 'bile; reference.
“The mechanical brain does not secrete thought “as the liver does bile,” as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. “ Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician - (Cybernetics, 2nd edition, p.132)
If materialists truly believe that thought is a merely a 'secretion' of the brain, I wonder what the exact chemical composition of the number 4 is?
An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html “I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” Werner Heisenberg "The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena." Vlatko Vedral - Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College - a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics. “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8 Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt: page 5: A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics, for example state vector preparation, where top-down constraints allow non-unitary behaviour at the lower levels. It may well play a key role in the quantum measurement problem (the dual of state vector preparation) [5]. One can bear in mind here that wherever equivalence classes of entities play a key role, such as in Crutchfield’s computational mechanics [29], this is an indication that top-down causation is at play. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf
It is deeply ironic that the transcendent, 'top down', entity of information should be found to be foundational to the universe and also to be foundational to life since many neo-Darwinian atheists have insisted for many years that the universe, and our life on this earth in particular, has no ultimate meaning or purpose. Yet to find information to be foundational to reality and to be foundational to life is equivalent to finding meaning and purpose for the universe and for life, for information itself requires meaning to exist, and even purpose to exist, before information can be brought into existence by a Mind.
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men.
As to:
Darwin expressed the second proposition more publicly when he suggested that the difference between man and animal was one of degree, not kind (Descent of Man [1871])
And Darwin was wrong on his 'one of degree' belief just as he was wrong on just about everything else he believed:
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals - Michael Egnor - November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different -- ontologically different -- from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference -- an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Casey Luskin added: “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made 'in the image of God', than finding that both the universe and life itself are 'information theoretic' in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information. I guess a more convincing evidence could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. But who has ever heard of such overwhelming evidence as that?
Turin Shroud Quantum Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' on a Solid Oval Object Under The Beard - video http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=J21MECNU
Verse and Music:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Hillsong UNITED - Touch The Sky - Official Lyric Video – HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-mALvKKCe0
bornagain77

If you read his speeches and applicable parts of his book you'll discover Hitler preached that the problem with evolution is it turned certain races of humans back into apes, which is why he and his friends had no problem at all finding Biblical Creationists willing to help him exterminate all those he felt were no longer specially created by God. Joseph Stalin was the Atheist who hated Biblical Creationists. Not Adolph Hitler who believed that his mythical Aryan race is exactly as how God created them, and all the rest of the humans on this planet were products of evolution (freaks) that God wanted dead. GaryGaulin

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