MOMENTUM

This blog entry begins a new series that takes a look at some of the logical fallacies used by evolutionists to promote a philosophy that masquerades as science. Creation Moments believes it is important that Christians recognize such fallacies in order to defend biblical truth.

How often have you heard evolutionists say: “There’s really no disagreement among reputable scientists when it comes to evolution.” Or: “Evolution is settled science.” Creation Moments has heard such statements fall from the lips of Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott and many others, too numerous to mention.

Clearly these evolutionists are all working off the same page in their playbook. They’re also showing that they aren’t thinking clearly. Why? Because they are writing books, making films and giving speeches tearing down scientists who disagree with them. But wait - didn’t they just say that there’s no disagreement among reputable scientists and we’re dealing with settled science?

By saying things like this, evolutionists believe that people can be easily fooled by one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book - the argumentum ad populum. As used by evolutionists, this fallacy can be stated like this: “Since all scientists believe in evolution, evolution must be scientifically correct.”

Even if the first part of this assertion were true - which it isn’t - the second part does not logically follow. It’s like the child who tries to justify some undesirable behavior by saying, “It must be okay because all the kids are doing it.” Besides, if scientific truth is determined by majority vote or by what most scientists believe at a certain point in time, then Darwinism itself would have been rejected when it was first proposed.

The argumentum ad populum is an illogical way for evolutionists to sway people to their position. Watch out for it whenever it’s used by others … and avoid using it yourself as you seek to defend biblical truth.

Belief in biblical creation was opposed a week ago (February 12-14) by the 854 congregations in 50 states, the District of Columbia and 12 countries that celebrated “Evolution Weekend” - an annual event organized by The Clergy Letter Project. On a positive note, however, this year’s number of participating congregations was down from the 1,049 congregations that celebrated Evolution Weekend in 2009.

The entire list of participating congregations can be seen at The Clergy Letter Project’s website: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.htm. This is also where you’ll find a list of the 12,000+ clergymen who signed The Clergy Letter, which stated:

“We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that … the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as ‘one theory among others’ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.”

The signers of the letter also agreed to this:

“We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

As you peruse the list, you’ll see that churches in many denominations participated in this year’s Evolution Weekend. Perhaps you’ll find some churches from your own denomination. That’s why Creation Moments urges you to be on the lookout for false teaching and to thank church leaders who teach truths that come straight out of the Bible … like biblical creation.

Back in 1974, a humor magazine for scientists - The Journal of Irreproducible Results - carried a delightful story called “National Geographic, the Doomsday Machine.”* In it, author George H. Kaub asserts: “This continent is in the gravest danger of following legendary Atlantis to the bottom of the sea. No natural disaster, no overpowering compounding of pollutions or cataclysmic nuclear war will cause the end. Instead, a seemingly innocent monster created by man, nurtured by man, however as yet unheeded by man, will doom this continent to the watery grave of oblivion.”

What is this “monster” he is talking about? The millions of back issues of National Geographic magazine that subscribers never throw away! Since each issue of National Geographic weighs around two pounds, the author contends that the continent will someday sink under the weight of all that paper! He concludes with this dire warning: “PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE MUST BE IMMEDIATELY STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!”

While the article is genuinely funny, we’re not laughing at some of the equally ridiculous ideas that many scientists really do believe in - like man-made global warming, alternate universes, and especially neo-Darwinian evolution. These so-called “scientific ideas” are absolutely preposterous, having no foundation in scientific fact.

Here at Creation Moments, we wonder when the science establishment will wake up to reality and realize that much of the world is laughing - not at articles in The Journal of Irreproducible Results - but at them!

*You can read the article in its entirety at http://www.jir.com/geographic.html.

When sharing the gospel with atheists, Darwinists and other unbelievers, we hear this line all the time. After all, it’s probably one of the most common reasons non-Christians give as to why they won’t put their faith in Christ. But who is the real hypocrite here?

• These people still go to work, though their workplace is filled with hypocrites.
• They still go to the movies, though Hollywood is filled with hypocrites.
• They still go to restaurants, though they’re filled with hypocrites.
• They still shop, though manufacturers and retail stores are filled with hypocrites.

Such people are hypocrites themselves because this issue of “hypocrites in the church” is nothing but a smokescreen to cover the real issue they don’t want to become Christians. They love their sin and don’t want to give it up. They also don’t want any deity watching them and telling them what to do. Instead of admitting these things, however, they hypocritically hide behind such statements as: “The church is filled with hypocrites” and “If there’s a God, I can worship Him just as easily on the golf course.”

In reality, these people are the biggest hypocrites of all because they think they are good enough to merit eternal life in heaven. Christians, on the other hand, readily admit that they sin and that their only hope of heaven is the imputed righteousness of Christ.

So the next time someone gives you the famous “hypocrites in church” objection, let them know that only one Person in history was not a hypocrite and that this Person suffered and died on the cross so they might be forgiven of their sins … including their wretched sin of hypocrisy.

In this age of the Internet, most people turn to Wikipedia for information. We use it ourselves from time to time. However, we’d like to emphasize that this online encyclopedia should be used with extreme caution, especially when looking up any topic touching on politics, religion or worldviews. Take, for instance, its article about “creationism”:

“Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings. However the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of certain biological processes, in particular evolution, in favour of an interpretation of a creation myth as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth (the creation-evolution controversy).  In Christian sects such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of the creation myth found in the book of Genesis. Other religions have deity-led creation myths which are quite different.”

We’ve italicized certain phrases above to emphasize Wikipedia’s liberal, anti-biblical stance … and this is just in the first paragraph of a very long article. In contrast to what it calls the “creation myth,” Wikipedia describes evolution in a quite different way: “This powerful explanatory and predictive theory has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, directing research and providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.” In other words, biblical creation is a myth and evolution is true.

As the Conservapedia website quite correctly points out, Wikipedia “was initiated by two atheists: entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosophy professor Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001. Despite its official ‘neutrality policy,’ Wikipedia has a strong liberal bias.”

And that liberal bias, as you can well imagine, turns into a bias against a biblical understanding of history and the world around us. For a shocking account of nearly 200 instances of Wikipedia’s liberal and anti-Christian bias, check out this well-footnoted article at Conservapedia: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia.

If you’re not already a member of the Creation Moments Facebook group, you’re missing out on some great discussions! For instance, teacher April Schulthies recently shared some thought-provoking comments on Richard Dawkins and other atheistic evolutionists who find great pleasure in attacking God. Check it out … then visit our Facebook group to see a whole lot more!

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Atheists attack the one true living God as vicious and evil without even bothering to find out that He’s the defense of the weak and the downtrodden. Dawkins knows very well that his followers are too lazy to do their research. His God Delusion book describes the God of the Bible as the worst monster to hit the universe. In an interview I saw, Dawkins relished reading this diatribe against Jesus, but when he was asked if he wanted to comment on any of the other “gods” of any of the world’s religions, he dismissed them out of hand.

Why, I ask, would Dawkins go after the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ, but have no interest in attacking any other so-called “gods” if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing?

Am I saying that Dawkins knows in his heart that Jesus Christ is the one true living God? You bet. It’s obvious, because Jesus is his only target.

Dawkins rips apart the God of the Bible every chance he gets, calling him a blood-thirsty villain. Here’s one example:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

This statement exploits people’s ignorance. Anyone who has read the Bible knows that the Lord God of Israel is meek and lowly, the hope of the helpless, a father to the fatherless, a defender of the defenseless. God is no respecter of persons. He is a shield to those who place their trust in him. He will, it is true, remove his support from the wicked if they refuse to repent, but what else would you expect from a just God?

It’s unbelievable what you see on these evolutionist blogs. And the people evidently believe their own diatribe. If Jesus really was in the smallest particle the unmerciful God they make him out to be, the earth would have long ago opened up and swallowed them alive, just to wipe out the ignominy of such ingratitude and hatred.

Truly the Lord is good to even those who are evil, giving them a chance to mend their ways. Otherwise, the evolutionists I’ve encountered in blogs would not be around to blaspheme and spread lies.

In November, leaked files came to light - including more than 1,000 emails and nearly 3,000 documents - that provided abundant evidence of falsification of data among the scientists who are at the forefront of promoting the theory of global warming. Alleged guilty parties include Phillip Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and his assistant, Keith Briffa; Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State; Malcolm Hughes at the University of Arizona; Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; James Hansen at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies; and James Holdren, President Obama’s new “Science Czar.” The authenticity of the leaked emails and documents has been verified by Phillip Jones, Kevin Trenberth and others.

Now that global warming has been exposed as a politically motivated hoax supported by fraudulent science, Creation Moments would like to share three conclusions that are relevant to the discussion over creation and evolution.

First, “Climategate” reveals once again that scientists are more than willing to lie about the facts if it furthers their agenda. In the case of global warming, scientists at the University of East Anglia - along with their colleagues in the U.S. - falsified their data to “prove” global warming. Significantly, there is abundant evidence that evolutionary scientists are doing the very same thing. They routinely discard data that fails to support Darwinism. In fact, countless studies are stopped when they are seen to be heading in the “wrong” direction.

Second, the CRU scientists collaborated to prevent qualified scientists who disagreed with them from publishing or participating in the peer-review process. As one news source said, “The belief in Global Warming among scientists is not a consensus; it is a dictatorship.” This is also a common practice in the creation-evolution area. Just ask any creation scientist how difficult it is to publish a paper in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Third, many scientists involved in global warming research have themselves been duped by the leaders of the global warming community. We wonder how those sincere scientists will respond now that global warming has been exposed as a hoax. Will they abandon this false science or just close their eyes to the truth? Well, if they are anything like evolutionary scientists, we suspect that they’ll close their eyes. After all, they don’t want to lose their government grants, their jobs, their tenure or their standing in the scientific and academic communities.

We also suspect that global warming advocates in the government and in the media will attempt to discredit “Climategate” and sweep it all under a rug. After all, to those who have a monetary and political interest in keeping global warming alive, facts are irrelevant … just as they are for scientists who have a stake in Darwinism.

Those are our thoughts. What are yours?

We don’t mean to get personal, but we want to talk to you about your nose. Call us “nosey” if you must, but we want to ask atheists if evolution can account for their nose. Frankly, we think Darwinism stinks - figuratively speaking - but we met someone recently in our Facebook group who confirmed that it smells in other ways as well.

Keith Duncan, a scientist involved in solid state electrochemistry and ion transport, told us, “Some of my colleagues are developing electrochemical sensors to make an artificial ‘nose’ for industrial applications. Even though their goal is MUCH LESS sensitive than a human nose, the project is still extremely complex.”

We asked Keith to go into more detail about this complexity, and he readily complied. “Each sensor in the ‘nose’ has to detect a specific chemical,” he said. “But they often have different optimal performance temperatures. And when combined into a ‘nose’, they usually have poor selectivity (ability to uniquely identify a particular chemical). Also, the extremely high number of permutations of metal oxides that can be used as active materials in the cathode make it very difficult to find suitable ones and eliminate those that are unsuitable.”

Keith concluded by saying, “I think those researching this area would find it hard to believe that any nose, whether artificial or real, could be developed by accident/chance.”

From this we conclude that even your nose knows that it is the handiwork of an intelligent Designer.

What’s a Bible-believing student in public school or college to do when their teacher pounds their desk and shouts, “I’ve been a science teacher for over 30 years, and I tell you that evolution is not a hypothesis or even a theory - it’s a fact!”

Do you back away, bowing in meek subjection, saying, “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!” Far too many Bible-believing Christians have allowed themselves to be silenced into submission by “authorities” with long years of scientific study. If we haven’t spent years in the field of science, we feel we don’t even have a right to express our viewpoint.

But here’s how Christian students - and every Bible-believing Christian - should be looking at this. Scientists who have spent years rejecting the Bible and biblical creation are less likely to have a true understanding of the world around us. Think about it. When people immerse themselves in an error of any kind, they are conditioned to overlook its weaknesses. All they look for is “evidence” that supports their mistaken beliefs. And when they don’t find the evidence they seek, they interpret whatever they find to support their beliefs.

By rejecting the Bible as the authoritative source of knowledge, atheistic evolutionists begin at a flawed starting point. As a result, they look at the world through an atheistic “lens” that distorts everything they see. And the point we want to make is that the longer they look through this flawed lens, the more hardened they will be in their error.

So, Christian students, don’t allow yourself to be silenced into submission by arrogant scientists or science teachers. Their long years of study proves nothing. After all, the Bible - unlike science textbooks - doesn’t need to be constantly updated and revised. The Bible’s truths are true for all time. So the longer you study the Bible - the reliable source of knowledge and wisdom - the greater your understanding of the world around you will be.

Richard Dawkins seems like an intelligent chap. He’s a bestselling author and has appeared in a number of films. He’s also got a charming British accent and appears to knows a lot about evolution. Let us quickly point out that we know someone else with a charming British accent, an author who has appeared in films, a man who knows a lot about evolution and who is a very intelligent fellow - Ian Taylor, host of the Creation Moments radio broadcast.

While there are many similarities, they couldn’t be farther apart in their views on evolution.

So why is one of these intelligent men a strident evolutionist and the other an outspoken creationist? Why are they polar opposites? We suggest it has nothing to do with science but has everything to do with their spiritual understanding

Dawkins is an atheist while Taylor is a Christian. For Richard Dawkins, evolution is the only game in town because God does not exist in his worldview. He rejects the Bible and the account of creation given in its opening pages. Ian Taylor, on the other hand, believes in God and His Son, Jesus Christ. He also believes that the Bible’s account of creation is true and is supported by good science.

So while there are thinkers on both sides of the issue - like Dawkins and Taylor - it is clear to us that the creation-evolution debate is not about science at all. It is fundamentally a dispute over the existence of God. Because if God exists, it is reasonable to believe He created the universe. But as Dawkins himself stated in The Blind Watchmaker: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

While Creation Moments does not agree with Dawkins on most matters, we do feel that this God-denying evolutionist is thinking clearly when he says the debate is really about spiritual matters.