Science Versus Religion? « Why Should I Believe? Why Should You Believe?

29 Jul

Science Versus Religion?

Terry Read Blog 61 0

To truly understand the U.S. Supreme Court decision on what a “marriage” is, you need to understand that our country has rejected the Bible as truth and why this has happened. “Science” has been taken over by materialistic philosophy. Materialistic philosophy (otherwise known as naturalism) is the belief that matter and energy are all that exist – no afterlife, no angels and certainly no God. It goes hand in hand with atheism. It also forms a basis for secular humanism (man makes the rules).

The materialists will say that science is about naturalistic explanations. Evolution (meaning the General Theory of Evolution) must be accepted as fact, without question. If you even question evolution, you are just being religious, unless you have an alternative explanation. But your alternative explanation must also be naturalistic. They are insisting that there must be naturalistic explanations for events that we have never observed, such as the creation of the universe, the start of life, the formation of different kinds of plants and animals, and the formation of man. Of course to the philosophical materialist, man is just another animal. This insistence on naturalistic explanations for all of these unobserved events is philosophical materialism. The materialists are just as religious as anyone else. And I would say their religion is a bad one. In 2010, Bill Nye Received the Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association.

Eugenie Scott is the retired head of the National Center for Science Education (an organization that wants the General Theory of Evolution taught in the public schools as fact without question). On the center’s website she states “Evolution and other scientific theories are restricted to explaining through natural cause (methodological materialism), but because evolution has existential connotations, many students confuse the ability to explain through natural cause with a conclusion that therefore God does not exist (philosophical materialism).”

I find it interesting that she actually admits that “Evolution has existential connotations.” But what is she saying? In dividing methodological materialism and philosophical materialism, she is saying that people should compartmentalize their thinking. Like many people, she is saying that there is science over here and religion over there. What is wrong with this? Well, if something is true, it is true. And if it is not true, it is not true; whether it fits into the category of history, science, religion or philosophy. So she is saying people should be inconsistent in their thinking in order to accommodate a contradictory belief system. The term science comes from the term scientia and means “knowledge.” Having or advocating for a contradictory belief system to me does not seem to be in the best interest of advancing knowledge (science). In a presentation “Evolution and Global Warming Denialism: How the Public is Misled” she states “When it comes to science, evolution is the only game in town.” Well duh! She has totally discounted the possibility of God and the creation account as described in Genesis. She will not even consider the possibility that God made man in “His image.” Then she says that the only thing that is left is evolution.

Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptics Magazine, in his book Why Darwin Matters, quotes from the Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987 Court Case; Published 2006 -“Because the scope of scientific inquiry is consciously limited to the search for naturalistic principles, science remains free of religious dogma and is thus an appropriate subject for public-school instruction.” But again, is it really scientific to insist that there must be naturalistic explanations for all of these events that have never been observed?

I believe the creation account in the Bible. I have accepted that means that according to the Bible, the earth is only a few thousand years old, God created the different kinds of plants and animals, and most importantly, God created man in His image. In 2006, Eugenie Scott gave a presentation at the University of Michigan – “Intelligent Design and Creationism/Evolution Controversy.” She stated “The science of young earth creationism is pretty awful.” That is funny. That is just what I was thinking about the General Theory of Evolution. The General Theory of Evolution has given us “Piltdown man”, “Nebraska Man” (who Clarence Darrow wanted to use at the Scopes Trial), the labeling of DNA that does not code for proteins as “junk DNA”, then the attempt to use non-coding DNA as evidence for the General Theory of Evolution when found not to be “junk,” the misrepresentation of fossil evidence with regards to Lucy, Packicetus, Rodhocetus and “feathered” dinosaurs, the labeling of functional organs such as the appendix and tonsils as “vestigial,” the failure to even consider the implications of finding dinosaur soft tissue and red blood cells or clearly human footprints in “3.75 million year old” volcanic ash. And this does not even say anything about how the genome of plants, animals and people is actually deteriorating over time due to genetic mutations – which according to the General Theory of Evolution is what provides new information to advance to more complex forms of life. This deterioration is what we actually observe.

I could give a long litany of great scientists who believed in God and believed the Bible, including the greatest scientist ever – Isaac Newton. But I am going to talk a little about George Washington Carver, a pretty good scientist himself. Carver taught southern farmers that the soil was worn out from growing cotton year after year. They could rejuvenate the soil by growing peanuts. Then he was able to develop a market for peanuts by developing many uses for peanuts. He did this after asking God why He had created the peanut. Carver did not believe the peanut had evolved. He believed God had created the peanut for a purpose.

Because Carver credited his work to divine inspiration, Carver was ridiculed in an article by you guessed it –The New York Times. The article was titled “Men of Science Never Talk That Way.”

In a reply to the Times, Carver stated “I thoroughly understand that there are scientists to whom the world is merely the result of chemical forces or material electrons. I do not belong to this class.” So Carver was directly addressing materialism. In that same response, he quotes John 8:32: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Then Carver states “Science is simply the truth about anything.”

To the writer of a magazine in Brooklyn, Carver stated: “I know that my redeemer liveth. I know the source from whence my help comes. Inspiration, as I used the word in my New York lecture means simply God speaking to man through the things He has created, permitting him to interpret correctly the purposes the Creator had in permitting them to come into existence. I am not interested in any science that leaves God out. In fact, I am not interested in anything that leaves out God.” In a 1925 letter to Reverend Lyman Ward, Carver stated: “I am not interested in science or any thing else that leaves God out of it”

Terry Read

http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2010-04-bill-nye-to-be-honored-as-humanist-of-the-year

http://ncse.com/evolution/education?page=1

Eugenie Scott, “Evolution and Global Warming Denialism: How the Public is Misled,” Glasgow Scotland, September 15^th, 2011. Glasgow Skeptics.

Michael Shermer – Why Darwin Matters, Chapter 5, “Science Under Attack”, pp 98, referring to Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987 Court Case; Published 2006

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scientia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE3Qvfm8jU0

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/lgd/index.html

http://www.discovery.org/a/17491

http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo18/18luskin.php

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hidden-treasures-in-junk-dna

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/darwin-never-knew.html

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v19/n1/apewoman-statue-misleads

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)

A Science Odyssey, Human Evolution – PBS.org

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/evolution/footprints.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf9CTrvEeE0