WHAT EVOLUTIONISTS SAY – ABOUT CREATIONISTS

The concept of evolution over millions of years is presented in the secular culture as unquestionable fact. Those scientists who promote this idea are treated by the media, schools, and universities as objective, open-minded, and unbiased with no agenda other than to broadcast truth to an ignorant public. The opposite attitude is taken regarding creationists, whose ideas are usually considered not fit for public consumption by those same institutions. Why is this when a careful look at the evidence shows that the truth is really opposite, as shown by the many articles on this website?

The simple answer is that evolution and deep time are foundational ideas for the secular philosophy (religion). Secularism has been established, primarily by humanists and materialists, as a replacement for Christianity and is strictly anti-Christian.

In addition, secularists hold an extreme position of entitlement in the American culture today. This has resulted in a belief that they have the singular right to determine who the true authority figures are on scientific issues. They have determined that so far as “science” is concerned the only valid authority figures are those who believe science must strictly reject the Creator God and the Bible. That results in the situation that whenever the topic of origins is discussed only evolution can be considered and creation must be rejected outright.

There are several organizations that have set their purpose to make sure that creationists specifically, and evolution doubters in general, are not heard in American society. Most people are aware of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has largely become an organization devoted to diminishing the influence of Christianity in America. They are now mostly anti-Bible and with that comes a pro-evolution and anti-creation perspective on civil liberty issues.

So far as American elementary and secondary education is concerned, there are two organizations focused on keeping public schools creation-free. These are the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).

NABT position on the teaching of evolution has, if anything, become more stridently anti-creationist over the years. Here from the NABT website is a portion of the March 2019 position revised and adopted by the NABT Board of Directors: “As scientist-educators and responsible advocates of scientific thinking, educators should accurately represent evolution. They should support science education by rejecting calls to account for the history of life or describe the mechanisms of evolution by invoking any non-natural or supernatural notions, whether under the banner of ‘creation science,’ ‘scientific creationism,’ ‘intelligent design,’ or similar designations. Such notions are outside the scope of science, do not adhere to the shared scientific standards governing the collection and interpreting of evidence, and should not be presented as part of the science curriculum.”

So, this is the mantra normally used to defend the evolutionist religion against anyone considering evidence that indicates macroevolution and deep time are nothing but atheistic fairy tales. Remember that the scientific method cannot be used to disprove or prove evolution or deep time. There are no scientific experiments that can be devised to prove these “notions” and they must be accepted on faith. Secular schools in America today are promoters of the evolutionist religion!

The NCSE defines science in the same way and is committed to rooting out any American public school teacher who does not strictly adhere to an “evolution-only” teaching philosophy. They rely on evolutionists in each school district throughout the country to find evidence of these transgressions against the faith, and report them so an orchestrated campaign can be mounted to discipline or fire the offenders. The NCSE is not a large organization itself, but by rousing a few evolutionist activists in a particular locale, they are effective at keeping any semblance of creation education out of American public schools. Their plan of attack is outlined on their website as follows:

  1. “Don’t go it alone; coalitions are powerful, especially if parents, clergy, scientists, and teachers work together.
  2. Local people acting locally have the most impact.
  3. Work behind the scenes whenever possible. Conflicts are more easily resolved when people are not publicly cornered. (This is especially true for school administrators.) You can always escalate by going public if necessary.
  4. Know your stuff before speaking out to the public or the media. Become familiar with the common anti-evolution arguments and find out what kind of situation you are facing.
  5. Recognize that some members of the public fear that evolutionary theory leads to atheism. Treat this concern with respect, while pointing out the broad range of religious viewpoints on evolution.
  6. Resist the temptation to debate creationists on their terms. Evolution education supporters almost always lose these debates in terms of effect and public perception. Participating in debates often causes more harm than good. Never debate the validity of evolution as science.
  7. Keep all notes and records of public meetings and events in case there is a lawsuit; tape record public meetings whenever possible.”

Here are my comments regarding some of these principles of attack:

Principle 1: What should be amazing to any Bible-believer is that many liberal clergy are not only pro-evolution and anti-creation, but promote Darwinism from the pulpit. The result has been an ongoing drastic reduction in membership for the mainline denominations in my lifetime. I was a theistic evolutionist until age forty and so I know from experience that they think the same way as atheistic evolutionists on this subject.

Principle 3: What NCSE has found works best “behind the scenes,” is to confront school principals, superintendents and schoolboard members. That way a decision to discipline or fire a teacher accused of being a non-evolutionist can be dealt with effectively and quickly.

Principle 4: This advice is disingenuous! NCSE knows that true science facts are not really what is at issue, and by threatening legal action, either directly or indirectly, public school officials always cave on this issue. Since these cases always come up against one individual at a time, it is easy to sacrifice the few and intimidate the rest in order to avoid having to deal with a threatened lawsuit.

Principle 5: This is also disingenuous. Of course evolution leads to atheism. Everyone knows that! The whole point of the battle for the evolutionists is to have the culture come to a place where there is no mention of the Creator God.

Principle 6: Yes it is true; knowledgeable creationists always win formal debates against evolutionists. This is because facts do matter. Evolution is not valid as science and that is why evolutionists resist debating its substance. It is a philosophy at best and treated as their religion by many evolutionists.

Evolutionists really do know what is as stake in this battle as indicated in the following quotes:

“Indeed, the only competing explanation [to evolution] for the order we all see in the biological world, this pattern of nested similarity that links up absolutely all known forms of life, is the notion of Special Creation: that a supernatural Creator, using a blueprint, simply fashioned life with its intricate skein of resemblances passing through it.” [Eldredge, Niles, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria (New York: Simon And Schuster, 1985), p. 29.]

“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated [by its adherents] as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint…the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.” [Ruse, Michael, “How Evolution Became a Religion: Darwinians Wrongly Mix Science with Morality, Politics.” National Post, Saturday, May 13, 2000. p. B3.]

Evolutionist academics generally ignore the creationist viewpoint because in their ivory towers they are under no pressure to consider any non-evolutionist notion. But, if they are cornered in some way or another, they often lose all civility. Some examples of the name-calling that has resulted when credentialed evolutionists are forced to consider creationism follow.

CREATIONISTS ARE FANATICS:

“On that side, too, were the obviously untenable views of bible-oriented fanatics, obsessed with myths such as Noah’s flood, and of classicists thinking of Nemesis. That is why I think it necessary to include the following ‘disclaimer’: in view of the misuse that my words have been put to in the past, I wish to say that nothing in this book should be taken out of context and thought in any way to support the views of the ‘creationists’ (who I refuse to call ‘scientific’).” [Ager, Derek V., The New Catastrophism (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. xi.]

Ager became a real thorn in the side of uniformitarianism with his ideas that the geologic evidence supports his concept of a “new catastrophism.” But his need to stay to the secular religion, forced him to constantly reject the idea that catastrophism was really the friend of creation and not evolution.

Ager also rejects the Bible and said in the same book above, “No scientist could be content with one very ancient reference of doubtful authorship.” So, a book several thousand years old must be rejected in part because it is very ancient? What does that say about evolutionist geologists basing their explanations on an earth that they presume to be billions of years old?

CREATIONISTS ARE IRRATIONAL:

“Although the creationists may be irrational, they are not to be dismissed as a lunatic fringe that can best be treated by being ignored. In California…they have proven themselves to be skillful tacticians, good organizers and uncompromising adversaries.” [Cloud, Preston, “Scientific Creationism—A New Inquisition Brewing?” The Humanist, vol. 37, no. 1, 1977), p. 7.]

Preston Cloud wrote that believing that life was created by a Creator is irrational and believing life came from a pond or a rock is rational. At least Cloud doesn’t agree with those who would say all creationists are lunatics.

CREATIONISTS ARE KNOW-NOTHINGS:

“Americans, like people of all cultures, I suppose have been deluged throughout history with our share of Philistines and Yahoos. We tend, as Mencken did, to treat the fundamentalist anti evolution movement as a primary example of Know-Nothingism, an aberrant phenomenon meriting only our ridicule. But it would be a bad mistake to banish these important chapters of American history to the sidelines of humor.” [Gould, Stephen Jay, “The Verdict on Creationism,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, July 19, 1997, p. 32.]

Gould rightly thought the creation/evolution battles were serious and not a humorous societal sideshow. But for him to call his creationist adversaries “know-nothings,” when the primary idea (punctuated equilibria) he contributed to his religion was that animals went off by themselves every now and then and decided they would quickly evolve to be some other animal, is itself ludicrous.

CREATIONISTS ARE INSANE:

“I’ve yet to meet a creationist that appeared to be even marginally sane, all of which absolutely hated freedom of speech. Creationists appear to be on the whole either pathological liars of else suffering from massive cognitive dissonance.” [Rice, Fredric, “Unaccredited Creationist Cult—The Skeptic Tank,” 2004, p. 1 http://www.skeptictank.org/flist026.htm (as of 04/11/08).

All of the hundreds of creationists I know or know of are uncommonly sane and definite lovers of freedom of speech. The people whose 1st amendment rights are under attack today certainly are not the secularists. People who talk with words like those in the previous quotation are often considered to be spewing hate speech.

Some professors in American universities even promote course failure for and non-granting of (or even retracting of) degrees of any student that at any time indicates any doubt in evolution. For more on the way creationists are treated in American colleges and universities I recommend Dr. Jerry Bergman’s three-volume book series Slaughter of the Dissidents.

A common denominator for all of these anti-creationist diatribes and policies is that all creationists are, by definition, incompetent and incorrect. However, secular scientists are always saying this is the way their “science” works; where wrong ideas are continually being corrected over time. But there is no way for anyone, especially a creationist, to point out any evidence that evolution is foundationally incorrect without being castigated or worse in today’s educational climate.

I remind you that I was an evolutionist until I was forty. I know a lot about evolution. If only evolutionists were allowed the opportunity to consider creationism as a regular component of their research, the whole society would greatly benefit. I have discussed my take on the current situation in American society in this battle over origins here. The First Amendment to the United States of America Constitution is reproduced below. If read carefully it should be clear that creationists have many 1st Amendment rights that are under attack by secularists today.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Evolutionists have been allowed to establish a government-backed and protected religion in our public schools. It is not the wish of creationists to replace that religion, but only to be able to regularly present the evidences and arguments that show evolution to be seriously flawed.

J.D. Mitchell

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