Keeping A Distance From Religion
A primary reason evolution is believed by many is because what
is thought to be the alternative, religion, is feared, dreaded
and unthinkable. And it is true that scientific advances only
occurred because knowledge was wrested from the autocratic
clutches of religion. Our age of wonderful technology came at a
cost of great persecution and brought us out of the cave and off
the pews into the light (fluorescent).
The memory of clerical obscurantism has been riveted upon the
human subconscious. Religion - and by association anything
paranormal or spiritual - is rejected out of hand because it is
associated with dogma, bias, charlatans and moral confinement,
not openness and intellectual advance. Religion and metaphysics
are seen as retrogression, capitulation and surrender.
If we look back, the gods and creeds that were used to explain
the knowledge voids of the past were jettisoned one after
another by the march of science. I know, I know, the time can be
pointed to when holy book thumpers and skeptics ranted that man
would never fly, that the sun circled the Earth and that
electric light was evil - and of course how the dogged march for
scientific truth proved them wrong. So it is an easy step from
there to conclude that if there is something we don't know,
materialistic science will come to the rescue.
There is a lesson there, agreed, but again, a molehill should
not be made into a mountain. The fact that we discovered that
disease could be caused by germs and not from skimping on
tithes, is no reason to think that there is no barrier to
knowledge. Humans are finite, the universe is infinite. We are
constrained by definition. The fact that we discovered the wheel
is not proof that we will one day be omniscient any more than
the ability of a dog to roll over on command proves it will one
day do calculus. As quantum mechanics has shown, reality is not
even physical. As physical creatures we will always be dogs just
doing fancy tricks. Yes, we should forever test the limits with
our sciences, but at the same time remain wise enough to see
that there are limits.
When it comes to the question of origins, materialists assume
that anything that cannot be caged and poked at or surveyed with
an instrument and carried out to the twentieth decimal point
should be rejected. But in their haste to flee from the
spiritual into the arms of evolution, materialists leave behind
the rigors of the scientific method - there are no observations,
experiments or predictions applied as proof that life arose from
nonliving matter and that creatures can transmutate into one
another.
Moreover, logic and evidence forsake materialism at the
fundamental level of reality and when applied to the question of
origins. As I have explained previously, the materialist reaches
limits and must resign to unanswered questions about first
causes. He has reached no intellectually advantageous position
whatsoever by leaving gods and swooning over matter.
Admitting ignorance and incapacity or acknowledging intellect
beyond our own need not mean that we must return to the dark
ages or begin sacrificing lambs, blowing ourselves up in a Jihad
or kissing the boots of church leaders. Nor does evil, suffering
and injustice in the world preclude an underlying intelligence.
If there are dimensions, powers, intellect and purpose beyond
our scope of understanding, that's okay. It just means either we
must swallow a bitter ego pill and accept limits or that
exploration may only be possible by means other than microscopes
and telescopes.
Evolutionists must be careful that they do not fall victim to
the very thing that is repugnant to them and blindly remain
devoted to an ideological shrine in spite of the evidence.
Unfortunately, in their zeal to escape the perceived
irrationality of religion, evolutionists dig irrational holes
under their own feet with shovels of faith, bias, bigotry and
even fraud.