Evolution VS Creation--Page 4

War Against Evolution

It's impossible for a human to be all three of the following things at the same time.

1) A divine being who always was and always will be --
a being who temporarily inhabits a human body.
(The Reincarnationist's. vision of a human being)

2) A physical body created by God at conception (or at first breath)
      that will magically be transformed into an eternal non-physical
      being at death and then live forever more in heaven or hell.
      (The Fundamentalist's Christian. vision of a human being)

3) Earth-matter that magically acquires a consciousness
that will end with the death of the physical body.
(The Atheist's. vision of a human being)

Obviously, all three can’t be true because each of these three religious theories is in direct conflict with the other two. With regard to the nature of what a human being is, only one of them can be correct. Which one is correct and which two are wrong is still (from a scientifically provable perspective) an unanswered mystery. With such widely divergent beliefs and with their mutual exclusiveness, there is bound to be some conflicts among the adherent believers when these three beliefs are publicly discussed.

Evolution Is Neutral: Scientific evolution does not claim to support or deny any of the above three assumptions. The evolution theory simply states what the currently available evidence indicates to be the most probable truth about the physical origins of man. It takes no stand on the nature of what a human being is, or on what place God ** has played in the creation of man, or on what happens to the human consciousness when the physical body dies.

** the unknown and presently unknowable source of all we know and experience

A matter of Technique: In the fundamentalist Christian war against evolution, the issue is not about what God made. The question is, "How did he make it?" Fundamentalists ask, "Where is God's place if everything has a natural cause?" This brings to the foreground two, age-old, unanswerable questions: 1) What is the nature of "God?" and 2) "How does God function?" Most people (including the vast majority of scientists who believe scientific evolution) will simply say they don't know what God is or isn't and that they don't know how God functions. Even the Christian Bible acknowledges that God is an unknown mystery.**

** Ecclesiastes 11:5, RSV

"As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of the woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”

More Clarity: We have two web pages that will assist you in seeing this conflict more clearly: Do you Believe in God?. This Page looks at beliefs about God from two polar opposite points of view, and Spiritual Awareness,. which looks at how humans relate to that unknown mystery we call God.

Christian Fundamentalism is Anything but Neutral: In contrast to the scientific evolution view of "The Source of Life," the Fundamentalist Christians have a very fixed belief about what God is and how "He" functions. (The Christian God is, of course, masculine.) Even in the face of a passage in their own Bible which says that they do not know the nature of God nor how He functions, they still make specific claims about the nature and functions of God. They even go so far as to tell their followers that they (the leaders) know what God wants the followers to do. **

** (Did you ever wonder why God so frequently wants the followers to give money to the leaders?)

Another area where the two sides are very much at odds with each other revolves around questioning authority. The science of evolution thrives on the open-minded questioning of everything.. Those who adhere to “The Spiritual Theory About the Origin and Nature of Man” are also open to questioning their theories. On the other hand, those who support the "Six-days-of-Creation" belief find the questioning of their version of creations to be abhorrent and blasphemous. Some even call those who question their beliefs to be agents of the devil himself.

What's at Stake: What's really at stake in the anti-evolution war is the fundamentalist's interpretation of the Christian religion. The Christian religion itself is safe and secure, but several key beliefs of fundamentalist-Christian, anti-abortion, anti-sex, anti-evolution promoters are being seriously challenge by logic, by reason, and by the scientific evidence. Numerous long-held but unsupported beliefs have come under heavy fire from those who approach "God" from a combined head and heart perspective -- concepts such as: "original sin" -- "the magical creation of a new human being at every conception" -- "Earth is the center of God's creation" -- "that the Earth's only purpose is as a testing ground to find humans worthy of entering heaven" -- "God murdered His Son to prove He loves you" -- "the Christian Bible is to be read literally" -- "Christians have exclusive access to God" -- Etc.

As a result of this infusion of the mind into religion and with continually emerging new evidence, some of those who have been taught only the six-days-of-creation theory are now being exposed to some alternate possibilities.

This exposure is causing some of them to openly ask belief-shaking questions -- question that challenge the validity of the fundamentalist's teachings about the creation of man. And as you probably already know, to question a leader's authority or his wisdom, or his interpretation of the Bible is the ultimate act of blasphemy in a fundamentalist Christian church.

Their Catch 22 Box: The anti-abortion anti-evolution promoters have declared the Christian Bible to be the literal, word-for-word truth of God, and in so doing they have placed their entire belief about reality into a very small box -- a box that has no room for multiplicity, no room for change, no room for growth, no room for new evidence, no room for anything but their own, strict, literal interpretation of reality, no room to see the Bible in its historical context, and no room to see the political intrigue surrounding how the present version of this book came into being.

Within this limited interpretation of reality, if even one Biblical passage is questioned or found to be false or to have multiple interpretations, that leaves the entire book open to question. Symbolic interpretations of the Christian Bible (views other than those they presently preach) are a serious threat to existing fundamentalist church hierarchies.

The Real Issue: In reality, the anti-evolution war has very little to do with the truth about how God created man. The real issue is the struggle to maintain the power-generating, money-making political-religious positions of the existing fundamentalist Christian church leaders.

The Broader View: It really doesn't matter whether creation is a six-day magic act or a six-billion-year, step-at-a-time process, the miraculous element of creation still remains miraculous and unknown. Regardless of what you believe or what anybody else believes, that unknown gap in the evidence can only be crossed by a leap of faith. And humans will still turn to religion and spirituality seeking answers to those unanswerable questions.

Years from now, most people probably won't be turning to fundamental Christianity seeking those answers. And that has the anti-evolutionists running scared. They say that the faithful may lose their faith.

Historically speaking, examining a new truth has not caused people to lose their faith, rather it has simply cause a change in the structure of their faith. But please don't simply believe me. Talk with any of the millions of people who have traded in their religious dogma for a direct spiritual connection to The Source of All That Is. This mass exodus from the religious structures and the connecting directly to the Divine is a serious threat to the power and control of the fundamentalist Christians. It’s why they feel so threatened by what is commonly referred to as the new-age movement.

An Opportunity: Perhaps the best part of this controversy is that it offers us an opportunity to re-examine the unprovable assumptions (the illusions) that we believe and act upon as if they were provable truths. It offers an opportunity to examine our own ignorance, our arrogance, and naiveté. It offers an opportunity to look at ourselves and see that much of what we believe about reality has absolutely nothing to do with reality. In that context, the anti-evolution war can be seen as a wakeup call -- as a blessing in disguise.

Expanding the Discussion: There is, however, one fundamental flaw in the public discussions about evolution and the origin of man. One face of the controversy has been completely omitted from the discussion. The underlying religious philosophy of the Eastern Religions such as Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs has been left out of the discussions. Present debates about the values and validities of scientific evolution and those of six-day-creationism have omitted this third possibility -- the possibility that humans are eternal, divine beings who simply inhabit physical bodies. And the nature of the "The Creator" of all this transcends human understanding. The reincarnation viewpoint is in complete harmony with scientific evolution and makes infinitely more sense to the reasoning mind than the views put forth by the fundamentalist Christians. Circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly points to the reincarnation theory as the correct one of the three assumptions (Atheism, Christian one-life-ism, Reincarnation) and yet in a public discussions of evolution, such as the PBS, seven-hour series produced by WGBH, Boston, this possibility is not even mentioned.

Darwin and Evolution: Some anti-evolutionists falsely claim that Charles Darwin actually recant his work and support of the Theory of Evolution on his deathbed. This is a complete fabrication.

"...on October 20, 1985, TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart announced that the great British scientist repudiated his life's work as he lay dying, and that he also asked to read the Bible so he could know Jesus. Swaggart was not the first to make use of the Darwin death-bed recantation. It's an old fabrication. Shortly after Darwin's death at seventy-four on April 19, 1882, the evangelistic widow of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Hope, told a gathering of students at Northfield Seminary in Massachusetts that she had visited Darwin in his last hours and found him reading the Epistle to the Hebrews. Darwin, she said, announced that he wished he "had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done," and he also asked her to get some people together so he could speak to them of Jesus Christ and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savoring the heavenly anticipation of bliss." Lady Hope's story was printed in the Boston Watchman Examiner. The story spread, and the claims were republished as late as October 1955 in the Reformation Review and in the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland in February 1957.

These attempts to fudge Darwin's story had already been exposed for what they were, first by his daughter Henrietta after they had been revived in 1922. "I was present at his deathbed," she wrote in the Christian for February 23, 1922. "Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A... The whole story has no foundation whatever."

Francis Darwin, who was with his father toward the end, reported that Darwin said, "I am not the least afraid to die," a few hours before his passing. These seem to have been his last words.

Darwin's work had a tremendous impact on religious thought. Many people strongly opposed the idea of evolution because it conflicted with their religious convictions. Darwin, a self-proclaimed agnostic who had spent some time in seminary, avoided talking about the theological and sociological aspects of his work, but other writers used his theories to support their own theories about society.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a man of high standing among his family, society, and the science community. He seemingly had nothing to gain and everything to lose by propagating some of his conclusions. He did in fact lose many friends and honors because of his published views in The Origin of Species. He sat on his ideas for decades because of concerns for family and society. He went so far as to consider waiting to have his works published posthumously.

"It is like confessing a murder." These are the words Charles Darwin uttered when he revealed to the world what he knew to be true: that humans are descended from headless hermaphrodite squids.

Source: The Above information on Darwin come directly from Heresy House .com http://www.heresyhouse.com/quiz/spoiler10.html

I. Who Would Win In an Open-minded

Full-truth Discussion About Evolution?

A Sample Pro-choice Position Statement.

In an atmosphere of open truth,
everybody would win.

Christianity would win. Because a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible simply does not make any sense in today's world, an open-minded re-examination of Christianity and a symbolic interpretation of the Christian Bible would breath new life into a stagnant, antiquated belief system.

The scientific community would win. Presently, many scientists see the fundamentalist Christian beliefs to be so far removed from anything that has evidential support that they completely discount all religions and all religious ideas. Open discussions would invite scientists to see that the mystery of creation transcends their technical knowledge. They would also see that the scientific evidence about physical reality is in harmony with ancient eastern philosophies.

Atheists would win because an open discussion of the nature of human reality would show that atheism doesn't make sense in light of the latest scientific evidence and in light of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence which points to reincarnation as the most probable reality. This would offer the ego-atheists** an opportunity and the motivation to re-asses their extremely dysfunctional behavior.

** as distinct from the humanitarian atheists

All humans would win because people would stop murdering and waging war on those who hold different religious beliefs.

All other life forms would win because we could stop destroying our habitat based on the belief that earth is simply a stepping stone on the way to heaven. We could stop destroying our habitat based on the belief that what we do to the Earth doesn't matter because this one life here now is all there is to reality.

And you would win because we are all in this together. Either we all win or we all lose. And again, the choice is yours.

The Bottom Line: I hate to be a spoil sport by bursting any more fairytale bubbles, but there's one more vital thing you must know:

Either you're working on the solution,
or you are part of the problem!

The evolution story continues on Page 5°