OK, so we know that evolutionism is a religion--in fact, the established religion of our day. Being an established religion, with universalist pretensions, it seeks to pre-interpret all reality according to its precepts. Often times this degenerates into downright idiocy--but there you go.
Phillip Longman is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Washington Monthly has recently provided us with a classic of the genre. He argues that evolution explains why the godliest survive! Yes he does. We kid you not.
Longman has understood that religious people reproduce after their own kind, and their reproduction is abundant, on the one hand, and powerfully conforming of their children to grow up and live according to the tenets of their parent's religion, on the other. This, says Longman, is explained by evolutionism: religion is enabling people to survive. (He gracefully elides over the chasm in his argument: these same religious people believe [rightly] that evolutionism is a false religion and an idolatrous fantasy, so the survival of the godliest is going to result in the rejection of evolutionism as a false religion and an unscientific crock of roughly the same hue as alchemy.)
To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. Indeed, the pattern of human fertility now fits this pattern: the least likely to procreate are those who profess no believe in God; those who describe themselves as agnostic or simply spiritual are only somewhat slightly less likely to be childless. Moving up the spectrum, family size increases among practicing Unitarians, Reform Jews, mainline Protestants and “cafeteria” Catholics, but the birthrates found in these populations are still far below replacement levels. Only as we approach the realm of religious belief and practice marked by an intensity we might call, for lack of a better word, “fundamentalism,” do we find pockets of high fertility and consequent rapid population growth.The online article publishes this rather neat photo, entitled "Quiverful":
Not only do the faithful bear more children, their offspring are more likely to continue in the faith of their fathers.
When confronted with the fact that they are being outbred, secularists often respond that many if not most children born into highly religious families will grow up to reject the faith of their fathers — such is the assumed allure of freedom and individuality. This thought comports with the life experience of the many members of the Baby Boom generation, who shook off the bonds of traditional authority in the 1960s and 1970s, and who cannot imagine why the rest of humanity will not eventually catch on and catch up.
Arguing against this proposition, however, are some stubborn demographic facts. Among fundamentalist families, it turns out, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And the more demanding the faith, the more this rule applies.
Only five percent of children born to the most conservative Amish, for example, move on to other faiths or lifestyles. The defection rate is higher among New Order Amish, Mormons and other comparatively less demanding fundamentalist communities, yet they still hold on to the majority of their children. Moreover, what defections they may experience are more than offset by converts, with the net flow favoring conservative faiths, according to poll data gathered by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Thus we see 21 percent of converts leaving liberal and moderate denominations for more fundamentalist ones, and only 15 percent going the other way. There are many swirls and currents that affect us all as individuals, but between higher fertility and more successful indoctrination, the main demographic tide of history is clearly flowing in favor of fundamentalism.
This dynamic sets us a demographic time bomb for the current established religion of secularist evolutionism.
. . . even if religiously fundamentalist families only have a few more children than secular or religiously moderate counterparts, and they can keep those children holding on to fundamentalist faith and values (especially related to child-bearing), the passage of generations will greatly magnify their numbers and influence. Similarly, secularists and others who choose to have only one or two children, and who pass those values on to their children, will, over time, see their population decline precipitously.
But don't worry, the demise of secularist evolutionism as a result of a demographic time bomb only serves to "prove" the validity of evolutionism itself. We, however, have another explanation: those who hate Me, love death says the Lord (Proverbs 8:36).
It is precisely at this point that we are faced with one of the greatest ironies of modern human history. Evolutionism asserts the world has by chance hard-wired its own survival into the DNA of life. This secularist man-worshipping faith has achieved dominant pre-eminence over our world. It is partly right. The entire creation is indeed hard-wired, not just for survival but for a teleological glory that is so great and glorious, it yet remains indescribable. But the wiring comes from the will, purpose, and gracious plan of God. Those unfit for such glory are passed by and perish from the earth. They do not survive. But those fit for the glory that is to be revealed succeed and prosper and multiply and expand. They do not merely survive, they triumph.
But the fit and the unfit are marked not by genes--although as this article points out, genes are not unaffected by unfitness and fitness--but by faith or unbelief in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of the world. Those who repent and believe are made part of the regenerated and redeemed human race with Christ at its head. They not only survive, but prosper and inherit the entire earth. This is the ultimate survival of the fittest: but it is Christ Who makes fit, not "Nature".
Evolutionism distorts a fundamental teaching of Scripture. When unbelievers accept its teachings and embrace its idolatry they consign themselves to non-survival, to death. They are excised from the glorious end that all human history is irrevocably heading towards.
Evolution is therefore true, but not as evolutionists know it, Jim.
No comments:
Post a Comment