Darwin Exhibit Warps Christianity to Disprove Bible
As I lined up with hundreds of others to get inside London’s famed Natural History Museum to visit its new Darwin exhibition (England is celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday this year), I couldn’t help but wonder: was this going to be some kind of attempt at mind control? After I went through the exhibition, there was no doubt!
The Darwin exhibit reminded me of one of those bizarre science fiction movies where people line up to be placed in a special machine and emerge like robots; these people now can’t think for themselves, and they end up being like those people who brainwashed them.
In a related way, I found the Darwin exhibit to be a very clever form of mind control, basically consisting of:
1) Setting up straw-men arguments that totally misrepresent what Bible-believing Christians accept.
2) Showing how wrong Christians are for believing the things they supposedly believe (which they don’t believe in the first place!).
3) Convincing visitors that Darwinian evolution is true, and that one is a fool to believe otherwise (and certainly foolish to believe the Bible).
Actually, this kind of mind control is already being used constantly on America’s children through the public education system, the secular media, and science museums (even in many Christian schools and colleges, sadly). Using London’s Darwin exhibition, let’s look at how they are using mind control:
1) Visitors read this display:
Before Darwin was born most people in England accepted certain ideas about the natural world as given. Species were not linked in a single family tree. They were unconnected, unrelated and unchanged since the moment of their creation and earth itself was thought to be so young, perhaps only 6000 years old, that there would not have been time for species to change. . . . Before Darwin, it was still possible to see the world as timeless, eternal and unchanging.
Wrong. That’s a straw man. People who know and believe their Bible are aware that the earth has indeed changed because of what’s recorded in Genesis (the entrance of sin, the event of Noah’s Flood, and its account of the Tower of Babel). Those who believe God’s Word know that two of every “kind” (seven of some) of land-dwelling animal were on Noah’s Ark. All the different species (there can be thousands of species within one kind) of land animals that are alive today descended from the “kinds” that got off the Ark. Yes, animals have changed—and the earth has changed drastically since Adam sinned.
In fact, before Darwin came along, people were breeding different sorts of dogs, cats, pigeons, and so on. Even in the Darwin exhibit, it is stated that “he [Darwin] was aware that people often bred animals with desirable traits and that over time such breeding exaggerated small differences. . . . Dogs were dogs but a tiny lap dog and a large lean greyhound look nothing alike.” I just wonder how many visitors noticed this gross inconsistency.
Of course, everyone knows that animals change. The exhibition’s straw-man argument—that Bible-believers think that animals within a species can’t change—is set up so that the trustworthiness of the Bible can easily be knocked down.
2) Now that the museum visitors are beginning to have their minds controlled to think that Bible-believers don’t accept that things have changed, the exhibition’s mind controllers state:
Discoveries in geology had already challenged the idea that the world and all its species had been created at the same time a few thousand years ago. Fossils clearly show that in past ages the world had been inhabited by different species than those existing today . . .
So, Bible-believers supposedly don’t believe animals change, but Darwin figured out that they do, proving the Bible wrong. These changes were his evidence of evolution (e.g., ape-like creatures turning to people).
This, too, is designed to make London’s museum visitors think that they have to reject the Bible’s account of origins and a young earth.
3) Now, here was the final step in indoctrinating visitors to disbelieve the Bible through mind control. They are indoctrinated to believe in an additional straw-man: creationists don’t accept that new species can form. But we do. We have stated innumerable times that speciation occurs—and that natural selection happens (as we show in a new exhibit at the Creation Museum). But we declare that speciation cannot result in Darwinian evolution— the idea that one totally different kind of creature (not species) changes into a totally different kind (e.g., the reptile kind becoming the bird kind). The London exhibit says:
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is the only scientific explanation for the spectacular diversity of life on earth. It provides a powerful framework for understanding nature and is one of the essential theories of the very core of science. . . . As Darwin himself anticipated some people have held to the conviction that species are the result of special creation through the makes this agreement different than what we’ve done in the past. The new relationship with CRJ will be a great means to get Bible-affirming resources more quickly and inexpensively into a nation that desperately needs the gospel. This is because we will no longer have to pro-action of a Creator. Some find incompatible with their religious beliefs the concept that humans share a common ancestry with earlier primates and that humans and other species evolved over immense spans of time. Creationism, including Intelligent Design, does not offer a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution by invoking the act of a Creator or an Intelligent Designer as the explanation for large diversity.
Sad, isn’t it?
The Bible warns us about such mind controllers at the Darwin exhibition: it is they “who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). Now I ask: to what extent have the mind controllers of this age influenced you and your family, and not just with the creation/ evolution question? Think about it. Then make sure you keep supplying yourself with answers to defend our Christian faith!
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For demonstrating a near textbook case of a persecution complex.
The hilarious thing is that creationists do the same mind control tricks.
1) Setting up straw-men arguments that totally misrepresent what rational people accept. (Lamarckian change; Piltdown man; etc.)
2) Showing how wrong rational people are for believing the things they supposedly believe (which they don’t believe in the first place!).
3) Convincing visitors that Christianity is true, and that one is a fool to believe otherwise (and certainly foolish to NOT believe the Bible). (A book which says that unicorns exist, that selling your daughter into slavery is OK, and completely disproves itself in the story of Adam and Eve's "original sin")
":creationists don’t accept that new species can form. But we do. We have stated innumerable times that speciation occurs—and that natural selection happens (as we show in a new exhibit at the Creation Museum)."
This is a relatively new development within Christianity (coming about as a result of scientific discovery), as most 20th century creationists (and prior) didn't accept 'any' of Darwin's theories - in fact, made fun of Darwin.
The premise of Darwinism has remained much the same in theory, but Creationism theology has 'changed'.
God is constant so anything that represents Him must be that way also. If creationism 'changes' that reveals it was not Biblical in the first place!
I found this article by the young earth creationists of "Answers in Genesis" consisted of:
(1) Setting up straw-men arguments by pretending that "Bible-believing Christians" who reject the doctrine of young earth creationism don't even exist, even though they exist by the millions.
(2) Pretending that all young earth creationists have exactly the same ideas about young earth creationism as those at the "Answers in Genesis" group (when in fact young earth creationists have all sorts of contradictory beliefs), and then using this pretension to falsely pretend that the museum is using misrepresentation.
(3) Pretending that the fact that the idea that the universe and the earth did not exist more than about 6,000 years ago is credible and "scientific," when in fact it is empirically false, it is based solely on religious belief and has had nothing to do with geological science for at least two hundred years (and with what we know about geology today it is so obviously false that it certainly is foolish to believe otherwise).
We do always have to laugh at the silly rhetorical shenanigans young earth creationists love to use in their word games, such that even while they themselves are in the very act of using such obvious rhetorical trickery engage in accusing others of using "mind control". This constant verbal gaming that permeates young earth creationist rhetoric is what demonstrates how desperate they've become trying to prop up their religious dogma in the face of the scientific disproof of their particular religious beliefs, and it's a fascinating demonstration of the lengths that people will go to to try to "rationalize" their false beliefs in the face of contrary evidence rather than simply acknowledging that it's wrong and move on.
I'm not a fan of the way this author presented pro- bible arguments. But I'm also not a fan of certain commonly held beliefs.
"The bible is a book of fiction written by men who invented yet another god in their own image. Mankind does not need books of superstition to have morality." - This is true. To have an unchanging morality however you do need a standard and you need to stick to it. Where else does our morality come from?
"Christian faith is superstition. Impossible and worthless to defend." - And other faiths? Islam? Judaism? etc etc etc? Are they also worth defending? If you look at this from a scientific perspective they're theories with limited evidence.
"Darwin is science . Worth defending." - Also a theory. With limited evidence. Everything in science is a theory. Concepts defined as scientific " law " are accepted principles because a case hasn't been found to disprove them yet but that leaves us far from saying "this is how it is and how it always will be." Newtonian physics doesn't apply at quantum levels. Yet they're called laws. Is it hard to believe that there's a way for science and religion to walk hand in hand?
You ask questions as if to prove a point, even though your questions do have answers outside of your reckoning.
I'm on my phone so excuse my not pasting your paragraphs but I'll try to post re question accurately.
"Where does our morality come from?"
From our parents, our teachers, self reflection, education , societal norms, millenia of philosophical and ethical debate, established codes of law , etc. The holy books of the different religions do little to influence our morality, accept to strengthen or adjust compatable beliefs on morality(ex: socially liberal vs. socially conservative Christians, very different starting points on what they believe is moral, yet they both pray to the same god and read the same holy book) Talk to an anthropologist or a sociologist, you'd be amazed at what they know about moral zeitgeists throughout history.
"[different religions... worth defending]?"
In this context, nope. All of the religions assert no scientific theory, they make testable proclamations about nature and reality. What can be investigated or tested will stand on it's own apart from the religious books declared authority. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all hold onto Genesis as the basic story of creation so you didn't even mention a religion that asserts a different origins story.
Just to say this outright: No, from a scientific perspective, they are testable myths and legends, not theories.
"Also a theory. With limited evidence."
At what point is evidence not limited? The fact is that all of the the evidence discovered, analyzed and catalogued up-to-date fits within evolutionary theory and no evidence contradicts evolution . The only science AIG and other defenders of fairy tales present are arguments again a select few aspects of evolution. In other words, the only defense, outside of the holy book, for creation or intelligent design that has ever been presented has been nothing but attacks on evolution, not a single presentation of evidence in support of creation that refutes evolution in any way.
I can't quote the rest of your last paragraph, so I'll just debate it outright.
Your explaination of "scientific 'law'" is actually an explanation for scientific theory. In science, a 'theory' is an explanation of all of the facts with regards to a specific category. In science, a 'law' is something that is universal, meaning it doesn't matter where or when something is or happened, the law holds true. A law does not attempt to explain WHY it is the way it is, only that that is the way it is. For example: Gravity. The law of gravity is that gravity is universal for everything in the universe, the theory of gravity is an attempt to explain gravity based on all of the data.
Evolution is not, and will never be, a 'law' because not everything is life, or alive, or whatever. Evolution simply describes the way in which biological life on earth survives and changes. It doesn't even go as far as explain how life started. And all the evidence so far matches evolutionary theory.
Summary: law = universe spanning rule of reality, theory = explanation of all relevant evidence.
Science and religion can only coexist if religion stops making blind assertions about testable reality and sticks to the non scientific philosophies, or religion begins to mold itself around discovered evidence, like science. Science won't get you to universal truths about everything, but it does not deny evidence and reasoned inquiry simply on the grounds that it contradicts doctrine.
"You ask questions as if to prove a point, even though your questions do have answers outside of your reckoning."
Actually they didn't. It was a prompt to work responses out from people and see if my reasoning was sound or not. In some cases it was in some cases it needs adjustment.
I'll take what you've said into account and get a reply up in a few days. It's midterms (gag) for me and I'm a tad busy. But I'd like to salute you for being able to post a well thought out and respectful reply whilst on the phone. Ten points. Hopefully people will take a page from your book in that aspect.
Mind control? That's a fairly outlandish claim to make... all museum displays are mind control by that logic, including the ones at the creation "museum".
"We have stated innumerable times that speciation occurs—and that natural selection happens (as we show in a new exhibit at the Creation Museum). But we declare that speciation cannot result in Darwinian evolution — the idea that one totally different kind of creature (not species) changes into a totally different kind (e.g., the reptile kind becoming the bird kind)."
This is an interesting point for them to make... They accept that species can change into different species, but not different groups? Couldn't it be said that if two species continue to diverge over a long period of time that they could become drastically different, and that they could branch into other species that had common traits for those species but were drastically different from other species?
The difference between birds and reptiles (or mammals and amphibians) are the result of genetic changes projected across a geological time scale... If we could live that long we would see the same thing take place with the species that we see today.. jump forward 20M-50M and we could see whole new species and phylums appear.
Answers in Genesis warps Christianity by denying the reality of God's creation. There is abundant evidence that life evolves, and not just within "kinds" as AiG claims but from one "kind" to another such as dinosaurs to birds, land-dwelling mammals to whales, and apes to humans. The fossils are not only in the rocks but also in the genes. Denying what is real does nothing to glorify Christ.
Okay. First of all, there's a difference--and a pretty big one--between arguments and mind control. Even if they use poor arguments, it's not mind control. Hypnotism is mind control. Cults that starve people and subject them to chanting is mind control. These are just arguments.
"Look. Here's some fossils. You know, there are people who believe that the earth is only 6000 years old, but these bones are way, way older than that!" Does not constitute brainwashing. It is a statement. A bit like "Some people believed that the Hebrew Moschiach hasn't come yet, but here! Look at Jesus!" isn't brainwashing. It becomes brainwashing when followed by "Those people will all die and be tortured forever" because it's a bit of a threat, but there's a difference.
Lastly, if you believe new species can form, but don't think they come from other, already existing creatures--where do they come from? Spontaneous generation?