Robertson Calls Evolutionism a cult; "the Church" Bets on Intelligence; Dawkins Sneers; I Yawn

The Rev. Pat Robertson said on his television show, the 700 Club, that evolution is a false religion. Stating that evolution is only a theory and not a fact, Robertson lambasted evolutionists worshiping atheism and called them cultists.

Robertson and other Xtian fundamentalists have taken a strident opposition to the teaching of evolution in US schools. Instead, they propose teaching a science called Intelligent Design as a more reasonable and rational description of the origins and meaning of the universe.

This is in opposition to some mainline churches, such as the Catholic Church...

In his comments, Robertson said:

You know, what we have got to recognize just there in this case is that the evolutionists worship atheism. I mean, that's their religion. And evolution becomes their religion. It is a matter of religion. So this is an establishment of religion contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. And the fact that somebody comes along and says, "We are not sure that it's accurate, it's a theory and not a fact" -- how can you say it's a fact? You are talking about 10 to 15 billion years ago. Who was there?

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has come out against Intelligent Design. It has given qualitifed acceptance of the theory of evolution, noting that while evolution may explain the material nature of the universe, it does not and cannot explain the spiritual nature of human beings or explain the final purpose and meaning of the cosmos.

Responding to questions about the Catholic Church's stand on evolution in an interview, William R. Stoeger, a Jesuit and a scientist, said:

The church really does not accept or reject any scientific theory as a strictly scientific theory. It is really incapable of doing that, and it would be a mistake for it to do so. It has always affirmed that the natural sciences are independent disciplines — independent of philosophy and theology — and should pursue truth according to acceptable scientific methods and criteria in a responsible and careful way.

However, at the same time, the church does — and should — provide guidance concerning philosophical, ethical and theological extrapolations and extensions of scientific conclusions — particularly those which purport to claim that science demonstrate that there is nothing beyond the purely material or that there is no purpose or point to the universe.

For his part, Richard Dawkins, the bright light among the evolutionists, declares that he trusts science to light the way to enlightenment:

In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it. Note how unbalanced this is, and how it gives the lie to the apparent reasonableness of "let's teach both sides". One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way. The other side is never required to produce one iota of evidence, but is deemed to have won automatically, the moment the first side encounters a difficulty - the sort of difficulty that all sciences encounter every day, and go to work to solve, with relish.

It's been something of a strange spectacle to watch what started out as a bumper sticker war turn into a full-fledged culture war. If you don't know, I'm talking about those stickers on people's cars that used to show up on advocate for and against evolution. You could tell each side by the size of their fish. The stickers either showed a fish called Darwin eating a cross or a bigger fish witha cross eating a smaller fish called Darwin. Now, that's intelligent debate, desgined by a few minds inspired by a sense of humor.

If only this little farce had stayed on the bumper stickers where I could keep an eye on it. Then perhaps people would see the whole thing is just a bit of fun, instead of taking it seriously and starting to take over school boards because teaching evolution is tantamount to arming our kids with the armature of communism, as some of the more enlightened anti-evolutionists pronounce. But no, these people actually take this war seriously!

What's just as bad as the fish-god worshippers is the brainiac evolutionists getting so high on their horses that they think that evolution answers "all" of life's problems. In practice, what's evolution really tell us about ourselves as individuals, really? If anything, it simply states the rather obvious fact that we're animals. But I could have known that by looking at people around me. I mean look at the white house for the past few years. If that's not proof that we have ape in our DNA, what does?

The brainiacs face the sad fact that it's the more demented, fanatical "breed and multiply" religious fanatics who believe there's something good on the earth to build on and make the world from that. Who's going to want to build a "city on a hill" in the wilderness of the human compulsion to kill each other, with the idea that we're just animals anyway? You have to believe that humans are better than that to get along in this world, otherwise you'd go insane.