Today I am feeling sympathy for atheists. Just think - they will never have the satisfaction of finally knowing that they were right. I think a lot about atheism and Darwinian evolution theories. I watched that Ben Stein movie about evolution, and I confess that I experienced some wicked pleasure watching Ben Stein make Richard Dawkins look silly. Richard Dawkins is the Oxford University professor who serves as the academic poster-child of the atheist/Darwinian movement. He delights in mocking Christians and religious believers. Like other evolutionists, he wishes that governments would step in and prevent parents from teaching religion to their children. He reminds me of Korihor and Nehor (of Book of Mormon fame). In the movie he muses about the possibility that "space aliens" seeded the earth with living creatures and then left. He is comfortable with the concept of space aliens, just not with the concept of a benevolent God.
I recently read a book called Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The message of the book is that, in living organisms, there are biochemical processes and mechanisms which are extraordinarily complex; including sight, immunity and blood-clotting, to name a few. Without ever satisfactorily explaining how life showed up on this planet, Charles Darwin proposed that evolutionary changes in living species occurred very gradually over billions of years. Behe's challenge to Darwin's claims is that some of the mechanisms of life are "irreducibly complex". Some functions of life rely on the complex collaboration of many sophisticated protein molecules and cellular components, the absence of any of which would cause the system to fail and the organism to die. If these complex mechanisms came about only gradually, then the creature could not have lived and thrived while waiting around for eons until all of the indispensable elements were in place.
Darwin had no answer for this problem because, in his day, the complexities of the cell were not known. Behe uses the clever example of the common mousetrap. If you were walking about in the rain forest and stumbled across an intact mousetrap, you would automatically assume that someone designed and assembled it. Moreover, no one would accuse you of being a religious fanatic for concluding that some intelligent design process had been involved. Behe explains that the mousetrap cannot work if even one of the components is missing. Take away the spring, and the mouse is safe. It couldn't just emerge through a gradual chain of microscopic improvements.
Thus, the mousetrap is an example of an irreducibly complex machine. Likewise, the mechanism of blood clotting depends on over twenty critical factors and events. If one is missing, like vitamin K or the Christmas factor, then the system fails, and the creature bleeds to death or solidifies and becomes a solid blood clot. The amazing checks and balances of the blood clotting process rely on many critical interactions and perpetual feedback. In my opinion, Behe proves masterfully that no gradual, microscopic, evolutionary steps could have arrived at this brilliant biochemical system, and that we would all have died long ago while waiting for all the pieces to finally be in place.
It is generally a waste of time arguing with atheists and evolutionists. They embrace Darwinian evolution with blind, (almost religiously) unshakeable faith, even though there is so incredibly little scientific evidence to support it. They take as true, incontrovertible fact the assertions of other modern scientists that all living creatures have a common ancestor, and that life was generated spontaneously from inanimate substances. Truth is - they don't just believe in evolution - they desperately need it to be true. They don't want there to be a God. They prefer Hammurabi's Law - which says that there are no absolutes in the universe, and all that matters is what makes one feel good.
There is a trend in today's world towards greater polarization. Obama wants to take over the private sector and everything else you hold dear. People are lining up on opposing sides of important issues. I don't think it is merely godless liberal secular materialism versus godly conservatism. I think there are just two kinds of people - those who would starve rather than kill their neighbor for food, and those who would rather kill their neighbor than starve or share food. Soon we'll get to see which group each of us falls into. You watch!
P.S. Just for more giggles - I am reproducing a graphic here from the cover of Behe's book. This little diagram shows a mechanism which is part of a SINGLE CELL (a bacterium). The mechanism is called a "flagellum" (Latin = 'whip'). Actually, it is like a propeller and rudder all-in-one. This whip or tail protrudes through the cell's outer membrane and rotates and paddles to provide propulsion so that the cell can travel. It would be tempting to think that this flipper thingy has muscles, but this is all part of just one cell. The energy consumption is achieved through the transfer of acids. The movement is accomplished by chemical reactions between PROTEINS !!! When one side of the whip needs to contract, the molecules become more "sticky". The big question is - how do the molecules "know" how to do that? Don't try to convince me that this all developed through some random Darwinian ACCIDENT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A salmonella bacterium with an immobile whip cannot self-propel. It cannot reproduce or even survive. The only explanation for its current, viable existence on earth is that someone (or some thing) designed it here, or someone designed it elsewhere and then brought it here. When you look at an automobile, you have no doubt that someone designed and then created (assembled) it. When you look at a human being (or a cat, for that matter) how do you think it came about?
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