The ID Report

"One who claims to be a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs." - Phillip E. Johnson

Virgin birth. Abiogenesis. Resurrection from the dead. Random mutations producing the raw material for new organs. Intelligent creation ex nihilo. Eternal matter. Eternal mind. Heaven. Multiverses. Speciation by unguided, natural selection. Hell. Natural DNA information generation. Adam. Panspermia. Angels. No immaterial soul. Miracles. Space aliens. God. No God.

What do every one of the above have in common? Each is a closely held belief of zealous defenders of some theory of origins or another. And for each belief there are counter-zealots who can discern not one whit of convincing evidence. Take abiogenesis, for example. There is no evidence--just a lot of "must-have-happened-because-we're-here" certainty among the atheistic faithful in need of such belief; and believe they do. Ironically, the atheistic faithful like to think they are free of faith and suppose others to be, well, full of it. But in fact faith abounds on all sides with only two things certain: everybody believes something unbelievable and only certain unbelievable beliefs can actually be true. In fact, certain unbelievable beliefs must be true, and others must be false. But how can we know?

Darwinists often belittle the arguments of anti-evolutionists as "arguments from incredulity" as if there is something fundamentally flawed with such a position (even while they make the same arguments against intelligent design!). While the charge is almost always leveled in error (very few of the anti-evolutionary arguments are based on bare disbelief), there is some basis to draw exactly this charge: the evidence at hand makes naturalistic evolution truly unbelievable to the reasonable person. Consider: Materialists (which is what all atheists and most Darwinists are) must believe in abiogenesis, the faith belief that life arose accidentally from non-living matter. In spite of a total lack of evidentiary basis they are stuck with no choice, they must necessarily believe that a past chance agglomeration of all the right stuff, like cosmic Tinker Toys without a Tinkerer, was scattered, pressed, heated, cooled or otherwise accidentally treated just so, to make life appear out of nowhere. Excuse those of us not so thought-limited, but without any evidence to give a reason to believe or even a reason to suspend disbelief, abiogenesis is simply unbelievable.

Less well understood for all the bluffing that goes largely unchecked is the fact that Darwinists have absolutely no evidence to prove the crown jewel of Darwinism, that undirected physics and chemistry alone (so-called Natural Selection) can "select" from random mutational errors to produce a single new species. Darwin himself offered only an imaginary example of natural selection, an admitted indulgence on his part. But modern Darwinists continue the imaginations without the admission. Look it up--there is no evidence that natural selection has produced (or can produce) one new species. In fact, the evidence compels the opposite conclusion--even with extensive un-natural selection (i.e., breeding), no new species are possible. Are we really to believe on the word of men alone that purposeless, unguided chemistry and physics magically drove the origin of every species? Unbelievable.

Because most people don't have the faith of Darwinists, the evidence-induced unbelief among approximately 90% of the population drives evolutionists and other theophobic no-godders crazy. Referring to Darwinism, Richard Dawkins, president of The Darwin Loving God Haters Club (known to one another as "skeptics"), wonders how "such a powerful idea [can] go still largely unabsorbed into popular consciousness." And to show how powerfully a false idea can take even smart people captive, Dawkins fails to comprehend the irony of his own words when he blindly blathers, "it is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe." Designed? (Heh, heh), yes. Misunderstood? No. Hard to believe? Only to the reasonable mind.

What about the legions of other skeptics and self-styled free thinkers? Aren't they free of all belief in the unbelievable? They would like to think so. But consider "free thinkers", as they call themselves. As captives to a deception, none of them are permitted to think freely about God's existence; atheism is the required belief imposed on free thinkers, and they hold slavishly to its dictates. They are free thinkers like a prisoner is a free walker; they are free to think all they want within the bounds of their little cages. And very few, if any, mind-slaves to atheism have ever thought freely about the logically necessary conditions for their atheistic materialism. Free thinking atheists must believe one of two things: either matter, i.e., the cosmic Tinker Toys, has existed eternally, or matter spontaneously appeared out of nothing. Both of these are, frankly, unbelievable. No great thinker in all of history has thought seriously on this topic and found either of these two starting places to be possible, much less believable. Why should we?

And those claiming the mantle of "skeptic"? This group is sadly comical in their smug naivety. When it comes to the biggest questions of all, they are the least skeptical of all. A recent sampling of some of the skeptic faithful showed a pathetically belligerent insistence on proudly proclaiming that they know, they know, that they personally are not intelligently designed. Aside from the predictable show of shallow ignorance in the self-defeating intensity of their admission (why would an accidental, purposeless thing, like a bump on a log, care?), where is the skepticism? As anyone who has crossed paths with so-called skeptics knows, this group is made up of nothing more than un-skeptical, run-of-the-mill, dogmatic atheists and materialist dullards. They are skeptical only of God and the supernatural. But otherwise they are true blue believing mind-slaves to the atheistic party line, including the above-mentioned logical absurdities, e.g., that matter magically appeared out of nothing. One moment there was nothing, and then "poof" everything. The sad thing is that most skeptics, because they are not true thinkers but mental bond servants along with the free thinkers, do not even know their skepticism demands such absurdity.

Every serious thinker contemplating the implications of eternity past has wrestled with the fact that, as unbelievable as it might seem, because something is, something must always have been. And that something must be either material or immaterial. Necessarily, either matter somehow created mind, or mind somehow created matter. There is no other option. And know this: whether one believes the one or the other dictates every other otherwise unbelievable thing he or she believes. It's that simple.

And it is the simplicity of a necessary faith that makes everyone both believer and skeptic. God-believers rightly demand evidence for theories of matter-only self-organization of complex information, and until then will remain skeptical of materialistic Darwinism. Atheist skeptics are not merely skeptical; they are firm believers in a thought system that requires staunch unbelief regardless the lack of supporting evidence; and they cannot even see the abundance of contrary evidence. In the end, what one finds is that skepticism lies more in the who than with the what, because, as thinker Leo Rosten so ably observed, "We see things as we are, not as they are." How true.

Atheists and theists will always see reality differently, not because of what is, but because of who they are. And this explains why each will always believe things deemed unbelievable by the other. So the question of origins for a person not already committed to atheism and all its necessary supporting theories amounts to this: on balance, whose belief in the unbelievable is the more reasonable in light of the evidence made plain to all?

And beyond being simply reasonable, is there a way you can know which unbelievable beliefs are true? Yes, but the key to understanding lies not in the facts (after all, we all have the same facts), but in you and what you permit yourself to see. Think freely about it, and don't be bullied by truth suppressing atheists. Because allowing yourself to see things freely as they are will result in a freeing change of who you are.

And then you will know.

Roddy Bullock, a skeptic of Darwinism, is a freelance writer, engineer, lawyer, the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by and available from Access Research Network.

Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

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References:

Phillip Johnson quote from the audiotape "Exposing Naturalistic Presuppositions of Evolution," at Southern Evangelical Seminary's 1998 Apologetics Conference. Tape AC9814. Posted online at http://www.impactapologetics.com/product.asp?P_ID=205&strPageHistory=search&strKeywords=johnson&numPageStartPosition=1&strSearchCriteria=any&PT_ID=all

Richard Dawkins quotes, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), pp. 39, xv.

Skeptics adamantly admitting that they are not intelligently designed, LINK HERE, and scroll down to March 05, 2009 blog entry and comments.

Leo Rosten quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Rosten