Transcript Creator in the Courtroom

The Great Debate:
Creation vs. Evolution
• The Importance of Creation
• The Rise of Anti-Creation Views
• The Legal Status of Creation
• The Biblical Basis of Creation
• The Scientific Basis of Creation
The Creator
in the Courtroom
Copyright by Norman L. Geisler 2006
Be Informed!
Creation and Evolution
• Creation: the view that all basic
forms of life have a separate
ancestry, being brought into
existence by special acts of an
intelligent cause.
• Evolution: the view that all basic
forms of life have a common
ancestry, arising from one original
form by natural causes without any
intelligent intervention.
The Evolutionary
Tree
The Creation
Forest
God
Evolution: Common Ancestor
Creation: Common Designer
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620f.)
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620f.)
B. The Declaration of
Independence (1776)
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620f.)
B. The Declaration of
Independence (1776)
C. McGuffy’s Reader (1830-1930)
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science--were creationists
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620-1859)
• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Celestial Mech.
Phy. Astronomy
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Hydrostatics
• Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
Chemistry, Gas
Dynamics
• Nicolaus Steno (1638-1687)
Stratigraphy
• Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Calculus,
Dynamics.
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620-1859)
• Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Mag. Theory
• Charles Babbage (1792-1871)
Computer Sc.
• Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)
Glacial Geo.
Ichthyology
• James Simpson (1811-1870)
Gynecology
• Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Genetics
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620-1859)
• Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) Bacteriology
• Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
Energetics,
Thermodynamics
• Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
Antiseptic Surgery
• James Maxwell (1831-1879) Electrodynamics
Statistical Therm.
• William Ramsay (1852-1916) Isotopic Chem.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
“It is not to be
conceived
that mere
mechanical
causes could
give birth to
so many
regular motions,
since the
comets range over all parts of the
heavens in very eccentric orbits.... This
most beautiful system of the sun,
planets, and comets, could only proceed
from the counsel and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful Being"
("Scholium," 369).
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science (1620-1859)
B. The Declaration of
Independence (1776)
B. The Declaration of
Independence (1776)
Our National Birth Certificate rests on
three fundamental beliefs:
1. There is a Creator
2. All men are created
3. There are God-given
moral laws
“We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness.…”
I. Before the Darwinian
Revolution (1620-1859)
A. The Founders of Modern
Science
B. The Declaration of
Independence
C. McGuffy’s Readers
C. McGuffy’s Readers
From 1830-1930 millions of American
school children used these illustrated
readers which explicitly taught:
1. There is a Creator
2. All men were created
3. There are God-given
moral laws
McGuffy on Creation
“The plants could not have
grown in that pattern by chance.
Someone had a design…. God is
the Creator, and his creation
enables us to understand him. In
proportion as we investigate the
secrets of the natural world, we
are able to understand the
nature of God.”
McGuffy on God-given
Absolutes
“God sees and knows all things,
for God is everywhere. He sees me
when I rise from my bed, when I go
out to walk and play. And when I
lie down to sleep at night, he keeps
me from harm.… He gave you his
word, to let you know what he has
done for you and what he bids you
to do.”
II. After the Darwinian
Revolution (1860-1967)
Charles Darwin’s Two Books
1859
1871
II. After the Darwinian
Revolution (1859f.)
A. Darwin’s Revolution (1859)
A. Darwin’s Revolution
1. On the Origin of Species (1859)
2. The Descent of Man (1871)
Darwin: From Orthodox to Agnostic
To believe in the “continued
intervention of creative power
is to make my deity ‘Natural
Selection’ superfluous...” (To
Lyell, Oct 20, 1859).
Charles Darwin
Darwin: From Orthodox to Agnostic
To believe in the “continued
intervention of creative power
is to make my deity ‘Natural
Selection’ superfluous...” (To
Lyell, Oct 20, 1859).
“There is no evidence that
man was aboriginally endowed
with the ennobling belief in the
existence of an omnipotent
God” (Descent of Man, Part I,
Chap. 3).
Charles Darwin
Darwin: From Orthodox to Agnostic
To believe in the “continued
intervention of creative power
is to make my deity ‘Natural
Selection’ superfluous...” (To
Lyell, Oct 20, 1859).
“There is no evidence that
man was aboriginally endowed
with the ennobling belief in the
existence of an omnipotent
God” (Descent of Man, Part I,
Chap. 3).
Charles Darwin
“I for one must be content to
remain an agnostic”
(Autobiography, 84).
•
Ethical Implication of Darwinism
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are
soon eliminated; and those that survive
commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We
civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost
to check the process of elimination; we build
asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the
sick…. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who, from a
weak constitution, would formerly have
succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak
members of civilized society propagate their
kind. No one who has attended to the breeding
of domestic animals will doubt that this must be
highly injurious to the race of man” (DM, 323).
Hodge on Darwin
• "What is Darwinism? It
is Atheism. This does not
mean that Mr. Darwin
himself and all who adopt
his views are atheists; but
it means that his theory is
atheistic, that the
exclusion of design from
nature is...tantamount to
atheism" (Hodge, What is
Darwinism?, 177).
A. Darwin’s Revolution
3. The Death of God
a. Nietzsche
b. Karl Marx
3. The Death of God (19th cent)
“God is dead. God remains dead.
And we have killed him. How shall
we, the murderers of all murderers,
comfort ourselves?” --Nietzsche
“Nowadays in our evolutionary
conception of the universe there is
absolutely no room for a creator or
ruler.” --Karl Marx
4. The Death of Man (20th cent)
a. Hitler
b. Stalin
c. Mao
d. America
Hitler’s Evolutionary Ethic
“If Nature does not
wish that weaker
individuals should
mate with the stronger,
she wishes even less
1924
that a superior race
should intermingle with an inferior
one; because in such a case all her
efforts, throughout hundreds of
thousands of years, to establish an
evolutionary higher stage of being, may
thus be rendered futile” (Mein Kampf, 239)
The Social Consequences
• “But such a preservation
goes hand-in-hand with
the inexorable law that it
is the strongest and the
best who must triumph
and that they have the
right to endure…. He who
does not wish to fight in
this world, where
permanent struggle is
the law of life, has not
the right to exist” (Mein
Kampf, 242).
II. After the Darwinian Revolution
A. Darwin’s Revolution (1859)
B. Scopes Trial (1925)
B. Scopes Trial (1925)
• Tennessee law forbid teaching
•
•
•
evolution in public schools.
The ACLU recruited John
Scopes to break the law.
He was convicted and fined
$100.
It was overturned later on a
technicality.
William Jennings Bryan on
the Dangers of Evolution
“ Our first indictment
against evolution is
that it disputes the
truth of the Bible
account of man’s
creation and shakes
faith in the Bible as
the Word of God”
(World’s Most Famous
Trial, 326).
“Our second indictment is that the evolutionary
hypothesis, carried to its logical conclusion, disputes
every vital truth of the Bible. Its tendency, natural, if
not inevitable, is to lead those who really accept it, first
to agnosticism and then to atheism” (326).
“Our third indictment against evolution is that it
diverts attention from pressing problems of great
importance to trifling speculations…. Evolution is deadening the spiritual life of a multitude of students” (333).
“Our fourth indictment against the evolutionary
hypothesis is that by paralyzing the hope of reform, it
discourages those who labor for the improvement of
man’s condition” (The World’s Most Famous Court Trial, 333).
“Our fifth indictment of the evolutionary hypothesis
is that, if taken seriously and made the basis of a
philosophy of life, it would eliminate love and carry man
back to a struggle of tooth and claw” (Bryan, 335).
B. Scopes Trial (1925)
1. Text in Scope’s Trial was racist:
“At the present time there
exists upon the earth five
races of man… [Negro, Malay,
American Indian, Mongolian];
and finally, the highest type
of all, the Caucasians,
represented by the civilized
white inhabitants of Europe
and America.” (Hunter,
A Civic Biology)
B. Scopes Trial (1925)
The sub-title for Darwin’s book
On the Origin of Species
reads: “The Preservation of
Favored Races in the
Struggle for Life.”
B. Scopes Trial
2. Tennessee Forbids Evolution
“Be it enacted…that it shall be
unlawful for any teacher…to
teach any theory that denies the
story of the Divine Creation of
man as taught in the Bible, and to
teach instead that man has
descended from a lower order of
animals” (House Bill No. 185).
Scopes Trial
Results of the Scopes Trial
Scopes Trial
Results of the Scopes Trial
Official win for creation
Scopes Trial
Results of the Scopes Trial
Official win for creation
Actual win for evolution
Scopes Trial
Results of the Scopes Trial
Official win for creation
Actual win for evolution
In public opinion generated
by the liberal media
Decision was overturned in 1927
(on a technicality)
II. After the Darwinian
Revolution
A. Darwin’s Revolution (1859f.)
B. Scopes Trial (1925)
C. Secular Humanism (1933)
C. Secular Humanism
• Secular Humanism is a self-proclaimed
“religion” whose value systems depends
on human rather than divine standards.
• Published in 1933, the Humanist Manifesto
affirmed three core beliefs, which stand in
direct contradiction to The Declaration of
Independence.
C. Secular Humanism
1. NO Creator
No Creator
“Religious humanists regard the
universe as self-existing and not
created.”
Humanist Manifesto
First Affirmation
C. Secular Humanism
2. NO Creation
2. No Creation
“Humanism believes that man is
a part of nature and that he has
emerged as the result of a
continuous process.”
Humanist Manifesto
Second Affirmation
C. Secular Humanism
3. NO God-Given Moral Absolutes
3. No God-Given Moral
Absolutes
“Humanism asserts that the nature
of the universe depicted by modern
science makes unacceptable any
supernatural or cosmic guarantee of
human values…. We affirm that
moral values derive their source from
human experience. Ethics is
autonomous and situational….”
Humanist Manifesto
Fifth Affirmation
III. Supreme Court
Protects Evolution
(1968)
III. Supreme Court Protects
Evolution (1968)
The Law:
“That statute makes it
unlawful for a teacher
in any state-supported
school or university to
teach or to use a textbook that teaches, ‘that mankind
ascended or descended from a lower
order of animals.’”
III. Supreme Court Protects
Evolution (1968)
The Epperson Decision:
“[T]he law must be stricken
because of its conflict with
the constitutional prohibition of state laws
respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”
(cf. Everson, 1947).
III. Supreme Court Protects
Evolution (1980)
Further Court Decision:
The Supreme Court
forbid even posting
the Ten Commandments on a bulletin
board in a public
school (Stone v.
Graham, 1980).
IV. Federal Court Forbids
Creation (1982-2005)
IV. Federal Court Forbids Creation
Act 590 (March 19, 1981)
“An act to require balanced treatment of
creation science and evolution in public
schools; to protect academic freedom by
providing student choice; to ensure
freedom of religious exercise; to
guarantee freedom of belief and speech;
to prevent establishment of religion; to
protect religious instruction concerning
origins; to bar discrimination on the basis
of creationist or evolutionist belief….”
IV. Federal Court Forbids Creation
Court Ruling (Jan 5, 1982):
“Indeed, creation of the world ‘out of
nothing’ is the ultimate religious
statement because God is the only actor.”
(Creator in Courtroom, 174)
“Such a concept is not science because it
depends upon supernatural intervention
which is not guided by natural law.” (176)
“Such a reasoning process is not the
product of natural law; not explainable by
natural law; nor is it tentative.” (177)
V. Supreme Court Forbids
Creation (1987)
V. Supreme Court Forbids
Creation (1987)
Creation
V. Supreme Court Forbids Creation
The Edwards Decision (1987):
“The Act impermissibly endorses the
religious belief that a supernatural
being created humankind.” (1. (b))
“Concepts concerning God or a
supreme being of some sort are
manifestly religious.” (V, A)
“The preeminent purpose of the
Louisiana Legislature was clearly to
advance the religious viewpoint that a
supernatural being created mankind.”
(III, B)
V. Federal Court Forbids Creation
Dover Court (2005):
“The belief that a supernatural creator was
responsible for the creation of human kind is
a religious viewpoint and that the Act at
issue advances a religious doctrine….”
“The concept of intelligent design
(hereinafter ‘ID’), in its current form, came
into existence after the Edwards case was
decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow,
we conclude that the religious nature of ID
would be readily apparent to an objective
observer, adult or child.”
VI. Answering Objections
A. It is a Violation of First Amendment
Establishment of Religion Clause.
Response: It is not religion because:
1. It does not establish a national religion.
“Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, nor
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
a. “Congress” is the national government.
b. Five of the States that ratified this
Amendment had State religions.
2. It does not establish any religion since:
• a. It does not demand belief in or worship
of God or commitment to an Ultimate.
• b. The concept of a Creator can be
religiously neutral (cf. Aristotle & Plato).
• c. Same object (Creator) can be approached
1) as an object of worship (which is
religious) or-•
2) as the cause of the cosmos (which is
not religious).
2. It does not establish any religion since:
• d. If all objects that have been worshiped are
religious, then so is using stones (in geology
class) and referring to Buddha or Jesus (in
history class).
e. Teaching both views does not establish one
view, but teaching only one view does.
f. What is compatible with religion is not
necessarily religious, or else there could be
almost no laws about human belief or
behavior (since they are also part of some
religion).
VI. Answering Objections
A. Teaching Creation is Religion
B. Teaching Creation is not Science because:
1. It is not observable, repeatable, or testable.
2. It involves a supernatural cause.
Response:
1. a) Neither is macroevolution observable, etc.
b) This confuses operation and origin science.
2. a) This begs the question in favor of naturalism.
b) It demands a natural cause, even where there
is none (e. g., archaeology, SETI, cryptology,
information theory, Mt. Rushmore).
VII. The Sweeping Implications
1. HISTORICAL IMPLICATION
The founders of modern science were not
scientific because they believed in creation.
2. NATIONAL IMPLICATION
The Declaration of Independence is
unconstitutional.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATION
There is no freedom of speech in schools
for creationists.
4. SCIENTIFIC IMPLICATION
Only natural causes are scientific
(Archaeology, Cryptology, and SETI).
VII. The Sweeping Implications
5. RELIGIOUS IMPLICATION
Only the origin beliefs of nontheistic religions can be taught.
6. THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATION
It implies there is no Creator or
Designer of life and, hence, no
purpose in life.
7. MORAL IMPLICATION
No God-given basis for morals can
be taught in public schools.
VII. The Sweeping Implications
8. SPIRITUAL IMPLICATION
There is no official way to teach
true knowledge (which is based in
the fear of God--Prov. 1:7) in public
schools.
9. POLITICAL IMPLICATION
“Taxation without representation
is tyranny”--Thomas Jefferson.
10. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATION
If only one view is allowed, then it
is indoctrination, not education.
Conclusion
ACLU Scopes Attorney Malone:
“For God’s sake let the children
have their minds kept open—close
no doors to their knowledge; shut
no door from them…. Let them have
both. Let them both be taught. Let
them both live.” (Scopes Trial, 1925)
What Can I Do?
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5.
Home school your children in the truth.
Send your children to a Christian school.
Become a First Amendment attorney.
Run for office and help change the laws.
Vote for conservative presidents (who will
appoint conservative judges).
6. Become a cultural apologist and help
defend the truth in our culture.
7. Get a doctorate and teach in a secular
college or university.
8. Exert influence through journalism.
9. Use influence via the film making
industry.
10. Support groups, seminaries, and colleges
that are defending the truth.
Pray this Prayer
“God save the United States
and this honorable Court.”
--United States Marshal
Opening Federal Court
Be Informed!