High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion

High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion
© Gary L. Achtemeier, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. [Last Modified: 10 March

High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion
© Gary L. Achtemeier, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. [Last Modified: 10 March
2002]

n Wednesday, August 11, 1999, the Kansas Board of Education adopted
new science standards for statewide testing of students that no longer
require knowledge of evolution as a way to describe the emergence of
new species-for instance the evolution of primates into Homo sapiens
(macro-evolution)-while requiring knowledge of "micro-evolution,"
changes that occur within a single species. The decision gives a mild
snub to the theory of evolution credited to Charles Darwin. Apparently
the Board decided that 140 years of research involving thousands of
scientists spending millions of dollars had failed to produce
sufficient evidence to confirm the theory.

Scientists, professionals, and academics appealed to the Board on
behalf of modern science that removing an important concept like
evolution from life sciences and biology would intellectually cripple
students. Nothing in biology, it was claimed, makes sense except in
light of evolution. On the other side were mostly parents who were
concerned with what their children were being taught.

As soon as the decision was cast, the propaganda war began. Darwinists
have discovered that the best way to silence those who question
evolution is to marginalize them through ridicule and character
assassination. They characterized those who supported the new

guidelines, including parents, as bible-thumping fundamentalists,
dangerous pseudo-scientists, flat earthers, etc. Unfortunately, much
of the stereotyping was done by journalists who did not stop for an
instant to find out what the issues were, who the parties were or what
they believed. The Chicago Tribune chanted, "intellectual chicanery."
The Boston Globe saw "evolving creationist" fundamentalists. The
Washington Post decried "literal belief in biblical creation stories."

The issues discussed at Kansas, however, go beyond disagreements with
church doctrines to concern for the safety of children. After the
Littleton massacre, parents testifying before a congressional
subcommittee on the matter claimed that removal from the classroom of
prayer, the Ten Commandments, and other biblical teachings on human
behavior created a climate favorable for murderous behavior. That may

be true, but I believe it is not the whole story. The congressional
testimony did not adequately explore the thought systems that have
replaced the abolished biblical doctrines.

Science, real science-the work that ferrets out empirical facts about
the nature that surrounds us-has been co-opted by an ancient
philosophical/religious doctrine the origins of which can be traced
back to at least 400-700 years before Christ. Known today variously as
scientism, evolutionism, metaphysical naturalism, and Darwinism, this
doctrine has been so effectively interlaced with science that it is
often difficult for the scientist, much less the layperson, to
separate the two.

Though secular in perspective (Darwinists claim the natural world is
all there is), Darwinism nevertheless functions much like a religion.

Darwinists have their own creation story (macro-evolution), their own
creed (the Humanist Manifesto), their own "messiah figures" (those who
come claiming, "Come, follow us. We know the ways of life."), their
own clergy (those whose task it is to preach the "truth" as revealed
by the high priests), and their own priesthood (those who pass down to
the masses their latest ruminations in naturalistic thought).

One of the "high priests" of evolution is Harvard professor of
zoology, Stephen Jay Gould. Like other leaders of the Darwinian faith,

Gould has taken special pains to assure the masses that evolution is
only about science, that science and religion function in two separate
domains, and that there should be no conflict between the two-as long
as religion stays within its proper realm. Problems arise only when
Christian fundamentalists, who don't understand science, try to make
science fit their personal theologies. Writing in the August 21 issue

of Time Magazine, Gould reasserted this doctrine: "No scientific
theory, including evolution, can pose any threat to religion-for these
two great tools of human understanding operate in complementary (not
contrary) fashion in their totally separate realms: science as an
inquiry about the factual state of the natural world, religion as a
search for spiritual meaning and ethical values."

Many religious leaders have bought the ruse. However, as is so often

the case, those with the most the lose are usually the ones who take
the effort to become the best informed. Conservative Christians have
discovered that while science may be neutral on religious issues,
Darwinism is not. The real conflict is between two equally religious
belief systems. Darwinists, however, with assistance from misguided
media, have been astonishingly successful at painting the issue as one
of a small group of ignorant fundamentalists pitting their outdated
biblical myths against the studied results of empirical science. Thus,
by making it appear to be nonreligious, Darwinism can appear to be no
threat to religion and by making it appear to most churchgoers that
there exists no conflict between Christianity and evolution,
Darwinists have effectively mollified the opposition and have been
free to rob the store.

Though the date of the Kansas Board of Education's rather
insignificant decision still rings loudly through the propaganda mills
of the media, another date, June 25, 1999, will eventually ring
louder, I believe. Writing an editorial in the magazine Science, the
frontispiece of the prestigious National Association for the
Advancement of Science, Stephen Jay Gould launched a direct attack on
religion thereby exposing the true religious nature of Darwinism.
After quoting Psalm 8 "Thou has made him a little lower than the
angels...thou madest him to have dominion...thou has put all things
under his feet." Gould went on to state, "Darwin removed this keystone
of false comfort more than a century ago, but many people still
believe that they cannot navigate this vale of tears without such a
crutch." Ending the article, Gould admonished his readers, "Let us
praise this evolutionary nexus, a far more stately mansion for the
human soul than any pretty or parochial comfort ever conjured by our
swollen neurology to obscure the source of our physical being, or to
deny the natural substrate for our separate and complementary
spiritual quest."

Here Gould has gone much farther than the occasional witty jabs of
fellow high priest, Richard Dawkins ("Evolution has made it possible
to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist") or the late Carl Sagan,
who, writing in the introduction of Stephen Hawkings book, A Brief
History of Time, claimed naturalistic evolution leaves "nothing for a
creator to do." Gould has proposed to substitute for Christianity and
other religions, "a far more stately mansion for the human soul...."

The question that confronts us and is the focus of the remainder of
this essay is: Why did Professor Gould choose this hour to break with
Darwinism's tenuous accommodation with religion? Why did Gould abandon
a successful strategy that has allowed Darwinists to co-opt America's
educational institutions while good people slept? Gould is a master
tactician and surely the timing and wording of his editorial were not
accidental. Furthermore, from letters to the editor of Science, the
immediate reaction of scientists to his epiphany was outrage. What
does Gould hope to gain by what amounts to an open admission of the
religious foundation of Darwinism, a betrayal of a secret that has
been well-kept for decades?

One reason why Gould may have departed from the ruse of accommodation
with religion is Darwinists' perceived loss of control of the
scientific and educational world. Three events have come together

lately to make this possible. First, deep from within the biological
sciences there has arisen a group of scientists who are promoting
intelligent design (ID), the concept that a intelligent agency was

involved in some stages of life's origin and dispersal. Drawing from
recent advances in molecular biology and information theory, the ID
theorists have come to recognize that purely naturalistic evolution

cannot possibly explain every step in the emergence of living
organisms. The discovery of minimum irreducible complexity in

bio-molecular structures utterly falsifies the foundational premise of

Darwin's theory, namely that biological organisms arise through
gradual accumulation of small mutational changes. Furthermore, there
is no known source of information apart from intelligent design.

Darwinists have been unable to imagine how the immense information
content of the highly specified DNA genetic code might have arisen by
chance, let alone design a scientific experiment and collect data to
explain it.

So far, the ID scientists have resisted attempts by Darwinists to
silence them. Vilification has not worked. Marginalization has not

worked because many of the IDers are biological scientists who
actually do the research. Attempts to stereotype them as
fundamentalists seeking to promote biblical creation stories, which
may play well with the media and others predisposed to Darwinism, have
served to radicalize the ID scientists.

Second, with the breakup of the iron curtain and the parting of the
bamboo curtain, the biological sciences are enjoying a global
renaissance of sorts. Biological scientists in Asia, particularly
China, do not hold blind allegiance to Darwin as do their colleagues
in the West. They seem disposed to requiring the theory to fit the
data rather than making the data fit the theory. Hostilities with
American Darwinists during a recent biological conference held in
China prompted one Chinese scientist to remark, "In China we can
question Darwin but we can't question the government; in America, you
can question the government but you can't question Darwin."

Third, though they nearly completely control educational institutions
from kindergarten through graduate school and virtually monopolize all
forms of the media, Darwinists have discovered through recent polls
that fewer than ten percent of Americans believe in the totally
random, unsupervised, impersonal, godless origin-of-life story
promoted by the Darwinists. Many more Americans believe in some form

of evolution directed by a supernatural agency. Fully half of
Americans don't believe in macro-evolution at all. Seven of ten
Americans think evolution should be taught along with the scientific
evidence that does not support evolution. Obviously attempts to
indoctrinate American school children into a Darwinistic view of life
have not been as successful as was hoped.

Another reason why professor Gould may have departed from the
Darwinist ruse of accommodation with religion is a growing suspicion
of the underlying source of violence in our schools and our society.
The lure of Darwinism is in its promise of unfettered licentiousness
but its curse is purposelessness. Darwinists claim there is no God

(therefore there is no accountability for our actions) and we are an
accidental coming together of molecules on an insignificant planet
near a minor star in just another galaxy (life has no purpose). It
doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the volatility of the
mixture. Combining licentiousness with purposelessness for the
disturbed mind is like touching an open flame to gasoline. In his
Science editorial, Pastor Gould wrote, "Evolution liberates the human
spirit." With no accountability for our actions, evolution liberates
the totalitarian, the despot, the "dog-eat-dog" capitalist, the child
molester, and others who find their liberties in exploiting the weak.

Officials charged with explaining the "why" of the recent high school
mass killings have been troubled by the "where" the killings took
place. The "Law of the Old West" tends to reign in the black
communities and ghettos of the inner cities where students arm
themselves for protection, but these murders occurred in the sanitized
education factories of prosperous white suburbs.

The perpetrators were troubled, yes, but bright-that is, bright enough
to make the connect. If there is no purpose, if there is no
accountability, if there is no way out of the pain and emptiness of
life, then why not maximize the license and exit in a towering ball of
flame. The Littleton killers committed suicide. A Gallup poll of
teenagers who had considered or tried to commit suicide found that
almost half (41 percent) cited depression or feeling worthless as the
reason.

After having smeared our television screens with his heinous murders,
Atlanta's Mark Barton allowed police to corner him and then committed
his "coup de grace." Barton left behind letters describing the
unbearable pain in his life and his utter hopelessness. Memories of
Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only killed but ate
his victims, are now fading. However, in a Dateline NBC program that
aired in 1994, Dahmer's father had this to say. "If you don't-if a
person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to,
then-then what's-what's the point of-of trying to modify your behavior
to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I

always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just
came from the slime. When we-when we died, you know, that was it,
there is nothing....." Men hunt and kill animals for food. If the
younger Dahmer had followed his father's footsteps and had convinced
himself that man is just another animal then what's wrong with hunting
and killing men for food?

Stephen Gould claims Darwinism would "liberate the human spirit."
Historically, the survival of the fittest message of Darwinism has
provided rationale for some of the most outrageously uncivilized
actions by "liberated believers." One notorious practitioner of

Darwinism wrote, "He who would live must fight; he who does not wish
to fight in this world where permanent struggle is the law of life,
has not the right to exist." His book was Mein Kampf; his name was
Adolf Hitler. Both Lenin and Stalin praised Darwin for liberating them

from encumbering theology. Karl Marx wished to dedicate his book to
Darwin. Darwinian philosophy has been foundational for moving abortion
from crime to respectability. It is estimated that in this century
somewhere between 100 million and 150 million human beings have met
with untimely death at the hands of those who appealed to Darwin in
some manner to justify their actions.

Darwinists of the first half century openly taught that blacks were
being selected out of the human race. In that view, the infamous

Tuskegee Experiment made sense. Darwinists taught that women were
inferior to men since men were competing with animals and each other
while women were staying home with children. The killers and bigots of
the first half century have been replaced by the killers and bigots of
the last half century. The players are different but the script is the
same.

There may be other reasons for Stephen Gould's apparently reckless
attack on religion in his Science editorial. A contributing factor
could be a growing conservatism among an aging population. Perhaps the
prospect of a Republican president serving with a Republican congress
could embolden constitutional challenges with efforts to require
Darwinists to produce their evidence in a forum subject to cross
examination.

This brings us back to the Kansas Board of Education decision.
According to a knowledgeable source, the chairwoman of the Board
requested evidence in support of macro-evolution. What she basically
got in reply was, "We´re the experts, and that will have to do."

After the media propaganda guns have silenced and we have opportunity
to reflect on the issues, we may discover that the Kansas folks have
much to teach us. There is little reason to teach as revealed truth an
ideology for which vast amounts of supporting evidence are claimed but
seldom produced, especially when that ideology is at the root of much
destructive behavior.

Regarding macro-evolution, Darwinists have little to show for 140
years of research by thousands of scientists spending millions of
dollars of research money. If macro-evolution eventually is proven as

the mechanism for the origin and dispersal of life, the Kansas Board

of Education and similar educational institutions will have to face
the realities. Until the supporting evidence is in, educators have the
right to defer accepting the theory-and teaching it, unless evolution
is taught along with scientific data that refutes it. The message from
the agricultural heartland is, "We don't buy the milk before the cows
come home."

High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion
© Gary L. Achtemeier, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. [Last Modified: 10 March 2002]

Though secular in perspective (Darwinists claim the natural world is all
there is), Darwinism nevertheless functions much like a religion.

have their own creation story (macro-evolution),

their own creed (the
Humanist Manifesto), their own "messiah figures" (those who come claiming,
"Come, follow us. We know the ways of life."),

their own clergy (those whose
task it is to preach the "truth" as revealed by the high priests), and

own priesthood (those who pass down to the masses their latest ruminations
in naturalistic thought).

One of the "high priests" of evolution is Harvard professor of zoology,
Stephen Jay Gould.

Like other leaders of the Darwinian faith, Gould has
taken special pains to assure the masses that evolution is only about
science,

that science and religion function in two separate domains, and

that there should be no conflict between the two-as long as religion stays
within its proper realm. Problems arise only when Christian

who don't understand science, try to make science fit their personal
theologies. Writing in the August 21 issue of Time Magazine, Gould
reasserted this doctrine: "No scientific theory, including evolution, can
pose any threat to religion-for these two great tools of human

operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally separate
realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of the natural

religion as a search for spiritual meaning and ethical values."

Many religious leaders have bought the ruse. However, as is so often the
case, those with the most the lose are usually the ones who take the

to become the best informed. Conservative Christians have discovered that
while science may be neutral on religious issues, Darwinism is not. The

conflict is between two equally religious belief systems.

Darwinists,
however, with assistance from misguided media, have been astonishingly
successful at painting the issue as one of a small group of ignorant
fundamentalists pitting their outdated biblical myths against the studied
results of empirical science.

Thus, by making it appear to be nonreligious,
Darwinism can appear to be no threat to religion and by making it appear

most churchgoers that there exists no conflict between Christianity and
evolution, Darwinists have effectively mollified the opposition and have
been free to rob the store.

The perpetrators were troubled, yes, but bright-that is, bright enough to
make the connect. If there is no purpose, if there is no accountability,

there is no way out of the pain and emptiness of life, then why not

the license and exit in a towering ball of flame. The Littleton killers
committed suicide. A Gallup poll of teenagers who had considered or tried

commit suicide found that almost half (41 percent) cited depression or
feeling worthless as the reason.

After having smeared our television screens with his heinous murders,
Atlanta's Mark Barton allowed police to corner him and then committed his
"coup de grace." Barton left behind letters describing the unbearable pain
in his life and his utter hopelessness. Memories of Milwaukee serial

Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only killed but ate his victims, are now fading.
However, in a Dateline NBC program that aired in 1994, Dahmer's father had
this to say. "If you don't-if a person doesn't think that there is a God

be accountable to, then-then what's-what's the point of-of trying to

your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?

Regarding macro-evolution, Darwinists have little to show for 140 years of
research by thousands of scientists spending millions of dollars of

money. If macro-evolution eventually is proven as the mechanism for the
origin and dispersal of life, the Kansas Board of Education and similar
educational institutions will have to face the realities. Until the
supporting evidence is in, educators have the right to defer accepting the
theory-and teaching it, unless evolution is taught along with scientific
data that refutes it.

The message from the agricultural heartland is, "We
don't buy the milk before the cows come home."

High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion
© Gary L. Achtemeier, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. [Last Modified: 10 March 2002]

n Wednesday, August 11, 1999, the Kansas Board of Education adopted new
science standards for statewide testing of students that no longer require
knowledge of evolution as a way to describe the emergence of new

instance the evolution of primates into Homo sapiens

requiring knowledge of "micro-evolution," changes that occur within a

species. The decision gives a mild snub to the theory of evolution

to Charles Darwin. Apparently the Board decided that 140 years of research
involving thousands of scientists spending millions of dollars had failed

produce sufficient evidence to confirm the theory.

Scientists, professionals, and academics appealed to the Board on behalf

modern science that removing an important concept like evolution from life
sciences and biology would intellectually cripple students. Nothing in
biology, it was claimed, makes sense except in light of evolution. On the
other side were mostly parents who were concerned with what their children
were being taught.

As soon as the decision was cast, the propaganda war began. Darwinists

discovered that the best way to silence those who question evolution is to
marginalize them through ridicule and character assassination. They
characterized those who supported the new guidelines, including parents,

bible-thumping fundamentalists, dangerous pseudo-scientists, flat

etc. Unfortunately, much of the stereotyping was done by journalists who

not stop for an instant to find out what the issues were, who the parties
were or what they believed. The Chicago Tribune chanted, "intellectual
chicanery." The Boston Globe saw "evolving creationist" fundamentalists.

Washington Post decried "literal belief in biblical creation stories."

The issues discussed at Kansas, however, go beyond disagreements with

doctrines to concern for the safety of children. After the Littleton
massacre, parents testifying before a congressional subcommittee on the
matter claimed that removal from the classroom of prayer, the Ten
Commandments, and other biblical teachings on human behavior created a
climate favorable for murderous behavior. That may be true, but I believe

is not the whole story. The congressional testimony did not adequately
explore the thought systems that have replaced the abolished biblical
doctrines.

Science, real science-the work that ferrets out empirical facts about the
nature that surrounds us-has been co-opted by an ancient
philosophical/religious doctrine the origins of which can be traced back

at least 400-700 years before Christ. Known today variously as scientism,
evolutionism, metaphysical naturalism, and Darwinism, this doctrine has

so effectively interlaced with science that it is often difficult for the
scientist, much less the layperson, to separate the two.

Though secular in perspective (Darwinists claim the natural world is all
there is), Darwinism nevertheless functions much like a religion.

have their own creation story (macro-evolution), their own creed (the
Humanist Manifesto), their own "messiah figures" (those who come claiming,
"Come, follow us. We know the ways of life."), their own clergy (those

task it is to preach the "truth" as revealed by the high priests), and

own priesthood (those who pass down to the masses their latest ruminations
in naturalistic thought).

One of the "high priests" of evolution is Harvard professor of zoology,
Stephen Jay Gould. Like other leaders of the Darwinian faith, Gould has
taken special pains to assure the masses that evolution is only about
science, that science and religion function in two separate domains, and
that there should be no conflict between the two-as long as religion stays
within its proper realm. Problems arise only when Christian

who don't understand science, try to make science fit their personal
theologies. Writing in the August 21 issue of Time Magazine, Gould
reasserted this doctrine: "No scientific theory, including evolution, can
pose any threat to religion-for these two great tools of human

operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally separate
realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of the natural

religion as a search for spiritual meaning and ethical values."

Many religious leaders have bought the ruse. However, as is so often the
case, those with the most the lose are usually the ones who take the

to become the best informed. Conservative Christians have discovered that
while science may be neutral on religious issues, Darwinism is not. The

conflict is between two equally religious belief systems. Darwinists,
however, with assistance from misguided media, have been astonishingly
successful at painting the issue as one of a small group of ignorant
fundamentalists pitting their outdated biblical myths against the studied
results of empirical science. Thus, by making it appear to be

Darwinism can appear to be no threat to religion and by making it appear

most churchgoers that there exists no conflict between Christianity and
evolution, Darwinists have effectively mollified the opposition and have
been free to rob the store.

Though the date of the Kansas Board of Education's rather insignificant
decision still rings loudly through the propaganda mills of the media,
another date, June 25, 1999, will eventually ring louder, I believe.

an editorial in the magazine Science, the frontispiece of the prestigious
National Association for the Advancement of Science, Stephen Jay Gould
launched a direct attack on religion thereby exposing the true religious
nature of Darwinism. After quoting Psalm 8 "Thou has made him a little

than the angels...thou madest him to have dominion...thou has put all

under his feet." Gould went on to state, "Darwin removed this keystone of
false comfort more than a century ago, but many people still believe that
they cannot navigate this vale of tears without such a crutch." Ending the
article, Gould admonished his readers, "Let us praise this evolutionary
nexus, a far more stately mansion for the human soul than any pretty or
parochial comfort ever conjured by our swollen neurology to obscure the
source of our physical being, or to deny the natural substrate for our
separate and complementary spiritual quest."

Here Gould has gone much farther than the occasional witty jabs of fellow
high priest, Richard Dawkins ("Evolution has made it possible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist") or the late Carl Sagan, who, writing in
the introduction of Stephen Hawkings book, A Brief History of Time,

naturalistic evolution leaves "nothing for a creator to do." Gould has
proposed to substitute for Christianity and other religions, "a far more
stately mansion for the human soul...."

The question that confronts us and is the focus of the remainder of this
essay is: Why did Professor Gould choose this hour to break with

tenuous accommodation with religion? Why did Gould abandon a successful
strategy that has allowed Darwinists to co-opt America's educational
institutions while good people slept? Gould is a master tactician and

the timing and wording of his editorial were not accidental. Furthermore,
from letters to the editor of Science, the immediate reaction of

to his epiphany was outrage. What does Gould hope to gain by what amounts

an open admission of the religious foundation of Darwinism, a betrayal of

secret that has been well-kept for decades?

One reason why Gould may have departed from the ruse of accommodation with
religion is Darwinists' perceived loss of control of the scientific and
educational world. Three events have come together lately to make this
possible. First, deep from within the biological sciences there has arisen

group of scientists who are promoting intelligent design (ID), the concept
that a intelligent agency was involved in some stages of life's origin and
dispersal. Drawing from recent advances in molecular biology and

theory, the ID theorists have come to recognize that purely naturalistic
evolution cannot possibly explain every step in the emergence of living
organisms. The discovery of minimum irreducible complexity in

structures utterly falsifies the foundational premise of Darwin's theory,
namely that biological organisms arise through gradual accumulation of

mutational changes. Furthermore, there is no known source of information
apart from intelligent design. Darwinists have been unable to imagine how
the immense information content of the highly specified DNA genetic code
might have arisen by chance, let alone design a scientific experiment and
collect data to explain it.

So far, the ID scientists have resisted attempts by Darwinists to silence
them. Vilification has not worked. Marginalization has not worked because
many of the IDers are biological scientists who actually do the research.
Attempts to stereotype them as fundamentalists seeking to promote biblical
creation stories, which may play well with the media and others

to Darwinism, have served to radicalize the ID scientists.

Second, with the breakup of the iron curtain and the parting of the bamboo
curtain, the biological sciences are enjoying a global renaissance of

Biological scientists in Asia, particularly China, do not hold blind
allegiance to Darwin as do their colleagues in the West. They seem

to requiring the theory to fit the data rather than making the data fit

theory. Hostilities with American Darwinists during a recent biological
conference held in China prompted one Chinese scientist to remark, "In

we can question Darwin but we can't question the government; in America,

can question the government but you can't question Darwin."

Third, though they nearly completely control educational institutions from
kindergarten through graduate school and virtually monopolize all forms of
the media, Darwinists have discovered through recent polls that fewer than
ten percent of Americans believe in the totally random, unsupervised,
impersonal, godless origin-of-life story promoted by the Darwinists. Many
more Americans believe in some form of evolution directed by a

agency. Fully half of Americans don't believe in macro-evolution at all.
Seven of ten Americans think evolution should be taught along with the
scientific evidence that does not support evolution. Obviously attempts to
indoctrinate American school children into a Darwinistic view of life have
not been as successful as was hoped.

Another reason why professor Gould may have departed from the Darwinist

of accommodation with religion is a growing suspicion of the underlying
source of violence in our schools and our society. The lure of Darwinism

in its promise of unfettered licentiousness but its curse is
purposelessness. Darwinists claim there is no God (therefore there is no
accountability for our actions) and we are an accidental coming together

molecules on an insignificant planet near a minor star in just another
galaxy (life has no purpose). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to
recognize the volatility of the mixture. Combining licentiousness with
purposelessness for the disturbed mind is like touching an open flame to
gasoline. In his Science editorial, Pastor Gould wrote, "Evolution

the human spirit." With no accountability for our actions, evolution
liberates the totalitarian, the despot, the "dog-eat-dog" capitalist, the
child molester, and others who find their liberties in exploiting the

Officials charged with explaining the "why" of the recent high school mass
killings have been troubled by the "where" the killings took place. The

of the Old West" tends to reign in the black communities and ghettos of

inner cities where students arm themselves for protection, but these

occurred in the sanitized education factories of prosperous white suburbs.

The perpetrators were troubled, yes, but bright-that is, bright enough to
make the connect. If there is no purpose, if there is no accountability,

there is no way out of the pain and emptiness of life, then why not

the license and exit in a towering ball of flame. The Littleton killers
committed suicide. A Gallup poll of teenagers who had considered or tried

commit suicide found that almost half (41 percent) cited depression or
feeling worthless as the reason.

After having smeared our television screens with his heinous murders,
Atlanta's Mark Barton allowed police to corner him and then committed his
"coup de grace." Barton left behind letters describing the unbearable pain
in his life and his utter hopelessness. Memories of Milwaukee serial

Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only killed but ate his victims, are now fading.
However, in a Dateline NBC program that aired in 1994, Dahmer's father had
this to say. "If you don't-if a person doesn't think that there is a God

be accountable to, then-then what's-what's the point of-of trying to

your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought
anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all

came from the slime. When we-when we died, you know, that was it, there is
nothing....." Men hunt and kill anim