This post is in response to an article that was written by GregJaye on Friday.
The videos and the movie (Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed) make excellent points about the absurdity of naturalism and the unfairness of the situation in the public institutions in our country. Another very good point I agree with is that what courts say is not necessarily true and we should not take it as such. (The same goes for the President, the Congress, etc.) However, I have three points of disagreement with Mr. Stein:
Stein falsely quotes the Constitution when he said, “we are guaranteed no established religion.” The Constitution only forbids that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” State governments are well within their rights to have established religions and the first amendment in fact forbids Congress from passing laws which would interfere with this right. Several of the original colonies had established religions (Maryland was the Catholic colony, Virginia was the Anglican Church colony, Massachusetts was the Puritan colony, etc.) and these continued after the drafting of the Constitution in 1787. There is certainly nothing unconstitutional (but see my next point) with (states) having an “established religion”. The real point is that naturalism is a dangerous and false religious belief.
Secondly, Stein seems to erroneously claim that ID advocates are forbidden from teaching their beliefs. This simply isn’t true. That they may be expelled from institutions because of their beliefs is not a violation of any constitutional or God-given right. They can still continue their intellectual pursuits with another institution, such as Answers in Genesis. But these organizations are not funded by taxpayer’s money as the state institutions are. So the real issue is not “freedom of speech” or “academic freedom”, but it is a money issue. It is not right to force people to pay for the propagation of any set of teachings, except what God has ordained. The right to keep one’s own property (including all of ones’ wages) is an absolute right. If we reject this idea at any point other than what God directs, then the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” no longer means anything. It doesn’t matter how many cures of diseases that are found by the state institutions, or how many deaths are prevented by such discoveries. Private institutions are more efficient and probably would have found all of these cures anyway, but even if they wouldn’t have, theft by the government is wrong and the ends do not justify the means. Governments are established by God and He has made provision that governments do have the right to use taxpayer’s money to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1-7). It is also reasonable that governments can take money that citizens pay voluntarily in exchange for services (i.e. gas taxes for building and maintaining roads and postage for mail), but even this should be limited as much as possible. I do not advocate taxpayer’s money being used to fund ID “indoctrination”, but it shouldn’t be used to fund the teaching of naturalism either.
Thirdly, the comparison of the Heliocentrists (people who believed that the earth revolves around the Sun like Galileo) to the ID (Intelligent Design) advocates of today is a poor one. Psalm 93:1, Isaiah 14:7 and many other passages clearly teach that the earth does not move (and therefore does not rotate or revolve around the Sun). There is no real scientific evidence that contradicts geocentricity, and this is a largely philosophical, as opposed to a scientific topic. The rejection of an earth-centered universe has lead to the decline of the idea that the earth has a special place in the universe and that Christ’s coming to earth and dying is a special event. Like those who try to believe in both evolution and the Bible, one must water-down the scriptures in order to accept both Copernicanism and the Bible.
http://www.geocentricity.com/
Someone left a comment on Gregjaye’s post and I will comment on this next week, Lord willing.
The videos and the movie (Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed) make excellent points about the absurdity of naturalism and the unfairness of the situation in the public institutions in our country. Another very good point I agree with is that what courts say is not necessarily true and we should not take it as such. (The same goes for the President, the Congress, etc.) However, I have three points of disagreement with Mr. Stein:
Stein falsely quotes the Constitution when he said, “we are guaranteed no established religion.” The Constitution only forbids that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” State governments are well within their rights to have established religions and the first amendment in fact forbids Congress from passing laws which would interfere with this right. Several of the original colonies had established religions (Maryland was the Catholic colony, Virginia was the Anglican Church colony, Massachusetts was the Puritan colony, etc.) and these continued after the drafting of the Constitution in 1787. There is certainly nothing unconstitutional (but see my next point) with (states) having an “established religion”. The real point is that naturalism is a dangerous and false religious belief.
Secondly, Stein seems to erroneously claim that ID advocates are forbidden from teaching their beliefs. This simply isn’t true. That they may be expelled from institutions because of their beliefs is not a violation of any constitutional or God-given right. They can still continue their intellectual pursuits with another institution, such as Answers in Genesis. But these organizations are not funded by taxpayer’s money as the state institutions are. So the real issue is not “freedom of speech” or “academic freedom”, but it is a money issue. It is not right to force people to pay for the propagation of any set of teachings, except what God has ordained. The right to keep one’s own property (including all of ones’ wages) is an absolute right. If we reject this idea at any point other than what God directs, then the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” no longer means anything. It doesn’t matter how many cures of diseases that are found by the state institutions, or how many deaths are prevented by such discoveries. Private institutions are more efficient and probably would have found all of these cures anyway, but even if they wouldn’t have, theft by the government is wrong and the ends do not justify the means. Governments are established by God and He has made provision that governments do have the right to use taxpayer’s money to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1-7). It is also reasonable that governments can take money that citizens pay voluntarily in exchange for services (i.e. gas taxes for building and maintaining roads and postage for mail), but even this should be limited as much as possible. I do not advocate taxpayer’s money being used to fund ID “indoctrination”, but it shouldn’t be used to fund the teaching of naturalism either.
Thirdly, the comparison of the Heliocentrists (people who believed that the earth revolves around the Sun like Galileo) to the ID (Intelligent Design) advocates of today is a poor one. Psalm 93:1, Isaiah 14:7 and many other passages clearly teach that the earth does not move (and therefore does not rotate or revolve around the Sun). There is no real scientific evidence that contradicts geocentricity, and this is a largely philosophical, as opposed to a scientific topic. The rejection of an earth-centered universe has lead to the decline of the idea that the earth has a special place in the universe and that Christ’s coming to earth and dying is a special event. Like those who try to believe in both evolution and the Bible, one must water-down the scriptures in order to accept both Copernicanism and the Bible.
http://www.geocentricity.com/
Someone left a comment on Gregjaye’s post and I will comment on this next week, Lord willing.
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