Defanging The Atheist Tiger - Volume Three

Audio Lectures by Father Thomas Hopko - The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia

Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias  - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.

 "Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961.

Just Audio that may be downloaded for Ipod or any other device.

Jan 23, 2010

Reflections on the Life and Work of Charles Darwin Fr. Tom continues his series on Darwin and Christianity. This is part 2.

53:47

I have to admit that Father Tom has made me think. He has humanized Charles Darwin a little for me, made me more aware of his pathos. However, I have a couple points of departure.

Point One:

I'm sure, that Father Tom has overstated his case, seeking to make Charles Darwin sympathetic as a human being, as a man, as a scientist, as a father, son and all the rest. If it serves no purpose to demonize Darwin, then it is equally wrong to try to make of him some sort of "benign secular saint." Fr Tom's statement that Darwin was an honest man who "could not lie" is way over the top and I'm sure he didn't mean that literally. I see in Father Tom's presentation a "romanticizing of Darwin" as that statement denotes.  I have to say that I think a huge portion of evidence Darwin catalogued, categorized and presented is true. And there is the certain sense that Darwin was an "observer" simply trying to make sense of what he was observing. 

Father Tom speaks of Darwin's work making him sick, not bringing him peace, making him feel as if he were committing murder. He paints him as a victim of sorts and ascribes to him the highest motives and unreasonable honesty. I for one have always looked to accept what is true and the degree to which Darwin exposed things that are true, I have no contention. Father Tom paints him as a "gentle man, an honest man, not a fighter" and so on.  I see him rather as a privileged weak man, unwilling to engage. I see him as a man who could be and was easily manipulated.  I would not be at all surprised to discover that Darwin finally deciding to present a paper about his findings with Alfred Russel Wallace was a manipulation. Wallace wrote him a letter, outlining his similar findings, placing Darwin in a position of "publish or be left behind." No one could argue that Huxley didn't have an agenda, and that Huxley and Darwin were good friends.  I can imagine the years ticking by with Huxley laying in wait for the "evidence" Darwin owned, and growing very impatient. That's the skeptic in me speaking and I am skeptical, very skeptical of all science, just as I am skeptical, very skeptical of all philosophy and theology, even theology purported to be "sacred." I think the only time I've ever been a sponge is in the presence of the New Testament. At the same time I am not closed to truthful scientific examination, study, observation. Now when we get to unproved scientific hypothesis, I am and will continue to be skeptical.

Point Two:

Let us talk about Christian love for a moment: 

Father Tom's suggestion that our "christian" reaction to Charles Darwin should be from a base of love, and that I should try to understand him, from a basis of love. I am more than unconvinced. Even though what Father Tom says on the surface is true, at least part of it, anyway, I know we have a very different comprehension of what that love means, and how it is internalized and expressed. That idea of non-discriminating love, holds no truth in my heart, and I think it isn't scriptural as well. Rather God is Love and True Love is very discriminating, as it has to be, to operated for the good of the person or thing that is the object of that love.  It is only the wisdom born of true love that makes discrimination a good word. True love never becomes lazy, nor does it fit into a formulaic straight jacket. Rather, the expression of LOVE is the dedication to use the full range of human emotions coupled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit for witness and action for the good. True Love acts synergisticly, not by formulaic reasoning. True Love is alive and not philosophy, organic and not mechanical, of the full range of human emotions not limited to some Ikon of gentle sweetness. I think the confusion of the word Meekness, with the word Sweetness is one of the most flagrant misconceptions of religionists and has heretics and cultists walking around with affectations of gentleness and sweetness, whose veneer is pierced in a heartbeat.  

If I had been given the opportunity to know Darwin, in person (there is the key) in person, I would have enjoyed engaging him, coaxing him into telling about himself and his work.  I hide the fact that I'm a priest in everyday society. I walk my dogs in old clothes and smoke a pipe. I can't go for a walk with my dogs that I don't have some stranger engage me in conversation that often times turns very serious. So yes, in person I would have engaged Darwin, like I've engaged many wounded by the world Darwin helped create. I also would have challenged him, encouraged him, questioned him, affirmed him . . . whatever the particular topic at hand would have required. To me this idea of summoning up sympathy for a figure of "secular history" is . . . well . . . silly.  I'm reminded of my Lutheran days in the early 1970s. An interim pastor preached a sermon on Sunday morning, on loving our enemies and then proceeded to pray in an arrogant fashion, clothed in great pious humility, for the soul of Adolph Hitler, before a congregation that contained at least one wounded warrior who had fought Hitler's army and an elderly couple who had lost two sons in the war, and another couple who were converted Jews. It was years before the latter entered a church again. For them, that pastor had confirmed everything they feared Lutheranism was. The act was putrid. 

In the ancient book of Enoch, which in the days of the apostles was accepted as "scripture," there is the story of the demons appealing to Enoch to go to the Lord and plead their case.  Enoch did so and the Lord told him to return to them and tell them that it was unfitting that a human being should pray for angels, that it had been their job to pray for humans, but they had failed and for them there is no hope.  Please understand that a human being may become nothing but a demonic force and I'm not speaking of demonic possession, but just as the angels have the capacity to choose evil and become demonic, so do humans.  Offering prayers for those who have become a demonic force, like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, I say, "we do not pray."  Whether Darwin deserves our prayers? I'm not willing to make a judgement. But it is a stretch for me to assume or believe that I must make a judgement.  If Father Tom is comfortable with his judgement, I will not criticize that, but when he states that "according to his judgement" we should ALL view Darwin with sympathy and offer prayers for him, I reject that.  

Saint John the Beloved taught that there were limitations on that for which we pray. All the apostles taught that prayer was to be according to God's will, and that asking "amiss" was tantamount to taking the Lord's name in vain. 1 John 4:13ff "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.  And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.  If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."  Jeremiah 7:16 & 14: 11& 12. There are limitations upon that which we should pray.

Father Tom said, "We have to love everyone and everything without qualification. That's what Christians do. That's how Christians are. That's how God is, we believe. God is always for the truth, and God is truth. Christ is The Truth, and it's the truth that makes us free, that gives us peace, troubles us deeply first" . . . "Our Lord taught us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, to treat them with respect, to hear what they have to say."  Having spend time showing love to some of the people that society throws away and says are the least lovable, the sub-humans according to them, and least worthy, in the state's disciplinary prison, this little sweet sophism is not so much offensive as it is simply naive. This idea of loving without qualification and that love requires, "showing respect, and listening" is formulaic and fails to acknowledge that even anger can be an expression of love. Love is intelligent; we are not called to ignorant non-discrimination but rather to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit so that Christian Love is creative and not formulaic, healing and not debilitating and can be either aggressive or passive, active or inactive, spoken or silent, kind or rebuke, tender or harsh, soliciting or off putting, mild mannered or brusque; there are times that the greatest act of love is a hug or a slap, sympathy or censure. Love doesn't have a one size fits all expression for everyone regardless of who they are or what they are doing.

God's Mercy acts upon the intelligence I've outlined. So I have never had a problem praying God's mercy, which is everlasting, upon anyone. But I do not have to hold any "emotion" to do this. I don't have to hold any sympathy past the fact that we are all human, all fail, all sin, etc. In some instances it is simply an expression of humility to place what we cannot know in God's hands. So yes, certainly I would have no trouble praying God's mercy upon anyone, because in the reality of our non-dualism, even Satan and the demons live in God's mercy, even when that mercy is judgement. And just as God's love may have myriad expressions, some that are terrible, so God's mercy is the same. When I pray God's mercy upon someone I have made no judgement, neither affirmed nor denied what they teach or believe. 

Father Tom speaks rightly about the kinds of things that drive people from The Faith. I would like to suggest to him yet one more thing. That is, the supplanting of mere sweet and gentle pacifism for the myriad expressions of God's love and mercy. Soldiers and policemen struggle with this simplistic sophism; this reduction of the great power of God's love, where God's love is painted as an effeminate pacifism. Even young men, who hold in the goodness of their hearts the protection of their families find this truncated explication of God's love and our requirement to follow it, off putting.  For me, it would be okay if the soldier, the father, the mother, the police officer were forced to struggle with it, and if it were a horrible stumbling block for their faith, if only it were true! What we are not allowed, is anger that turns to malice, that is held as part of our emotional/spiritual baggage, and the resultant bitterness that can quite easily cause us to destroy our health and shorten our lives. It is difficult for people to grasp for instance that my hatred of Islam is limited to its demonic distortions and does not extend to even a single Muslim. Or that my hatred of heresies, does not extend to a single heretic. My hatred of the distortions of Darwinism and modern Evolution theories, does not extent to Darwin or any of it proponents. What I hate in each is the "distortions" of TRUTH.

Christian love on a nitty-gritty level: 

If a man is about to commit rape, or harm an innocent and you shoot him, you have committed a loving act. You have kept him from harming himself further by harming others. You have stopped him from adding yet another horrible sin to the weight of his soul. Now do not twist what I am saying. I am not talking about some sort of preemptive judgement. I'm talking about the rescue of a person being attacked. 

That act of shooting him might very well be the greatest kindness and love he has experienced so far in his life. I've met many truly dangerous men (and a few women) who have testified to this very thing, some who had reformed, some who recognized being stopped as a kindness, knowing full well that if they were released they would return to their destructive life. This is the most dangerous place of the outer reaches of Christian Love, but it has corollaries in our every day. The danger is hypocrisy parading as right motive. We have to be very careful here. Lao Tae Tsu said, "When you are called upon to chop wood for the Master, you had better be very precise, you risk the danger of wounding your hands and losing your life." In fact, you court the danger of becoming the very thing you battle. One of my closest friends, who was the most arrogant person I have ever known, who buried his arrogance in religious sweetness, who as that oh-so-sweet person had committed horrible and horrific crimes, said to me years after confession, reform/reformation and regaining his humanity, "Father, when I first met you, I thought you were the most arrogant man I had ever met in my life. No person I ever met in my life angered me like you angered me. I instantly hated your guts."  Why was his reaction to me so visceral?  Becuase I refused any conversation with him where I was not attacking the lies upon which he had based his life. I was NOT kind or gentle, but I was most loving.  He said, "I was hell bent that I had to prove you wrong."  You see, I held no sympathy for him, no sentimentality, no care to understand the sophisticated lies he had learned in his cult, and no motive to gather why he had been predisposed to accept the lies of his cult. I engaged him with greater arrogance than he could muster, and it takes love to truly engage someone, and use whatever tools are needed. But NOTHING about it was emotional except his hatred and my willingness to stand and engage. 

Let us be frank. If a Jihadist is carrying a bomb to kill tens, or hundreds, or thousands, and we stop him, by whatever necessary means, before he can carryout his hellish deed our action is not only loving toward his victims, but loving toward him as well, since we have greatly reduced his sinful burden.  As a Retired Prison Chaplain I am speaking from experience. If the victimizer survives the act of being stopped, it holds the possibility of creating great healing. What could be more loving?  It is a direct corollary to the criminal scientist in East Anglia who were falsifying data, trying by fraud to convince the world of Global Warming. The act of exposing them was hateful to them, but an act of love. And Father Tom has it absolutely right on this point, truth and love cannot be separated. 

We cannot paint with sinfulness every violent action and paint with virtue every mild action, or non-action. The German citizenry committed a massive sin by mild action and non-action in the face of Hitler's reign of hell.  We cannot paint with sinfulness every harsh sounding word and imbue with grace every mild word or silence. We cannot say that it was right for Jesus to take up a whip and drive the money changers from the temple, because it was his father's house and the Holy Spirit dwelt their and always paint with sinfulness the use of violence, now. Yes violence is most often times used for oppression and evil, but it is a tool of humanity and a tool of the individual human, and may also be used "discriminately" for the good. This is so or we cannot take seriously the fact that humans are temples of the holy spirit, also. Saint Paul said, "Know ye not that ye are temples of the Holy Spirit?" Was he speaking to those "baptized" with the Holy Spirit only? Or was he cognizant of the fact that for the human to have cognition, he IS body, soul and Holy Spirit. Every neglect, every good or evil thing we do to those in our sphere, in our daily lives, family, friend or stranger, we do, not "as if unto the Lord," but actually unto the Lord. David took another man's wife and planned her husband's murder and carried the murder out!  What sense would his confession make as he prayed to the Lord, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I am conscious of mine iniquity; and my sin is continually before me. Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee: that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged."  Vis a Vis our actions, ultimately, the outcome, the fruit of our actions, not the nature of the actions viewed in false categories of "violent or not violent" "harsh or mild" but the actions themselves, whether we coddle or withstand, speak with gentle sweetness or heart cutting sharpness, will be the witness (= μαρτυρέω - martureō) of who we have become.  Have our actions caused "healing"?  Sometimes part of healing therapy is being cut open and wounded. The bottom line about "loving our enemies" is that even that can be religious sickness, when a prideful masochism is substituted for the intelligent (synergistic) working of the Holy Spirit.

Father Tom's shallow explication of Christian love, I think flows from a protected life. And I think also from a religious sickness, since it is religious language we all know, have all heard thousands of times in our lives.  I would bet money that he hasn't had a hit ordered for his life, hasn't experience churches in his care being torched and burned to the ground, or being physically attacked for sharing the Gospel without compromise.  Fanciful as it may sound I've endured all that. It is only God's mercy that I've been blessed with an over active guardian angel.  Religious people who live protected lives come to view politeness and good manners as meekness and humility. Some of us have endured hard things and have come to place little stock in the outward appearance of a gentle smile or effete manners. My Orthodox mentor and confessor, Great Schema Archimandrite Damian (Hart) penned the following lines that I think are pertinent, "In addition to patience, we must learn not to judge. People are seldom as good at that as they think, and not always anxious to learn better. But the Lord may have something worldly He wants us to do, and we should always be ready to learn that or to tolerate it in others. These things cannot be explained; we must just take them as He sends them. Life is not meaningless just because we do not understand it. And our Orthodox Faith is not confused just because our reason cannot hold it together for us."  In the trenches, love takes some tough forms, but to judge it and assume it is not love would be foolish indeed.   

Knowing our enemy:

Another Sophism - Father Tom offers the idea that we cannot know anyone we are not willing to first love.

Really? Just as I know Our Lord and love him, I know Satan and hold no feelings for him whatsoever, but hate his every deception; I agree with Father Tom that we should know our enemies, I disagree that I need "feel" anything for them. Love that is real love is in acting always by the leading of the Holy Spirit toward what is good and right for the person you are "showing" love, demonstrating love, as Father Tom might say in his odd little speech patterns, "for the person you are Doing love."  And I'm speaking in a concrete way. For instance, I had the misfortune years ago to meet in person Anton Lavey the founder of the American Satanism movement. I quickly read his book The Satanic Bible. Why? Because I needed the knowledge it taught to be able to speak intelligently to Satanist caught in Lavey's trap.  What would be the most loving thing I could do vis a vis Anton Levey, other than tell the truth about him and save as many influenced by him as possible. What sentimentality was needed to show this love for Lavey and his victims?  None. Love is more intelligent than that.

The question vis a vis Charles Darwin is was his work evil? Was he evil? Was the result of his work evil? I believe in point of fact this is what Father Tom is asking and answering. He is saying in effect, it was a mixed bag. Absolutely, this is correct and we don't have to romanticize or engage in sympathy or sentimentality to come to this objective conclusion.  It would be as ignorant to say that Darwin was "unusually evil" as it would be to say that Einstein was "unusually evil" because the work of both men has been used by others for good and for ill. I think history shows that both men were just fallen, just unredeemed.  Darwin's major error in my estimation and my point of departure with him, was that he drew unfounded conclusions and plastered them across his work. Others do so in spades. To this day, there is no proof that mutations "strengthen" a species. It is my opinion that inside the gene pool of any particular species is the possibility of "adaptation" to extremes of climate and so on, but these pre-programed possibilities of adaptation do not represent "mutations."  All one has to do to grasp what I'm saying is look at the extremely wide gene pool that is the canine. 

Here is how Darwinism challenged me as a child:

We were taught evolution in elementary school, with the simplistic books and fanciful drawings that purported to explain life and life's creatures. 

I remembered one part of the theory equated the size of an animal's brain with their capacity for intelligence and thus their capacity for survival. We still see this inference crop up in the postulating of Evolution today. I remember walking home from school and looking at our family dog lying lazily in the front yard. He was part Great Dane. It happened my aunt was staying with us and she had a pair of tiny Chihuahuas. Faced with the theory that the size of the brain governed intelligence I set about by experiment testing the dogs' reasoning, cunning and intelligence. Quickly, with my preconceived prejudice, I decided that something else governed the intelligence of the dog, since there was no appreciable difference between the tiny seven pound dog with the tiny brain, and the huge dog who weighed more than ten times that, who brain was proportionally larger.  My conclusion was that the intelligence of the dog was governed by the spirit of the dog not the size of its brain. As silly and simplistic as this may sound, decades of living have only reinforced this knowledge in me. Why would I come to such a conclusion? Well for one it was obvious and two my parents and family had an understanding and appreciation for the idea that a dog was a dog and not a cat or a bird. That may sound silly but it comes with the understanding that the dog comes with a God given spirit that includes dog intelligence.  I understood that dogs did not function merely on instinct but also had the reasoning power of a dog. I watched them dream. I saw them reason and anticipate. I saw them express enthusiasm, boredom, pleasure and anger. I witnessed them experience jealousy and satisfaction. All in a doggy paradigm, operating inside the parameters of the spirit of a dog. As simplistic as this sounds, it is true you know. Am I to believe that a great anaconda is more cunning than a small rattle snake? Or that a dinosaur held more intelligence than a lizard or chicken. Was a Mammoth or Mastodon more cleaver than an Elephant?

Here is an eight year old Charles Darwin already celebrating what his Grandfather was teaching him. 

Knowing the experience of my youthful conclusions I was struck by something Fr Tom said that I didn't previously know. Although I read Darwin's most famous work, I've really never read anything about Darwin more than the story of his trip on the Beagle. I wasn't interested in his life because I knew he was part of the boring British non-royal wealthy. However, I was shocked to learn that Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin was an evolutionist.  I did a little quick research and discovered that Erasmus Darwin was quite busy and was part of the most decadent era of British society.

Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's father's father - a physician and evolutionist. When a portrait painter of the era is left with the options of painting the person as "fat" then they were morbidly obese in real life. Darwin's Father Robert weighed over 300 pounds. Charles himself, if not for chronic stomach problem would have been as obese. His father and his grand father were out and about in the world, they were medical doctors and at least they had their trade.  Charles was trained for nothing, held no skills, and having married an extremely wealthy woman and his father having huge wealth, he lived a very indolent lifestyle 

This information about Erasmus Darwin helped me to understand the predisposition of Charles.  Being a naturalist by disposition, a lover of all things of nature, why would he NOT press upon it the paradigm he had heard expressed as a plausible theory. It actually lessened my view of Charles a bit, since at least before I could believe he was imaginative and produced a mythology.  Rather he did the mundane task of trying to force his collection of specimens into the paradigm he already possessed.

That period of exploration and discovery is a very interesting period of human history. Because of the advances in technology that were already on the horizon, biology, chemistry and the like had to take a quantum leap forward as well. But like all things, where there is something real there is something counterfeit. I've said for the last fifteen years that my one regret has been not to know more about botany and zoology, since the immense variety of plants and animals has become more interesting to me with each passing year.  I find myself photographing them almost every day. The awesome variety of "creatures" living upon this planet is far more vast than most people realize. We live lives these days too insulated from nature. In Darwin's day, even the wealthy could not escape the out of doors the way most common people do today. I've been told by a local naturalist that within a five mile circle from my own home, (my walking territory) there are more than three hundred variety of a single type of little wild flower. I began to notice the differences, as some bloomed earlier and later, etc. But all season many varieties of the same flower are in bloom on the grassy planes. Animals and plants are still being discovered. This subject should be of great interest to all of us. 

Just as a side note let us digress for a moment into the "intelligence" of species:

In the introduction to the series of articles "Defanging The Atheist Tiger - Volume One" we saw the amazing feat of a tiny organism which could motivate via the intelligent operation of a literal (please read that word literal, LITERALLY)  . . . via the intelligent operation of a literal rotary MOTOR, capable of nearly one-hundred thousand rotations per minute, capable of reversing direction in one quarter of a turn - one quarter of one revolution.  Any engineer will tell you "impossible" yet that is the observed . . . . let us say it "existential" record.  Observable, repeatable, acknowledged by even the most ardent critic who says that miracle of design isn't designed at all.  Yet to its function, which is observable, which is a miracle of design or could not exists . . . to its function the most ardent critic admits is "functions" just as I state.  They dismiss the "design" as if such sophistication falls from the primordial ooze in tact and complex. Ridiculous! Dishonest! and Stupid!  That tiny intelligence by repeatable experimentation is proved to be capable of "knowingly" moving towards the environment favorable for its living and away from environment favorable for its death.  Remember when we are speaking of "survival" we ARE speaking about life and death. 

Here is a similar story of life and death, by "team players." But before we go there let us talk of the intelligence of creatures.

If you introduce a foreign speck into the simplest, smallest single cell, which is so primitive as to have no distinguishing nuclei, merely a glob of protoplasm surrounded by the most ephemeral ectoplasm, that life will have the sense to expel the foreign substance to survive. Irradiate the cell, place the speck in the cell and gone with the life of the cell is the intelligence of the cell. You say, "Of course! That's so obvious it is stupid." Yet, all the same chemicals remain, yet it lacks intelligence. The point being that even the most primitive cell, operates upon the spirit/intelligence of the cell. As it is ensouled it holds the information to be itself and to act with all its properties. One might even say, with all its faculties. When the same chemicals are un-souled, all intelligence is absent. We need to get to this basic understanding, "ensouled" and "unsouled." 

As a native to Georgia, I'm intimately familiar with the cunning roach bug, which when it senses that you have noticed it will at first freeze, hoping you are not really cognizant of it. But the split second you move toward it is goes into full retreat, and if you close-in too fast it will double back, zig zag, run in circles, and shame an NFL quarterback with its evasive nimbleness. The moment it thinks it is hidden it again immediately freezes. Don't think that I am anthropomorphizing a roach. I've had too many encounters over the decades to mistake its cunning evasiveness for anything other than what it is. It operates upon the intelligence of the roach. I can't tell any difference in the relative cunning of the small German roach and the massive Palmetto Bug, both equally cunning and agile.

The symbiotic and synergistic function of living organisms is a fascinating subject. The highest life forms seem biologically dependent upon the intelligent service of autonomous intelligent "helpers."  What?  Let us say it again. The highest life forms seem biologically dependent upon the intelligent service of autonomous intelligent LOWER "helpers." 

The Madison Avenue propagandists have been conditioning you to accept this. We all know that we need helpful life forms in our digestive tract or we cannot survive.  The Greek Yogurt companies are making a fortune on this knowledge at the moment. 

Phillips' Colon Health Probiotic Caps naturally rebalance your digestive system and promote regularity, with a proprietary blend of 3 of the most beneficial strains of good bacteria*:

Lactobacillus gasseri - To support nutrient absorption and lactose digestion
Bifidobacterium bifidum - To help guard against occasional intestinal disturbances
Bifidobacterium longum - To support digestive and immune health. These bacteria help naturally defend against occasional digestive upsets

Who trained the helpers and convinced them that helping was their roll?  Lewis Thomas writing in the New England Journal of Medicine in the early seventies gives an example of what I'm suggesting, "the protozoan Myxotricha paradoxa, which inhabits the inner reaches of the digestive track of Australian termites." He was speaking of the need to completely understand at least one "species" before venturing into manipulation of D.N.A. - His caution was prophetic as the decade later discovery of "retroviruses" proved. "It is not as though we would be starting from scratch." He wrote, "We have a fair amount of information about this creature already -- not enough to understand him, of course, but enough to inform us that he means something, perhaps a great deal.  At first glance, he appears to be an ordinary, motile protozoan, (motile protozoan was what the little creature with the rotary motor is)  remarkable chiefly for the speed and directness with which he swims from place to place, engulfing fragments of wood finely chewed by his termite host.  In the termite ecosystem, an arrangement of Byzantine complexity, he stands at the epicenter. Without him, the wood, however finely chewed, would never get digested; he supplies the enzymes that break down cellulose to edible carbohydrate, leaving only the non-degradable lignin, which the termite then excretes in geometrically tiny pellets and uses as building blocks for the erection of arches and vaults in the termite nest. Without him here would be no termites, no farms of the fungi that are cultivated by termites and will grow nowhere else, and no conversion of dead trees to loam."  Then Thomas goes on to explain that what at first appears to be "flagellae" that so efficiently propelled the tiny creature to its work, under the electron microscope are discovered to be yet more autonomous creatures, "fully formed, perfect spirochetes that have attached themselves at regularly spaced intervals all over the surface of the protozoan." Further, he explains that the spirochetes could not attach to the protozoan without the help of yet another autonomous creature, that actually helps the Spirochetes to hang onto the protozoan. And in the full scheme of things occurring in the termites digestive track are yet more autonomous creatures, so tiny as to be viewed only by an electron microscope. All these tiny creatures operating upon the intelligence of their "species," all necessary for the single termite's existence and function. He explains further that each of these tiny creatures exist as discrete separate "creatures" with their own DNA! Thomas described it as a "complex and specialized ecosystem" which allows a single termite to digest food and live. But why would the phrase, "a microscopic cooperative society" be less appropriate?  But "ecosystem" has that nice "Earth Day" sound about it, denoting evolutionary biological function. But here and thousands of other examples "biological functions" seems to be based upon paraphrasing Lewis Thomas' words, "fully formed and perfect" little beings with their own being-ness, operating upon the intelligence of the creature they happen (or as I would say "were created") to be.   Darwin didn't have a clue of the complexity or intelligence of the world he viewed from the height of deep space, seeing only the shape of the mountain ranges, like us viewing the topography of a distant planet, unaware of the humanoid aunt that have a structured and intelligent society there,  unable to view the animals, as he peered into his primitive glass lens microscope.

Can anyone describe to me which happened first the evolution or the termite? Yet he could not exist without the protozoan. Then the evolution of the protozoan, which has to be there for the termite to survive but how did he survived until the termite evolved?  Or the evolution of the spirochetes, which have to be there to give the protozoan mobility or the protozoan, immobile in the termites cytoplasm? Well, wait that could not be because the termite would not survive. Or the other little creatures that have to be there to help anchor the spirochetes to the protozoan so the termite may survive?  I'm sorry, but my eyes glaze over at the overarching theories of evolution that continually dismiss the massive complexities and ignore some of the simple observable facts. This example being but a very simplistic one.

I hope that Father Tom gets to "Bathybius haeckelii" the pre-cell substance that Darwin's friend, British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, the militant atheist and liar, evangelist for Darwinism, supposedly discovered that was suppose to be the missing link between non-living and living matter. Oh, it all seemed so simple then.

Later Huxley admitted it was a 'mistake.'  Most skeptics have suspect a deliberate deception and hoax. But in any case it provided just the right "press" at the right time in the skeptical scientific circles of Darwin's day.  You see, I have to be conscious of the presence of the Great Liar, the constant deceiver, seeking the confusion and destruction of humankind. Darwinism initially flourished not upon his scientific observations, but rather upon the hoax or "mistake" of Thomas Henry Huxley, who conveniently providing the biological "missing link."  The cynicism of this actor matches his myriad children of the 21st century era. 

I also found it interesting that Darwin would write that his discoveries would cause a change in the picturing of the human psyche and thus alter the scientific basis of human psychology. Well, yea uh!   It certainly has done that, as the scientific model devolved into the view of the human in an extreme materialist model. Psychology was distorted by it and in the twentieth century became a monstrous means of "control" and oppression, used with vicious cynicism by the Secular Humanist elites. We don't have Darwin to blame for Eugenics, but we have Darwinism as one of the vehicles for its growth.  Little could Darwin have known of the dehumanizing of the Behaviorists, or the mythology of "recovered memory"and all the rest. More on this later, I'm sure.