Recovering Our Christian Heritage: Defanging the Athiest Tiger

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.

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Jun 05, 2010

Darwin and Christianity - Part 11: Death

In this episode on the Darwinian Revolution and the relationship between natural science and Christian theology, Fr. Thomas Hopko reflects on the issue of death.

I don't feel particularly uncomfortable with being provoked at the early content of this video since Father Tom said clearly that his intention was to be provocative. Goal accomplished. The later part when he gets into the necessity of "studying death" - that is truly awesome.

However, Father Tom starts out with his usual framing the motivation, intent and content of this lecture and as usual punches the fact that “I don't have any answers,” then admitting that he knows very little about natural science.

It is amazing to me, that I found/find Orthodox Sacred Theology amazingly freeing, literally mind awakening, wisdom producing and enlightening. I was always amazed at the effect coming to Orthodoxy seemed to have on some of the inmates in my care. The process would literally raise their I.Q. Something I suspected and so we began to test for it. Reading comprehension improved, reasoning abilities improved. Conversation became, in so many cases, deep. It is inside the non-bending structure of Orthodox Theology where the grasp of the Gospel “opens up” may be seen from myriad angles, yet the core healing reality is always visible and it sheds light on so many things. However, when we apply the word “orthodoxy” to any secular subject it has the exact opposite effect, it is mind numbing, ignorance producing, and blinding. Darwinism and/or some model of evolution is Secular Orthodoxy. It is mind numbing, ignorance producing and blinding. And it has great temple of worship where its mythology is pressed with huge three dimensional Ikon called “museums of natural science.”

I'm not a scientist and I won't even call myself a theologian, although both theology and science have been a life long interest and study. I am a human observer and skeptical critic of both science and theology. Now, when I say, “skeptical critic” I do not mean “cynical critic” which is something quite different. Cynicism dismisses, skepticism examines, postulates, entertains alternatives. In my opinion to not be skeptical and deligently examining everything that comes to us, is surrender; it is to surrender reason to someone else, and indeed sometimes to surrender morality and ethics to someone else as well.

I could say that I don't know a lot about natural science. But that would be false. I know the parameters of individual disciplines, and in most cases at least what may be comprehended without “initiation” into the particular science itself as a scientist. I'm not an automobile mechanic, but I know in detail how every system of an automobile works. I'm not an aircraft engineer but I know the basic laws of aerodynamics. I'm not an Archeologist or Anthropologist but I can look at the fossil record and make judgements. I can read the experts' reading of the fossil record. I can hear both the “orthodox” story of the fossil record and many other interpretations of the fossil record. I can see the fabrications of some of the fossil record vis a vis the public and academic presentation of the same. Because of that, when I go to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, I am not challenged by it or am I awed by it. Why? Because I understand what parts of the “show” are real and what parts are fantasy and wishful thinking. A less kind word is “lie” what parts of the presentation are simply a lie.

I was reassured to hear Father Tom quote someone else speaking of history and of Biblical texts, “we actually have a few small little islands of data in a massive torrential ocean of ignorance.” I touched on this my last comment about both biblical history and the general history of mankind. This is true. We are like aunts on the tip of a ballistic missile trying to understand the booster rockets that have already fallen away. And Father Tom confirmed that he wasn't just speaking of Biblical history but natural science as well saying, “what we know about natural science and history is, very little, every little really and we are trying to understand.” I took this “we” to mean mankind in general and I think that is what he was saying. I will return to this subject of all we don't know, can't know before the exercise is over I'm sure.

Father Tom says, “I cannot know everything about the science of the tree that is outside my window.” That is absolutely true. How that is true has not changed in a major way for two thousand year. The Apostle said speaking of God In Jesus Christ, “Who being the brightness of his (God's) glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power . . .” Christians believe this literally, this power of God's word which upholds all things. This is Christian ontology 101. And the complexity of the means by which that power is expressed, is a complexity beyond human comprehension – at present and may remain beyond human comprehension for all time. Speaking of the complexity of that expression one of the early Gnostics said, “If you could understand the power in a single block of wood, you would understand all the mysteries of the cosmos.” Another reports Jesus saying, “Cleave a rock and I am there.” I think we should accept truth no matter what the source and no matter where that truth is found. So yes, that Gnostic was right.

A physicists could write an entire thesis just on the complexity of that single small block of wood and know “something” of the power contained in it. Yet, he would remain almost totally ignorant of the power of that block of wood, in this little has changed in two thousand years. Natural science does give us an expanded view of that block of wood. It is a universe unto itself in a way, a complexity of molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic universes. If the block were about the size of a baseball, and you blew that image up to roughly the size of the earth, the atoms in that baseball would appear about the size of a marble. Picture if you can, that number of atoms in a baseball sized block of wood, the whole earth of nothing but bubbling little marbles, gazillions of them. If you took one of those marbles, blew that marble up to the size of any large stadium, the nucleus of that atom/marble would appear about the size of a grain of salt and all the orbiting particle (which are stepping in and out of this dimension) would not yet be visible. Stand with me for a moment by that grain of salt in that stadium and look around at all the emptiness. A globe the size of a stadium, a grain of salt in the middle of it means that each and every atom of that block of wood is many gazillions times empty space. It terms of matter and energy which are one, that block of wood is a mass of various sized energy fields, occupying empty space. In a real material way that block of wood composed of those empty atoms is simply empty space. Yet, there it is a block of wood in your hand. That all speaks to the mechanism that is that block of wood, how it functions as a complexity of energy. It does not yet give us understanding as to what provides or creates the energy present in that block of wood, we only confirmed that energy is present. And we have only touched on that portion of the wood's reality as an non-living block of wood. If we add the life force that make the tree alive, we have increased its complexity by many fold. So it isn't much of a statement of humility to say, “I cannot know everything about the science of the tree outside my window.” Because if you did understand every aspect of its physical reality and everything that science knows and can teach about it, you still do not know both the power that sustains it as a non-living block of wood, and that much less about the life force that makes it a living thing. All we would have discovered is “mechanisms of complexity” and not the source of it power to be a block of wood in BEING.

Here is the statement that really got me, and as usual Father Tom walks it away from himself at first, saying “there are people who say.” “There are things that we claim to be gnostic about. And certainly Charles Darwin and scientists claim there are certain things about the nature of things that we can say that we know.” All right so far. “And now-a-days most people would say that the theory of evolution, 'yea it's a theory but its a theory that anyone who has a brain and a right mind and looks at the data will believe as true.'” Really? “And they will even say 'there is no doubt about it, we know this now.' Certainly Dawkins would say, 'any scientist knows that there is some kind of evolutionary process going on.' In fact Theodosius Dobzhansky would say, 'Without some kind of theory of the evolution of life forms on the planet earth and the relationship and the variety of all the different kinds of plants and animals, and trees and beings that we know including then the human beings, nothing in science would make sense.' So we are trying to make sense of reality and I always like that sentence of Reinhold Neiber, one great protestant theologian in my youth said, That he was a Christian because Christianity made the most sense of the most facts. But facts are the things we think we really know.”

Yes, the earth is billions of years old, that is “probably” a fact. The number of billions we do not know, or if indeed it is really a billion years old, we don't really know. Father Tom says, “If you study reality and you do all the testing you can possibly do you come to the conclusion that the earth is not six thousand or ten thousand years old, its million, billions of years old.” I think that Father Tom has a biblical literalist or a Christian fundamentalist in mind when he asserts this with force. I is “probably true,” but probable and knowledge are two different things. It might be better to say, “It seems with our present data reasonable to believe, the earth is billions of years old.” Father Tom continued, “We know that there are billions of galaxies in existence. We know these things.” And I add, and we know there are galaxies still being formed. We know that “creative” energies are still witnessed at work on all levels of being from the edges of the universe to the energy fields inside a sub-atomic particle. Yes we “know” this, but what does this have to do with Darwinism? Very little, if anything is the correct answer.

The reason I say, “probably know” is because the formula that Father Tom gives for dating the age of the earth is the formula natural science gives in each succeeding era, and in each succeeding era, what it claims to know is different. For instance the theory of what fires the sun has changed four times in the last 150 years. At each point “science” has spoken about the sun as if holding absolute positive knowledge. The theory of how the sun was formed, what kicked off its energetic display and life, also changed four times in my life time. Reason tells me, that our present comprehension of the sun and the sun's history and energy is via the constraints of present day understanding and that there is no absolute knowledge about it. Present “knowledge” may be true or it may just be the best approximation we are capable of grasping in this era.

The age of the earth calculated by radiometric dating is the scientific theory common to this era, but the means of measuring the age of the earth has changed several times over the last one hundred and fifty years and we have no real reason to believe it will not change again. It is still a guess that the earth is a few billion years old, not something we “know.” As to the dating of the earth, there is a sociological argument to be made that the forces pressing for an extremely long age, and a very long period of “stability” were doing so because it was necessary for the supposed molecular processes to produce life and cause it to evolve to its present development. There has been a knowledge filter, the predisposition to form fit geology, archeology and anthropology to fit Darwinism. This isn't a guess, but the observance of history. Any system of measure that did not give room for Darwin's theory of 'uniformitarianism” was violently challenged. This history even included Darwin's own son, George Darwin, and activities of the atheist activist Huxley. The instruments of measure even today are calibrated upon theories of “decay” over long periods of time. So the measurement of the age of the earth is based upon theories that can't actually be tested. But once the theories of decay are accepted then the measurement may be made according to the calibrations set by the “theory.” The “theory” for the calibration has changed more than forty times in the last fifty years! It is still guess work, not actual positive knowledge.

Now I want to back up to Father Tom's statement that was proceeded by “there are some people who say.” “And now-a-days most people would say that the theory of evolution, 'yea it's a theory but its a theory that anyone who has a brain and a right mind and looks at the data will believe as true.' And they will even say 'there is no doubt about it, we know this now.'” Well, I don't think I'm brainless, or that the myriad scientists in many fields who have disproved pure Darwinism are brainless. But despite Father Tom walking himself away from this statement, it is obvious from other places in this series that he pretty much believes “the data” as presented by present political/academia and knows nothing about the mountain of anomalous evidence that just won't fit the theory.

Even for the age of the earth, some of the so-called scientific measurements are simply laughable. Although the possibility of molecular biology over any length of time spontaneously springing to life has been disproved on many levels and via many means still some scientists, some “evolutionary geneticists” have devised a theory they call a molecular clock, which supposedly is capable of measuring “the rate of genetic divergence of species” capable of measuring that divergence across time to “the universal ancestor of all living organisms.” This is pure fantasy land. But it is propped up beside other measuring methods, all for the purpose of proving what all evolutionist have to have for evolution to be true, “uniformitarianism” - which mean they need a very, very, very long period of earth's existence and unreasonable and unproved stability.

Nothing in the fossil record and nothing in the geological record provides for this very, very long period of stability. In fact the explosions of discovery in geology seem to prove just that opposite, that the earth has endured cataclysms, some capable of wiping out most life forms. The scientific establishment has jumped through hoops trying to prove this period of extreme uniformity that the theory of evolution requires.

Looking at the fossil record, it would have more weight of evidence on my side if I were to offer a theory, which as we saw last volume is supported by every ancient culture and writings as old a sacred scripture and some much older, and sacred scripture itself. Darwinism begins with the idea of biological chaos, but not viewed as biological chaos because we slow chaotic processes down and stretch them over huge lengths of time and then call the genetic confusion and chaos, - gradualism. The biological chaos of Darwinism requires the mutations of species into other species, for which still, there is no fossil record. It is true to say, We can't find the fossil record of “evolution” by this process. But what about the massive fossil record and all the evidence of species that don't exist anymore, and the record of the ancestors of modern man? I think the record points to something else - To devolution. We can just as easily make an argument for devolution by this fossil record. It point to times when creatures had grown so “corrupt” as to need to be eliminated.

Ancient human mythology is filled with the record of human hybrids and some archeological finds have been puzzling, where bones of unknown species have been found mixed with humanoid bones. I'm not saying that I believe this, but I'm saying that taking the exact same fossil record and the record of geological cataclysms and maybe even some interplanetary catastrophes, all of which has evidence that may be place into the “theory” we could paint a completely different and at least equally plausible, possibly more plausible scenario of earth's history, the solar system's history, and the history of living beings upon this planet. I will say this and state that it is my present opinion, that nothing in the record says “evolving.” Everything I see in the record says, chaos, violence and “devolving.” Now before you think this is truly radical, you can't devolve further than ceasing to have the ability as a species to survive. The end of devolution is extinction. By the time your species is extinct that's as devolved as you can become. Didn't Father Tom say that some scientist, some paleontologist or archeologist had told him that 95% of the species of plants and animals that had been upon the earth were now extinct. Well, the plant fossil record does not confirm this, but the animal fossil record does support this. Which all the more lends credence to the theory of cataclysms and devolution, instead of “uniformitarianism” an evolution.

We know contrary to a few years ago, that modern man, that is Homo sapiens lived along size Neandertals. The accepted (by establishment political/academia) date of the oldest homo sapien remains (fossils) are from 160,000 years ago. But that's not the story. The record of “Forbidden Archeology” tells another story and proves that the evidence for a very ancient date for Homo sapiens is overwhelming. It is proof positive that Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and the Neandertals could not be the ancestors of Homo sapiens.

Let me give you just one example of anomalous evidence, evidence that will not fit the evolutionists paradigm, as related in “Forbidden Archeology.” “In 1970, researchers at the Laetoli, Tanzania, site in East Africa discovered footprints in volcanic ash deposits over 3.6 million years old. Mary leaky (1979) and others said the prints were indistinguishable from those of modern humans. To these scientists, this meant only that the australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago had remarkably modern feet.” (emphasis mine) “But according to other scientists, such as physical anthropologist R. H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago, fossil foot bones of the known australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago show they had feet that were distinctly apelike (Tuttle 1985). Hence they were incompatible with the Laetoli prints. In an article in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, Tuttle (1990) confessed 'we are left with somewhat of a mystery.' It seems permissible, therefore, to consider a possibility neither Tuttle nor Leakey mentioned – that creatures with anatomically modern human bodies to match their anatomically modern human feet existed some 3.6 million years ago in East Africa. In Forbidden Archeology, I document hundreds of other examples of this kind of evidence, grouping them in the following categories, - carved bones, stone tools, human fossils, and artifacts suggestive of high levels of culture.” - Michael A Cremo, quoted from Human Devolution – Tourchlight Publishing - 2003.

I have no reason not to believe that when Old Testament scripture talks of cities, nations and races of men who had become corrupted, so corrupt in fact that they had to be destroyed, that it is speaking of men who genetically had ceased to be purely human, had become corrupt “in their flesh.” I have no reason to believe the stories where God directly caused the death of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe million, like with Sodom and Gomorrah, The Flood of Noah and even the time when Moses was order to kill all the men, women and children of an enemy (and he spared some) that this was as much about genetic contamination as it was about morals. What evil did the toddlers and infants possess to make a just God demand their destruction. The complete dead end of their genetic line sound reasonable to me. I have no reason not to believe that these men who had turned bestial were not indeed part beast in a genetic way, sharing D.N.A. with beasts. As common to all ancient mythology as the flood stories are the stories of the demi-gods, the sons of humans and gods who took on the physical attributes of beasts. Demi-gods who violated both human and animal species. Vis a vis Noah, the scripture stated not that the “people” or the persons had become corrupt, but that they had become corrupt in their flesh ( and that word corrupt means also decaying – it could also mean devolving) in their flesh. It states it is clear “bestial terms” as Father Tom point out. These men has become like beasts.

Father Tom in the previous video talked about the “increased evil in the world” between the time of creation and Noah as a sort of “evolution” as if they were becoming “wise and inventive in evil”. I think this is true that they became very wise in evil, but I'm tempted to believe it was quite the opposite of evolution. They were rapidly devolving, turning more beast-like and dangerous to homo sapiens, with the possibility of overcoming and contaminating the human genome as created by God. Does the record, the fossils, the archeology and anthropology disprove this? No it doesn't. We have no reason not to believe that the more beast-like Neanderthal was a genetic mutation of homo-sapiens, devolved or devolving homo-sapiens. Every ancient human record talks of such races of men, including the Bible, in that passage in Genesis which Father Tom mentioned and dismissed saying, “No one can know what that means.” “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

What if it means what it said? What if all those records or many of them are correct. If part of the corruption of man, which required total destruction was genetic contamination by the ungodly angels, as Genesis clearly states, a great bit of the Old Testament makes more sense. And the total devolution of species into extinction makes more sense. If it wasn't genetic contamination why would God also look at the “creatures” and say, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” had the genetic contamination crossed over many species? Were there creatures who had turn evil, who walked around with human/demonic D.N.A.?

It could even be construed that the image of God's first coming, “where Satan and his angels were bound, unable to corrupt humanity for a thousand years, occurred at the time of Noah.” And that later Satan will be released to tempt humanity again. That phrase could mean, tempt humanity to try to increase his power of “being” by tampering with his genetic code.

All I'm saying is if we seriously look at the “facts” and look at the theory that makes the most sense with the most facts, I can't see the case for gradual evolution. It is a FACT that the mythologies, scripture, archeology, anthropology and even D.N.A. Science allow for more than one plausible theory to be deduced from the “data.” And of all the possible theories I have heard some have more logic than the extreme material model of gradual evolution. I have little doubt that the earth has endured cataclysms which more than once have nearly wiped out all life on the planet. I believe both the geological record and the myriad ancient histories from diverse cultures all confirm this record of cataclysms.

Something terrible happened to humanity, to the earth, in the near past, and if we are talking about the planet being a few billion years old, the near past I'm speaking of is a few hundred thousand years ago, or maybe just two-hundred thousand years ago, maybe less time than that. It might have happen inside the realm of written record, where the pictographs of ancient cultures tell of cataclysms. History was lost. Something interrupted the exchange of ideas, education was lost. It is a point in fact that the earth is littered with relics of ancient technologies we do not possess. Every year we come to realize some relic of technology we did not understand is there clearly smiling at us from the past. Genesis says Giants – I believe the record. Supermen, with massive technical abilities built the major and oldest pyramids. Quarried and move and placed in place monolithic stones some Egypt weighing 30 tons, one weighing 400 tons, and in Syria, some weighing 1100 tons! And pyramids were common to the culture of the ancient world on almost every continent. Massive evidence of sophistication in astronomy, and engineering are everywhere in the ancient record. But all of those people inhabiting that ancient world except for a few, became “corrupt in their flesh” and by whatever cataclysmic event, or maybe through several cataclysmic events over long periods of time, those corrupt genetic lines were exterminated. Then again in the recent past, humanity was reduced to the homo sapein saved it the Ark, and the animals save there and else where on the planet that had not become “corrupt in their flesh.”

“Each after their own kind” stated over and over in the Genesis story. “Each after their own kind” the means to preserve in time the genetic strain of human created originally in God's likeness and image. The genetic strain that held the possibility of communion with Him. I reject Father Tom's statement which he has made now on several occasions, that it is difficult to know what a “species” is. It isn't always self-evident but at this point in history we have more tools to know that, than anytime before. We know the instances of animals that look very similar but are from different animal groups, just as surely as we know that of the Irish Potato and the Sweet Potato, only one is a Potato.