Are you dancing to your DNA?
by Winston Vanderput
Composition of images from stock.xchng.
Introducing the evidence
As scientists look through a powerful telescope they can see the vast expanse of
the universe and marvel at the way the planets traverse their orbits without colliding.
At the other end of the spectrum scientists look through a microscope and marvel
at the intricacy of the ‘simplest’ living organism. The evidence of
a ‘Designer’ is plain for all to see.
Explaining the evidence
So why is it that some scientists and philosophers can and do believe in a Designer/Creator
(God) and others cannot and do not believe in God? The problem isn’t about
lack of evidence but simply a suppression or wilful neglect of the evidence. Abraham
Lincoln said, ‘I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon
the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the
heavens and say there is no God.’ And Sir Isaac Newton said, ‘In the
absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.’
However, Harvard atheist and geneticist
Dr Richard Lewontin, writing in The New York Review of Books, takes
the opposite view. For, no matter what the evidence is (for creation/a Creator)
he will not consider any alternative to materialistic atheism. Why? Because, he
said, ‘ … we cannot allow a divine foot in the door!’1 We? Obviously there are others
who, despite the evidence for God’s existence, follow suit.
Yet this isn’t the end to the flawed thinking of these people. Atheist Oxford
Professor of biology Richard
Dawkins has said, ‘The universe we observe has … no design,
no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. …
DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music [emphasis
added].’2
Maybe Dawkins would like to tell the victims of Hitler that he was ‘just dancing
to his DNA’. Dawkins’ view is equalled by that of Oxford University
chemist and atheist, Peter Atkins, who said, ‘Free will is merely the ability
to decide, and the ability to decide is nothing other than the organised interplay
of shifts of atoms.’3
So, why do we even waste time trying to punish criminals
if their behaviour is fixed by the environment or genetics? Why do we make a distinction
in law from crimes committed with full mental faculties and those done by insane
persons? Why do we blame ourselves and feel guilty when we make a bad choice?
Defective deduction and deceit
The ultimate irony is that some atheists aggressively try to ‘convert’
theists to their atheistic religious system when they presumably know better than
any of us that we are ‘fated to believe’ our theism because of our chemical
make-up, irrespective of the persuasiveness of their arguments.
Atheists think that if they can get rid of God they can live free from the restraints
of His ultimate authority. Instead, they discover that by removing God, they remove
the only meaning for their life. The ultimate irony is that some atheists aggressively
try to ‘convert’ theists to their atheistic religious system when they
presumably know better than any of us that we are ‘fated to believe’
our theism because of our chemical make-up, irrespective of the persuasiveness of
their arguments. Perhaps they would do better to shake us or inject us with another
chemical so that the arrangements of molecules in our brains would make us atheists.
But, no—they argue with us! Why?
Some scientists would have you believe that science has ‘done away with God’:
that the aspect of evolutionary science which shows that man has evolved from apes
and other creatures going way back to the so-called primordial soup is fact. Nothing
could be further from the truth! The fact is that certain ‘evolutionary scientists’
have even been known to falsify the evidence in order to make their case.
Disastrous consequences
We are living in a day when people have no regard or respect for anyone or anything,
including themselves. They live without any sense of responsibility or accountability
to anyone, even governments and the law. You read or hear about it every day. Governments
are losing control and our jails are too full to accommodate the criminals. Murderers
are let out only to kill again because the rehabilitation process has not worked.
The famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked, ‘If you meet
God after you die, what would you say to him to justify your unbelief?’ ‘I
will tell Him that He did not give me enough evidence’, Russell proudly replied.
There are none so blind as those who will not see! Do not follow the blind.
Desirable conclusion
Scientists know, and the Bible states, that there is sufficient evidence all around
for us to believe in God, the Creator. Sadly, some scientists persuade many to believe
otherwise. Mankind is ultimately accountable to God: we were not created to ‘dance’
to our DNA. God wants us to come into a loving relationship with Him through faith
in The Lord Jesus Christ.
This article has been made into a tract available through the author. Some parts
were used by the author by kind permission of Paul Ferguson/Ambassador Productions
Ltd, Belfast.
Related articles
Recommended Resources
References
- Lewontin, R., Billions and billions of demons, The New
York Review of Books, p. 31, 9 January 1997. Emphasis added.
Return to text.
- Dawkins, R.,
River out of Eden, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, p. 133, 1995.
Return to text.
- Atkins, P., The Creation, W.H. Freeman & Co Ltd,
Oxford, 1981. Return to text.
Published: 27 August 2008(GMT+10)
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