| |
NAS SCIENTISTS,
GOD AND ATHEISM
In 1998, Edward Larson published a study which has become a banner of
victory for atheists around the world. According to this study, we are told,
the vast majority of
"superior" scientists in America are either atheists or
agnostics. Is that, they say, not compelling evidence that high intelligence
leads invariably to unbelief? Here is our perspective.
To start,
the reader should be informed that Edward Larson asked
NAS scientists if they believed in
“...a
God in intellectual and affective communication
with humankind.”(1)
This is clearly a belief in
the
“Personal God” that Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in.
Unfortunately, this
question does not include a belief in a “Creator” who is not involved in human affairs, such as the divinity
that Deists” and Pantheists believe in.
Without doubt, a number of scientists would describe themselves as such. Einstein, in fact,
defined himself as a Pantheist;
British physicist, Hawkins, professes a
belief in a Creator but, reportedly,
not a “Personal God” and is, therefore, either a Pantheist or a Deist.
Consequently, if
Deists and Pantheists had been factored in, the number of believing
NAS scientists would have
been higher. (A few years ago, in our
correspondence, Edward Larson encouraged me to do a study that would ask a more
all-encompassing question. I have not done so yet, but I am sure it would be
quite revealing.)
In
a 1998 article published by the National Centre for Science Education, the foremost defender of teaching evolution in public schools in America, admitted that Larson's conclusions were premature. In fact they refer to a
Gallup study which supports the view that about 40% of "prominent"
scientists in fact do believe in a "somewhat-personal" God who "directed"
evolution.
The Gallup questions, which deal with
views of God's role in evolution, rather than general belief or disbelief in
God, are far less ambiguous. When these questions were used (Larson and
Witham 1997), the answers showed that a large proportion (40%) of prominent
scientists believe in a God that is sufficiently personal or interactive
with humankind that human evolution is guided or planned.
They objectively
also added that Larson's conclusions could not be seen as definitive. "The
title of the recent Larson and Witham article in Nature,
'Leading scientists still reject God'
is premature without reliable data upon which to base it."(2)
It is significant, nonetheless, that
the vast majority of NAS scientists do not believe
in the Judeo-Christian God. The reasons may not be hard to
deduce. First of all, the American
education system has, for decades, taught an anti-Christian message saturated with a
materialist bias. Some university professors consistently
ridicule the Bible as a work filled with myths, fictional accounts of
miracles and outright lies. Some also dismiss religious
believers as ignorant, bigoted and stupid. Furthermore,
atheistic
and agnostic Philosophy professors
manipulate the minds of impressionable students and
turn many into new disciples every year.
Also significant is the power of Science departments
in demanding allegiance to their
core belief in evolution
-- the heart and core of scientific orthodoxy.
In the science world brain
washing into materialistic/evolutionistic thinking is continual, persistent and
unrelenting. Publicly deviating from orthodoxy means opening oneself to
ridicule and ostracism. In some American universities' Science
departments deviating from orthodoxy would mean certain professional suicide.
Materialists/evolutionists in positions of
influence in institutions of higher learning, whether because of malicious
intent or plain ignorance, fail to inform their students that the greatest
minds that have shaped our world believed in God, and that most
of them were
practicing Christians (Click
here for documented evidence). They also fail to inform them that several modern Nobel Prize winning scientists,
and other influential modern scientists were/are firm believers in
God, and that several were/are practicing Christians.
(Click
here for documented evidence).
Most of all, Science departments
fail to remind their students that Science rests upon the shoulders of
giants like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Einstein, Pasteur
and Planck
who openly acknowledged God's existence
(Click here for
documented evidence). The scientists who have deviated from
the path of their founding fathers have rejected the Author of all the laws
of science and all the wonders that they behold every single day.
But is there
more? As one grows "great" within academia, what happens to one's ego?
Could it be that some so-called "superior" scientists are so filled with
their own self-importance that it would be agonizing for them to
acknowledge the existence of a Being that is actually greater than themselves,
who demands obedience, worship and humility?
At the
highest echelons of Science, one finds a rigid allegiance to a materialistic world view. At that level, many are committed to the Scientific Method as the
"only" way to discovering truth. The Scientific Method demands "observation"
and "measurement." But God can only be "deduced" by His works and cannot be
observed or measured. But truth, according to rigid Science, must be
observed and measured. The inevitable result is, obviously, doubt, or
worse still, rejection of an "un-measurable" God.
God's reality is
present everywhere. He is continually manifesting His presence through the
titanic energy that emanates from Him that transforms itself into atoms, the building blocks of
everything in existence. The Creator is also present in every new mutation that
lead to new brilliant variations. His creative power and His artistic
brilliance is manifest in every stunning detail of creation. Scientists study God's
creative power every day. They study the paint brush, the paint and the canvas and
can tell us what each is made of, but they cannot study the Painter. But the
Painter is there, painting continually, and brilliantly. Many
objective
scientists see His presence clearly in His works, and
marvel at His greatness. Some, instead, are content with believing that the brush can
paint on its own, and that it, the paint and the canvas came out of
"nothing."
The great
paradox is that many brilliant scientists totally accept this world view,
thus giving living proof to the paradoxical reality that scientific brilliance and foolishness can co-exist,
and that one can be exceptionally intelligent and yet believe the most
absurd and ludicrous idea ever conceived by men: mind-less energy can
produce mind.
______________________
1) "Leading Scientists Still
Reject God, Steven Jay Gould Web Site. <http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.pdf>
(5 October, 2008)
2)
Scott,
Eugenie, "Do Scientists Really Reject God?",
NCSE Web Site.
http://ncseweb.org/rncse/18/2/do-scientists-really-reject-god
(17 December, 2008)
RELATED SOURCES
HOME
|
|
