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Nor can we be impressed with the reasons [Dawkins] has since accumulated in the name of science and offers to us now. Concerning the all-important question of the origin of life, he says,

“The major ingredient was heredity, either DNA or (more probably) something that copies like DNA but less accurately, perhaps the related molecule RNA. Once the vital ingredient—some kind of genetic molecule—is in place, true Darwinian natural selection can follow, and complex life emerges as the eventual consequence. But the spontaneous arising by chance of the first heredity molecule strikes many as improbable. Maybe it is—very, very improbable. . . . The origin of life is a flourishing, if speculative, subject for research. The expertise required for it is chemistry and it is not mine. [Emphasis added]”

A critic of the article “How to build a bomb in the public school stem” argued that a biblical foundation was unnecessary for ethics. Jonathan Sarfati’s response explains how Christian foundations underpin the prosperity and science of the West, and contrasts these with the atrocities of atheistic regimes. This needs to be revisited especially with the increasingly shrill atheistic attacks on Christianity in general and on Christian freedoms, pushing moral boundaries, and even a leading atheistic evolutionist saying that Hitler’s ideas should be reconsidered. Then the response explains the real problem for atheists trying to build an ethical system.

 “How to Build a Bomb.” You wrote that in order to create an explosive child all that was required was to educate that child to believe that we evolved from animals, life is an accident and that there are no absolutes.

“That belief system which is indoctrinated into kids provides the perfect basis for this.

“Well, I and many, many other people like me believe exactly those things, reaching our conclusions through trial and error and by asking questions of ourselves and the world we live in and not shying away from the answers whatever they appeared to be or mean. In doing so we feel we have a wider more stable foundation with which to tackle the problems of today’s MODERN society and MODERN man’s need for a combination of tangible truth and spiritual peace, two quarters in which the ancient indoctrination of organized religion has consistently failed to provide.”

Actually, biblical Christianity has provided the only basis for prosperous modern democracies, including:

• The rule of law, which binds all people, recognizing a higher source of the law. The alternative is rule by despots.
• Equality of all people under the law, neither favoring the rich nor the poor (Job 34:19).
• Property rights, presupposed in the command against theft (Exodus 20:15). Without them, the capital cannot be used as capital for investment loans, and there is no protection for what people have earned by productive work. Indeed, Hernando de Soto’s book The Mystery of Capital shows that if private property in poor countries were freed up from statist ownership, this would provide 90 times more wealth than all the foreign aid to all Third World countries over the past three decades.
• All these are biblical principles, and it is no accident that the most prosperous countries have adopted them, and that the poorest countries fail. Even now, prosperous countries in the west are still benefiting from these Christian-based foundations laid down in their past.
• Conversely, atheism has been tried as a basis for life in many countries in the 20th century. The results have been some of the biggest bloodbaths of all time under communist despots above the law, e.g., Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. For example, the Inquisition killed 2000 people in three centuries; Stalin killed that many before breakfast. Neither could atheistic economies remotely compete with the West—e.g., it didn’t take long for the USA to outstrip the USSR in the space race when they put their minds to it.

[An atheist noted] “In short I am, to you, a walking time bomb. I am, in actual fact, a diligent, hardworking, caring, stable, compassionate, intelligent, kind, thoughtful and considerate individual…”

[And nice to your mother too, I’ve heard.]

“(as are many, many of my likeminded friends all around the world) we manage to live the lives your religion postulates without the need for the pomp and scripture, the fear and hatred and the presence of any kind of omnipresent deity to keep us in check. I wondered how you would explain this?”

Nothing to explain. The article explained that evolution provides the basis for the bomb-building, not that everyone would act consistently on this basis. We know that many atheists borrow a moral code from outside their belief system, since that can’t provide any. The rabid misotheist Richard Dawkins even claimed that he was a passionate Darwinist as to how we got here, but a passionate anti-Darwinist when it came to morality.

Rather, our argument is not that atheists cannot live ‘good’ lives, but that there is no objective basis for their goodness if we are just rearranged pond scum.

[For the full text of this article, please see:]

https://creation.com/why-christianity-not-atheism-is-the-only-rational-foundation-for-ethics

Most of our readers are at least aware of the problems that result from doctrinal heresy, but few are aware or have thought about relational heresy or even know what it might be. Almost 20 years ago, our friend and associate, Rich Poll from Apologia Report contributed the article, "The Ambush of Discernment." He deals with many of the aspects of discernment that can derail those involved due to false expectations, workload, and other things including our attitude toward others. In other words, our relationships. Bob from RPM Ministries just posted the article, "Beware of Relational Heresy While Addressing Perceived Doctrinal Heresy." The issue is an important one. A pastor and good friend, Fred Greening the mean-spiritedness which seemed to be part and parcel of those who engaged in apologetics/discernment ministry until he met Joy and me. He began talking about the issues of mindless evangelism and heartless apologetics:

We talk a lot about doctrinal heresy—and it is a vital issues that we must address.

Orthodoxy—right belief—is essential.

We seem to talk less about relational heresy.

Orthopraxy—right relationships, right living—is equally essential.

We talk even less about right relationships while talking about right doctrine. Our failure to address this runs counter to God’s all-sufficient Word. The Bible is replete with commands about how we treat one another while we address doctrinal disagreements. The Bible consistently commands us to guard our hearts against relational heresy.

The point in the article is that there seems to be an underlying assumption that it is normative for churches to talk about "Orthodoxy—right belief—is essential." Sadly, it isn't so. All we have to do is look around at how many churches embrace the occultism of the Enneagram, the New Apostolic Reformation, or Bill Gothard's teaching, to name but a few examples. In those settings, there seems to be the idea that niceness is the closest thing to godliness, and pointing out false doctrine is viewed as decidedly not nice and, therefore, ungodly. However, that being said, the article is an important one. There is a great deal in Scripture about defending the faith, exposing false doctrines, and teaching the essentials, and there is a great deal about our hearts and how we treat others in the process. Our goal is not to win arguments but to win over those in error.

https://mailchi.mp/36941ce94c68/the-gift?e=169825fd77

Richard Dawkins has not explained anything, let alone how life began. This seems odd in view of the fact that he declares a number of times that Darwin explained everything about life. Isn’t this how Dawkins says he was converted to the religion of atheism? Let me quote him again: “My final vestige of religious faith disappeared when I finally understood the Darwinian explanation for life.”6 But he has also told us, as have the other leaders of the New Atheists, that Darwinism doesn’t explain the origin of life after all, so there was really no sound reason for his conversion to atheism! That should be more than a little disconcerting.

I don’t know whether the growing lack of clarity in many evangelical quarters about the person and work of Jesus Christ is due to outside influences or internal weaknesses. Perhaps it is a bit of both. But it is shocking to me how many new evangelical ideas are uncanny in their resemblance to the Adventism I grew up with. For me, a personal example is that of David M. Moffitt’s recent book Rethinking the Atonement. It features a foreword by N. T. Wright and aims to move past beyond traditional views of the atonement that the author considers to be “reductive.”

One essay in this book is distressingly titled “It Is Not Finished: Jesus’s Perpetual Atoning Work as the Heavenly High Priest in Hebrews.” Though Moffitt does not come from an Adventist background, his proposed revision of the biblical doctrine of Christ’s atonement has features which are deeply disquieting to me. The author attempts to pit Christ’s cry on the cross “It is finished!” (John:19:3And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.
See All...) against a revisionist understanding of Hebrews which argues that Jesus’ ongoing “high-priestly intercession” indicates “some kind of ongoing work of sacrificial atonement.”

In fact, I found out recently that [Seventh day Adventist] Roy Gane has publicly stated that his writings on atonement have partly been the basis for Moffitt’s new thinking about the epistle to the Hebrews. Indeed, Gane cites Moffitt’s Rethinking the Atonement as an example of a new work in evangelical scholarship that is much closer to the Adventist position. The two-phase atonement, an Adventist innovation that robs Christ of his rightful glory and robs Christians of their assurance of salvation, is slowly working its way into the evangelical consciousness.

—Kaspars Ozolins (Former Adventist, born in Latvia to an Adventist family, Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, it does not exist.” This is a good summary of relativism.

Now here is the thing. The acceptance of moral relativism is closely linked to acceptance of the theory of evolution. The argument is that as we have evolved from lesser biological organisms, so our morals and ethics are also evolving. The end result is summed up by famous humanist Paul Kurtz: “If man is a product of evolution, one species among others, in a universe without purpose, then man’s option is to live for himself.” The bottom line for Humanism is that we cannot declare an absolute, fixed standard of morality. They end up arguing that there is “absolutely” no room for a Holy God!

Moral relativists become quite indignant and even dictatorial when it negatively impacts them. Consider what has happened to businesses providing wedding services when the proprietors argue it goes against their morals to participate in a same-sex wedding. Florists, bakers, and photographers have been successfully sued all over the United States in spite of our 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Religion.

The homosexual lobby has successfully claimed the rights of a persecuted minority in these cases. And, so they have actually twisted Nietzsche’s moral-relativist creed to say, “I have my way, but you don’t have your way. Because the right way is my way.” Thus, relativism ironically turns into dictatorship because their new moral absolutes replace God’s eternal absolutes, and are forced upon everyone else!

– Mark Cadwallader (Creation Moments Board Chairman)

https://creationmoments.com/how-evolution-leads-to-dictatorship/

If energy can’t be created, it must have been here forever. We know that is not possible, or all matter would have become useless by now. Every attempt that atheists make to avoid the logical consequences of the facts as we know them comes up against the stone wall of established scientific law.

Lennox commented, “That repugnance was shared by others in the mid-twentieth century. Gold, Bondi, Hoyle, and Narlikar advanced a series of steady-state theories in which it was argued that the universe always existed, [and] that matter was continuously being created in order to keep the density of the admittedly expanding universe uniform. . . .”