A Christian View of Primitivism and Primitive Cultures

by Pastor Paul Wolff

Darwinists, or those who see macro-evolution as a viable theory, have always had a strange fascination with primitive cultures. Since they believe that people have evolved over time, and advanced from lower, inferior beings and creatures, they think that all civilized people advanced from a primitive state to a sophisticated, evolved, civilized state. This makes a somewhat (though not completely) plausible and compelling story. People want to believe this story because it makes us look better than the primitives (both ancient and contemporary). “We are the more advanced people. We have evolved. We are better, and are only getting better.” One major problem with this is that it views the primitive peoples as inferior, and lesser, and even less human, which quickly leads to racism and hatred. If some person is inferior, then they can be treated as of less worth than those who are seen as superior, and “less worth” is quickly seen as “worthless” and those people are soon viewed as less than human. And if some people are less human, then they can be exploited and enslaved, and sometimes killed at will. This has all happened in the past two centuries, as I will show below, but this is not the only problem with the evolutionary view.

The Darwinist view is completely backward.

Civilization began on the Sixth Day of Creation with the creation of Adam and Eve

There is another way to look at primitive cultures which is, perhaps, not quite as compelling to people who want to see themselves as “evolved” and “advanced” and better than other people, but it has the advantages of having better historical evidence, and better fitting the facts we see in people who live in primitive cultures. The Christian view tells us that we all descend from the first two people God made, Adam and Eve. When God made Adam and Eve He made them in His image. They were fully formed adults (husband and wife) from their first breath, and perfect in body and soul. They not only were given language skills and understanding on the day they were made (Day Six of creation), but their intellectual capabilities were untainted by sin and guilt until they rebelled against God by disobeying His simple, clear command. Adam and Eve were also created to be immortal. As long as they did not disobey God they would not have diminished in their health and strength nor “grown old” as we understand it, nor would they have died from illness or injury. This also suggests the reason why the first generations of people in the antediluvian (“pre-flood”) period lived such long lives. Many are described as having lived hundreds of years, as the effects of sin only began to accumulate as the generations went by and took hold in people to limit their maximum life spans.  

Adam and Eve were civilized people from the beginning. They were husband and wife, and formed a family unit from their creation. Adam was the head, and Eve was the helper, and together they were a family. This is the basis for civilization. They were curious about the world around them and wanted to learn all they could about God’s wonderful creation. Even after the fall into sin, the Scriptures show that although the murderer, Cain, was destined to be “a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:12), yet, he built a city for his son. Cain’s descendants also raised livestock, developed musical instruments, and learned to forge tools of bronze and iron, all within about six generations (see Genesis 4:17-22). After that, the descendants of Cain seemed to descend into violence and murder. (See Genesis 4:23 and 6:1-13) So already here we see civilized people becoming uncivilized. The Canites also seduced the descendants of Seth (Genesis 6:2) into their sinful depravity, and the whole world became so violent and evil that God was determined to destroy them all, except that He spared Noah and his family to keep the promise He had made to Adam and Eve to send a savior.

Brilliant thinkers like Martin Luther Come from a well educated civilized society.

The history that the Bible gives shows that civilization comes first, and then, as the people fall into idolatry and rebel against God, they become more violent and less civilized. We can also see this in the study of modern primitive peoples, if we view the evidence with an open mind. Primitivism is a dead end. You don’t get great civilizations rising out of primitive cultures. You get primitive cultures out of great civilizations that have been destroyed by war or disease or famine and infected with idolatry and violence. Remember that the European “Dark Ages” followed the fall of the Roman empire. You don’t get great thinkers like Plato, Euclid, or Aristotle, and those like them, from primitive cultures, even though the people themselves are genetically just as capable of producing intellectual and artistic brilliance as any other people. The problem isn’t that the people are inferior, but the social structures that have been put in place discourage the development of great thinkers and the development of greater societal structures. This discouragement is primarily in the form of false teaching, or if that doesn’t work, then there are stronger societal pressures to conform or be punished, and if those don’t work, then there is always violence and murder. Thus, primitive cultures persist for centuries without advancing to become greater civilizations.  

If you read writings from ancient civilized peoples you will see that, though they have different cultures and different ways of looking at things, they are in many ways just like modern people. The ancients had very similar wants and desires as modern people. They viewed the world in similar ways as modern people, and are very relatable to modern people. We all can learn much by studying ancient writings. Conversely, there is not a lot that we can learn from primitive cultures that survived into the 20^th century and beyond. Whatever wisdom those people once had, was lost. Wisdom and learning are discouraged and driven out of such societies, so that most of what is left is bare subsistence for survival.  

I recall hearing a missionary to New Guinea tell of the effects of bringing the Christian Gospel to the cannibal savages of that island. Not all the people and tribes accepted the Gospel, but those who did were set free from the tyranny of their false gods and the fear that their “ancestors” would haunt them and punish them if they didn’t do what the spiritual leaders (shamans, or witch doctor figures) told them to do. The Christians lived better, built better homes and better communities. They ate better and cooperated better so that they trusted each other, and could band together for mutual support and protection against enemies, and also for building their communities and providing food and education for their neighbors. Those who did not embrace the Christian teaching, but held on to the idol worship and ancestor worship continued to live a primitive existence, closer to animals than civilized people. The idol worshipers weren’t animals, and they had some basic rules for civilization, but their cultural structures prevented them from developing a more complex and functional society as their Christian neighbors did. The missionaries did not come to teach the people “civilization” or “Democracy” or 19^th and 20^th century technology. That would not have worked. The people were first set free from the tyranny of their false gods, and only then were they able to leave behind their primitive lifestyle.

The Past is Prologue.

Progress or Regress?

The irony of the Darwinist fascination with primitive cultures is that although they imagine that such a culture is where they came from, it is actually where they are going! Look at the tactics that progressive Darwinists use: false teaching, societal pressures to conform or be punished, violence and murder. The result of evolutionary thinking is not progress, but regress to primitive animalistic barbarism. Progressivism is not progressive, but is actually regressive. George Santayana wrote in the early 20^th Century: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” {The Life of Reason (1905-1906) Vol.1, Reason in Common Sense} Santayana was no Christian, but he could see that a healthy society builds on the successes of the past, and learns from the mistakes and the accomplishments of history. If you forget the past, or if your society forbids you from remembering the truth of history, then you have to start over from scratch with every generation, and are likely to make the same mistakes that were also done in the past. However if you learn from history, then you can avoid or overcome the mistakes, and move forward. 

We saw something like this in a developed country in the early 21^st century. When U.S. President, George W. Bush, conquered Iraq, he set up a democratic government, but without imposing Christianity or even establishing freedom of religion, so that those who wanted to become Christian could openly do so. The result was that the people were quickly re-conquered and dominated by the most violent and radical Islamic groups, and the benefits of democracy in a free (and Christian) country were destroyed. President Bush and his advisers were extremely naïve in this, and it was tragic for many in Iraq.

 

I recall seeing a documentary on the sinking of the cruise ship, Titanic, around the time of the 100^th anniversary of its sinking (2012). The producers documented the excessive pride of the builders who wanted to believe that their ship was unsinkable, despite some serious design and manufacturing flaws built into the ship. The summary statement at the end was unintentionally full of irony when they proclaimed, “One thing is certain, this will never happen again.” This is ironic, because not only did they fail to show that the prideful attitudes that led to the design and operational errors were removed from human thinking, but their final statement was exactly the same prideful error that produced the mistakes which led to the sinking of the Titanic. It is not certain that such a thing would never happen again. Actually, such things happen all the time when people think too much of themselves, and their capabilities, and get careless. It happens even more often in eras where the manufacturers and overseers are greedy and corrupt, and take shortcuts to increase short-term profits at the expense of safety. Such corruption was once rare in the United States, but now in the early 21^st century it seems to be the standard way of doing business for many large companies.

“Scientific” Fear Mongers

We also see moves toward primitivism in the scientific community in the global warming/climate change/environmental movement fear mongering that has been going on at least since I was a child in the 1970’s. This climate fear mongering is really anti-science in the name of science. It is anti-science because true science welcomes and encourages challenges to theories in order to show their weaknesses so that better, more accurate evaluations can be made and the theories can better describe all the evidence seen in the physical world. However, the environmental activists are actively opposing scientific inquiry that challenges the political desires of the radical fear mongers. They say that their premature conclusions are “settled” and that true scientific challenges to their untested proclamations are heretical. But there ought to be no concept of heresy in science. All theories ought to welcome challenges based on new evidence either to prove them correct, or to show their weaknesses so that they can be improved. Orthodoxy and heterodoxy are concepts of religion, but now that science has become a religion, true scientific inquiry has become heterodox, and that will lead to tragedies like the Titanic, and a regression as scientists are less able to conduct free studies, but must only do “approved” work which does not challenge the prevailing religious views of the scientific community. If you can’t see how this leads to primitivism, then you haven’t understood what I have written above to this point.

Science tells us that, because of entropy, things tend to move toward a state of chaos and disorder. Civilization works against chaos by ordering society into a functional place in which people work together for a common good. This is always a struggle because there are always forces which are working to move things toward chaos. Primitive cultures are chaotic cultures with only minimal organizational structures. Christians know that God is an orderly God. 1 Corinthians 14:33 says, “God is not a god of disorder, but of peace.” A large part of God’s creative work in the seven days of creation was ordering the chaos so that He could make a paradise for His beloved people to live. God accomplished this and after creating man on the sixth day evaluated all He had done and proclaimed creation “very good.” However, man’s disobedience and rebellion corrupted God’s creation and reintroduced chaos into our lives.

Karl Marx and Primitivism

Karl Marx was strongly influenced by the atheistic worldview of Charles Darwin. The concepts of progressive evolution and “the survival of the fittest” lead to a favorable view toward a totalitarian ruling class which enslaves those deemed less fit. Marxist fascists must eliminate free speech because in a free society people would never choose to be enslaved, nor submit to those who want to enslave them. Free speech also includes knowledge and application of history as a guide to what is the best course of action to deal with problems in society. Those who seek to dominate or enslave others cannot permit such inquiry, so they feel compelled to destroy books and ideas. Santayana shows that this leads directly to primitivism. If good, constructive ideas are banned, then there can be no good progress, and the society either remains stagnant, or it deteriorates.  

War, disease and famine can move societies toward a primitive existence.

Venezuela and Cuba were both once thriving societies, but Marxist regimes came in and murdered the freedom-loving leaders. Many fled the country if they were able. The revolutionaries took control of businesses and all physical representations of wealth which was in the country, and the people were impoverished and unable to provide income for themselves because the businesses were controlled by the government. Totalitarian Marxist governments cannot provide for the needs of the people because they don’t care for the people. They only care about acquiring power and control for themselves. The people are seen only as “workers” or (more honestly) “slaves.” The “workers” are only valued for what they can do to provide comfort and wealth for the tyrant class. The tyrants don’t care if the people starve and live in poverty.  

I have taken up photography as a hobby, and I like to look at photographs by other photographers for inspiration and education. Every now and then I will see pictures from Cuba, and they almost all look the same. Shabbily dressed people are hanging around dilapidated buildings, but not seeming to have anything constructive to do. There are hints of former glory, like American cars from before the Castro revolution period sitting around. These recall the days when Cuba was wealthy and thriving, and was a favored tourist spot for Americans. I saw one documentary where it was shown that some of these 1950’s era American cars were using boat engines which were adapted and installed after their original engines wore out, and replacement parts were unavailable. There is still some ingenuity among the Cubans left in Cuba, but they are generally impoverished, idle, and only a shadow of what they could have been in a free country.

“Race” and Racism

Noah

I mentioned above that evolutionary thinking necessarily leads to racism. The Christian view of race is that everyone has descended from the same two people, Adam and Eve. All the different “racial” characteristics are just superficial variations of the same genetic code. This view also corresponds very well with the scientific data on the issue. There is only one human race. Any further distinctions are only false and serve only to divide one people into many groups and turn them against each other. The evolutionist sees things in terms of progress, and advance, and it evaluates everything (including people) in terms of progress or regress. However, this thinking puts blinders on the evolutionist because while they are busy looking for signs of progress, they don’t stop to consider where they are progressing to. I could be happily progressing down a path that leads to my destruction, and if I am so focused on my “forward” progress that I don’t look where I am or where I’m going, then I won’t see that I am on the wrong road. I could be making great “progress”, but if I am progressing in the wrong direction then the result could very well be tragic. 

The anthropological evolutionist evaluates people only in terms of their function and utility: advanced or primitive, useful or not, profitable or unprofitable, good or bad, friend or enemy. This view dehumanizes people because it evaluates worth based on what someone can do for me, not how valuable people are in themselves (or for others who are not me). I have shown elsewhere that racism doesn’t begin with hatred, but it begins with just wanting what is best for a group which I identify with. But in creating this artificial distinction between people it introduces value judgments as to the worth of what is seen as “different” groups. One group (usually “Mine”) must be better than others, and if one is better, then the other is worse, and it is not long before “better and worse” become seen as “good and evil”. This is the point where racism becomes hatred. If the other group is evil (as racists imagine it must be) then those belonging to that “evil” group must be subdued and destroyed. Don’t be fooled by people who only say, “I only want what is best for (my group).” That is racist and will soon lead to hatred and violence. Since I first wrote my article on racism (January 2010) I have seen this in action many times.

The Downfall of the United States of America

During the summer of 2020 in what was once the United States of America we saw several moves toward chaos and primitivism. Tyrannical governors imposed draconian lock-downs by unlawful mandates, and closed free businesses over fears of catching a bad cold. Lawlessness ran rampant by governors, judges, election officials, news media, large corporations, and other rioters. In several cities across the country rioters ran unchecked by police, with the blessing of tyrant mayors and governors, and destroyed significant sections of once prosperous cities. Anarchist Marxists tore down statues of historical figures with complete contempt for the history, in a clear attempt to reshape the historical understanding to fit their revolutionary goals, and thus condemning us all to have to repeat the mistakes of forgotten history.  

It is clear that this puts us on a path toward civil war. Such a thing is not certain, as there are many ways to avert it before it comes to that, but the question is, “Will we be able to to turn from a well-funded path manned by people hell-bent on destruction?” With war comes hardships which force people to live a primitive existence to survive. Venezuela was a prosperous wealthy country, but was reduced to poverty in just a few short years by a Marxist takeover of the government. Such prospects are somewhat frightening, but Christians have hope for the future. History shows us that countries can survive the devastation of civil wars, though much is lost in lives and material prosperity. Even more, we know that Christ is in control of all of history, and will work even the greatest evil out for His good (in spite of the evil desires of the revolutionaries). This is a matter of faith to have this confidence, because for a time it will not seem as if there is much hope for reconstruction as the devastation mounts. Mechanized and computerized persecution as seen in China is quite frightening especially when wielded by uneducated and mal-educated people who don’t realize and don’t care that what they are doing is evil.

The Solution to The Descent into Primitivism

Humility and repentance before God to receive Christ's forgiveness is the best way for true healing.

There is a fascinating story in the Bible in Daniel 4. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon wanted to take credit for the victories that God had given him, so he is cursed by God to lose his mind and live a primitive existence like an animal for a certain period of time. He was “driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers and his nails were like birds’ claws.” Then God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to regain not only his sanity, but also his rule as King. When this experience was over the King issued this statement, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” God has the power to humble the proud according to His will. This is why the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Those who seek to destroy God-given rights and freedoms for transient worldly domination and power are fools, and will be humbled sooner or later.  

God’s humbling of King Nebuchadnezzar shows us how to avoid regressing to primitivism – at least on a personal level. Nebuchadnezzar was humbled and then repented of his hubris and arrogance. He acknowledged God as the Lord and his sanity and his kingdom was restored to him. God has his ways of humbling those who need to be humbled. Unfortunately not all repent of their sins. Some foolish people would rather hold on to their sins and try to save themselves rather than trust in God to save them through the life and death of Jesus Christ. However, it is impossible for sinful people to save themselves and these unrepentant people are driven mad by their sinful pride and regress toward primitivism in ways not unlike Nebuchadnezzar. Yet, for all who repent of their sins there is forgiveness and healing in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus has paid the price of death for our sins we are set free from the threat of punishment, and the guilt of our sins need not torment us longer. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

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Psalm 119:136 “My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
 

Psalm 119:158 “I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
 

2 Peter 2:4-10 “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.”

The False Religion of Science

by Pastor Paul Wolff

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• Is science a religion?
• The scientific method
• Science is based on objective observation
• Science is not the source of all knowledge.
• What is religion?
• How to distinguish religion from science
• Science and the Christian worldview
• Do you believe in science?
• Charles Darwin: scientist, or religious zealot?
• The documentary evidence for God
• Evidence in nature that God exists
• The problem of the religion of science
• The end of the world
• A sampling of Scripture passages affirming God’s creation of everything
• Marching for science as a religious rally
• Can monkeys produce Shakespeare?
• The temptation of the religion of science
• The problem of rationalism

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Is Science a Religion?

The false religion of science feels greatly threatened by the Biblical account of the creation.

Science is not a religion. Science is merely a systematized method of learning about the world around us. However, much of what is popularly believed to be science isn’t real science, but is actually a religion which uses the language of science and has rituals which make a pretense of scientists at work, but is not really scientific inquiry. You see this most often when true scientists are ridiculed and dismissed as “unorthodox” or “heretical” when they question popularly held beliefs despite the fact that the scientific method actually requires scientists to question and test theories and try to disprove them. You should note that when you are talking about “belief” you are talking “faith language” which signifies religion, not science.

The Scientific Method

True science is based solely on the Scientific Method, not on consensus, not on political ideology, not on popularity, and certainly not on wishful thinking. The scientific method has built into it a means of questioning and rethinking its findings when new evidence is found which contradicts what is believed to be a solid hypothesis. The Scientific Method says that the original hypothesis may have to be revised. This is why scientific findings are often a fluid, moving target. As we learn more about the world, we find that it isn’t exactly what we thought it was, but is considerably more complex. Here is one way the Scientific Method is described:

Question – How does the world work? 
Research – Learn what information has been observed about the particular phenomenon which interests you. 
Hypothesis – Make an educated guess concerning the issue at hand. 
Experiment – Test your hypothesis to see if it accurately describes the phenomenon. 
Analyze – Does the data you collected in your experiments support or contradict your hypothesis? You may find that your experimental results do not give enough information, and either need to revise your experimental procedure or revise your hypothesis. 
Conclusion – Review the data and check to see if your hypothesis accurately described the phenomenon you observed. You may need to reformulate your hypothesis and experiment and analyze more to describe the world in the most accurate way.

Science is Based on Objective Observation

Movies are a kind of optical illusion where a series of still photos shown in rapid succession simulate motion.

I remember visiting the Toledo (Ohio) Art Museum back in 1991 for a special exhibit of Impressionist art. As a friend and I were walking around the museum we saw a painting on a wall which looked like it was a three dimensional multimedia sculpture with part of it projecting out into the exhibit hall. As we got closer we saw that it was just a clever painting which was made to look like part of it was projecting out of the wall into the room. We had a good laugh that we had been fooled, and we appreciated the skill of the artist to create this visual effect in something which was otherwise fairly abstract. This work of art was not what it appeared to be at first glance. Only an objective observation (from a different perspective) showed what it really was.

We all have seen optical illusions, which are images which fool the eye in one way or another. There are many kinds, and I am sure that a quick Internet search can find many optical illusions. These illusions work because through experience we have preconceived notions about what it is that we are seeing. This has to do with how we recognize what we see. Optical illusions play with how our eyes see, and how our mind recognizes what we are looking at. In other contexts we might call this prejudice. That is to say that our minds pre-judge what we are seeing so as to make recognition easier in most circumstances.

This is drawing has been around for many years. The duck is facing left, and the rabbit is facing right.

Science, however, is all about accurate, objective observation, or it isn’t science at all. When science is working well the scientist must look beyond his prejudices and preconceived ideas about how he thinks his experiments ought to work out and he must carefully observe how things really are in the world. The problem is that scientists are sinners just like everyone else, and they bring with them prejudices which obscure their observations of the true way the world works in favor of how they expect the world to work.

The history of science is filled with stories of how scientists had observed a particular phenomenon repeatedly, and they either ignored it – because they didn’t understand it – or were unable to accurately describe it because their preconceived ideas got in the way. Only when someone was able to recognize the prejudice and view the phenomenon from a different perspective were the great scientific discoveries made. Those people who were able to do this are the ones we often describe as the great scientists and discoverers. They often didn’t really discover the phenomenon first, but they were the ones who were able to objectively describe what it was they were observing.

Science is Not the Source of All Knowledge.

Science can reveal some truth, as far as it goes, but it is not, and never will be, the source of all that is known. It is quite a myopic view that says that science is the source of all knowledge. Science does not tell us about the lives and accomplishments of people such as Alexander the Great, Plato, Aristotle, and Martin Luther, to name a few examples. History provides us with that information. Even the great scientific achievements of the twentieth century cannot wholly be explained by science alone. For example, science can tell us how to send a rocket with astronauts to the moon and bring them back safely, but it cannot tell us why we would want to do such a thing, or why we might prefer to refrain from attempting such a journey. Why did we send men to visit the moon? Was it curiosity? There was curiosity, but no, curiosity wasn’t enough. Nor was it enough to desire scientific knowledge about the moon or about other planets in our solar system. The scientific investigations that went with the moon landings were pretty much afterthoughts. The men who rode the rockets to the moon weren’t primarily scientists, they were military pilots.

Why did we send men to the moon?

Why did the U.S.A. send men to the moon? The reasons were political. We wanted to show the world that our free, democratic, Christian society was better than the totalitarian, socialist/communist, atheist society of the Soviet Union, which it was in nearly every way. Could science have predicted that politics would be more instrumental in advancing science than any pure scientific curiosity or societal need? I don’t think so. Is politics the only motivation that can succeed in sending people to the moon? I don’t think science can answer that question. There are some businesses that have expressed desires to send people to the moon, but it is likely that after the first mishap where paying customers are killed that will quickly end the attempts. Religious concerns might possibly motivate people strongly enough to attempt such things, but most religions have no need or desire to send people to the moon. The religion of “science” is a possible exception, but most (if not all) religions that want to send people to the moon have such serious issues with the truth that they would never be able to gather enough sane people or resources to accomplish the task.

What is Religion?

Theology is the study of God. Religion is theology which is put into practice in a person’s life. This is true for all religions, both the true religion and the false religions. Whatever someone thinks of God affects his life in many ways. Religion is a way to serve God and it encourages the person to try to be like his God (or god). Even atheists practice religion. Every atheist or agnostic has a god (see below), though usually their god is themselves, and they try to live according to how they think a god ought to live. If atheists think a god should be benevolent, then they might have a civil righteousness and live as fairly decent people. If atheists think that god is cruel and capricious, and they have a propensity for psychopathy then they can become mass murderers. These are extremes, though most atheists and agnostics fall somewhere in the middle.

All people want to be like their God. If they view God as a vicious warrior then they will try to be like him and will live short, but cruel, violent lives. If they view God as merciful and forgiving, then they will be kind and easy to get along with. This is the essence of all religions. If your God is the true God, then your religion will be true. If your god is false, then your religion will be mostly false, though it may contain some fragments of truth mixed in with the false teachings. This doesn’t mean that anyone always practices true religion. All people are sinners and no one obeys God perfectly. Some people point to Christian sinfulness and say that we are all hypocrites, but that is not true. Christians are susceptible to hypocrisy just as much as pagans and atheists, but Christians aren’t hypocrites just because we are sinners. Christians ought not claim perfection for ourselves, though some false teachers do. Christ is perfect, and He lived perfectly for us, but He did that to redeem us from our sin. Christians repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to forgive us, but we should not claim perfection for ourselves. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, (Jesus Christ) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)

How to Distinguish Religion from Science

In Luke 2, Jesus went to the teachers to learn, not to teach. His questions impressed them by showing His understanding. This depiction, and those like it, are wrong.

In Martin Luther’s Large Catechism (1529) he wrote: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart.” If you trust in the true God to provide for all your needs then you have a true religion and you have faith in the true God. However if you trust in a false god or some worldly thing other than God to provide you with all good and for comfort in your distress, then that is your god and your religion.

Many people these days put their trust in science to answer all life’s problems and to provide comfort and rescue in times of trouble. When people do this they have made science their religion and their god. Understand me correctly that I am not saying that science is not a useful tool to learn about how the world works. However, those who make science their religion lose their objectivity and ascribe to science certain attributes which are only applicable to God, such as: infallibility, omniscience, holiness (in one way or another), and others. It is clear to see when people have turned science into a religion when they reject legitimate scientific inquiry into a hypothesis and say, “You can’t question that. It is proven science.” We also see people who have turned science into a religion when they state as fact unprovable assertions which are based on many assumptions, each of which can be questioned by science and other means of inquiry, such as, “The universe is (insert your favorite number here) billion years old,” and “science proves god doesn’t exist.”

Science and the Christian Worldview

In Genesis 1 God created light three days before creating the sun and moon. This shows God created the universe, not natural forces.

We should note here that the Scientific Method not only does NOT contradict Christianity, it also CANNOT do so. Science is limited in what its sphere of observation may be. Only those things which can be repeatedly observed and experimentally tested may fall under the purview of science. Non-repeatable events, and acts of God (such as creation and miracles), or even what God said to the prophets and apostles which they wrote down, cannot be tested by science, and cannot be proved or disproved because of it.

We should also note that science, and the scientific method, assumes the Christian worldview (or one exactly like it). It was Christians who developed the scientific method as we know it because they trusted that God is a rational God, and that He created the world rationally, and so that it normally obeys orderly laws (which are often called the laws of nature). One doesn’t have to be a Christian to be a good scientist (though it always helps), but one must hold to a worldview which is compatible with the Christian worldview, which holds that God set the world to function according to certain laws.

You don’t get the scientific method from some theory like the latest revision of Darwinism, in which the primary agent of change is “accidents” which by their nature, are not repeatable, and rarely observable. If your worldview is based on non-repeatable “accidents” then it is, by definition, non-scientific. Remember that science is only able to describe those things which are testable according to the scientific method. Those things which are not testable are not provable by science, but fall under some other category. To be perfectly honest, this doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen, but you must use some proof other than science. It could be history, it could be a myth, it could be a lie, but if it can’t be tested and proven by the scientific method then you can’t call it “science” nor say it is verified by science.

Do You Believe in Science?

It is a very strange question when people ask if you believe in science. If you answer the question (either “yes” or “no”), then you are speaking the language of belief, not science. If science is something you believe in (or not) then that is your religion. On the other hand, if you define “science” by the scientific method, then science has little to do with belief. Proper science only speaks about physical laws which can be proven by experimentation, and it shouldn’t have anything to say about what cannot be proven experimentally.

Science cannot have all the answers to everything, It only provides insight into those things which can be shown experimentally. Not everything can be shown experimentally. For example, what is the meaning of life? Science has no answer, or if you think science does have an answer, you are missing out on a whole lot of data that science has no way of dealing with. As every scientist knows, if you don’t have all the data, or if you ignore important relevant information, then you will not find the correct answer to the question.

Scientific inquiry is important to our society, but there is more to life than science. However, some people have taken science too far, and have turned it into their religion and their god. People turn science into their religion when they put their trust in science above all things. What is worse is when people think that science says things that aren’t proven by science, and think that it has been proven. Such things include the existence and identity of God. Science also does not prove a materialistic worldview which believes that there is nothing in the universe besides physical things which are governed only by physical laws. Science is limited to observing physical things in the world, but that doesn’t mean that those are the only kinds of things that exist.

Charles Darwin: Scientist, or Religious Zealot?

One main reason for the shift from science to religion-masquerading-as-science was the popularizing of Charles Darwin in the 19th and 20th centuries. You don’t have to look too far to find people who consider themselves scientists who say that Darwin proved that God does not exist. This is completely false. Darwin neither proved the non-existence of God, nor did he prove that evolution accurately describes how life came to be as it is now. In fact, Darwin assumed the non-existence of God, and then he wrote a book which described this fictional world where God did not create everything.

Remember that in science, whatever is assumed is not proven. You cannot say, “Let’s assume there is no god. Therefore God does not exist.” That is neither logical, nor scientific. It’s just a joke. What if your initial assumption is wrong? Since, by definition, God is above the “natural laws” (because He created them in the first place), science cannot prove, nor disprove the existence of God. For that you need to examine other evidence. When people make statements like, “science proves there is no god” then they have departed from science, and have moved into the realm of theology (at best) or wild speculation (at worst).

Contrary to the wild pronouncements of activist atheist scientists, there is evidence to support the existence of God. Leaving aside (for now) the evidence in the natural world, the best evidence for the existence of God is the historical documentary evidence. Though I can hear now the objections forming in the minds of unbelievers, let’s be scientific for a moment and keep an open mind. Though one might be tempted to think that since most writings about the gods are false mythologies, that they are all false, but that does not follow logically. Just because one claim (or even many claims) about God is false, doesn’t mean that there doesn’t exist a true claim about God. In the same way one could look at science: just because all of the claims about the origins of man cannot be proven scientifically, it doesn’t mean that man does not exist.

Here I will add that it is a silly argument which I have heard that because man exists, therefore evolution is true. The mere existence of something does not prove a particular hypothesis about how it came to be. Evolution is one hypothesis, but there are others, and one or more of these may better explain the available evidence. Prove it if you can. This is yet another example of why people don’t “believe” in science. When scientists make such silly unscientific claims, they destroy their credibility. In doing this the “scientists” show themselves to be religious zealots who really don’t have a clue. Those who claim to be scientists must use good logic or they just show themselves to be untrustworthy. This also goes for religion. People must use good theology, or they also show themselves to be untrustworthy.

The Documentary Evidence for God

Jesus made the teachers angry by showing them that He is the fulfillment of God's promises in the Bible.

In the Holy Scriptures, God has told us who He is, and what He has done for us. The Scriptures tell us how God created all that exists in the physical and spiritual realms. He did it by the power of His Word. The Scriptures also tell us how God acted in specific points in history to bring about our salvation from sin, which we inherited from the first people, Adam and Eve. The Scriptures are not a scientific text book, but the Bible does not contradict any true scientific findings. The Scriptures also are history and theology.

If you compare the Christian Scriptures to any other religion’s holy book, or any book of myths, and you will see that there is a clear difference. The Christian Scriptures are not mythical, but when they speak of historical events, it is detailed, and factual. The Christian Scriptures do not idealize the saints, but show them as flawed sinners. Archaeology also supports the Biblical history 100%. Though some archaeologists don’t want to believe the evidence confirms the truth of the Bible, a fair and complete reading of the archaeological evidence has always (yes, that is 100%) confirmed the Biblical account against the skeptics – and that is using the same evidence.

Evidence in Nature that God Exists

Many people would be surprised to learn that there is evidence in nature that strongly suggests (though does not prove) that God exists. The order in the world, and what we call the “scientific laws”, are reflections of God’s rationality and power. God, as He has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures, is a rational being. There would be no orderly universe if God hadn’t ordered it by His command. Science itself, is a reflection of the Christian worldview that God is a rational being who set in place natural laws to govern how things work in the world. Remember that those who created science as we know it in the Enlightenment period were Christians. They assumed that God is rational (as He describes Himself in the Holy Scriptures), and that He created an orderly universe which ran according to natural laws which could be discovered by investigation. You cannot get rational science from a Darwinistic or naturalistic worldview where things happen by accident. Where is the repeatability and orderliness of accidents? It is not there, and therefore it is not scientific.

The existence of life on earth provides many features which support God as creator of the world. The complexity of life is so great that it cannot have arisen by accident. Just look at the complexity of the DNA molecule which determines the physical structure and functioning of every living thing. The DNA molecule is a marvel of complexity which encodes many hundreds of thousands of base pairs which describe the unique person. The molecular structure of DNA forms a coded program which absolutely cannot have arisen by accident. The replication of the DNA in cell division also includes sophisticated error correcting mechanisms which are extraordinarily resistant to mutations. Though mutations can happen occasionally, they result in tragic consequences (i.e. death), not evolutionary consequences.

The Problem with the Religion of Science

One problem with turning science into a religion is that it becomes your god, and when you trust in science as you ought to trust in God, then when someone questions your scientific understanding (as is proper and necessary according to the Scientific Method) then those questions not only challenge your view of the world, but also your view of your god. We see this by the fanatically zealous way that so-called “scientists” reject any investigation into the validity of the prevailing theories of macro-evolution and the big-bang. Those who question the orthodoxy of the prevailing views on these topics are branded “heretics” (essentially) and their credibility is called into question, and all this without even examining the scientific value of their experiments. This kind of zealotry is usually reserved for religious beliefs, but because science has become a religion to many “scientists” we see it among those who otherwise would like to claim to be scientists.

To “believe” in science is to put your trust in the creation, rather than in the creator. However, you should remember why there is science in the first place. Science was developed in order to understand how the world works. We don’t fully understand how everything works. It is also true that we don’t (and can’t) fully understand God, either, but if we can admit that we don’t understand the world, then we ought to be able to (at least) leave room in our world for God, who created the world. If atheists were honest they would admit that their non-belief in God is just wishful thinking. Atheism is not natural among people. We all know that there is a god, even if some don’t know who the true God is.

The End of the World

Whether you believe in God, or believe in the currently favored natural explanation of how the universe came into being, you know that creation came into being in one day, and it will end in a similar way. The current explanation of the naturalistic creation is a “Big Bang” as a creative event. I can’t really take scientists seriously when they say things like that. Surely they can do better than that! Explosions are destructive events, not creative ones. Every explosion ever has proved this again and again. The fact that every computer model of the “Big Bang” has failed demonstrates that the universe was not created by an explosion. Do not take comfort in the idea that the computer model programmers have claimed to have gotten to within a fraction of a second of the beginning of the “Big Bang”. All that means is that their model has failed to show the creative nature of the explosive event, which is what we always observe. If the first few milliseconds of the “Big Bang” goes wrong, then everything afterwards goes wrong, too.

However, the atheist should not take comfort that he won’t be around to see the end because he will have long since passed into non-existence by that time. God has told us how things will end, and because Jesus Christ has destroyed the power of death for all people, and has promised to raise us all on the last day for judgment, we all would be wise to, at least, take some time to consider the claims of Christianity. Scripture describes the last day as a day of resurrection like this, “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:52-53) Then will proceed the judgment. It is not a judgment based on works. It is a judgment based on trust in Jesus as your savior from sin. Salvation is not based on merit, but salvation is the gift of God in Christ Jesus (see Ephesians 2:8-9). It couldn’t be any easier. Accept the gift and enjoy the blessings of salvation, or reject the gift and live in eternal regret and torment. (For more on this, see my article answering the presumptuous question: Why Does God Condemn Unbelievers to Hell?)

On the last day there is no option of non-existence. Christ has destroyed death for all, and gives salvation freely. All who reject Christ’s salvation choose to live in torment with the devil, whether they understand the choice or not. On the last day when we see Christ come in His full divine glory there will be no one who will fail to acknowledge Him as Lord and God. Those who belong to Christ through faith will rejoice that Christ has come to save us. Those who belong to themselves and to the devil through unbelief and rejection will mourn that they ought to have trusted in Jesus to save them, but did not. Either way, on the last day, there will be no denying that Jesus is God, and that His judgments are righteous and true, whether He judges to save you or to damn you.
 

A Sampling of Scripture Passages affirming God’s Creation of Everything

Genesis 1:1 
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
 
Job 38:4-13 
The Lord said, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?”
 
Psalm 19:1 
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
 
Psalm 95:6-7a
“Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”
 
Proverbs 14:31 
“Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.”
 
Proverbs 17:5 
“Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.”
 
Proverbs 22:2 
“The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the maker of them all.”
 
Isaiah 40:28 
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
 
Isaiah 51:12-15 
The Lord said, “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor? He who is bowed down shall speedily be released; he shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking. I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – the Lord of hosts is his name.”

Marching for Science as a Religious Rally

It is interesting that as I was working on writing this article, on April 22, 2017 there was a series of protest marches in several cities in the United States, and across the world that billed itself as a “March for Science”. In reality it was a religious (and political) rally for atheists, which was actually against real science. Marches are done to affect political change through educating voters about the value (or lack thereof) of their cause. This is not how science is done. Science is not done by political means, but by experimentation and showing the evidence. One of the stated reasons for the protest was to combat skepticism about “global warming”. This is anti-science also, because according to the scientific method, scientists are supposed to be skeptical about scientific hypotheses (like the claims of the global warming fear mongers), and must try to disprove the hypothesis in order to confirm or deny its validity.

One of the prominent speakers at the Washington D.C. march was the popular children’s TV celebrity, Bill Nye. Bill Nye is one of the most prominent high priests of the new atheist religion. Nye is infamous for saying that religion (specifically the Christian teaching of God’s account of the creation in Genesis) should not be taught to children because he thought it held children back in learning science. That was not a scientific statement either, but a religious statement. Nye is in favor of indoctrinating children in atheistic materialistic evolution (even though that is far short of being on solid ground scientifically), but he is completely against indoctrinating children in Christian doctrine which does not contradict true science. Nye has no problem with the teaching of science as long as it promotes atheistic evolution, but he doesn’t want the teaching of science if it shows that creation more likely happened as is described in the Book of Genesis which Moses wrote down 3500 years ago.

Can Monkeys produce Shakespeare?

The works of William Shakespeare are the product of a brilliant mind, not monkeys.

There is a funny hypothesis that an infinite number of monkeys with infinite keyboards (and time) will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. This has been proven false experimentally. Mathematically it is theoretically possible, but experiments have shown that in reality the true probability is exactly zero. Monkeys may peck at the keys of a typewriter or computer keyboard for a while, but sooner or later they will destroy it. That is what monkeys do. Monkeys, or chimpanzees, or great apes are not made to write poetry. You will never get Shakespeare from a monkey.

Scientists and mathematicians are really not concerned about the writings of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets are no threat to science. What they are really saying when they say that monkeys can produce Shakespeare is that the Bible is a book of fiction, or man-made myths (or worse), and that it cannot be trusted. Here again we can see that many atheist scientists are blinded by their religion. The historical truth of the Bible has been proven time after time by archaeology and other sources, even by skeptics who try and fail to prove the Bible wrong and become convinced that it is true. Since the Bible is historically true, then at least some thought should be given to the idea that it is also theologically and Spiritually true.

Since it is true that you cannot get Shakespeare from monkeys, then it is even more true that you cannot get the human genome from monkeys (or any other simple or complex organism). The ordering of the base pairs in the DNA molecule shows extreme complexity. Using only four “letters”, the DNA sequencing of even the simplest organism is at least as complex as a Shakespeare play, and more precise, because Shakespeare might have misspelled a word here and there and his meaning would still have come through, but a misspelling in the DNA sequence could mean the death of the organism. Wikipedia references a 1996 speech by Robert Wilensky, who stated, “We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.”

The idiocy of uneducated (or ill-educated) people on the internet may not actually disprove the religious zealots who fashion themselves as “scientists”, but it does confirm what the Holy Bible says about original sin. The Bible says that we are all alike conceived and born as sinners and are in need of forgiveness and redemption. However, God, has humbled Himself and entered our world as a man, Jesus Christ. He did this to redeem us from the guilt of our sin by fulfilling God’s Law on our behalf with His life, and also by offering His life in payment for ours. All who trust in Him to save them belong to Him and will receive His salvation. This is not a scientific fact, but a historical fact. God has had it written down and preserved for our benefit so that we may hear and believe. This doesn’t prevent Christians from learning and marveling at the mysteries of God’s creation, but it gives us great hope when this sinful world causes us sorrow, suffering and death. That is something that no amount of science can do.

The Temptation of the Religion of Science

The devil's temptations often seem very rational

The temptation to turn science into a religion plays on the pride of intellect. People who are interested in science like to find out how things work and they often take great pleasure in learning and discovering new things. That is, things which are new to them. There really isn’t anything new, but if I am learning them for the first time, then it seems new to me and I feel a sense of discovery. If I do this often enough I can take great pleasure in this and place more importance on this than is deserved. In doing this I will take pride in my intellect and think that I am really something. This pride leads to idolatry. First I begin to think that I am smarter than other people because I enjoy learning new things and maybe I know something that they do not. Then I will think that I am better than others because I am smarter than them. Then I will think that I am more valuable then others, and they are worth less. Then I will think others are worthless, and eventually I will appoint myself as my own god. This is what leads people to Gnosticism.

Gnosticism is a worship of knowledge, usually a secret kind of knowledge like what scientists claim for their discoveries. The religion of science is a modern form of Gnosticism. You will often hear scientists talking about discovering the “secrets of the universe.” When you view science like this, then it easily becomes your religion. If you think you know the “secrets of the universe” then you believe you know things that only God knows, and if only you and God have this knowledge, then you feel like you are equal to God and can judge God and you probably think that you are smarter than God. You can see how this can be very tempting. Who wouldn’t want to be smarter than God so that you can tell Him that He is wrong. This was, in essence, the temptation which brought down Adam and Eve when they were still holy and perfect, and so the sinful children of Adam and Eve have little chance to resist such a strong temptation.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” (1 Peter 5:6)

The Problem of Rationalism

Some people may think that if an argument is rational then it must be true. This is false. Every false teaching in history has begun by people trying to rationalize the Scriptures, but instead of finding the truth, they only come up with heresy. For example, even though the Triune nature of God can be found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, it doesn’t make rational sense because it concerns God’s nature. Throughout history people have tried to rationalize the doctrine of the Triune nature of God and have come up with the false teachings of Arianism, docetism, modalism, and more.

Jesus gives His body and blood with the bread and wine of the Sacrament. This can only be true if Jesus is God.

Another example is when Reformed Christians make the argument that because the resurrected and ascended Jesus sits at the right hand of God, the Father (Acts 2:33), then He cannot give His body and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to communicants. This contradicts the words of Jesus in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11, and the explanation of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 which explains that the body and blood of Jesus are truly present in the Sacrament wherever and whenever it is observed. The Reformed argument also ignores Christ’s promise of Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The problem with this argument is that it makes a rationalized assumption about what it means that Jesus “sits at the right hand of God, the Father” and then their false rationalization causes them to ignore other clear passages in Scripture.

Another example is when people try to rationalize why some people are saved, but not others. The Scriptures teach that Jesus gave up His life to pay for the sins of all people and all who believe in Him will be saved, and all who reject Him will be condemned (John 3:16-17 and others). In this way Jesus is the cause of all who are saved, and the people themselves are the cause of all who are condemned. This doesn’t sit well with rationalists who don’t like the idea that there are two different causes for these opposite outcomes. Some rationalize it by saying that God is the singular cause, and He chooses some to be saved and some to be damned. This makes God to be evil because they are saying that He intends for some people to be condemned. This contradicts 1 Timothy 2:3-4 (and many others), “God our Savior … desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Other people rationalize that God can’t be the cause of both salvation and damnation, but that we ourselves are the cause. They say we must make the choice, and our choice determines if we are saved or if we are damned. This is nowhere taught in Scripture, and it contradicts John 1:12-13, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” Salvation is not a matter of our will, but of God’s will. Damnation, however, is a matter of our will, should we choose to reject God’s gift of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus. It is a paradox, and it can’t be resolved. Those who try may be rational, but they are false teachers.

There are many more examples. You could go through all heresies taught in history and find a rational basis. No heretic ever starts out trying to teach something false. He first tries to make sense of paradoxes, or mysteries beyond our comprehension, and in making the rational argument he must ignore and contradict some other clear teaching of Holy Scripture so that his rational argument teaches something false.

True science is relentlessly rational. That is its strength when it is used properly. One must keep in mind the limits of scientific inquiry before venturing into speculative theory and other areas where science cannot find answers or has nothing to say. Theoretical science is not – strictly speaking – science. Theories are only one part of the scientific method, and theories (or hypotheses) come early in the search for truth. Hypotheses are often proven wrong by experimentation. It is a great temptation to think that science or knowledge or rationalism will answer all our questions and solve all our problems. However science cannot solve the problem of sin and death. Only Jesus can rescue us from sin and death.

The Holy Scriptures were not written as a scientific textbook, but were written to bring us salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Bible does not contradict true science, but rather encourages us to learn about the world that God created for us. We can never have all our questions answered because we are limited, and we can’t know everything. God does know everything, and he has given us the Scriptures so that we would put our trust in Jesus for our forgiveness and salvation. Science is only one of many gifts that God has given to us to make our lives better in this world, even though some use God’s gifts for evil. Don’t be led astray by those who make science into some godless religion. That is not what science is for. Don’t be led astray by those who say that the Bible isn’t true because it is not scientific. That is not what the Bible is for. The Holy Bible is to tell you what God, in Jesus Christ, has done to save you from your sins.