Focus on Morality

I wish you people would focus on the important matter of maintaining an independent moral authority. Instead of which you do stupid and evil things like this museum. Going up against scientific method either makes you look stupid or plays into the hands of political and business charlatans who can rely on the church to fog rationality enough for their own lies to be bought. It just goes to prove that Religion is a sick meme that has bad side effects as well as the good that comes of central societal control. I have no doubt that the fundamentalist nutcases of other religions are working on a plague to kill people with your meme right now, frankly I wouldn't miss you one bit. Why are you so obsessed with continuing with this?

I wish you people would focus on the important matter of maintaining an independent moral authority.

I wonder if you realise how much presupposition there is in that one sentence. How does one define what is “important”? What is “the important matter” that matters more than anything else? What is a “moral authority”? And how can such a “moral authority” be “independent”? If there are no absolutes, then how can any moral system have authority?

My moral system has authority, because it is not my system at all. It is God’s system, as laid down in the Bible. The Apostle Paul said “God… commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.” (Acts 17:30–31) God has given us commandments, and He has the right to do so, because He is “God, who made the world and everything in it.” (Acts 17:24) If judged by this moral authority, we stand guilty, and deserving of Hell. Therefore the most important matter to us is to tell people that God, in His mercy, has made available a way—the only way—that we can escape Hell, because Jesus Christ has taken the punishment that we deserve. This is what is meant by the gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ.

Instead of which you do stupid and evil things like this museum.

The accusation of evil is a moral accusation. By what measure can you decide that the museum is “evil”? Seen in the light of the previous paragraph, you need to observe that everything we do is motivated by this need to present the gospel. Indeed, we have often said that the most important part of the museum is the chapel. It is our desire that people will come to faith in Jesus Christ through visiting the museum. Presumably, this makes no sense to you. This is not a surprise. Paul says: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). By what criteria can you decide that something you don’t agree with is evil? There is no logic to your accusation.

Going up against scientific method either makes you look stupid or plays into the hands of political and business charlatans who can rely on the church to fog rationality enough for their own lies to be bought.

“Going up against scientific method” would indeed be odd. However, we do not do so. Scientific methodology involves challenging existing paradigms, and testing data. Such scientific method is conducted in the present. As soon as you make a statement about what happened in the far past, bearing in mind that you weren’t there, you step outside scientific methodology. The distinction I am making has been made frequently on this site, and concerns the difference between operational science and origins science. If you claim to know for sure that living cells developed spontaneously from non-living molecules, then you are mistaken. You were not there to see it happen, nor have you observed it happening in the laboratory. Yet your accusations against us, using words such as “lies,” “charlatans” and “fog rationality” are unsubstantiated. Unsubstantiated accusations have no value. They are illogical.

It just goes to prove that Religion is a sick meme that has bad side effects as well as the good that comes of central societal control.

As already made clear, unsubstantiated accusations prove nothing. Certainly you have not proved that “religion is a sick meme.” Indeed, by introducing the term “meme,” you have adopted a terminology accepted by few scientists, other than radical atheists like Richard Dawkins. “Meme” is his term. Memes have not been proven to exist, nor are they an accepted hypothesis even among non-Christian biologists. I am not sure I understand your point about “central societal control.” Are you recommending this as a good thing or a bad thing? Dawkins, as we know, would like governments to ban parents from talking about religion to their own children. Couple this with his recent enthusiasm for Hitlerian eugenics, and we have a recipe for “central societal control.”

I have no doubt that the fundamentalist nutcases of other religions are working on a plague to kill people with your meme right now, frankly I wouldn't miss you one bit.

Nice to know you love us so much! I agree that there are dangerous fundamentalists in many religions. What would a fundamentalist Christian believe, though? Jesus talked about turning the other cheek. He talked about walking the extra mile. He talked about loving our enemies. Are you opposed to that sort of fundamentalism?

Why are you so obsessed with continuing with this?

I am obsessed with the truth. And I am obsessed by the fact that those who do not love the Lord are still guilty of their own sins, and will stand before Him on the Day of Judgment.

If I saw you drowning, I would be obsessed by throwing you a lifebelt and getting you into shore by any method possible. Because we see people going to Hell, we are obsessed, because we know that there is no other name under heaven whereby we might be saved (Acts 4:12), other than Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of the world.

Paul Taylor, AiG–UK