Christianity has done more for science than atheism ever could
Posted on September 13, 2013by The Matt Walsh Blog
Our governor here in Kentucky has decided to implement the new Common Core “Next Generation” science standards. Progressives are celebrating this move for a few reasons : 1) It will put us in line with many other states, which is great because we all know a diverse and enriching education must be in utter uniformity with the national collective and in compliance with the federal agenda. 2) The criteria calls for a renewed emphasis on man-caused climate change and, of course, evolution. Evolution — atheistic, nihilistic, materialistic, mindless evolution — must be taught as fact, without other ideas presented to compete with the theory.
Proponents say that atheistic evolution is the only thing that belongs in the classroom because religion and science just don’t mix. I agree, partially at least. Some religions don’t gel with science — religions like Scientology or, say, Atheism. The followers of the COA (Church of Atheism) are not only hostile to science, they are aggressively allergic to history and philosophy as well. They are the ones who constantly need to alter and warp these subjects, so as to fit them all in their tiny little box of nihilism and emptiness. A Christian doesn’t need to be so selective and manipulative because he is part of something full, rational, multi-faceted and universal. He is part of something that, as Chesterton said, has “a multiplicity and subtlety and imagination about the varieties of life which is far beyond the bald or breezy platitudes of most ancient or modern philosophy. In a word, there is more in it; it finds more in existence to think about; it gets more out of life.”
This is where some of my Christian brothers and sisters fail mightily. So often they cede “science” to the atheist and shrink away from his challenges, backing off in defeat while muttering something about “faith” and “belief.” “Well, you might have your fancy science books, but I’ve got faith.” Yes, faith and belief are important, but you, my Christian compatriot, are standing on the Mountain of Truth. You have the high ground. YOU have the facts and the science on your side. Your faith does NOT conflict with science. Christianity built this civilization; your Christian ancestors are the pioneers behind the greatest advancements in many fields of study. Christianity illuminates the sciences and invigorates the passion for discovery. As a Christian, you aren’t just a member of a religion — you’re a member of a rich intellectual tradition unmatched by any group, anywhere in the world. So don’t just sit there and let the atheists blabber about how your faith hates science. Speak up, damn it. Fight back. Get angry.
I have heard this “you can’t mix religion and science” argument so many times, and so many times the atheist gets away with making such a silly and irrational claim. A guy actually told me today that “Christians have always hated science.” What a bizarre and stupid thing to say; easily refuted, if only we take the time and endure the frustration. Modern science, despite the incoherent ramblings of historically illiterate fools, wouldn’t exist without religion.
Christianity hasn’t stifled science. Christianity has been its driving force and, for hundreds of years, virtually its only significant contributor. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Kelvin, Mendel, Boyle — all devout Christians. You want to remove your science from my religion? Fine. But we’re keeping these dudes. You can have Richard Dawkins and his tales of “mild pedophilia.” Enjoy.
Father Steno was a priest. Geologists call him “father,” but for none religious reasons: he’s considered the father of modern geology.
The Basilica of San Petronio is a beautiful church. It was also, for many years, one of the most sophisticated solar observatories in the world.
The Jesuits helped contribute to the development of clocks, barometers, microscopes and telescopes. They theorized about things like human flight, the moon and the tides, and blood circulation. They observed certain astronomical phenomena before anyone else. They did these things as an aspect of their religious pursuits, not in competition with it.
In fact, for five or six centuries no institution funded and supported the sciences more than the Church. They don’t teach that in school, which yet again demonstrates the danger of mixing atheism and education. Atheism has to hide from so much, deny so much, and twist and manipulate so much, because its existence is always jeopardized by the scorching light of truth. To paraphrase CS Lewis, an atheist has to be careful about what he reads and which facts he encounters. There are traps everywhere.
When western scientific knowledge came to places like China and India in the 1600's, it came by way of Christians and their science-hating Christianity. You’d be hard pressed to find a single bit of modern scientific knowledge that wasn’t discovered, or heavily influenced by, the work of devout Christians.
Do the progressive science lovers, who use the Big Bang to “disprove” God, even know the name of the guy who originally formulated the hypothesis? Well, they think the universe and the human mind came about my happenstance, so I guess it follows that the Big Bang Theory just appeared magically in text books one day. But, unfortunately for them, just like the Big Bang itself, the theory has an originator. His name was Monseigneur Georges Lemaitre. “Monseigneur,” for the uninitiated, means “priest” in France-talk.
Those who broadly mock religion, and who pretend that Christianity inhibits education and discovery, aren’t just arrogantly dismissing Joe Schmoes like me. Yesterday I received a typical email from a tolerant progressive atheist. It read, in part, “f**ck you and your Jesus bull sh*t. You people are all idiots constantly afraid of real education.” Oh, don’t worry, he then segues from calling billions of people “idiots” who believe in “Jesus bull sh*t” to railing against Christians for being “bigoted” and “hateful,” just as you’d expect. Masters of unintentional irony, these left wing atheists.
But are we Christians all “idiots”? Well, I don’t mind if you say that about me, but was Da Vinci an idiot? Aquinas? Shakespeare? Mozart? Washington? Locke? Martin Luther King Jr? Edison? Tesla? Alexandar Graham Bell? Adam Smith? Marconi? Chesterton? Lewis? MacDonald? Dickens? Faulkner? Tolkein? Marco Polo? Neil Armstrong? Magellan? Columbus? Henry Ford? All of these guys are idiots, along with the scientific pioneers I mentioned earlier? They all hated education? I mean, sure, they weren’t as smart as modern liberals — they certainly can’t compete with the atheist intellectuals of our day, like Seth McFarlane and Angelina Jolie — but they were sort of clever in their own way, don’t you think?
Science, just like any other subject, is multidimensional. There is the fact, and then there is the meaning behind the fact, and then there is the motivation to pursue the fact and its meaning, and then there is the issue of how to apply and interpret all of these things. In other words, science does advance or regress drastically depending on the prevailing philosophy of any civilization. Christian civilizations advanced science immeasurablybecause they were Christian civilizations. If you take God out of the study of the origin of life, not only are you left with a confused and arbitrary thing, riddled with holes and inconsistencies, but you’ve also stripped the subject, and the study of the subject, of its meaning and purpose.
Our understanding of the universe deepened so profoundly during the Christian era because of the Christian tradition that brought a sense of order and rationality to the universe. Now political and ideological forces wish to decapitate existence from the Mind that created it, thus shredding its order and meaning, and leaving us with a “science” that has regressed back into something incoherent and archaic. Atheism does not advance science — it doesn’t advance anything — it does only what it is designed to do: confuse and destroy.
You can’t take Christianity out of the classroom no matter how hard you try. If you take it out, most everything — especially science — goes with it. Christianity is woven into the fabric of most every academic subject (except gender studies). You can, however, remove Atheism, and I think it’s time we do that. Such a silly superstition — uncaused causes removed from the Ultimate Cause, human consciousness that develops accidentally out of lifeless material, order coming from chaos, rationality coming from irrationality, everything coming from nothing — has never done anyone any good, and it doesn’t belong inside a school.
Really, we must get atheism away from education before we all end up like the modern atheist’s greatest prophet, Nietchsze, who died insane and naked, eating his own feces in a mental institution. This is not the sort of fate we should wish upon our children.
Think of the children, for goodness sake.
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