Sin In The Garden Of Science and Philosophy

When was the last time you thought about sin? Probably not recently because I think very few people think about sin on a regular basis and certainly not outside of church. I rather think that few people ever consider sin, theirs or others, much less what the ramifications would be in a world without sin. Of course sin does exist, at least for those people who believe in God, but in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people around who don’t believe in God. These atheists have probably always been around but they seem to be growing in number and influence. Dr. Benjamin Wiker addressed how atheists view humanity and the ramifications of Godlessness in his book “Ten Books That Screwed Up The World”. In this book Dr Wiker deconstructs a total of 16 books which view humanity as animals without moral boundaries and the enormous harm these books have done as a result.

The first book he considers is “The Prince” by Machiavelli, who views those who seek power very objectively and without regard to whether or not his recommended actions are immoral. Machiavelli makes no judgments, he is simply offering a pragmatic description of how to achieve and keep power. But when implemented his actions lead to deceit, duplicity, lies, and even murder. In effect Machiavelli describes a world without any moral boundaries – a world where God is not a consideration. But this leads to the question “Does God Exist?” Descartes and his “Discourse on Method” starts by questioning everything and arrives at his famous conclusion “ I think, therefore I am”. Dr Wiker points out the essential flaw here is that Descartes could just as easily have said “I smell therefore I am”. In effect Descartes has ceased to view himself or man as being in the image of God and through rational analysis he concludes he exists – independently of God.

From this starting point Dr Wiker begins to build his case regarding sin, morality, materialism, and immorality through the writings of Hobbes, Rousseau, Darwin, Hitler, et al. These people all share a common thread, which is the denial of sin through the denial of God or that any moral boundary should constrain their actions. Hobbes and Rousseau build a case for materialism and the natural state of man which they see as unbounded by anything other than pleasure and pain, a world in which good and evil does not exist. If man is simply an animal that through chance happens to be more advanced that other animals, then there are no limits on actions other than those that are self-imposed through self preservation but not through any false concept of right or wrong outside of pain or pleasure. All of these proto-atheists were speaking in philosophical terms, but it was Darwin and his books that moved the discussion onto a pseudo-scientific foundation.

Darwin’s book “Origin of Species” was actually not scientific at all but merely a set of observations and some conclusions that described environmental adaptation from which others have concluded the evolution of species. But it was his companion work “The Descent of Man” that described man as an animal descended from apes. This is the work that describes evolution but it also describes man as being composed of what could be “sub-species” with European Caucasians as being the supreme evolutionary result with other races as inferior. This work of Darwin’s is virtually ignored today and when the Darwinians like Richard Dawkins are challenged regarding Darwin’s “science” the response is a facile “he was a product of his time”. This may well be true but it does not excuse his lack of scientific method or demonstrable proof of what he has concluded. Nevertheless it was Darwin’s junk science that was seized upon by Sanger and Hitler to justify their efforts to improve the human race by eliminating “defectives”.

By the 1920”s it had been well established through belief and repetition that man was an animal, descended from lower animal forms, unbounded by morality but in need of improvement. This improvement would eventually be accomplished via evolution, but with the advances of “science” it was now possible to purge the human race of those deemed sub-species, defectives, or undesirables. This idea was first postulated by Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. It was she who thought parents should be selected and individuals deemed as inferior or undesirable should be sterilized so they could not reproduce. Notice that this is not voluntary but directed by the state and there is no mention of moral boundaries, God, or sin. Her objective is to improve the human race much like you would selectively breed animals. Naturally her position and support of eugenics led inexorably to Hitler’s decision to eliminate all undesirables from the human reproductive chain. That this led to mass murder was not considered by him in moral terms – it was simply applying science to the problem of racial improvement—i.e. moving toward the superior Caucasian as described by Darwin and Nietzsche.

Following the failure of the eugenics movement, the atheists moved in a different direction but still relying on junk science. Alfred Kinsey decided that his views of human behavior were sound and employed an astounding level of junk science to demonstrate that every weird and perverse sexual preference he had was totally normal and since man was an animal there was no moral constraint that could be applied and thus no sin.

Today the atheists continue their assault on morality and sin as they deny the very existence of God. In their eyes man is an animal, descended form lower life forms, with no purpose, no future, and not obligated to recognize any moral constraint or boundary. I think the time has long past for mankind to look critically at the murders and damage done by the atheists and their denial of sin and God.