For the past six years, pastor-turned-evangelist Rev. Michael Dowd has been going from pulpit to pulpit preaching the gospel—no, not the good news of our salvation through Jesus Christ, but of our liberation and empowerment through Charles Darwin.

How’s that? The good Reverend explains:

“[Darwin gives us] a far more empirical way of talking about human nature than through stories like the original sin.”

As the New York Times's Yudhijit Bhattacharjee writes, “It explains our frailties, our addictions, our infidelities and other moral deficiencies as byproducts of adaptation over billions of years. And that, [Dowd] says, has a potentially liberating effect: never mind guilt; once we understand our sinful ways, we can get past them and play a conscious role in the evolution of humanity.”

Consider Bob Miller, an octogenarian whose string of infidelities, decades ago, led to a divorce, just as he was ascending the corporate ladder. For years Miller struggled to understand his behavior and the forces behind it. Then, a Dowd crusade came to Miller’s church.

There, the Reverend “explained” the evolutionary origin human behavior, and “Eureka!”: Miller realized that the culprit for his failures was not a fallen nature, but elevated testosterone, brought on by his corporate success.

With the burden of guilt gone, Miller reflects: “I think the physical change in my body was so strong that it completely overpowered any moral teachings and religious beliefs I had.”

There you have it--the science is in! It is not from the heart that evil thoughts, murder, adultery, and sexual immorality come; it’s from a physical law working on our chemistry. Feeling better now?

Now Michael Dowd is hawking his new book Thank God for Evolution with “Facts are God’s native tongue.” That’s a good catchphrase! Indeed, facts are God’s native tongue; facts like:

• Darwinian evolution has never been observed or reproduced even in micro-organisms whose explosive rates of replication would guarantee its validity.
• Based on a random, unguided process, Darwinian evolution has no predictive power. Consequently, Darwinian evolution has not contributed to a single technological or medical advance since it was conjectured 150 years ago.
• Information, like that found in DNA, is empirically known to originate only from intelligent causes.
• There has been insufficient time for the simplest gene, much less the simplest organism, to develop from an unintelligent process, even given all the necessary chemical ingredients.
• And then there's the fact of entropy, the universal law of physics that causes sytems to go from bad to worse, unless affected by a rational application of energy.

But somehow I doubt that you’ll find those facts in Thank God for Evolution. Some you will find, according to the author, are “many of the core doctrines central to Christianity—sin, salvation, the kingdom of God, heaven and hell, Jesus as God's way, truth, and life,” unpacked in “an undeniably this-world realistic—way.”

Dowd represents this, pictorially, with a logo on the van he and his wife use in their “outreach.” It shows two fish kissing: one labeled “Jesus” and the other, “Darwin.”

Dowd calls his theological perspective “creatheistic.”

Would that be “cre-atheistic?” That seems right, considering his wife, whom he describes as his “mission partner," is an atheist.

(Image © Thank God for Evolution)

Comments

[Sam Burton]

Oh, my! I guess when you live long enough you really do see it all. It's especially gratifying to see that Dowd is being invited to Churches to spread his message.

[John Schrott]

I never cease to be amazed at how Christians can be strung along into believing the lies of the day. This strikes me as just another example. I have not read Mr. Dowd's book, nor can I see doing so in the future. Based on what was said in the article this appears to be just another way on the surface to excuse peoples behavior. "I'm an animal and I can't help myself". Jesus gives us another very clear answer. Human beings are frail and sinful, but by letting him into their hearts he gives us a future and a hope. By surrendering our life to him he helps us to change from these ways into a new creation more like him. So, in a sense we evolve not from a monkey to a man, but we evolve internally and eternally. We evolve not in a way that can be depicted on some drawing with monkeys and hunched over hairy men. God's way can be far more dramatic. He also never recounts his time with the father at the beginning of mankind looking for the right protoplasm to breath life into. My money is on the one who new me before I was born, not on the one who never will.

[Susannah]

Does this mean we are not morally culpable as a species for "global warming" or pollution?

[Jason Taylor]

Isn't "a physical law working on our chemistry" just a multisylabic way of saying The Flesh?

[Jim M. Roane, PhD]

You missed one undeniable proof of evolution: Michael Dowd himself.

[Sue]

Doesn't the Bible says in the end days men will not endure sound doctrine? This is just one more piece of garbage for the times.

[Rick Baugh]

Too many seminaries have also bought into Darwiniac nonsense, or consider the history of Genesis 1-11 as "unimportant" to the central message of Jesus. However Genesis 1-11 provide the very foundation of _why_ Jesus had to die on the cross. And, as has been noted by many atheist "scholars", if the first 11 chapters of the Bible can be shown to be false, why should any of it be considered true?

Luckily, neo-Darwinism is a theory with many serious cracks that are getting ever wider. In addition to the holes noted by Regis, one also has to wonder:
1) why, 150 years after Darwin noted the deficit, are there still none but a handful of debatable "transition" fossils? 2) How could dinosaur blood and soft tissue, as found this last decade, have survived intact for 65+ million years? 3) if man was basically unchanged for the last 200,000 years, why does history only go back 4-5 thousand? 4) if man has been burying the dead the last 200,000 years, and man's population was +/-1 to 10 million all this time, why are archeological finds of human bones so rare (there should be billions)? 5) if man is "evolving" to something "better", why are genetic diseases becoming more and more prevalent?

I think we will see the fall of the last manifestation of Darwin's theory (there have been 3 incarnations so far) in our lifetime. Praise God!

[Sam Brooks]

I think that this article is much to kind to Mr. Dowd, and to the Pastors who invite him to their pulpits. Shame on us, if this is all the courage that we have. We must stand for the truth, the Word of God.

[Todd Vossen]

Wow. Michael Dowd is a heretic. Plain and simple.

[Chris Clukey]

Well put, Jason.

Dr. Roane, how is Mr. Dowd a proof of evolution? If you're serious I hope you'll elaborate; if you were joking, it soard over my head into the centerfield bleachers. :-)

[Ann Salyer]

It sounds to me like we have a new cult. His teachings aren't much different from Scientology's belief that man can not be accused of being sinful. He is just stuck with something from a previous life.

[Mark]

I also have a theory. When you are surrounded by evidence of creation all around you, yet you continually deny that there is a Creator; you will eventually lose touch with reality. "The wise things of men are foolishness to God".

[Chris Clukey]

Rick, great point about history. I've often wondered, if we are 100,000 to 200,000 years old, why did it take 90,000 to 190,000 years to figure out writing and agriculture?

Take writing for example. People could figure out how to build a spear that channelled blood away for the site of a spear thrust and a leverage-based device for throwing it, they could build up religions that included an afterlife and burial rituals, but they couldn't figure out how (for example) to make a pictograph saying "Look out for crocodiles?"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Alligator_pictogram.jpg)

[tracy dyer]

There is a reason that Darwin's book is called the Theory of Evelution. A theory has to be proven to be taken out of the theory stage and become law. This theory has not, will not and can never be proven because it is a misguided hypothesis. Why would the Christian world give any credence to Mr. Dowd?

[Rev. Michelle Prentice-Leslie]

Focusing on this stuff is silly. If we keep our eyes focused on what we are to be and do, we'd be doing a lot more good for ourselvs and the world. Let the Darwin thing sort itself out in time. Speculation makes fools.

[Chris Clukey]

Tracy--

Actually, the word theory doesn't mean an unproven hypothesis, it means a model that may or may not be proven. Here's four paragraphs from something I wrote on the subject a few years back:

That word, “theory,” is a big part of the problem. Many of those in favor of teaching intelligent design (especially non-scientists) use the word as a synonym for “speculation” or “hypothesis,” much in the same way that Creationists do. “Evolution is just a theory,” they will say. For their part, many opponents of teaching it (especially non-scientists) use the word as a synonym for “law,” or “proven facts.” They will point to ironclad theories like atomic theory or the theory of relativity as examples and make accusations of ignorance, bias or trickery against those who see evolution as anything but a proven fact on the level of gravity or germ theory.

The problem with this is that a theory is not a guess or a fact, but a system or a model. It is a way of looking at phenomena, and sometimes it is new and relatively speculative and flawed, and other times it is well-proven and factual. The word “theory” is like the word “automobile.” Both the Edsel and the Corvette are a type of system described by the word “automobile,” but one was a disaster and the other is a revered classic. What we have is one group of people saying “Automobiles are Edsels” and another saying “Automobiles are Corvettes.” Most of the scientists seem to realize that neither statement is true; most of the people arguing on the talking head shows and on the editorial pages seem to be missing it.

Astronomy gives us a number of examples of scientific Edsels. Take for example the model of the Universe put forth by the 2nd Century astronomer Ptolemy. He had the Earth at the center of the Universe, with the stars on a rotating globe that surrounded the solar system. In his theory, the planets not only rotated around the Earth, but also circled around in a smaller orbit called an epicycle. Ptolemy’s model even fit the available data: The epicycles explained the retrograde motion of the planets, a phenomenon no one had properly explained before.

Of course, we know Ptolemy was way off. But we also know that his model was a theory, and that the correct model that replaced it was also a theory.

[Pastor Leonard Miller]

I think darwin had too much time on his hands. I know for a afct that Darwin was an idiot. Show me one fact of his THEORY'S that is true and I will eat my words. Thanks be to God there is no one that will be able to do that. I take the stand now in that I promise their will be a day of reckoning to the Lord our one and only true God.

[Regis Nicoll]

Chris--Good point about "theories." I was once in a debate with an academic philosopher--a self-proclaimed atheist and philosophical naturalist, by the way, who espoused Karl Popper's falsification approach to science. When I asked him what it would take, in his mind, to falsify the theory of evolution...surprise, surprise, he couldn't think of anything! It seems that some theories are immune from the tentativeness of science--at least for some folks.

[Chris Clukey]

Reverend Prentice-Leslie--

I would disagree with you if Dowd's premise was "Evolution is the right scientific theory, so the church should embrace it." After all, we serve a Lord who called Himself "the Truth," so letting a huge and worldview-changing lie pass right on by wouldn't be following Him.

However, the premise of Dowd's book is that there is no such thing as sin, not even original sin. Instead, evolution explains our human frailties. Reverend, this is as much a departure from the Gospel as saying "Jesus never taught anything," or "Jesus taught that the white man is superior to non-whites." In fact, since Jesus and his apostles spoke and wrote so much about the Creation, sin and its cure, Dowd's ideas gut the very premise of the Gospel. If there's no sin, why bother with a Savior? If there's no sin, why attend your church, Reverend, or any church? Why not sleep in on Sunday and read the latest issue of Psychology Today?

In addition, how do Dowd's ideas square with your advice to "keep our eyes focused on what we are to be and do?"

The Bible says that Jesus was sent to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21), that I should gouge out my eye or cut off my hand if either causes me to sin (Matthew 5:29, 30), and that I must forgive others' sins if I expect my sins to be forgiven (Matthew 6:15). Paul says we were sinners Christ died for (Romans 5:8) and traces sin back to Adam (Romans 5:18,19). James tells people in the church (!) that they're sinners who need to wash their hands and purify their hearts.

How can one become what they are to be and do what they are supposed to do if they are a sinner and believe there is no such thing as sin? If sin is real, isn't Dowd a blind man leading other blind men into a pit, and wouldn't it be far from silly to question his behavior?

[Terry Eldridge]

Concerning the question I believe Darwinism is an inaccurate interpretation of scientific facts. (It doesn't help here that interpretation often becomes confused with scientific fact.)

[Rev.Chadd Hatfield BSC CBC]

Simply foward to him the address for answersingenesis.org. Then pray that the Lord gives him wisdom and knowledge.

In Jesus' service

[Nathan]

This is all very simple. This is just an attempt from the pits of Hell through it's vessel (Dowd and his partner) to not only discredit the credibility of the word of God but to also disensitise those trying to find an excuse for their lifestyles of greed, lust, infidelity and the likes.

This kind of theories gives people the license to shift blame from their own wicked hearts to something else. To take the focus away from their need of a savior and a lifestyle that needs to be lived for Him.

God have mercy on their souls...

[Homer]

1John 2:18-20,26-29 This has been going on for thousands of years. This is seems nothing more than a man loving his wife (an atheist, based on the article I read here)more than the Word. Whether that be the incarnate Word; Jesus, or the inspired Word from the Holy Spirit. He is no doubt merging the truth of scripture, and the lies of evolution to form a compromise that will not offend his wife. But, "no lie is of the truth.", the bible says. The Lord said "If anyone loves his wife...more then me he is not worthy of me, and he cannot be my disciple." If this man is a christian he cannot deny the Spirit's witness of this false teaching. The spirit that would twist a lie to misrepresent the truth is the spirit of antichrist.This is why we are "not to be unequally yoked together with unbeliever's!" If we are we still have our loyalties to none above our King, the Lord Jesus!!

[labrialumn]

At least Dowd is consistent with his presuppositions, unlike the many self-described Christians who reject the Biblical worldview in favor of the atheist worldview.

[Joe C]

I think this is one of the most insipid ideas imaginable. It's just another politically correct pseudo-gospel sprouting up to make a quick buck and make an effort to cause more division in the body of Christ. Any person who is even partially educated shouldn't allow their intelligence to be insulted by the idea of evolution. It's another flawed humanistic theory that should have died along with the Y2K scare.

[Jeremy]

It is hard to know just how much God causes and allows. How involved is Christ in our lives? How much does God help the non-believer? What about those who recognize and accept Jesus as the Christ?

In my own life the Holy Spirit has revealed reasons to keep believing. And yet humans are finite. All it takes is a kick to the head and we can forget God's manifestations. Me? Oh, I forget "naturally." I do not need to suffer a blow to the head to be distracted.

I believe we need to pray with humility that God will continue to manifest God's self to us.

Obviously, Darwinism can be good in that it pressures Christians to daily choose where Scripture and science stand in their walk with God. If you do not believe in Christ, then of course you are NOT going to accept Scripture the way God calls us to.
But then the subject of calvanism and free will come into play.

One question for the reader: If evolution does occur, then where did religion come from. Do (other) animals worship? Where in the evolutionary process does science say religion arose?

Have a great day! In Christ, Jeremy.

[Steve (SBK)]

Jeremy,
I'll only make a few observations re: your questions.
a) What is religion? Is it simply a belief that God exists?
b) Would it matter if evolution was the sole cause of humans? If it's not (the sole cause), then wasn't 'religion' in place before the world began?
c) awe and reverence are not possible without sapient beings. If science could say when that happened, they might have a good idea when religion (and most human activity) occurred.

Just some thoughts.

[mike dunphy]

"evolution is a process
too slow to save my soul..."

the germs (1980)

[Edith]

I'd like to ask Michael what came first?? The chicken or the egg, and if the egg, where did it come from? Anyone with some common sense can see that evolution is simply a denial of accountability to a God who loves us enough to give His Son to die for our sins. Even Darwin later changed into a beliver in God!!! I am looking forward not to evolution but to translation into His physical likeness as He promised me. God is GOOD!! All the time!! Even though some want to deny His exsistance He still loves them and wants to redeem them for His kingdon. He is not willing that any should perish!! I can't think of anything better than that.

Edith

[Chris Clukey]

Mike and Edith,

As Geoff Moore wrote:

It takes a lot of faith to say we're accidents of nature,
but I believe we are the work of a loving Creator.
Now you can wait a million years and hope that nature does it's part,
but it only takes a moment, for God to change a heart.
That's why...

I believe in evolution,
changing of the heart, renewing of the mind.
It's the only true solution,
God is always working, changing lives
It's evolution redefined.

I used to trust in natural selection,
my survival was all I could see.
My evolving to perfection,
Started when God rescued me

[michael]

A couple quotes come to mind. First, from Hobart Maurer, an atheist who was a professor of psychology at Yale and the president of the APA:

''For several decades, we psychologists have looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus, and acclaimed our liberation from it as epic-making. But at length we have discovered that to be free, in this sense to have the excuse to being sick rather than being sinful, is to court the danger of also becoming lost.

''This danger, I believe, is betokened by the widespread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing. In becoming a-moral, ethically neutral, and free we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood, and identity. And with neurotics themselves, we find ourselves asking, who am I, what is my deepest destiny, and what does living really mean?''

Maurer committed suicide in his seventies.

How does Dowd, Bhattacharjee, or any evolutionist define what constitutes a moral deficiency? How does a solely natural process like evolution engender a non-natural, objective moral law?

[David Mann]

Published in the IEEE (Electrical Eng'g) journal in June,2008 was an article "Introduction to Darwinian Perspectives on Electronic Communication". Of course they started by assuming Darwinian evolution, and then tried to show how that assumption was consistent with various observations. The statement yoiu will find funny, however, is this "it was a blind belief in evolutionary explanations of human behavior that led to the eugenics and social Darwinism movements." (p 134). Too funny! Evolution, blind by definition, should not be applied blindly. I suppose that means we must apply it responsibly, informed by what your mother taught you!

[Regis Nicoll]

David--I'm forever amazed at the lengths folks will go to explain how Darwinism is "at work" in their field of expertise. Just curious--how did the journal tie Darwinian Theory to electronic communication?

[David]

The Reverend Prentice-Leslie makes an important point. Most of us are way more interested in analyzing and critiquing other ideas rather than demonstrating the validity of ours in the real world. I am reminded of the words of G.K. Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." Christianity will never be a "proven" theory (after all, it is all about faith), but it can be demonstrated to be a theory that works.

[Chris Clukey]

Ah, but David, don't you think that my critique of the Reverend's position is also valid? She wasn't just saying "We all tend to be too critical," she was saying that if a guy comes along and says there's no such thing as sin, criticizing that idea is "silly." And yet, his idea is contrary to the core of the Gospel, so how could speaking against it be silly, or be petty criticism?

Isn't contending for the Faith against those who would water it down just as much a requirement for the Christian (and just as much a demonstration of its validity) as living a Christian life?

[FriarThom]

Chris Clukey,

There are radically opposing views of what sin is. On the other hand, that the mechanism of natural selection is responsible for the diversity of species isn't controversial at all. ID proponents may say that it is controversial. They may claim that it isn't natural selection but the hand of God, over millions and millions of years. Ok. It's the hand of God, and God's miraculous intervention into the lives of all species - and man (who isn't an animal) that "designed" the diversity of species. It is hidden DNA that God manifests into species fully formed. It's God blowing life into the nostrils of the fully formed he/she Adam. It's Noah loading all animals (including the fresh water fishes but not the salt water fishes) into an ark and saving them from the flood. All these myths are a yawn, it taken literally, not metaphorically, not "non-commitally" (thanks Jason). Natural selection is interesting. That's why scientists study evolutionary biology. With legitimate science, there is a lot to learn, discover and explain. ID myths are boring and juvenile. With religion/ID, there is nothing to learn, discover and explain. There is only a target (legitimate science) to criticize and people tire of the endless drone of politically motivated criticism.

We'll never agree that God has given us a miraculous world that is continually evolving and that he has challenged us to sustain this ark and preserve every species that shares its population with us. From the perspective of the ark, failure to preserve a species or willingly causing an extinction is sinful.

So what is sin and who here on earth decides?

[David]

Chris,
I believe there is a place for careful and caring discussion with sincere seekers. Most of the discussion I have been drawn into in my own past, and most of what I witness in a variety of forums, is mostly self-serving (that is, ego-boosting) and not necessarily God-honoring. "Contending for the Faith" is important. However, I do not agree that exposing the errors in someone else's view helps to prove the view we hold to be true. All of us mere mortals have one thing in common: we are "contending for life". If we believers contend well - meaning lovingly, gracefully, etc. - we will surely have done the work of contending for the Faith. To say it another way, "Faith without works is dead". We should enjoy and exercise our minds; we must be sure to exercise our hearts and hands at least as vigorously. (I realize I am veering off topic, so I'll stop...)

[David]

Friar Thom,
You demonstrate what I said to Chris earlier: you perceive those expressing faith in a creator as having no other agenda but to “attack” science. That is unfortunate for all involved. I find your justification for science interesting: learning, discovering, explaining. Indeed, science is a tool that can be used for those purposes, but there are other ways. How did humankind learn, discover and explain before “science” developed? Did you learn everything you know by conducting objective experiments? The criticism that religion/ID is boring probably arises from the sense that all discovery is pointless if everything exists because “God said so”. It may seem there is nowhere to go once you hit that wall. But if everything we discover exists only because of random phenomena, then, as it pertains to the BIG QUESTIONS, science is just chasing the wind. That is also “nowhere to go”. It seems pointless to learn, discover and explain that everything is random. Of course, science is still very interesting and very valuable for answering questions about the practical machinery of the material world. But science will never answer the big questions, and humankind will never stop asking them. "Religion" is the realm wherein humankind tries to address what science cannot answer.

[FriarThom]

David,
I agree with your statement that Religion pertains to the BIG QUESTIONS. That's not where I take issue with the post. The issue is that Regis makes fun of the phrase “Facts are God’s native tongue.” Of course they are. Even people who believe in miracles believe in them because they actually happened, i.e. they are facts.

The anti-evolution arguments made by Regis are, quite frankly, ridiculous. Regis is a physicist and he knows better. Very few physical processes are completely random. There are random aspects to phenomena, for example, it is not possible to predict the momentum of a single molecule in a gas inside of a balloon, but the temperature, pressure and volume of the gas as a whole is easily quantified. Physical systems settle into stable states. Stability is not random. Mathematical and physical laws govern how systems behave.

Evolution is factual at the level that we can observe it, and we don't have to know the trajectory of every molecule in an evolving species to observe it. We have observed that butterflies native to an area downstream from a power plant plume evolved their pigment from white to black during our lifetime. Actually, they evolved over a very short period of time. Regis' statement that "evolution has never been observed" is factually incorrect, and if Regis really studies the science of evolution, he knows that his statement was untrue. Faithful Christians might even say that "Untruths are Satan’s native tongue.”

Please see this NY Times op-ed. You may need to register to view it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/opinion/13judson.html

Here is the ending:

"A society where ideology is a substitute for evidence can go badly awry. (This is not to suggest that science is never distorted by the ideological left; it sometimes is, and the results are no better.)

But for me, the most important thing about studying evolution is something less tangible. It’s that the endeavor contains a profound optimism. It means that when we encounter something in nature that is complicated or mysterious, such as the flagellum of a bacteria or the light made by a firefly, we don’t have to shrug our shoulders in bewilderment.

Instead, we can ask how it got to be that way. And if at first it seems so complicated that the evolutionary steps are hard to work out, we have an invitation to imagine, to play, to experiment and explore. To my mind, this only enhances the wonder."

[Regis Nicoll]

Friar— I did not say that evolution has never been observed; I said that “Darwinian evolution” has never been observed—big difference. No one disputes that small-scale changes (e.g., anti-biotic immune bacteria, pesticide resistant insects, finch beak size, etc.), associated with micro-evolution, occur. All life forms are designed with limited abilities to adapt to changing environments through genetic variability and inheritance.

However, color changes in butterflies is no more evidence that a butterfly could one day evolve into a hummingbird (Darwinian macro-evolution), than it is that a Lexus 430 could evolve from a scrap metal heap due to100 million years of cosmic radiation, weathering and quantum jitters, just because we know that metal turns rust brown after being left out in the rain.

[FriarThom]

"a Lexus 430 could evolve from a scrap metal heap due to 100 million years of cosmic radiation"

Are automobiles life forms created by God? Now I'm really confused.

[Steve (SBK)]

Wait, FriarThom, are you saying "God did it" when it comes to the intricacy and diversity of life forms?
Or are you saying "Blind Chance did it"?

Why are you confused? If humans (not a mindless cosmic mishmash) can create a Lexus 430, surely a mindless cosmic mishmash could create a more-complex-than-a-Lexus-430 living cell, right?

[David]

All of this straining over whether or not evolution is a scientifically verifiable process, and whether or not it might be God's way to manifest his plan are interesting questions to pursue, but, in any case, I am still wondering what difference it makes. If evolution is true, does that really mean we can "play a conscious role in the evolution of humanity", as the interpreter of Dowd's message puts it? How does one participate in what is by definition a random process? If the process can be "guided", which flawed mortals will do the guiding, and to what state of being will they guide us? And even if that all turns out well, what comfort is there in knowing that humankind will "improve" in a few million more years? I would rather live next door to a person who believes they ought to - and is actually making an effort to -conform their behavior to the example of Jesus than to a person who is content to know that we'll all be really nice in a few million years.

[FriarThom]

David,

We are guiding the process. For example, in our lifetimes, bacteria have evolved that are resistant to antibiotics. These new bacteria now serve as agents in the selection process.

That's besides your point. Evolution is the process by which inheritable DNA is passed on to future generations. What we do in our day to day lives is of utmost importance. Using scientific tools to understand the physical world certainly won't hinder our ability to make informed moral choices.

[David]

FriarThom,
Your example about bacteria demonstrates that we humans are very good at discovery and application - that is, science and technology. Discovering a valuable byproduct of random mutations is far different than "guiding" the random mutations. Your example hints at what might be called an article of faith among materialists: if we can make our environment better, we humans will become (morally) better. Clearly, history demonstrates that our ability to make "informed moral choices" has not advanced with our understanding of the material world. Actually, your last sentence speaks to the heart of the "evolution problem". All moral choice must be informed by something, or someone. Using science to understand the physical world is not a problem at all. But if we apply a scientific/materialistic worldview to moral questions, we will arrive at answers that are vastly different than those that undergird the civilization that you and I get to enjoy. We who believe that there is another source of information for making moral choices are afraid that science is leading humanity farther from the "heaven on earth" that it promises, and farther from the God that is the source of that "other information".

Friar Thom said: "For example, in our lifetimes, bacteria have evolved that are resistant to antibiotics. These new bacteria now serve as agents in the selection process."

Unfortunately, in the history of humanity, we have not yet evolved enough to be able to overcome our sinful nature (like bacteria has done with antibiotics). Jesus is still the only answer to humanity's sin problem. You should look into it. Man's moral evolution is only possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[H. R. Knowles]

Then according to Michael Dowd, should I choose to kill him in anger or just for entertainment, it is perfectly acceptable and I am not culpable because my actions are a result of evolution - not moral choices on my part. And it is also acceptable for me to murder anyone I choose to kill because that is only the manifestation of the evolutionary principle,
"survival of the fittest". If I am a better shot than Dowd and smart enough to take pre-emptive action against him and all who displease me, I am simply fulfilling his philosophy of evolution.
Furthermore, since there is no God, there can be nothing wrong with murder. If so, says who (or Who, depending on your beliefs)? You say murder is wrong if I murder you. I say it is right. And according to Oprah, I am God so I can make that declaration authoritatively.
Dowd might do well to read the second LAW (not hypothesis) of thermodynamics (a branch of Quantum Physics)which declares that there is no evolution, never has been and never can be.

[H. R. Knowles]

Chris Clukey,
Regarding your note to Tracy:
Theory is also defined as speculation, contemplation and conjecture;
If enough evidence can be found to substantiate either a hypothesis or a theory, it becomes law.

[H. R. Knowles]

TO JEREMY
You ask, "How involved is Christ in our lives?"
According to the physicist, David Van Kouvering, "He not only created us but he also continuously re-creates us or we would cease to exist".
The Plank's constant is the smallest measurable amount of time and energy in the universe to our knowledge. It is one billionth of a second divided into twenty thousand parts. And every twenty thousandth of a billionth of a second, Christ re-creates us along with the entire universe.
He also numbers the hair on our heads and knows our thoughts and the intents of our hearts. He knows our going out and coming in. He knows the end from the beginning. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Everything begins in Him and is fulfilled in Him. My conclusion is that He is very involved in our lives.

[H. R. Knowles]

Friar Thom has confused mutation with evolution. They are not the same thing. Putting on a heavy coat and warm hat is mutating against the cold but the human doing the mutating is not evolving - he/she is still human. Likewise, the butterflies he mentions that are changing color are mutating, not evolving. The same is true of bacteria. Mutation is not evolution. In fact, there is no scientific evidence proving evolution. The laws of science declare that there is no evolution, never has been and never can be.
Recent scientific discoveries also indicate that the carbon 14 dating process is badly flawed and the universe is nowhere near the age once thought.
Evolution is religious fanaticism whose adherents desperately wish to think that the Bible is false. Thus, they must cling to their fantasy of evolution with blind faith because there is no substance to ANY of the arguments attempting to justify it. The Bible, however, is not false. It is true and is the revelation of God to man. Evolution is man's attempt to deny God and His creation.
The four "legs" that were once believed to support the evolutionary hypothesis have all been proven false or discredited as fraudulent. Yet the religious fervor of the Darwinists rages unabated and unabashed by scientific fact. It almost seems that man is at enmity with God by the way they so stridently attack Him and His creation rather than capitulating to truth and acceding to God's love.