Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less Chapter 31 IS RICHARD DAWKINS SMARTER THAN JESUS? Many intellectuals claim some of what Jesus taught was first said by others and, Jesus himself might agree.  Human rights, morality and ethics are clearly based on a shared human conscience, something the authors of the Bible, Thomas Jefferson and the historical evidence all strongly agree concerning and, something the ACLU, Richard Dawkins and many other ivory tower pedagogues have apparently, entirely overlooked. ¹ Unlike many educators, Jesus is not about stroking his own ego by pushing his own private vision and agenda.  Rather, Jesus promoted the “best” idea that will best help humanity.  Thus, if an idea was already the best, Jesus used it, if it could be improved on, he did so and, if he had a better idea, he taught that instead. This is a far more “enlightened” concept of education than typically found in this so-called “post-Enlightenment” age, where various “pop” pundits out to make it big on best seller lists push “their” supposedly “new” ideas.  As the Bible says, “there is nothing new under the sun.”  Regardless of how we change and re-arrange terminology, violence, human oppression, suffering, sorrow and, the solution for alleviating and eliminating them, remains the same. We live in an extreme soapbox bias age of defending various political, intellectual, religious and other “sides”, rather than an age centered on a search for what is really true and, what actually might be the best idea.  Modern education is divided into distinct categories like “science”, “history” and “religion”, as if we can divide up reality and expect to have any idea what is actually true.  Jesus is conveniently placed in “religion” category and consequently, our children entirely lose out on the best ideas in human history. Jesus taught that treating other people like we want them to treat us is the sum of all wisdom; does Richard Dawkins have a better foundation for human rights? Jesus implied the more we know what is true, the more free we will become; does Dawkins have a better foundation for education?  According to Jesus, a common grass flower is better clothed than Solomon; does Dawkins have a better foundation for environmental awareness? Jesus taught the way to honor God is to love our neighbor as ourselves; does Dawkins have a better foundation for morality and ethics?  Jesus taught the way to achieve peace is to put away our swords and spread peace and goodwill, rather than like scientists, create more and bigger swords, which is the Greek, Roman, American and world civilization history method of "securing the peace".  Does Richard Dawkins have a better idea? Why do modern scientists, after 10,000 years of moral education to the contrary, continue to create weapons of mass destruction?  In a post-Enlightenment age of atheism, science and wonder, why does war and the poor still remain with us, as Jesus predicted? Richard Dawkins implies Jesus was delusional.  Is he smarter than Jesus?  Is anybody smarter than Jesus? You decide. 2 - 5 NOTES: 1. The existence of a Creator is far more "self-evident" than evidence for all scientific theories combined.  As Thomas Jefferson stated, it is historically "self-evident" that the Creator has endowed us with a shared human conscience defining inalienable rights; similar laws against murder, theft, incest, adultery and false witness appear in diverse non-connected cultures spread throughout the historical record.  According to Francis Collins, the world's leading authority on DNA, modern DNA evidence alone overwhelmingly indicates deliberate design and also according to Collins, the historical fact of similar laws appearing in diverse cultures often having no contact with each other, indicates a deliberately designed shared human conscience that cannot be rationally explained by Darwinian theory. There are a great many things that ALL human beings believe based on self-evidence and collective human experience.  For example, ALL historians, archaeologists and educators believe that someone designed and built the pyramids of Egypt.  This has been assumed for centuries, in spite of the fact that none of them actually observed the pyramids being constructed and, there is no historical record of who actually designed them or of any building plans; even today, there remains debate regarding exactly how they were constructed and who constructed them.  It has long been just assumed, based on collective human experience, that they are a product of deliberate design and construction.  There was a time not very long ago historically speaking, when it was assumed that the sun is larger than the moon and the earth is much larger than either one of them.  Even today, probably the majority of living human beings do not believe that a feather and a large steel ball will fall at the same rate of speed in a vacuum.  Thus, it can be argued that science has proven what is assumed to be true is not always really true and indeed, that is correct. However, much of what has long been assumed to be true is in fact, correct as far as we know.  Self-evidence and collective human experience, long before the existence of even the concept of "science", taught human beings that the sun is larger and warmer than the moon, that if we place our hand in a red hot fire ten times, it will cause severe pain all ten times, that every year, winter will always be followed by less severe weather and, no matter how much we eat, we will always be hungry enough later to want to eat more.  Often the most obvious conclusion is the correct one and, what humans have believed based on self-evidence and collective human experience for thousands of years, is often still believed today, even by the most skeptical of scientists. Prior to the 20th Century, no human being in their right mind would have believed in the existence of billions of galaxies and "zillions" of stars.  We as human beings are bound by what is "self-evident" unless and until someone can provide conclusive evidence to the contrary.  If Richard Dawkins is going to pretend that a universal reality of intricately designed parts within parts can appear on it's own, then he is required by the rules of science and evidence, to provide significant substantial legitimate conclusive evidence.  Someone pretending to be an advocate of science and reason, who does not base their fundamental positions on evidence, is being fundamentally hypocritical.  Don't let anyone with fancy degrees attached to their name kid you.  The onus remains on atheists and agnostics, not on the sane among us who base our faith in God on the overwhelmingly obvious.  Atheists and agnostics remain victims of irrational "blind belief" superstition until they either change their position regarding the overwhelming "self-evidence" of creation or, until they can provide conclusive evidence to the contrary.  There is no middle-ground or compromise regarding what is and what is not, evidence-based science. 2. POSITIONS OF NOTED WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTISTS:     A. "Man can be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. . .[I have] "never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God". --Charles Darwin; from a 1979 letter written shortly before his death; Darwin gradually became agnostic over the course of his life, but was never entirely agnostic, according to Charles Darwin himself.  Agnosticism in the past often referred to loss of faith in religion, rather than loss of faith in the overwhelming fact of creation, which seems to have been the conclusion of Jefferson and perhaps Voltaire and some of the other thinkers of the so-called "enlightenment".  Deism, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the past included many people who believed in a personal God but did not believe in any particular organized religion; a much different view of "deism" than is commonly accepted today.  It is not fair to state for certain what Darwin actually believed concerning God and creation, but it is entirely fair to take him at his word that he was not an atheist, that is, he would never claim that one can pretend there is no God and remain a legitimate intellectual or scientist, as is quite the matter of rational fact, the sky is too big and the earth is too small for anyone to know there is no God.  Thus, anyone who says there is no God is most obvioulsy a liar and very plainly, not being scientific.     B. "Darwin welcomed debate because he believed that, eventually, the better ideas would win." --Alison Pearn; leader of Darwin Correspondence Project; Cambridge University.     C. ". . . Darwin believed he was showing something even more grand, that God's hand was present in all living things." --James Moore; philosopher of science at the University of Cambridge, visiting scholar at Harvard University; co-author of Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist and author of several other biographies on Darwin.     D. "I have a deep feeling of faith, a deep religiosity that comes from my appreciation of the way the Lord made the universe." --Albert Einstein     E. "I want to know how God created this world.  I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.  I want to know His thoughts.  The rest are details." --Albert Einstein; 1955, shortly before his death, definitely not the words of an atheist, as Einstein is often very wrongly stated to have been.     F. According to a PBS documentary, European physicist and former leading atheist Antony Flew announced recently that post-Hubble evidence has convinced him the known modern evidence indicates intelligent design.  Some atheists have tried to discredit Flew, claiming that because of his advanced age, he is no longer mentally stable, but Flew himself has stated that he has a "growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe" and "my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself [i.e., modern DNA evidence, see Francis Collins above], which is far more complex than the physical Universe, can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source."     G. If Isaac Newton had not believed in God, he most likely would never have been a scientist -- conclusion of recent PBS video biography on Newton.     H. Other historical scientific giants who believed in God include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Michael Faraday and millions of other renowned historical giants such as Isaiah, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Richard Dawkins would have us believe that he is the wise one and, all of these individuals, including Charles Darwin himself, were somehow delusional.  One might fairly compare their accomplishments with those of Dawkins and rightly conclude just who the delusional one most likely, rationally and probably is. 3. It has been postulated by some modern scientists that physical reality of existence has always been, that is, that the "stuff" that the universe is made of has no beginning or ending.  Given that some scientists believe that there may be as many universes as there are stars in our own, it might be fair to conclude that creation goes on forever and ever.  This leads to the only rational scientific conclusion, that a) there is a God and b), God is eternal.  Any other explanation for the known observable and/or speculative reality falls, as the author of "Letter to the Romans" might say, rather "short". 4. The teachings of Jesus assume there is a God.  All of the known evidence assumes creation; there is no evidence of random appearing universal or any other physical reality and, there is no evidence of self-generating motion.  Seemingly random motion, appearance and disappearance of particles in the world of the very small occurs within a closed universal system of motion within motion and parts within parts; there is no evidence for the random existence of anything apart from pre-existing matter and motion.  As the Bible says, the existence of the eternal Creator is demonstrated in creation itself to such an overwhelmingly self-evident degree, that those who pretend there is no God remain without excuse.  Some people believe that the basis for all science and reason begins with the God question:  "Is there or is there not a God?".  However true or false their position may be, why would anyone, after examining the evidence fairly, CONCLUDE that there might be no God, there could be no God, there probably is no God or, there is no God?  What evidence do they have? Perhaps two far better questions are:  "How do we get God to help us treat each other better?" and, "Is God willing to help us clean up the global mess that our science and education and so-called "age of reason" is leaving for untold future generations to somehow cope with?"  What does Richard Dawkins have to offer towards eliminating global hunger, pollution and weapons of mass destruction, theft, rape, murder war and rumor of war, that Jesus hasn't already taught us?  And if he doesn't have anything better to offer, why isn't he promoting the ideas that Jesus already outlined for us long ago?  What kind of educator insists on teaching our children ideas that are not as good, rather than teaching them the best ideas?  Who among us wants to invest vast sums of valuable time and hard-earned money, only to be short-changed with inferior ideas and blind-faith superstitious conclusions of randomly appearing, self-spawning universes, when the best ideas are readily available for free? 5. There was a time when many people believed in the spontaneous generation of life.  It took a while, but that theory was eventually entirely discredited.  Nevertheless today, there remains among us those with various important-sounding titles and expensive degrees attached to their names, who pretend that the entire universal reality is a result of spontaneous generation.  Go figure. Click to Go Back to Contents Other Books by Richard Aberdeen Click Here to eMail the Author Copyright © by Richard Aberdeen Copyright © by Freedom Tracks Music No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author: Inquires click here.  Appendix Revolution and Revolution/Side B are open copyright and may be reproduced or utilized as desired.