Saturday, October 28, 2006

The cult behind Intelligent Design Guru


I just watched a discussion between Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine and Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute is the front group for the creationist movement under the pretence of science.

Now Wells has credentials in some fields of science, which doesn’t mean he knows what he is talking about outside those fields. Nor does it mean he is a honest scientist who looks at the evidence and draws conclusions. In fact the case is very strong, in my opinion, that he did just the opposite. He drew a conclusion and went into science only to gather credentials in order to to further his theological goals.

You can find the admission that this was a case in Wells’ own words. Wells was a member of one of the more bizarre cults around and it was the cult which pushed him in this direction. Here is what Wells has written:

“At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary. During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great things.

“He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in nature or history; in the process, they re-interpreted the fall, the incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination.

"Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”

In this little confession the man called Father by Wells is the cult leader, with the invented name of Sun Myung Moon. His actual name was Mun Yong-myong. Father claims that Jesus appeared to him. Of course Moon, as he now calls himself, claims he is the new Messiah. Conveniently, he claims, all the leaders of the great religions of the world met in heaven and declared him the Messiah. This is the man that Wells follows. This is the cult with mass arranged marriages where “Father” picks the spouse for the cult members and then marries. Often the members have never even met their spouse they are told to marry.

Moon wrote in 1992 that he and his wife “are the True Parents of all humanity. I declared that we are the Saviour, the Lord of the Second Advent, the Messiah.” Of course Wells believes this himself. He wrote: “Although there may be members of the Unification Church who do not believe Reverend Moon to be the second coming of Christ, I think it is fair to say that such people must be a small minority; indeed, it is difficult to imagine anyone persevering in the rigorous life of a Unificationist without believing that Sun Myung Moon is to our generation what Jesus was to his.” Wouldn’t the fundamentalist at the forefront of the Creationist movement just love knowing that there guru in science thinks Moon is the new Messiah, the Jesus of our age. Wells is not just a member but a major member of this cult. His work is on theology is pushed on what appears to be a Unification cult website (tparents.org). Tparents refers to the claim of Moon that he and his wife are the “True Parent” of all of us.

Now read carefully what Wells wrote. He was an active cult member. He was not a scientist. He was picked by Moon to go to University. He began with his conclusion -- that Darwinian evolution must be destroyed. He says that “Father’s words.. convinced me I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”

So the reason he studied science was to destroy Darwinism. Now I might be mistaken but I thought he said in the debate that he rejected Darwin because the science just doesn’t support it. Of course the overwhelming number of experts in the field do think it make sense. But the main point is that Wells was not being fully honest. He did not study the evidence and then conclude that Darwin was wrong. He started with a conclusion drawn based on the teachings of his cult and then went in search of anything he could to accomplish his life goal -- to destroy Darwinism.

2 Comments:

Blogger Publius II said...

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with article. It is a well known fact that Dr. Wells is not a Christian and he has jokingly been called a "Moonie" by the evangelical crowd.

His religious beliefs must be taken with a grain of salt, but the man HAS done some great scientific work in the area of origins, especially in exposing many of the falsehoods of Darwinian apologetics.

There are many Intelligent Design enthusiasts who are not believers in the Christian God or even the biblical account of creation.

As for your argument that he is not an honest scientist, that's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, so to speak. Humanist scientists who refuse to accept anything but the Darwinian answers come to the table with the presupposition that nothing but a naturalistic answer is possible. They rule out the possibility of a supernatural cause for creation before ever beginning to hypothesize.

Also there have been many many atheistic scientists that I can recall who have embarked on a quest to disprove the existence of God, and have ultimately come to a deep faith in the Creator God and the bible, based on the irrefutable evidence that they've discovered in their attempts.

October 30, 2006

 
Blogger GodlessZone said...

Whether Wells is or is not a Christian is something you fundamentalists can fight about. You can debate him on that if you want. He has not done any scientific work that debunks evolution and is considered a joke by scientists. You just say he is good because he verifies you own fantasies. My point is that he was liar. He did not fight Darwin because the evidence forced him to draw a conclusion. He drew the conclusion first and takes a stand to support his religion. Much the way you do.

You don't know what a Humanist is do you? I know its a buzz word with the fundie nutters who throw it about. But most scientists are not humanists just scientists. And science is the study of nature so it can onloy come to the table with things which can be proven. Fantasies which can't be proven by any such thing are not the realm of logic. That is what you religionists thrive on -- fantasy, unsubstantiated claims, etc. A scientists has no reason to believe the supernatural if there is no evidence for it. It is then outside the realm of science totally. To condemn people for refusing to accept something totally outside their realm of expertise is absurd.

I also refute the idea that they are "many, many atheistic scientsits" who "embarked on a quest to disprove the existence of God". That is pure bullshit. I know bullshit is popular you with your kind but it is still bullshit. First no rational scientist would attempt to disprove a god theory since you can't prove a negative. They might refute the incredible stories you people invent but the existence of the supernatural is beyond science. I can dispute what you say but could never prove the non-existence of something. But this concept of not being able to prove a negative is something you have failed to grasp before. No surprise you still don't get it. God is bullshit. The Bible has some nice stories and some fairy tales and some really monstrous moral lessons written by vile people. But it is not written by any deity or inspired by him.

If there are many, many such scientists then please name 10 of them. This 10 scientists who set out to prove that god did not exist and then became bible believing nutters. I mean real scientists by the way not just some high school teacher. There are a few. Most of them were raised in this nonsense. Certainly the evidence is that the top scientists don't believe in a personal god. A small percentage think there may be some sort of deity but most think the Bible is nonsense steep in bullshit.

October 30, 2006

 

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