"They are a sort of race of spiritual monkeys, grimacing and capering about in the enjoyment of their own limited agilities, and scorning in their stupendous conceit the exalted operations that are going forward outside their cage."

 

The Chattering (Sons of) Monkeys

Richard Dawkins, "celebrated Oxford" evolutionist recently published his book "The God Delusion". It's always nice to see evolutionist scientists lay their real cards on the table. When scientists like Dawkins are driven by a hatred of religion it lays bare the lie that these scientists are practicing pure science -- interpreting the evidence with disinterested integrity. Dawkins book proves that some "disinterested scientists", in reality, have a dog in the fight, atheism, and their personal animosities against religion. His hatred exceeded his wisdom, for it would have been wiser to keep up the pretense he has kept for so many years. I would argue that Dawkins has done more to advance science by publishing The God Delusion than all his previous literary efforts combined.

Publisher's Weekly says of Dawkins book:

"He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is 'psychotic,' Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are 'fatuous' and religion generally is 'nonsense.'"

What an irony for a naturalist (who, naturally, advocates abortion) to paint himself out to be a defender of children! It's the logical consequence of the philosophy that comes from Dawkins' ilk who promote abortion, infanticide, "mercy killing" and other gross forms of the ultimate in "child abuse": murder suited to the convenience of irresponsible and selfish adults. What sick hypocrisy!

On the heels of Dawkins' book Christopher Hitchens published "god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".

Both Dawkins and Hitchens, like other atheists (like Voltaire et al), premise their arguments on a few natural but fatal mistakes:

    1. They, naturally but mistakenly, assume Catholicism represents Biblical Christianity. They then assume the historical abuses of the Catholic Church (and other large denominations) represent Biblical values and, of course, with the deck stacked as such they have no problem painting a false picture of true Christianity using their assumed model. Does Dawkins have a clue about how to conduct research? Apparently not.
    2. They assume that their own bad experiences with clergyman are representative of Biblical values and assume such abuses are what Christianity stands for
    3. They conclude that because the Bible is not written like they would write the Bible, that therefore God must not have authored the Bible.
    4. They conclude that because God does not openly show His hand (in a way that they can see), that therefore God must not exist
    5. They assume Christians are all either willfully ignorant, malicious, or stupid, with minds "closed" "to scientific truth" &c. Oddly, they ignore the religious backgrounds of many of history's greatest scientists. Odd isn't it how those scientists theorized scientific discoveries premised on Christian principles, yet today, that same premise is, we are told, backwards and ignorant!
    6. They feel condemned by those who call for moral behavior and they want to to free their conscience of constraints which the Bible calls for. Both Dawkins' and Hitchens' arguments come across like wounded children who will grab onto any argument against religion, no matter how puerile.

Both Dawkins and Hitchens are men who have passed the "flower of youth". The books represent their "mature" (?) thinking on religion. It's too bad they could not have at least been mature enough to take the position of atheist historian Will Durant who was mature enough to see both benefits and problems brought about by religion. Durant embraced religion, not personally, but for societies because he understood that orderly societies required religion to control man's nature. But these two men are not interested in a disinterested analysis of religion. They, unwittingly, are engaged in a warfare that began in Eden.

While both Dawkins and Hitchens think they are preaching (?) liberty and peace, they are as one Biblical expositor wrote in the late 1800's, they are like chattering monkeys in a cage. They yell at passersby to get their attention as if they had something important to say. What is it they want to say? Is there something of lasting value they have to contribute to society? Their followers would probably say yes, but the truth is, all they are doing is pointing out what's wrong with mainstream religion. When you face the core issues of man's nature and his individual needs for a healthy and happy life, the operation and prosperity of societies, not to mention God's plan and purpose with the earth, these men have no answers. They have made themselves chattering monkeys who can do nothing but chatter and show how ignorant and unreasonable they really are. "Even when a fool walks along the way, He lacks wisdom, And he shows everyone that he is a fool."

The wise and the prudent are in high esteem universally. But Jesus has said, “That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” In this he fixes the status of the wise and prudent in divine estimation. Is it without a reason that He should promulgate a view so apparently harsh and illiberal? Why should “the wise and the prudent” be an abomination to God? Because they are truly the reverse of what they are considered. They are not truly wise: they are not truly prudent. They are “wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight” and in the sight of men, but not in the sight of God—when looked at from the standpoint of the eternal relations of things. True wisdom and prudence consist in the discernment of that which is truly good from that which is only seemingly so, and in the determined choice of the same in the face of all obstacles. The wise and the prudent, so called, are not equal to this truly noble performance. Isaiah says of them, they “call evil good, and good evil: and put darkness for light, and light for darkness; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” It will be found upon a thorough inspection of their case in its modern form, that this is just what they do. There is a great appearance of light and dignity with them; but examine it, and it disappears in the process. Their philosophy, their science, their art, their associations, their degrees, their honours, their professional titles and distinctions, are all reducible to this—a little knowledge of nature in her transient relations, and a great inflation of personal importance on the strength of it. This wisdom all ends in nothing. It imparts no knowledge of the object of existence; it furnishes no reliable rule for the guidance of life; it sheds no light on the problem of the future. It supplies no materials on which love, joy, and peace can feed. Death comes and sweeps away its painful ornamental labours as completely as the rising tide obliterates the forts and ditches dug by children in the sand. If God had not spoken—if a Gospel had not been preached—if evidence were not before us right and left of the reality of a divine purpose shaping earth’s development, pity could but weep over the vain and useless labour, while commending the men who sought to turn the prevailing vanity to the best account. But another element comes into the case with Christ standing before men in the apostolic writings, declaring the name of Father, and expounding his wisdom, his will, and his purposed kindness, and beseeching them by apostolic hands to be reconciled to him on the reception of the truth, and submission to its requirements, with the certain prospect of emancipation from this sin-blurred and imperfect state, and introduction to a glorious and immortal efficiency of life at the return of Christ from heaven. The wisdom of men which looks upon this as so much childishness, and glorifies its own abortions as the true wisdom, calls good evil, and evil good; light, darkness; and darkness, light, &c. Or if it be not so bold as to charge the name and work of Christ with childishness and untruth, but practically relegates them to a position of contempt and neglect while making a nominal obeisance in their presence, then it is convicted of the highest form of imprudence, and puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

It is on the whole easy to see why Jesus gave thanks that the things of God had been hid from the wise and the prudent, and revealed unto babes. The wise and the prudent self-complacently reject His truly wise and beneficent proposals while idealising and worshipping the puny conceptions of their own limited powers of intellect and imagination. They are a sort of race of spiritual monkeys, grimacing and capering about in the enjoyment of their own limited agilities, and scorning in their stupendous conceit the exalted operations that are going forward outside their cage. Such are not suitable for the Father’s use. Therefore, he arranges circumstances in such a way that wisdom is hid from their eyes. “Even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” The “babes” are men of rational and reverent mind with an eye to behold and a heart to receive truth with the docility of little children. Though children in their earnest simplicity, they are not children in understanding. They are in reality more lucid than the wise and prudent, and for that reason more humble and pliable to the divine will and more acceptable to the divine regards. They see what the wise and prudent see, but they see farther and more. They see not only nature, but the intelligent power which has organised nature. They see this power in a larger purview of the universe and a larger contemplation of human history than is habitual with the rejectors of divine truth. They see not only the present but the past; not only Britain of the hour, but the Holy Land of Joshua and David and Christ; not only the proximate bearings but the future issues of things: not only pleasure, but wisdom: not only themselves, but others: not only man, but God. They surrender to facts without dictating to facts what they ought to be. They open their hearts in adoration and trust to the God of heaven and earth; the God revealed in the Bible: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they accept His Son with joy and love and enthusiasm, yielding themselves heartily to his service, and binding themselves by his law in the certainty of his promised appearing, to render to every man according as his work shall be. The muster of this class, from every age, to whom God’s high things have been revealed, and their union under the visible headship of Christ at his coming, will reveal the most noble community that it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive. (The Christadelphian, 1887, p. 258-260)

“The World by Wisdom knew not God.—Great Egypt built pyramids and worshipped cats! Polished Greece erected magnificent temples where they might adore idols, and had thousands of prostitutes in their courts to facilitate their devotions. Mighty Rome, with thirty thousand gods in her Pantheon, built her Coliseum where ninety thousand of her citizens could sit and see hundreds of gladiators butcher and hack each other in pieces for their amusement. And the sceptical scientist of the nineteenth century, having turned his back upon that God who only hath immortality, and that Christ who has brought life and incorruption to light in the Gospel, says to the monkey, thou art my father; and to the tadpole and the moner, thou art my sister and my mother.”—Dr. H. L. Hastings.

“Of course there is no disputing about tastes; and if a man chooses to put away his history, his heritage, and his hopes, as a son and creature of Almighty God; and trace his genealogy to the monkey, the mollusk, the moner, and the mud, we must respect his rights, and allow him to exercise his preferences; but when he insists that we shall also trace our genealogic line through ancestral apes and patriarchal pollywogs, we respectfully decline the honour. We prefer to look higher; and as there is a little uncertainty among scientific men on the point, we propose to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, and still look up to a Heavenly Father, instead of down to a little dot of a mud-spawned moner, as the source of our existence.” (Ibid.) (The Christadelphian, 1894, p. 456)


History of Creation According to Darwin, Huxley, &c.
The difference between a man and a monkey is never so apparent as when a monkey is dressed up and made to act the part of a man. So the inherent absurdities of some theories are never so manifest as when they are made to do sober duty in the concrete. Our scientific speculators think it very shallow to read: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Their own poor wisdom appears in its smallness and ugliness when they are asked to take the place of Moses and give us an account of creation in accordance with their predilections. An American paper has given us the first chapter of Genesis according to these people; and as it is useful among other things in showing the superior beauty and wisdom of the Scriptures, we reproduce it:—
GEN. I (SCIENTIFIC VERSION.)
1.—Primarily the Unknowable moved upon cosmos and evolved protoplasm.
2.—And protoplasm was inorganic and undifferentiated, containing all things in potential energy; and a spirit of evolution moved upon the fluid mass.
3.—And the Unknowable said, Let atoms attract; and their contact begat light, heat, and electricity.
4.—And the Unconditioned differentiated the atoms each after its kind; and their combinations begat rock, air, and water.
5.—And there went out a spirit of evolution from the Unconditioned, and working in protoplasm, by accretion and absorption, produces the organic cell.
6.—And cell by nutrition evolved primordial germ, and germ developed protogene, and protogene begat eozoon, and eozoon begat monad, and monad begat animalcule.
7.—And animalcule begat ephemera; then began creeping things to multiply on the face of the earth.
8.—And earthly atom in vegetable protoplasm begat the molecule, and thence came all grass and every herb in the earth.
9.—And animalculæ in the water evolved fins, tails, claws, and scales; and in the air, wings and beaks; and on the land they sprouted such organs as were necessary as played upon by the environment.
10.—And by accretion and absorption came the radiata and mollusca; and mollusca begat articulata, and articulata begat vertabrata.
11.—Now these are the generation of the higher vertabrata, in the cosmic period that the Unknowable evoluted the biped mammalia.
12.—And every man of the earth, while he was yet a monkey, and the horse while he was a hipparion, and the hipparion before he was an oredon.
13.—Out of the ascidian came the amphibian, and begat the pentadactyle; and the pendadactyle, by inheritance and selection, produced the hylobate, from which are the simiadae in all their tribes.
14.—And out of the simiadae the lemur prevailed above his fellows, and produced the platyrhine monkey.
15.—And the platyrhine begat the catarrhine, and the catarrhine monkey begat the anthropoid ape, and the ape begat the longimanous orang, and the orang begat the chimpanzee, and the chimpanzee evoluted the what-is-it.
16.—And the what-is-it went into the land of Nod and took him a wife of the ongimanous gibbons.
17.—And in process of the cosmic period were born unto them and their children the anthropomorphic primordial types.
18.—The homunculus, the prognathus, the troglodyte, the auctochthon, the terragem—these are the generations of primeval man.
19.—And primeval man was naked and not ashamed, but lived in quadrumanous innocence, and struggled mightily to harmonise with the environment.
20.—And by inheritance and natural selection did he progress from the stable and homogenous to the complex and heterogenous—for the weakest died and the strongest grew and multiplied.
21.—And man grew a thumb for that he had need of it, and developed capacities for prey.
22.—For, behold, the swiftest men caught the most animals, and the swiftest animals got away from the most men; wherefore the slow animals were eaten and the slow men starved to death.
23.—And as types were differentiated the weaker types continually disappeared.
24.—And the earth was filled with violence; for man strove with man, and tribe with tribe, whereby they killed off the weak and foolish and secured the survival of the fittest.
What is gained, in point of intelligibility, by substituting “the Unknowable” for “God?” Nothing. It is rather an unwitting concession of the truth of the Bible declaration that by wisdom (by the exercise of their own unaided powers) “the world knew not (and cannot know) God.” The Bible is six thousand years ahead of our philosophers in pronouncing God “Unknowable” to reason. In divine kindness, it steps forward to fill up the terrible chasm. But men prefer to leave Him “Unknown.” They like to think Him “Unknowable.” They get rid of His authority thus: they establish their independence; they make themselves their own masters. But it is vain and absurd and ruinous. God has made himself known, and men are responsible when they reject the knowledge, as the world will shortly find when the judgments of God in the earth re-assert his right to be the Governor among the nations. (The Christadelphian, 1875, p. 312-313)