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→See also
The new atheist [[Daniel Dennett]] attempted to minimize the atheism of the [[Militant atheism|militant atheist]] [[Joseph Stalin]]. Dennett said, “ …it occurred to me—let’s think about Stalin for a moment. Was he an atheist? You might say well of course he was an atheist. No, on the contrary. In a certain sense, he wasn’t an atheist at all. He believed in god. Not only that, he believe in a god whose will determined what right and wrong was. And he was sure of the existence of this god, and the god’s name was Stalin.”<ref>[http://creation.com/atheism Atheism]</ref>
The new atheist [[Daniel Dennett]] attempted to minimize the atheism of the [[Militant atheism|militant atheist]] [[Joseph Stalin]]. Dennett said, “ …it occurred to me—let’s think about Stalin for a moment. Was he an atheist? You might say well of course he was an atheist. No, on the contrary. In a certain sense, he wasn’t an atheist at all. He believed in god. Not only that, he believe in a god whose will determined what right and wrong was. And he was sure of the existence of this god, and the god’s name was Stalin.”<ref>[http://creation.com/atheism Atheism]</ref>
== Atheist historical revisionism about the birth of modern science ==
[[Image:Bacon5.jpg|thumb|right|175px|In his essay ''Of [[Atheism]]'' Sir [[Francis Bacon]] wrote: "I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the [[Talmud]], and the [[Koran|Alcoran (Koran)]], than that this universal frame is without a mind."<ref>Bacon, Francis, [http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-17.html Of Atheism]</ref> ]]
A notable fact in relation to [[Christianity and science]] is that the [[Scientific revolution|birth of modern science]] occurred in the geographic area of [[Christianity|Christianized]] [[Europe]].<ref>http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/#anchor5343749</ref> Christians awed by the grandeur of [[God]]'s creative work have long striven to understand His creativity through [[Science|scientific]] study.
[[Sociology|Sociologist]] [[Rodney Stark]] investigated the individuals who made the most significant scientific contributions between 1543 and 1680 A.D., the time of the Scientific Revolution.
In Stark's list of 52 top scientific contributors,<ref name="Origins">Williams, Alex,[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1581/ The biblical origins of science], ''Journal of Creation'' 18(2):49–52, August 2004.</ref> only one ([[Edmund Halley]]) was a skeptic and another ([[Paracelsus]]) was a [[pantheism|pantheist]].
The other 50 were Christians, 30 of whom could be characterized as being devout Christians.<ref name="Origins" />
Stark believes that the [[Enlightenment]] was a ploy by [[Militant atheism|militant atheists]] to claim credit for the rise of science<ref>http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3274629/False-conflict-Christianity-is-not.html</ref>.
In ''False conflict: Christianity is not only compatible with Science - it created it''. Stark writes:
{{cquote|Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a "Dark Ages" after the "fall" of [[Roman Empire|Rome]]. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century. In my own academic research I have asked why these religious scholastics were interested in science at all. Why did science develop in Europe at this time? Why did it not develop anywhere else? I find answers to those questions in unique features of Christian [[theology]].
Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the leading scientific figures were overwhelmingly devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God's handiwork. My studies show that the "Enlightenment" was conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists attempting to claim credit for the rise of science. The falsehood that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by self-appointed cheerleaders like [[Voltaire]], [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], and [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]], who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise......<ref>http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3274629/False-conflict-Christianity-is-not.html</ref>}}
There is abundant amount of historical evidence which demonstrates a causal relationship between the Christian world of ideas and the rise of modern science.<ref>[https://streetapologist.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/the-history-of-science-vs-historical-revisionism/ THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE vs. HISTORICAL REVISIONISM]</ref><ref>[http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/#anchor5343749 Christianity and the birth of modern science]</ref>
Professor [[Eric Kaufmann]], who specializes in demography and politics (and is an agnostic), wrote:
{{cquote|Worldwide, the [[Desecularization|march of religion]] can probably only be reversed by a renewed, self-aware secularism. Today, it appears exhausted and lacking in confidence... Secularism's greatest triumphs owe less to science than to popular social movements like nationalism, socialism and 1960s anarchist-liberalism. Ironically, secularism's demographic deficit means that it will probably only succeed in the twenty-first century if it can create a secular form of 'religious' enthusiasm." <ref>[http://www.sneps.net/uploadsepk/JQR%20Demography.pdf Shall the religious inherit the earth? - Eric Kaufmann]</ref>}}
Internet atheists frequently engage in historical revisionism as far as the rise of modern science in Christianized Europe.<ref>[https://streetapologist.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/the-history-of-science-vs-historical-revisionism/ THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE vs. HISTORICAL REVISIONISM]</ref>
For more information, please see: [[Christianity and science]]
== North Korea and the start of the Korean War ==
Since the beginning of the Korean War (1950–53), the communist government of North Korea, which practices [[state atheism]]<ref>Elizabeth Raum. North Korea. Series: Countries Around the World. Heinemann, 2012. ISBN 1432961330. p. 28: "North Korea is an atheist state. This means that people do not pray in public or attend places of worship. Buddhist temples exist from earlier times. They are now preserved as historic buildings, but they are not used for worship. A few Christian churches exist, but few people attend services. North Koreans do not celebrate religious holidays"</ref>, has repeatedly falsely denied that the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched the attack which began the war.
== Evolutionary pseudoscience and historical revisionism ==
Since [[World War II]] a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the [[evolution]]ary position which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists and [[agnosticism|agnostics]].<ref>
* Dr. Don Batten, [http://creation.com/a-whos-who-of-evolutionists A ''Who’s Who'' of evolutionists] ''Creation'' 20(1):32, December 1997.
* [[Jonathan Sarfati]], Ph.D.,F.M., [http://www.creation.com/content/view/3830 ''Refuting Evolution'', Chapter 1, Facts and Bias]
</ref>
The [[creation]] vs. evolution issue is a matter which deals with historical science and not experimental science.<ref>[http://johnhartnett.org/2014/06/17/evolution-is-not-operational-science/ Evolution is not operational science]</ref>
[[File:Ernst Mayr.jpg|thumbnail|right|200px|[[Ernst Mayr]] ]]
The atheist [[Ernst Mayr]] was a [[Harvard]] biologist and served as director of Harvard's Museum of Comparative [[Zoology]] from 1961 to 1970.<ref>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/mayr.html</ref><ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/2/l_062_01.html</ref> Mayr was a prominent [[evolutionist]] and was referred to as "the [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] of the 20th century". <ref>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2005/02/04-mayr.html</ref>
Mayr wrote:
{{cquote|Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place.
Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.<ref>Ernst Mayr, Darwin’s Influence on Modern Thought, Lecture 1999, ScientificAmerican .com, 2009.</ref>}}
=== Evolution and fraud/speculation posing as fact ===
[[Image:Nebraska Man.jpg|thumb|alt=human evolution|150px|left|[[Nebraska man]] was made famous by Henry Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History. Nebraska man turned out to be nothing more than a single pig-like tooth.]]
Evolution is a [[pseudoscience]] that engages in historical revisionism and often has speculation posing as historical fact (see: [[Evolution and Cases of Fraud, Hoaxes and Speculation]] and [[Atheism and deception]] and [[Evolution and just so stories]]). In January of 2012, the ''Journal of Research in Science Teaching'' published a study indicating that evolutionary belief is significantly based on gut feelings.<ref>
*[http://www.livescience.com/18051-belief-evolution-gut-feeling.html Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling]
*[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.20449/abstract Feeling of Certainty: Uncovering a Missing Link Between Knowledge and Acceptance of Evolution]</ref> See also: [[Causes of evolutionary belief]]
A notable case of a scientists using fraudulent material to promote the theory of evolution was the work of German scientist and [[atheism|atheist]] [[Ernst Haeckel]]. Noted evolutionist and [[Stephen Gould]], who held a [[agnostic|agnostic]] worldview<ref>http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2007/03/20/a-review-of-the-dawkins-delusion-by-alister-mcgrath/</ref> and promoted the notion of [[Non-Overlapping Magisteria|non-overlapping magesteria]], wrote the following regarding Ernst Haeckel's work in a March 2000 issue of ''Natural History'':
{{cquote|"Haeckel’s forceful, eminently comprehensible, if not always accurate, books appeared in all major languages and surely exerted more influence than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin…in convincing people throughout the world about the validity of evolution... Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities [between embryos of different species] by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases — in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent — simply copied the same figure over and over again.…Haeckel’s drawings never fooled expert embryologists, who recognized his fudgings right from the start. Haeckel’s drawings, despite their noted inaccuracies, entered into the most impenetrable and permanent of all quasi-scientific literatures: standard student textbooks of biology... Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively permanent, because…textbooks copy from previous texts.... [W]e do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks!"<ref name="haeckel">[http://www.creationism.org/wakefield/haeckel.htm "Another Evolution Fraud Exposed"] - Creationism.org, INVESTIGATING GENESIS SERIES.</ref>}}
An irony of history is that the March 9, 1907 edition of the [[NY Times]] refers to Ernst Haeckel as the "celebrated Darwinian and founder of the Association for the Propagation of Ethical [[Atheism]]."<ref>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C03EFDD123EE033A2575AC0A9659C946697D6CF</ref>
Stephen Gould continues by quoting Michael Richardson of the St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, who stated: "I know of at least fifty recent biology texts which use the drawings uncritically".<ref name="haeckel" />
==== Paleoanthropology, speculation and intellectual dishonesty ====
[[Image:piltdownman_quennell_1922.png|thumb|right|A rendering of "[[Piltdown Man]]", already entrenched in scientific literature in 1922.]]
[[Paleoanthropology]] is an interdisciplinary branch of [[anthropology]] that concerns itself with the origins of early humans and it examines and evaluates items such as fossils and [[artifact]]s.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058075/paleoanthropology Encyclopedia Britannica (online): Paleoanthropology]</ref>
Dr. David Pilbeam is a paleoanthropologist who received his Ph.D. at [[Yale]] University and Dr. Pilbeam is presently Professor of Social Sciences at [[Harvard]] University and Curator of Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. In addition, Dr. Pilbeam served as an advisor for the Kenya government regarding the creation of an international institute for the study of human origins.<ref>[[Answers in Genesis]], [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/fossils.asp Those Fossils Are A Problem]</ref>
Dr. Pilbeam wrote a review of Richard Leakey's book ''Origins'' in the journal ''American Scientist'':
{{cquote|...perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy.<ref name="thoughtsonEvo">Sean Pitman, M.D., [http://www.creationapologetics.org/refuting/quotes.html Thoughts on Evolution From Scientists and Other Intellectuals]</ref>}}
Dr. Pilbeam wrote the following regarding the theory of evolution and paleoanthropology:
{{cquote|I am also aware of the fact that, at least in my own subject of paleoanthropology, "theory" - heavily influenced by implicit ideas almost always dominates "data". ....Ideas that are totally unrelated to actual fossils have dominated theory building, which in turn strongly influence the way fossils are interpreted.<ref name="thoughtsonEvo" />}}
[[File:Paul gosselin.JPG|thumbnail|left|165px|The Canadian [[anthropology|anthropologist]] [[Paul Gosselin]] points out that evolution is a [[secular]] origins [[myth]].<ref>[http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/origines/myth.htm Myths of Origin and the Theory of Evolution]</ref> See: [[Evolution as a secular origins myth]] ]]
Evolutionist and Harvard professor [[Richard Lewontin]] wrote in 1995 that "Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor...."<ref>Brad Harrub, Ph.D., Bert Thompson, Ph.D., and Eric Lyons, M.Min., [https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=153 ''Human Evolution and the “Record of the Rocks”'']</ref> In the September 2005 issue of [[National Geographic]], Joel Achenbach asserted that human evolution is a "fact" but he also candidly admitted that the field of paleoanthropology "has again become a rather glorious mess."<ref>Brad Harrub, Ph.D., [http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=126&article=1555 ''The “Glorious Mess” of Human Origins'']</ref><ref name="bonesrightplaces">[[National Geographic]] (online edition), Joel Achenbach, [http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/resources_who.html PALEOANTHROPOLOGY, Out of Africa, Are we looking for bones in all the right places?]</ref> In the same National Geographic article Harvard paleoanthropologist Dan Lieberman states, "We're not doing a very good job of being honest about what we don't know...".<ref name="bonesrightplaces" />
Concerning pictures of the supposed ancestors of man featured in science journals and the news media Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal ''Science'' the following regarding their highly speculative nature:
{{cquote|Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist's conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears. Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.... Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture.<ref>Frank Sherwin, M.A., [http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=823 "Human Evolution" An Update]</ref><ref>Bert Thompson, P.H.D. and Brad Harrub, P.H.D., [http://www.apologeticspress.org/pdfs/dc-02-safull.pdf 15 Answers to John Rennie and ''Scientific American's'' Nonsense]</ref>}}
Creation scientists concur with Dr. Pilbeam regarding the speculative nature of the field of paleoanthropology and assert there is no compelling evidence in the field of paleoanthropology for the various theories of human evolution.<ref>
*[http://creation.com/anthropology-and-apemen-questions-and-answers Anthropology and Apeman Questions and Answers - Creation Ministries International]
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/Anthropology.asp Anthropology and Apeman Questions and Answers - Answers in Genesis]
*[http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/127 ''Human Evolution and the “Record of the Rocks”'']</ref>
==== Evolution and just so stories ====
[[File:Question-Evolution-Campaign.jpg|thumbnail|200px|right|The [http://creation.com/question-evolution Question evolution! campaign] by [[Creation Ministries International]] is a worldwide campaign which poses 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer.<ref>[http://creation.com/question-evolution Question evolution! campaign] by [[Creation Ministries International]]</ref> The 15 questions posed to evolutionists can be found [http://creation.com/15-questions HERE] ]]
The [[Question evolution! campaign]] poses 15 questions for [[evolution]]ists.<ref>[http://creation.com/15-questions 15 questions for evolutionists]</ref>
Question 12 is:
{{cquote|Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated? Evolutionists often use flexible story-telling to ‘explain’ observations contrary to evolutionary theory. NAS (USA) member Dr Philip Skell wrote, “Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive—except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed—except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.”<ref>[http://creation.com/15-questions 15 questions for evolutionists]</ref>}}
For more information please see:
*[http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j18_3/j18_3_17.pdf ‘Just-so’ stories of sex and family life]
*[http://creation.com/genesis-unleashed?page=1&fileID=YuKJPlWIP3o Video on Question 12]
*[http://creation.com/15-questions 15 questions for evolutionists]
== See also ==
== See also ==