Pastor Wishes Evolutionary Blessings

Charles Darwin inspires an evolution-defending pastor. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.






Joel Kontinen



Michael Dowd is an American pastor who publishes the newsletter Evolutionary Times. Rev. Dowd thinks that Darwinian evolution is a fact.

He ends his latest newsletter by thanking his readers of spreading the ”good word” (that is, Darwinian evolution) and by wishing them "co-evolutionary blessings", whatever they may be.

Dowd thanks God for evolution. However, the god of slow natural processes is not the almighty God revealed in the Bible but something very different.

Richard Dawkins, for instance, does not understand what evolution has to do with Christianity. And he is not the only one.

Source:

Evolutionary Times. 4 May 2012.

Michael Dowd: The Best Evolution Sites Are Wikipedia and Talk Origins

Reverend Michael Dowd collected the best webpages that defend the ideas of ol’ Charles. Image from Wikipedia, ranked as the top site by Dowd.



Joel Kontinen

Michael Dowd’s e-magazine The Evolutionary Times dropped into my mailbox during the weekend. As usual, the May issue was full of praise to evolution.

Reverend Dowd discloses that he got the idea for a short article entitled Evolution as Meaningful, Inspiring Fact after hearing an evolution skeptic voice doubts about the evidences for evolution in a radio programme.

Thus, Rev. Dowd decided to write an article that would list the best resources on inspiring evidences for evolution.

He concluded that the best evolution defending websites were Wikipedia and Talk Origins.

Both sites are known for their evolutionary propaganda. Rev. Dowd has probably not heard that at least one U.K. university will drop the grades of students caught in using Wikipedia as a source in their written assignments. (Wikipedia is admittedly a reasonable source of images depicting Charles Darwin, but that is an entirely different story.) Talk Origins is known for not letting facts stand in the way of defending evolution.

According to Rev. Dowd, cosmic complexity can be spiritually nourishing and deeply empowering. It seems likely that he will not let the facts spoil a good theory anytime soon.

Source:

Dowd, Michael. 2009. Evolution as Meaningful, Inspiring Fact. The Evolutionary Times (May). http://thankgodforevolution.com/node/1520.

Holy Evolution!

St. Charles? Image courtesy of Wikipedia



Joel Kontinen

I just received my second issue of The Evolutionary Times. Published on Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, Rev. Michael Dowd’s e-magazine interprets religion in general and Christianity in particular from a naturalistic perspective.

In Dowd’s Brave New Religion, Charles Darwin has a place of honour. In wishing happy birthday to his hero, the evo-reverend says:

Thanks to the role that Charles Darwin and countless other evolutionaries have played in enriching my faith and guiding my path, today I have no resentments, no secrets, and no unfinished business.

The entire magazine is a Song of Songs dedicated to the wonderful world of evo-religion where Christian concepts get a new evolutionary meaning:

Evolution gives us a more intimate and personal relationship with God because God is no longer far off, unnatural, and impotent. And it gives us a way of thinking about religion that helps us understand how and why religions are different, and how we can cooperate together. Both of these are, to my mind, really Good News.


Rev. Michael Dowd is a latter-day Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest who tried to set up a new evolution-based faith system.

Dowd does us all a favour by revealing the religious character of evolution. He says he takes “a holy view of evolution”.

In Dowd’s theology, God becomes a principle in nature. Dowd speaks freely of Christ and salvation but gives them a new unorthdox meaning. While there might be no promise of the afterlife for the adherents of evo-religion, Dowd is content to have his heaven in the here and now, inspired by the wonders of evolution.

Dowd’s theology brings to mind St. Paul’s words in Romans 1:25, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator”.

Dowdism might well be a prototype of the world religion spoken of in the Book of Revelation.



Sources:

Dowd, Michael. 2009. Happy Birthday Charles Darwin. http://evolutionarytimes.org/

West, Paul. 2009. Dowd Discovered. http://evolutionarytimes.org/files/e783cdbe513290fa548de21fc09cb089-18.php

The Evolutionists’ Not-So-Secret Agenda

Here is part of the evolutionary good news. Wikipedia image by José-Manuel Benito Álvarez.

Joel Kontinen


It’s not often that I get an e-mail that begins with “Dear Fellow Evolutionaries” but today it happened. The sender was The Evolutionary Times, a newsletter launched by Reverend Michael Dowd.

If you think evolution is not a religion you have probably never heard Rev. Dowd speak on what he calls "our common creation myth — The Great Story of cosmos."

Michael Dowd, the author of Thank God for Evolution, seems to be a man of great expectations. Describing himself as an evolutionary evangelist, he travels throughout North America, “sharing in religiously inspiring ways the 14 billion year history of the Universe given by mainstream science”.

Yes, Dowd is saying that evolution is religiously inspiring. He not only began the e-mail with “Dear Fellow Evolutionaries” but he also ended it with “Co-evolutionarily yours”. Moreover, he has a habit of using phrases like lizard legacy and monkey mind to illustrate his good news that we are part of the animal kingdom.

In the first issue of The Evolutionary Times he outlined his goals:

Our Two-Fold Vision: (1) By 2050, we see the majority of religious and non-religious people worldwide joyfully embracing an evolutionary, ecological worldview. (2) We also imagine, by mid-century, that humanity, in symbiotic partnership with our technologies and social structures, will have largely transitioned to a mutually enhancing relationship with the larger body of life of which we are part.

It seems that Rev. Dowd’s aim is to bring about a new secular religion that combines the two great quasi-scientific truths of our time, goo-to-you Darwinian evolution and the fight against man-made global warming.

On Dowd’s website, playwright Bill Bruehl has this to say about Thank God for Evolution: “This is a much needed book, even a Holy Book, a scripture for a spiritual renewal available to all religions as well as people living outside organized religion.”

Unfortunately, this “spiritual renewal” is diametrically opposed to the claims of traditional Christianity. The Apostle Paul might have called it a great delusion. Scientist will do well if they call it a pseudo-religion.

Source:

http://thankgodforevolution.com/newsletter/200811

Does Evolution Liberate From Guilt?

Paul would not approve of this gospel.


Joel Kontinen

Pastor Michael Dowd, the author of Thank God For Evolution, is spreading the good news of blaming evolution for our moral weaknesses. His message attracts attention as everything that might offend the views of a modern civilised humanist has been eliminated from this form of “Christianity”. One does not have to focus on sin or to repent.

New York Times reports of a man who after hearing Rev. Dowd’s sermon understood his extra-marital affairs better, realising they were due to our shared animal past.

Rev. Dowd seems to interpret the gospel message in a Freudian way. Everything is always someone else’s fault. In this respect, Adam and Eve were the first Dowdians although their view on origins differed diametrically from Rev. Daud’s.

Fortunately, there are people who have realised the weaknesses of evolution-based morality. Years ago, The Times asked several famous writers, including G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), to write an essay on the topic "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton wrote,

Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

We are morally responsible for our deeds. We cannot blame evolution or, as the Freudians used to think, our parents or society for the things we do wrong.

The Bible’s revelation differs clearly from Rev. Dowd’s ”good news”. As Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32) and “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8: 36).

We cannot merge evolution and the gospel. They are based on mutually incompatible foundations. Rev. Dowd proclaims a false gospel that can never set anyone free from mankind’s basic problem, sin. Only Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, can do this.

Source:

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. 2008. Darwinists for Jesus. New York Times (15 June) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15wwln-essay-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print