Some highly enlightened people are absolutely certain that nothing is absolutely certain…except of course, that which they are absolutely certain of. If that doesn’t make sense, you’ve got more savvy than they have….

(This post is an edited version of one of my own favorites)

My son’s high school science teacher’s been working hard to convert any kids in his class who believe in God over to his faith, which is in agnosticism and evolution. Once in a while the kids are taught a little science in their science class, but most of the time it’s philosophy.

A recent pearl of wisdom leveled at this largely malleable and wholly captive young audience was that there are no absolutes in life, the universe or anything: nothing is absolutely certain. So why is he absolutely certain that they all evolved?

It’s a strange claim coming from one who deals with the known laws of nature every day, and particularly from one who is presumably getting paid tax-payer’s money to teach science. What is he saying to them: that nothing is objectively true but here’s a ton of homework on it all anyway?

Similar vagaries are being taught in colleges and universities, and Christian faith is being attacked: I know because I’ve experienced some of it myself.

It wasn’t long after the “nothing is true” revelation that this very same science teacher, having attempted to wash away any faith in God still lingering in his students’ hearts and minds, and while being paid to teach physics, began to wander instead into metaphysics, and recommended that they try Buddhism. This was likely the ultimate aim of his original sermon. But if nothing is true, how does he know that Buddhism is true? In fact, if nothing can be known for sure, why are we forcing kids to spend a large chunk of their lives learning what isn’t knowable or reliable?

In stark contrast to the double-minded, hypocritical science teacher, the great Einstein was able to declare without hesitation his conviction that E=Mc2. Is even this being reinterpreted now?

One thing the evolutionist is absolutely certain of is that anyone who disagrees with him must be wrong:

“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that)”.

(From Richard Dawkins’ Review of “Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution”).

Notice that the great Prof. insisted that we “believe” in evolution. He has to say that because he has no evidence to show us.

Prominent atheist professor of the history of biology at Cornell University, William Provine, put it this way:

“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. . . . There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”

(William Provine, Origins Research 16, no. 1/2 (1994): 9; quoted in Technical Journal 10, no. 1 1996: 22).

Of course, this brilliant man must have been dead once before in order to be able to tell us what he knows for sure what is (or what isn’t) beyond the grave. More than that, he wants to uplift us with his hopeful convictions.

The “no absolutes” assertion is one of many contemporary weapons in the war to purge Christian morality and the Judeo-Christian God from the world. It’s another way of short-circuiting reasoned debate, akin to insults often hurled at Christians such as “bigot”, “ignorant” and “hypocrite”.

And if you think about it, if there is no God there are indeed no absolutes when it comes to morality and ethics: right and wrong are decided by the people via government, the courts, the military and the police force, and can be changed over and over again. Or to put it in more politically correct language, morality and ethics are “fluid” and evolve with humanity: they’re decided by the majority (or as the case has been lately, the minority and the ruling elite) according to circumstances and expedience.

One of the problems with this kind of thinking is that we can’t claim to have the moral high ground above the Adolph Hitlers of the world. Hitler wanted to purge the earth of weak and diseased humans. How can we say he was wrong, if there are no absolutes? Isn’t life all about the survival of the fittest anyway?

Surely, the best we can say is that we “disagreed” with Hitler. If he’d been the victor in WWII, his standards of right and wrong would have ruled upon the earth, and we’d all be saying that his way is the right way.

If I were to show up for work three hours late and then excuse myself by saying that there are no absolutes so I can just work when I feel like it, I would lose my job, and rightly so.

I’ve told this story a few times before but it’s another of my favorites. A young acquaintance of mine once told me that “Christianity is just an excuse for morality”. I wondered how he would react if someone were to hit him over the head, steal his money and run off with his girlfriend, because the rules of behavior which he and most of us wish those around us to live by are rules of morality. And we all have an inbuilt sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. We don’t need government to tell us that stealing is wrong and violence is wrong-what we need is to listen to our conscience and our Creator and to live by those standards.

The fact is that the universe can be studied only because there are absolutes. If there were no absolutes there would be no universe. So it is in the moral and the spiritual realm. If there is a God at all, he’s not shaped by our preferences: he has a character and a personality independent of our imaginings, and standards of right and wrong which he wishes His Creation to live by. Could it be just by coincidence that humanity operates best when it obeys certain guidelines, rather that inventing its own like Hitler did?

It’s a poor excuse to refuse to believe in or search for Truth by saying that no-one can know it. If the same excuse had been used in science we would be still living in the dark ages. Just as there are unchangeable, fundamental truths which hold our universe together, so there are moral and spiritual truths for our existence and benefit, and we should each be searching until we find them.

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