On March 20th, you printed an article by Tristin Hopper entitled Morality Is A Natural Selection.
I would like to comment that morals are the outworking of ethics.
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines ethics as the science of morals in human conduct; moral principals; rules of conduct. Morals, the goodness or badness of human character or behaviour, or with the distinction between right and wrong.
May I point out the standards we live by today were established some 3,500 years ago through the 10 Commandments.
All of the laws of our country were established from the Judeo/Christian system which came by way of the Bible.
To now state that morality today comes from natural selection seems a bit odd to me as the source of our morality has come from the Bible.
It is unfortunate that our population does not follow the morals established many years ago because as we read and hear daily, our society is in a downward spiral.
We have rampant free sex in our society, which is often consumed by sexual diseases, which monogamous couples, who marry for life, do not have.
As Hopper says, we look at ourselves as good, clean and moral living individuals, yet when we go below the surface we find a different story.
Statistics tell us that approximately 75 per cent of the women in our society have been sexually abused at one time or another, often before the age of 18.
Boys are also sexually abused at the rate of about 40 per cent.
When our parents get to an age that they become a burden to us we put them away in a nursing home. We may visit them once or twice per year, and then some do it reluctantly, either out of guilt or maybe fear that we will be left out of the will.
Do you call this good morality? I certainly do not.
There is much more that could be said but I think you get the picture. I will acknowledge that every aspect of society, whether Christian or not, is guilty.
I now want to turn to the area of evolution.
Hopper has given Darwin credibility, yet Darwin’s evolutionary theory is only theory as it has not yet been proven as fact even though our educational system is teaching it as fact.
If you hold to true science, all theories need to go through the process of being proven correct before they will be accepted as fact.
I have heard it said that, on his deathbed, Darwin recanted of his theories but this was never documented.
Evolutionists state the world we live in and the human race is millions of years old, yet, if you believe that, man is a million years old. So where are all of the people that should be here?
If you do the math, you will find that the human race is somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 years old.
The encyclopedia states that the world population is growing at a rate of 1.8 per cent per year, or doubling about every 39 years.
This is the result of health science today as this rate was not as high just 100 years ago.
In 1650, the world population was approximately 600 million people. It increased to 2 billion, 400 million in 1950.
The population doubled twice in 300 years.
Since 1950, antibiotics certainly have increased our lifespan and therefore the doubling rate is now every 39 or 40 years.
We also have to take into account that there were many diseases and wars before 1950 that kept the rate of doubling to approximately every 150 years.
When you do the math and start 4,500 years ago and start with the eight people that came off Noah’s Ark, you will find that in 29.5 times, the world population doubled each 150 years to reach the population we have today of 6.5 billion people.
There is much to be said about intelligent design.
Look at our DNA and cell structure, how it is made up and how cellular instruction programs its placement and function.
This has been documented by scientists today, involving some atheists.
At the conclusion of their studies, they have stated, “There has to be intelligent design.”
Hopper speaks of other forms of religion, such as Buddhism, and how it is practised.
Yet the man Buddha died and was buried.
My God, Jesus Christ, emphasized love when he was in this world by stating, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
When people practise this love we have the morality that you speak of.
Sadly, not all do.
The difference between Buddha and Jesus Christ is that Jesus lived, died and rose again from the dead to live forever.
This is documented in many manuscripts, most of those not being Christian.
If we all lived according to the way Jesus taught us to live we would have a better society.
Thank you for your time.
Dan Steyn
Whitehorse