Golden Calves

There is a very well known story about a “Golden Calf”…a story I first heard when I was a child. Thinking about it now, in my mind’s eye I can still see the book and pictures depicting this shiny golden calf surrounded by people dancing about with their hands high in the air. The story concerned the Israelites, their liberation from slavery and their worship of a “Golden Calf.” I hadn’t thought of this story at all until it came to mind just recently in a way I had not considered before – but somehow a way that is both timely and relevant. The story is found in Exodus 32 and goes something like this: 

The children of Israel had just come out of Egypt where they had been in bondage for about 400 years. God heard their cries of suffering and provided for their deliverance through Moses.

During their time in Egypt the Israelites may have begun to doubt the existence of the God of their fathers because Moses anticipated some hard questions from them (Exodus 3:13). To help Moses prove the existence and power of God, he was given a number of miraculous signs which would help the Israelites believe. After all of these miracles were done, including the ten plagues on the Egyptians, the Israelites left Egypt and began their journey with a renewed belief in the Lord God.

Very soon after leaving Egypt, they passed through the Red Sea on dry land. The pursuing Egyptian army, hot on their heels, was drowned trying to catch and capture them. They then journeyed on to Mount Sinai to receive God’s laws.

Despite all recent events and miracles, soon after Moses left them to briefly go up on the mountain and receive God's laws, the people became increasingly anxious. Moses spent forty days (Exodus 24:18) up on the mountain with God and while he was there the people urged Aaron, their temporary leader, to make gods for them to follow. 

At their urging, Aaron took the gold earrings they had brought from Egypt, and melted them down to make a golden idol. The idol he crafted for them was a calf, but Aaron maintained the name of the Lord in connection with it (Exodus 32:4&5). In so doing, he was merging the pagan practices they were familiar with and the worship of the God they were just beginning to be re-acquainted with. When the people saw the calf Aaron made, they were elated and began worshipping it and crediting it for their deliverance. They were saying things like, Israel these are your gods—the ones who led you out of the land of Egypt.

 

So, what prompted me to remember this story and want to re-examine it after so many years…after all, this was just another story about idol worship (there are many in the Old Testament). How might this story be relevant today? On those past occasions when I’d heard the story, my focus had always been on the item itself (the calf) and not on the determined effort invested in first creating and then worshipping such an object (or idea). However, this time I felt prompted to look past the object and to consider the process and principles at work instead. How does a “Golden Calf” come to be…and can that somehow relate to life today?

The process I’m speaking of is, of course, the passionate rejection of God combined with the re-attribution (to other sources or authorities) of all He has created and declared. In my opinion, there is a very determined world view which is prepared to invest extraordinary effort to destroy, pervert and/or undermine anything God formed or ordained. In fact it seems that throughout history, when it comes to the subject of God, there has been much more going on than simply a disagreement of beliefs. There has always been a zealously determined effort to deny, discredit, falsify, and/or eliminate God from all earthly equations. Often those who simply believe in Him, His created works or His expressed will and values, have faced hostility (or worse). Such a hostile response is way out of proportion to what one might expect over differing views or opinions. It’s much more than simply a case of, “while I believe in God and you don’t, you are free to express your views while I freely express mine.” 

Throughout history and right up to the present day, persistent attempts to remove any traces or references to God continue. Indeed I believe those campaigning against God would, if they could, remove all traces of Him from our minds as well! Of course a belief in a godless universe (known as atheism) has its own “religious” component with followers determined to write God out of every equation…to be replaced by _(what?)_ evolution?…perhaps some form of secular humanism? 

As I began looking into the history of atheism and the accompanying theory of evolution, I find they are not modern in any sense of the word. These are not theories and ideas born of sophistication and scientific enlightenment. Throughout recorded history there is ample evidence of atheism and antagonism toward God (and all who believe in Him) while at the same time attempting to credit our existence to some form of evolution or anything other than Divine design.

The obvious question (to me at least) is why create this golden calf…why God-less evolution…why Darwinism? If something is believed and accepted as fact, we do not try to replace it with something else; however, when we decide to reject something (previously believed) we then are faced with the task of replacing that belief with something else…an alternate explanation.

The idea of evolution grew as a consequence of denying creation and a Creator and was put forth as an alternate explanation to the question, “If no God, then where did we come from?” Indeed, a very interesting article includes the following:
“While Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a relatively young archetype, the evolutionary worldview itself is as old as antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Anaximander postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Charles Darwin simply brought something new to the old philosophy -- a plausible mechanism called "natural selection." Natural selection acts to preserve and accumulate minor advantageous genetic mutations…” For more see: “Darwin's Theory Of Evolution - A Theory in Crisis” http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

The same article concludes with:
“Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." [5] 

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."” - See more at: http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com

Darwinism didn’t emerge as the result of strict adherence to the “scientific method” or observations to which a strict scientific protocol was applied; instead it was put forth as an alternate explanation for the origin of all life. As an explanation, in my opinion, it is grasped and clung to in a manner somewhat akin to a drowning man anxiously and frantically grasping at straws.

Now, it’s not my intention to disprove evolution – there are many sound arguments that do that job already; and they are put forth by folks far more learned on the subject than me. However, I am intrigued by how tenaciously this seriously flawed theory is clung to by academia and the lengths taken to shut down any opposing viewpoints within the scientific community. Darwinism, though remaining the prevailing paradigm which has become the status quo, is a theory that has never been proven. Basically, it remains at about the same place it was when Darwin first proposed his views. Since academia has adopted this theory, no other view is seriously entertained and discoveries – particularly those that are suggestive or point toward intelligent design, are immediately dealt with by expulsion, ridicule and/or deliberate obfuscation. 

In fact, within the ranks of academia, the treatment of those that challenge Darwinism has become the subject of the documentary movie, “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed” by Ben Stein. In this movie Stein goes up against the status quo and the intellectual elite to expose the bias against any other form of thought that is an anathema to Darwin’s theory.

Despite the fact that this theory is now over a hundred years old, and despite the fact that it still lacks any substantive scientific proof, nevertheless academia continues to cling tenaciously and present it as “fact.” Some proponents of evolution acknowledge the fact that willingness to accept an intelligent Creator is so unpalatable they would rather cling to a flimsy unproven theory.

The following statements point to the desire to abandon the idea of a Creator and come from the article: “Why Do People Believe in Evolution?” By Bert Thompson, Ph.D. http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=12&article=273“…Henry Fairfield Osborn, one of the most famous evolutionists of the early twentieth century, suggested: “In truth, from the earliest stages of Greek thought man has been eager to discover some natural cause of evolution, and to abandon the idea of supernatural intervention in the order of nature” (1917, p. ix). Henry Morris noted: “Evolution is the natural way to explain the origin of things for those who do not know and acknowledge the true God of creation. In fact, some kind of evolution is absolutely necessary for those who would reject God” (1966, p. 98).

Sir Arthur Keith of Great Britain wrote: “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable” (as quoted in Criswell, 1972, p. 73). Professor D.M.S. Watson, who held the position of the Chair of Evolution at the University of London for more than twenty years, echoed the same sentiments when he stated that “evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur or can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is incredible” (1929, 123:233). These kinds of statements leave little to the imagination, and make it clear that those who say such things believe in evolution not because of any evidence, but instead because they have made up their minds, a priori, that they are not going to believe in God.”

Finally I’d like to offer the following link as something the reader might find particularly interesting when considering this particular “golden calf.” http://mbbc.us/creation/inquiry/rejection.htm It is titled, “Why did you reject evolution” and was written by Patrick Briney, Ph.D.

It begins: “As an atheist, I believed in evolution as fact. It was the only explanation for existence. But after attending a lecture on creation science, I began to rethink the question of origins. The speaker had pointed out several things that I knew were true, but I never considered the implications. He also said some things I had not been told about in class. Subsequently, I began to doubt evolution, distrust teachers of evolution, and wonder what else I had not been told…”
Dr. Briney goes on to take a closer look at the science and just how he came to the conclusions he does.

Personally I have no problem with the creation model and believe strongly that all creation points to its creator. There was a time, a point in my life when I had rejected this point of view but not any longer. If you have not come to the same conclusion, I would ask that you at least not close your mind to the possibility and then really examine the evidence. There is no question that at some point faith must come into the equation…just be careful that you are not placing your faith in a “golden calf.”