Survival of the Fittest: The Coming Age of Faith and Family

Darwinism is a belief system about the development of life in the universe. It is a natural companion to atheistic materialism because it postulates that no God is necessary to explain the wonders of life. Those who most strongly hold to Darwin's ideas about the development of life tend to be those who hold a humanist/materialist world view.

The reverse is certainly true as well. Those who reject Darwinism tend to have a Theistic (such as Christian) view of life and the world. In the United States, "Bible believing Christians" are often skeptical of naturalistic macro-evolution. The Duggar family, pictured above, is an extreme example of this type.

And that picture tells a story. The short version of it goes like this: There is a coming age of Faith and Family in the World. It is coming because regardless of whether Darwinism/Materialism is true or not, the fact is that by its own method of keeping score, it doesn't work. The evidence shows that there is no evolutionary value in believing in evolution. Quite the reverse, it is those subsets of our population who have most rejected it's philosophical underpinnings that are best at actually practicing it's main precept- that it is all about passing your genes on.

If evolution teaches that this world is about "the survival of the fittest", then ironically the evidence shows that it is those who reject naturalistic evolution that are the fittest. The future belongs to the Duggars and those like them. The Richard Dawkinses of the world will vanish into extinction, their only legacy being a few dusty books or cached web pages. The only ones around to read them will be future generations of Duggars and their friends, who might occasionally look at them to wonder at their folly.

Meanwhile, the jaded, cynical materialist-atheist-evolutionist slice of the Western world has discovered that they don't really "believe" in evolution in the same way that Christians "believe" in the God of Scripture. Instead, they believe in nothing. They become self-worshiping, or nihilists or hedonists. None of these views of life is particularly useful in encouraging people to conceive, bear, and successfully raise offspring. Those who hold this view of life tend to reproduce far below replacement levels. Hence, even if they tend to hold the top spots in Universities, media, and the economy, the plain fact is their numbers are receding.

Modern life has given us choices and powers that previous ages of Man have been denied. To those who walk in the Fear of the Lord, these powers are used to do things like enable safer childbirth and giving better medical care to our children. In many cases it allows us to have children that in previous ages would have never been born. These are uses of our modern powers that increase our fitness for survival.

But the power of modern man provides many pitfalls as well. In a simpler world, the joys of raising children were one of the few joys available. Now there are a myriad of ways to feel good, at least in the short run. There are many ways to capture our minds and distract our attention. Modern power is used to separate sexual intercourse from commitment and reproduction. It can be used to abort babies as well as deliver them. Post-faith mores do not distinguish between perversion and legitimate sexual relations. This has helped bring on a loss of fertility that even our modern tools cannot undo.

There have always been hedonists and atheists with us. In prior ages of man, with fewer ways of destroying themselves and less power to avoid unwanted children, they managed to reproduce at about the same rate as the Faithful. Even if they did not desire children, they often found they had them. Conversely the Faithful had fewer means at their disposal to act out their desires, and so more often than today went childless even if it was in their heart to bear children.

That was in prior ages of man. But modern powers have brought post-modern man to a fork in the road. In this day and time people do have more power to act out on their reproductive desires, whether for good or for evil. The Faithful will use their new power to create and sustain new life, the Unbelieving will use it to prevent new obstacles to their pursuit of self or empty pleasure. We shall go to the right, and they to the left. Their road leads to extinction, and ours to the Kingdom come.