Ben Shapiro Nails It (But How Did We Get Here?)

If evolution is true, there is no inherent basis for morality.

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Creation Reformation exists because we believe human beings around the globe continue to spin into moral decline for one primary reason: Generations of people have been taught that they are not created by God. Young people and their parents have been taught that their very existence is due to impersonal, purposeless forces of nature.

This spin into moral decline and the societal ills that follow is most visibly happening now in the United States, a country built and sustained—not perfectly, but productively—on Judeo-Christian values. That is to say that the American people for generations shared a system of morals that derived from a divine source.

What happens when a society built on a shared value system trades this value system for another, radically different one? We found an interesting tidbit that bears on this question in a Ben Shapiro podcast, Episode 1518. Ben Shapiro is a popular conservative voice in American politics, and his podcast is heard by millions of followers.

Ben Shapiro notes the rapid decline in belief in God in the United States and the accompanying cultural effects. We encourage our readers to check out Shapiro’s entire podcast. But we include here some quotes in which Shapiro, in his unique manner, drives home a message we all should hear. The discussion begins at about the 37-minute mark, and the quotes below are transcribed from his podcast. Any errors in grammar or punctuation are ours.

First, Shapiro identifies the larger problem Americans face today: the prospects of a society’s survival without some sort of hard-core moral, absolutes about good and evil.

There’s never been a society that’s ever survived in the long term, based on the moral relativism of people utilizing the power that falls into their hand.

In line with Creation Reformation, Shapiro recognizes the root cause of America’s decline into moral relativism. The decline is largely driven by the message that “there is no God and we will make up morality as we go.” Shapiro continues:

I’ve never understood the argument that you can define an absolute right and wrong apart from the idea of a moral creator. The reason I say that is because evolutionary biology does not lead to the idea of absolute truth. It leads to what is useful. It leads to a social morality that may be useful from time to time but does not speak to what is absolutely right and absolutely wrong.

Shapiro then cites statistics showing the decline in belief in God in America. This decline should not surprise anyone; but what many people may not fully appreciate is the effect of this decline—a sea change that has recently turned into a tidal wave—on young people. As Shapiro notes:

You see a . . . massive decline [in belief in God] among young people. And, by the way, is it any wonder that young people are now suffering from severe mental illness, suicidal ideation? We removed all boundaries, lessons, roles, rules, all the things that hem them in and teach them to be a useful human being. Those are all gone for young people.

Shapiro continues to analyze the statistics as they break down by age group, gender, and most strikingly, political affiliation. It seems that “belief” in God looks different between groups who take God and the Bible seriously, and those who don’t.

We do not think it takes much imagination to understand which political group in the US largely pays lip service to a belief in God. But our interest is in Shapiro’s insight into how a lack of any serious belief in God plays out in society among today’s young people. As Shapiro points out, when a society’s “ruling [or ‘leadership’] class” of people are lying about their belief in God, we experience a breakdown in current cultural norms. As he expresses:

The country [America] is now basically saying, OK, let’s be honest about this. Are you a god believer who believes in traditional Judeo-Christian ideals? Or are you a person who believes that teaching God and traditional Judeo-Christian ideals to children is dangerous for them. There is a stark difference between how people on the hard left, the atheistic hard left, look at the raising of children and people who are in the traditional Judeo-Christian right view the raising of children.

Shapiro continues in a fruitful line of reasoning that links the lack of serious belief in God among those charged with the education and raising of our children with the sharp rise in suicidal ideation, mental states that leave children confused, and general unhappiness. Again, we encourage readers to listen to the entire podcast.

We find Shapiro’s characterization of being “lied to” by our leaders intriguing. Can we agree that politicians who claim to believe in God but promote objectively ungodly behaviors are lying to us? Can we agree that educators who tell a student that evolution is consistent with creation by God are lying to us? Can we agree that clergy who claim that there is a coherent syncretic approach to evolution and Genesis creation are lying to us?

Here we ask a simple question: Where are the serious God believers in all of this? Where were the serious God believers in the decades leading up to today’s moral crisis among young people?

We will venture an answer, and we invite readers to weigh in: Christian and Jewish religious leaders have been largely silent on the issue of creation. Despite the clear teaching of their authoritive scriptures, many, if not most, religious leaders rarely expound with evidence-based certainty on the topic of human creation by God in his image. And yet the issue of creation goes straight to the heart of one’s human dignity, identity, purpose, and meaning on earth.

We suspect that most pastors, priests, preachers, rabbis, and other clergy secretly—or not so secretly—suspect that evolution is true. If so, then the cognitive mess that rises when one tries to express a coherent doctrine of creation—some combination of nature alone but nevertheless God somehow guiding it—is best avoided.

And while the church avoids the topic, the rest of society does not. We have generations of children and adults today who have never heard two versions of a creation story. If they heard anything other than evolution by natural selection, they probably heard the jumbled “theistic evolution” stories from well-intentioned God-believers: Evolution is true, but God is behind it all. But most people perceive such attempts at an explanation as mere religious accommodation to the “true” scientific story believed by all atheists.

And, they are correct. Such accommodation by God-believers to “save the phenomena” of science merely melds a scientific theory in no need of God with an account of creation by God in no need of natural selection. The result is a third way not supported by science or the Bible. Thus, the reasonable person grows up hearing only one creation story: evolution by natural selection.

This one creation story, if believed to be true, leads to predictable results. It is a story of creation driven by amoral stealing, killing, and destroying. Why does it surprise anyone that human beings act in conformity to the nature of their creation? To do otherwise would be in opposition to nature, a truly irrational thing to do.

To make matters worse, the one creation story most people have ever heard can be easily shown to be a false narrative as far as explaining their existence. And the “it’s not science if it leads to God” rule of modern science acts as a dike against the continuing flood of 21st-century evidence that leads to very logical inferences of divine creation. Thus, most people, regardless of religious identification or leadership status, are “functional atheists” on the topic of creation.

It’s time for a creation reformation. All serious believers in God need to evaluate their own beliefs about creation in light of God’s word. If they investigate the scientific claims of creation by evolution in light of the evidence for creation by God, they will find it easy, logical, and compelling to embrace human creation by God in His image.

We are here to help. We suggest that curious God-believers first read and understand The Natural Selection Paradox. It’s a bit long (there are abridged versions also), but if read one will find, perhaps surprisingly, that natural selection explains nothing about your origin or existence. The theory of evolution “by” natural selection should really be the “theory of evolution by random genetic variation alone,” at which point it becomes reasonably easy to reject. Find out more here.

Further, we suggest you read our two previous posts on this Substack: Evolution and Adam, Part I and Part II. In these posts we show that creation of human beings by God is not only a reasonable scientific belief, it is a necessary theological truth.

And be sure to catch all our original, insightful, and entertaining posts:

Blog: https://www.creation-reformation.com

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Enjoy!

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, from Wikimedia Commons.