The cult behind Intelligent Design Guru

I just watched a discussion between Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine and Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute is the front group for the creationist movement under the pretence of science.

Now Wells has credentials in some fields of science, which doesn’t mean he knows what he is talking about outside those fields. Nor does it mean he is a honest scientist who looks at the evidence and draws conclusions. In fact the case is very strong, in my opinion, that he did just the opposite. He drew a conclusion and went into science only to gather credentials in order to to further his theological goals.

You can find the admission that this was a case in Wells’ own words. Wells was a member of one of the more bizarre cults around and it was the cult which pushed him in this direction. Here is what Wells has written:

“At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary. During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great things.

“He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in nature or history; in the process, they re-interpreted the fall, the incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination.

"Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”

In this little confession the man called Father by Wells is the cult leader, with the invented name of Sun Myung Moon. His actual name was Mun Yong-myong. Father claims that Jesus appeared to him. Of course Moon, as he now calls himself, claims he is the new Messiah. Conveniently, he claims, all the leaders of the great religions of the world met in heaven and declared him the Messiah. This is the man that Wells follows. This is the cult with mass arranged marriages where “Father” picks the spouse for the cult members and then marries. Often the members have never even met their spouse they are told to marry.

Moon wrote in 1992 that he and his wife “are the True Parents of all humanity. I declared that we are the Saviour, the Lord of the Second Advent, the Messiah.” Of course Wells believes this himself. He wrote: “Although there may be members of the Unification Church who do not believe Reverend Moon to be the second coming of Christ, I think it is fair to say that such people must be a small minority; indeed, it is difficult to imagine anyone persevering in the rigorous life of a Unificationist without believing that Sun Myung Moon is to our generation what Jesus was to his.” Wouldn’t the fundamentalist at the forefront of the Creationist movement just love knowing that there guru in science thinks Moon is the new Messiah, the Jesus of our age. Wells is not just a member but a major member of this cult. His work is on theology is pushed on what appears to be a Unification cult website (tparents.org). Tparents refers to the claim of Moon that he and his wife are the “True Parent” of all of us.

Now read carefully what Wells wrote. He was an active cult member. He was not a scientist. He was picked by Moon to go to University. He began with his conclusion -- that Darwinian evolution must be destroyed. He says that “Father’s words.. convinced me I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”

So the reason he studied science was to destroy Darwinism. Now I might be mistaken but I thought he said in the debate that he rejected Darwin because the science just doesn’t support it. Of course the overwhelming number of experts in the field do think it make sense. But the main point is that Wells was not being fully honest. He did not study the evidence and then conclude that Darwin was wrong. He started with a conclusion drawn based on the teachings of his cult and then went in search of anything he could to accomplish his life goal -- to destroy Darwinism.