Constitution Party of Michigan - State Issues

Evolution is a false theory. Everything was created. It was created after it's own kind; plants, animals, and man. And in the case of man, in the image of God - a creation of great value. One kind did not evolve into another kind, which evolved into another kind. And everything was created in six, evening through morning, days.

The theory of evolution did not begin with Charles Darwin and his book 'The Origin of Species' in 1859. History records many writings on evolution dating back almost two thousand years. The United States Founding Fathers were well acquainted with these writings and therefore the principles and teachings of evolution. They were also well acquainted with the scientific arguments for and against evolution. Most importantly they knew that the basis for the origin of the theory of evolution was the ignorant absense of God or the deliberate rejection of God.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable rights , that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." - The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

"It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author. When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them. ... The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal. And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature＊s God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the power that ordained them. God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon. But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account and yet it pretends to demonstrate." - United States Founding Father, Author of 'Common Sense', Thomas Paine, "Life and Writings of Thomas Paine", Daniel Edwin Wheeler, editor (New York: Printed by Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), Vol. 7, pp. 2-8, ※The Existence of God,§ A Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris, 1787. The was a criticism of the French school system which taught students evolution.

"It is so obvious to every reasonable being, that he did not make himself; and the world which he inhabits could as little make itself that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator. It is equally evident that the Creator must be a spiritual and not a material being; there is also a consciousness that the thinking part of our nature is not material but spiritual 每 that it is not subject to the laws of matter nor perishable with it. Hence arises the belief, that we have an immortal soul; and pursuing the train of thought which the visible creation and observation upon ourselves suggest, we must soon discover that the Creator must also he the Governor of the universe 每 that His wisdom and His goodness must be without bounds 每 that He is a righteous God and loves righteousness 每 that mankind are bound by the laws of righteousness and are accountable to Him for their obedience to them in this life, according to their good or evil deeds." - United States Founding Father, 6th U.S. President, John Quincy Adams, "Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings", (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), Letter II, pp. 23-24.

"But the first words of the Bible are, ※In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.§ The blessed and sublime idea of God as the creator of the universe 每 the Source of all human happiness for which all the sages and philosophers of Greece and Rome groped in darkness and never found 每 is recalled in the first verse of the book of Genesis. I call it the source of all human virtue and happiness because when we have attained the conception of a Being Who by the mere act of His will created the world, it would follow as an irresistible consequence (even if we were not told that the same Being must also be the governor of his own creation) that man, with all other things, was also created by Him, and must hold his felicity and virtue on the condition of obedience to His will." - United States Founding Father, 6th U.S. President, John Quincy Adams, "Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings", (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), Letter II, pp. 27-28.

"It might be judged an affront to your understandings should I go about to prove this first principle: the existence of a Deity and that He is the Creator of the universe; for that would suppose you ignorant of what all mankind in all ages have agreed in. I shall therefore proceed to observe that He must be a being of infinite wisdom (as appears in His admirable order and disposition of things), whether we consider the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets and their wonderful regular motions; or this earth, compounded of such an excellent mixture of all the elements; or the admirable structure of animate bodies of such infinite variety and yet every one adapted to its nature and the way of life is to be placed in, whether on earth, in the air, or in the water, and so exactly that the highest and most exquisite human reason cannot find a fault; and say this would have been better so, or in such a manner which whoever considers attentively and thoroughly will be astonished and swallowed up in admiration." - United States Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, signer of the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, "The Works of Benjamin Franklin", Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1836), Vol. II, p. 526, ※A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.§

"That the Deity is a being of great goodness appears in His giving life to so many creatures, each of which acknowledges it a benefit by its unwillingness to leave it; in His providing plentiful sustenance for them all and making those things that are most useful, most common and easy to be had, such as water (necessary for almost every creature to drink); air (without which few could subsist); the inexpressible benefits of light and sunshine to almost all animals in general; and to men, the most useful vegetables, such as corn, the most useful of metals, as iron, & c.; the most useful animals as horses, oxen, and sheep, He has made easiest to raise or procure in quantity or numbers; each of which particulars, if considered seriously and carefully, would fill us with the highest love and affection. That He is a being of infinite power appears in His being able to form and compound such vast masses of matter (as this earth, and the sun, and innumerable stars and planets), and give them such prodigious motion and yet so to govern them in their greatest velocity as that they shall not fly out of their appointed bounds not dash one against another for their mutual destruction. But it is easy to conceive His power, when we are convinced of His infinite knowledge and wisdom. For, if weak and foolish creatures as we are, but knowing the nature of a few things, can produce such wonderful effects, ... what power must He possess, Who not only knows the nature of everything in the universe but can make things of new natures with the greatest ease and at His pleasure! Agreeing, then, that the world was a first made by a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, which Being we call God." - United States Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, signer of the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, "The Works of Benjamin Franklin", Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1836), Vol. II, pp. 526-527, ※A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.§

"When I was in England from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my houses, and at the house and tables of many friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me, ※I am inclined to believe that the Universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite Cause; and an infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power that could have been induced to produce a Universe in time must have produced it from eternity.§ ※It seems to me, the effect must flow from the Cause"... It has been long 每 very long 每 a settled opinion in my mind that there is now, never will be, and never was but one Being who can understand the universe, and that it is not only vain but wicked for insects [like us] to pretend to comprehend it." - United States Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Atlas of the American Revolution, 2nd U.S. President, John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Lester Cappon, editor (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 1959) pp. 374-375, to Thomas Jefferson, September 14, 1813. Richard Price was a theologian and a strong British supporter of American rights and independence, with Congress bestowing on him an American citizenship in 1778.

"When we view the inanimate and irrational creation around and above us, and contemplate the beautiful order observed in all its motions and appearances, is not the supposition unnatural and improbable that the rational and moral world should be abandoned to the frolics of chance or to the ravage of disorder? What would be the fate of man and of society was every one at full liberty to do as he listed without any fixed rule or principle of conduct 每 without a helm to steer him, a sport of the fierce gusts of passion and the fluctuating billows of caprice?" - United States Founding Father, signer of the Constitution, U. S. Supreme court Justice, James Wilson, "The Works of the Honorable James Wilson", Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 113-114.

The belief that this globe existed from all eternity (or never had a beginning), never obtained a foothold in any part of the world or in any age. Even the infidel writer of modern times, however, in the pride of argument they may have asserted it but believed it not, for they could not help perceiving that if mankind, with their inherently intellectual powers and natural capacities for improvement, had inhabited this earth for millions of years, the present inhabitants would not only be vastly more intelligent than we now find them but there would be vestiges of the former races to be found in every inhabitable part of the globe, floods and earthquakes notwithstanding. Unless we adopt Lord Monboddo's supposition that mankind were originally monkeys, it is impossible to admit the idea that they could have existed millions of years without making more discoveries and improvements than the early histories of nations warrant us to believe they had done. The belief in an uncreated, self-existent intelligent First Cause takes possession of our minds whether we will or not, because if man could not create himself, nothing else could; and matter, if it were not external, could produce nothing but matter; it could never produce thought nor free will nor consciousness. There must have been, therefore, a time when this globe and its inhabitants did not exist. The question then arises, what gave it existence? We answer God, the great First Cause of all things. What is God? We know not. We know Him only through His creation and His revelation. What do these teach us? They teach us, first this; incomprehensible power, next His infinite mind, and lastly His universal benevolence or goodness. These terms express all that we can know or believe of Him." - Daniel Webster, 1801 Senior Oration at Dartmouth, translated from the Latin by John Andrew Murray, received by the author from the translator on February 21, 2008. The oration is titled ※On the Goodness of God as manifested in His work, 1801", Lord Monboddo 1714-1799, a Scottish legal scholar and pioneer anthropologist who advocated evolution through natural selection and man's ascent from chimps.