Many on the left have criticized Governor Sarah Palin for her views on origins. Governor Palin is a woman of faith and so bases her cosmology on certain presuppositions traditionally held by Christians. Some celebrities have been critical of her claim that humans were co extant with dinosaurs. Perhaps Hollywood celebrities would do well to remember that they are, for the most part, clowns, whose professional purpose is to amuse (as did the court jesters of old) and nothing more. All of us, Christian or not, function from a set of presuppositions (basic truths which we hold to be self evident). And, all of our presuppositions are based on faith. The evolutionist has a different set of faith based presuppositions as compared to the creationist. But, in the end, all systems rely on taking something for granted in faith. Before you criticize Governor Palin too quickly, perhaps you should closely examine the prevailing theory of origins: evolution, espoused by Charles Darwin. In broad terms, the theory of evolution posits that, through the mechanism of natural selection, one species evolves into another and so on in an inexorable process. This process of natural selection should produce plant, animal, and insect forms of an innumerable variety. Inadequate forms, with their unsuccessful mutations, should be locked in the fossil record. Here is where evolution meets with the unanswerable question of paucity in the fossil record. For the sake of argument, let's admit archeopteryx and the smattering of other supposed intermediate forms "discovered" in fossil form. For evolution to be viable, there would have to be millions upon millions of intermediate forms littering the fossil record. No such body of evidence exists. The great edifice of evolution stands on the foundation of the transformation of species into more advanced forms. Here, the monolithic structure cracks and falls before a cursory review of its observable predictions. Evolution is more about providing a salve for conscience than about accurately describing and predicting natural phenomena. It is a faith for those who would deny Deity, nothing more.
Governor Palin is criticized for holding a view of nature consistent with the Biblical description of creation; a view supported by rational observation. In fact, the Biblically based presuppositions are the only truths upon which rationality can be based or upon which science can function. Apart from the assumption that God is and that He has spoken in His word, there can be no rational theory of knowledge. Therefore, it is ironic that Governor Palin is attacked by persons who subscribe to a patently irrational ontology. What are their presuppositions? That out of nothing arises something? That from chaos springs order? That from the womb of the inanimate life is born? Accepted science once told us that the world was flat. Who then is naive?
Governor Palin has consistently demonstrated a strength of character born of conviction. She possesses, in full measure, that essential quality of leadership: Christian character. She is enabled by the magnanimity of her own religious tradition to embrace those of differing faiths, just as our founding fathers were inspired to provide for a free republic, open to the world's tired and huddling masses. If Hollywood would criticize Governor Palin for her faith, then they disparage the American tradition that shelters all of us under the banner of freedom. Sarah Palin's left-wing critics ally themselves with the religiously bigoted and politically fascist.
"Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to." George Washington
