An Interview on the life and work of Sir John Sulston, Nobel Prize winner, who organized the team which sequenced the human genome for the first time. For a higher quality, downloadable, version, with a detailed summary please see http://www.alanmacfarlane.com

An Interview on the life and work of Sir John Sulston, Nobel Prize winner, who organized the team which sequenced the human genome for the first time. For a higher quality, downloadable, version, with a detailed summary please see http://www.alanmacfarlane.com

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QUOTE

I see that we have enormous amounts to discover as a strategy for going forward as human beings; I believe atheism makes coherent sense; all the religions are in conflict with each other; they have different stories, based on insubstantial records, but justify them with saying that there was some direct communication with a deity in the past which has led them to this belief; I find those unconvincing, particularly because of the conflict; this was my main argument in discussions with my father and he found it hard to answer that.

Simply put there is a simple explanation for why there are so many religions and it is because God has put inside everyone a knowledge of his existence. I go into this further in this letter below:

My friend draws some large crowds at times and was thinking about setting up a lie detector test and see if atheists actually secretly believe in God. He discussed this project with me since he knew that I had done a lot of research on the idea about 20 years ago.

Nelson Price in THE EMMANUEL FACTOR (1987) tells the story about Brown Trucking Company in Georgia who used to give polygraph tests to their job applicants. However, in part of the test the operator asked, “Do you believe in God?” In every instance when a professing atheist answered “No,” the test showed the person to be lying. My pastor Adrian Rogers used to tell this same story to illustrate Romans 1:19 and it was his conclusion that “there is no such thing anywhere on earth as a true atheist. If a man says he doesn’t believe in God, then he is lying. God has put his moral consciousness into every man’s heart, and a man has to try to kick his conscience to death to say he doesn’t believe in God.”

I read The Skeptical Review(publication of CSICOP) for several years during the 90’s and I would write letters to these scientists about taking this project on and putting it to the test.  Below are some of  their responses (15 to 20 years old now):

1st Observation: Religious culture of USA could have influenced polygraph test results.
ANTONY FLEW  (formerly of Reading University in England, now deceased, in a letter to me dated 8-11-96) noted, “For all the evidence so far available seems to be of people from a culture in which people are either directly brought up to believe in the existence of God or at least are strongly even if only unconsciously influenced by those who do. Even if everyone from such a culture revealed unconscious belief, it would not really begin to show that — as Descartes maintained— the idea of God is so to speak the Creator’s trademark, stamped on human souls by their Creator at their creation.”

2nd Observation: Polygraph Machines do not work. JOHN R. COLE, anthropologist, editor, National Center for Science Education, Dr. WOLF RODER, professor of Geography, University of Cincinnati, Dr. SUSAN BLACKMORE,Dept of Psychology, University of the West of England, Dr. CHRISTOPHER C. FRENCH, Psychology Dept, Goldsmith’s College, University of London, Dr.WALTER F. ROWE, The George Washington University, Dept of Forensic Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

3rd Observation: The sample size probably was not large enough to apply statistical inference. (These gentlemen made the following assertion before I received the letter back from Claude Brown that revealed that the sample size was over 15,000.) JOHN GEOHEGAN, Chairman of New Mexicans for Science and Reason, Dr. WOLF RODER, and Dr WALTER F. ROWE (in a letter dated July 12, 1994) stated, “The polygraph operator for Brown Trucking Company has probably examined only a few hundred or a few thousand job applicants. I would surmise that only a very small number of these were actually atheists. It seems a statistically insignificant (and distinctly nonrandom) sampling of the 5 billion human beings currently inhabiting the earth. Dr. Nelson Price also seems to be impugning the integrity of anyone who claims to be an atheist in a rather underhanded fashion.”

“I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did….My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

Francis Schaeffer commented:

This is the old man Darwin writing at the end of his life. What he is saying here is the further he has gone on with his studies the more he has seen himself reduced to a machine as far as aesthetic things are concerned. I think this is crucial because as we go through this we find that his struggles and my sincere conviction is that he never came to the logical conclusion of his own position, but he nevertheless in the death of the higher qualities as he calls them, art, music, poetry, and so on, what he had happen to him was his own theory was producing this in his own self just as his theories a hundred years later have produced this in our culture. 

Darwin, C. R. to Fordyce, John, 7 May 1879

“I may state that my judgment often fluctuates . . . In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.”

Francis Schaeffer asserted:

What we find now is that he comes to the place in being agnostic, but as we read through this section on religion what we find is in reality his reason leads him against this position, which is interesting but his theory makes him accept the  position of agnosticism….. I think what you have in Darwin is a magnificent example, although a sad one of what I lecture on in apologetics,  and that is if a man takes a set of nonchristian presuppositions he is forced eventually to be in a place of tension. The more consistent he is with his own nonchristian presuppositions the more he is away from the real world. When he is closer to the real world then he is more illogical to his own presuppositions.

Darwin, C. R. to Doedes, N. D., 2 Apr 1873

“But I  may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide.”

Francis Schaeffer observed:

So he sees here exactly the same that I would labor and what Paul gives in Romans chapter one, and that is first this tremendous universe [and it’s form] and the second thing, the mannishness of man and the concept of this arising from chance is very difficult for him to come to accept and he is forced to leap into this, his own kind of Kierkegaardian leap, but he is forced to leap into this because of his presuppositions but when in reality the real world troubles him. He sees there is no third alternative. If you do not have the existence of God then you only have chance. In my own lectures I am constantly pointing out there are only two possibilities, either a personal God or this concept of the impersonal plus time plus chance and Darwin understood this . You will notice that he divides it into the same exact two points that Paul does in Romans chapter one into and that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) will in the problem of existence, the external universe, and man and his consciousness. Paul points out there are these two steps that man is confronted with…

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Here below is the Romans passage that Schaeffer is referring to and verse 19 refers to what Schaeffer calls “the mannishness of man” and verse 20 refers to Schaeffer’s other point which is  “the universe and it’s form.”Romans 1:18-22Amplified Bible (AMP) ¹⁸ For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative. ¹⁹ For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. ²⁰ For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], ²¹ Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor andglorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile andgodless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]

In 1879 Charles Darwin was applied to by a German student, in a similar manner. The letter was answered by a member of my father’s family, who wrote:–

“Mr. Darwin…considers that the theory of Evolution is quite compatible with the belief in a God; but that you must remember that different persons have different definitions of what they mean by God.” 

Francis Schaeffer commented:

You find a great confusion in his writings although there is a general structure in them. Here he says the word “God” is alright but you find later what he doesn’t take is a personal God. Of course, what you open is the whole modern linguistics concerning the word “God.” is God a pantheistic God? What kind of God is God? Darwin says there is nothing incompatible with the word “God.”

This, however, did not satisfy the German youth, who again wrote to my father, and received from him the following reply:—

” Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation.”

Francis Schaeffer observed:

So he has come to the place as an old man that he doesn’t believe there has been any revelation. In his younger years he held a different position.

The passages which here follow are extracts, somewhat abbreviated, from a part of the Autobiography, written in 1876, in which my father gives the history of his religious views:—“During these two years* (ft note *October 1836 to January 1839.) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

Francis Schaeffer noted:

So you find that as a younger man he did accept the Bible. As an older man he has given up revelation but he is not satisfied with his own answers. He is caught in the tension that modern man is caught in. He is a prefiguration  of the modern man and he himself contributed to. Then Darwin goes on and tells us why he gave up the Bible.

Darwin went on to write:

I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1836, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,—is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible.

Francis Schaeffer asserted:

Darwin is saying that he gave up the New Testament because it was connected to the Old Testament. He gave up the Old Testament because it conflicted with his own theory. Did he have a real answer himself and the answer is no. At the end of his life we see that he is dehumanized by his position and on the other side we see that he never comes to the place of intellectual satisfaction for himself that his answers were sufficient.

Darwin continued:

“BUT I WAS VERY UNWILLING  TO GIVE UP MY BELIEF; I feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels.

Francis Schaeffer commented:

This is very sad. He lies on his bunk and the Beagle tosses and turns and he makes daydreams, and his dreams and hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii or some place like this, an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would put his stamp of authority on it, which would be able to show that Christ existed. This is undoubtedly what he is talking about. Darwin gave up this hope with great difficulty. I think he didn’t want to come to the position where his accepted presuppositions were driving him. He didn’t want to give it up, just as an older man he understood where it would lead…

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The area of Biblical Archaeology has advanced so much since Darwin wrote these words in the 19th century!!!!! DR Sulston ASK YOURSELF THIS SIMPLE QUESTION BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR FAITH IN THE ACCURACY OF THE SCRIPTURES: Is the Bible historically accurate and have I taken the time to examine the evidence? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject and if you like you could just google these subjects: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology.,

Darwin also noted:

“But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. THE RATE WAS SLOW that I felt no distress. Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life,”

Francis Schaeffer commented:

So there is something deficient in his position from the beginning. The word of God if it is going to mean something, must mean a personal God. The word “God” is without much meaning otherwise.

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Francis Schaeffer noted that in Darwin’s 1876 Autobiography that Darwin he is going to set forth two arguments for God in this and again you will find when he comes to the end of this that he is in tremendous tension. Darwin wrote, 

“At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons.Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred to (although I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever strongly developed in me), to the firm conviction of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body; but now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become COLOUR-BLIND.”

Francis Schaeffer remarked:

Now Darwin says when I look back and when I look at nature I came to the conclusion that man can not be just a fly! But now Darwin has moved from being a younger man to an older man and he has allowed his presuppositions to enter in to block his logic, these things at the end of his life he had no intellectual answer for. To block them out in favor of his theory. Remember the letter of his that said he had lost all aesthetic senses when he had got older and he had become a clod himself. Now interesting he says just the same thing, but not in relation to the arts, namely music, pictures, etc, but to nature itself. Darwin said, “But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions  and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…” So now you see that Darwin’s presuppositions have not only robbed him of the beauty of man’s creation in art, but now the universe. He can’t look at it now and see the beauty. The reason he can’t see the beauty is for a very, very , very simple reason: THE BEAUTY DRIVES HIM TO DISTRACTION. THIS IS WHERE MODERN MAN IS AND IT IS HELL. The art is hell because it reminds him of man and how great man is, and where does it fit in his system? It doesn’t. When he looks at nature and it’s beauty he is driven to the same distraction and so consequently you find what has built up inside him is a real death, not  only the beauty of the artistic but the beauty of nature. He has no answer in his logic and he is left in tension.  He dies and has become less than human because these two great things (such as any kind of art and the beauty of  nature) that would make him human  stand against his theory.

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Another Special Life in Christ

John Fletcher Redman, M. D.:

Born about 1938, he resides in Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from the UAMS medical school there in 1963 & won the distinguished faculty award in 1993. He was the 2014 UAMS Hall of Fame inductee, HERE. Long before the 1990’s, Dr. John Redman had reached the pinnacle of success!  By the age of 55, he had written every textbook but one in the field of Urology, and had received every national and international award that a medical professional in his field could receive.  Dr. Redman was known and highly respected around the world, and had been serving for 25 years as the Chairman of the Department of Urology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas.  His brilliance was renowned, reflected by his being asked in 1973 (at a younger age than ever before in the history of the school ) to take on the position of Urology Department Chairman.  You didn’t get any higher up the professional ladder in the field of medicine than Dr. Redman had achieved!  

Although his professional reputation was sterling, he also had a broad reputation for being foul-mouthed, a lady’s man, and a  party specialist.  His lifestyle outside of his professional career was fast and wild.  Full of himself, John often bragged about his escapades, including being responsible for starting the Poker Club at the Medical School.  He had several failed marriages behind him, and no relationship at all with his parents, who were devout Christians.  Dr. Redman had been exposed to Christianity at an early age, but rejected it as a life plan for weaklings (see Ted Turner).  And he viewed himself as anything but weak!  He had a world to conquer, and no namby-pamby, goody-two-shoes religion was going to slow him down!

One day Dr. Redman was ‘speed walking’ around a track in Little Rock, and found himself cooling down next to one of Arkansas’s most famous joggers, then-Governor Bill Clinton!  They chatted for a few moments, and that was that.  Several years later, when Bill Clinton became the President of the United States, one of Dr. Redman’s friends made note of that encounter by commenting that John had formerly been talking with the most powerful man in the world. John considered that encounter to be no big deal, since he saw himself as having also reached the top of his field!  There was no shortage of arrogance at the Redman household!      

Dr. Redman had, many years previously, estranged himself from his parents as a result of their efforts to guide him toward the spiritual straight and narrow.  He was determined to live life his way.  And then his world was crushed when his mother died.  Ironically, John’s mother died at about the same time as Bill Clinton’s mother died [Clinton’s mom’s grave] and her story, HERE).  The two funerals were held on the same day, at approximately the same time.  This ‘coincidence’ ultimately had a life-changing impact on John’s life.

(President Clinton in Hot  Springs, Arkansas at his mother’s funeral service pictured below)

While Dr. Redman was sitting at the tiny graveside service, a scripture was quoted that he had heard as a small boy…”What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?”  He began to consider the fact that both he and the most powerful man in the world were both doing the same thing at the same time, i.e., burying their mothers (Jan. 1994).  At that point, he realized that no matter what level of success you achieve on this earth, you are still going to be put in the ground someday.  All of your success and the adulation from others would one day end.  And what then?

Dr. Redman soon came to realize that he was a lost soul with no hope of eternal life with his parents or with God.  And that began to bring great turmoil into his life.  His heart was under great conviction, but he didn’t know how to fix his problem.  Knowing that this was a spiritual problem (but still incredibly full of pride), Dr. Redman wasn’t about to humble himself to go and talk with a preacher!  So he spent several restless nights tossing and turning, unable to sleep.  One Saturday, he went to his office to work because his heart was so burdened with the lostness of his soul’s condition.

AS HE WAS CLEANING OUT HIS DESK, HE CAME ACROSS A STACK OF UNOPENED LETTERS SENT TO HIM BY HIS FATHER BEFORE HE DIED FOUR YEARS PREVIOUSLY.   When John had received them, because he knew that they would be full of religious comments, he simply threw them (unopened) into the bottom drawer of his desk. 

But now he was more than eager to read the legacy left by his father!  As he opened each letter, he discovered the pathway for his soul to eternal salvation!  Privately in his office, he cried out to God and admitted his rebellion.  He asked for forgiveness and expressed a willingness to turn his life around.  He now understood that Jesus had already paid the penalty for his sins by sacrificing his life on a cross.  So Dr. Redman humbled himself, asking Jesus to take up residence in his heart.  He followed his father’s written advice to surrender his life totally to the leadership and guidance of Jesus Christ, the living son of God.

And his life began to change dramatically!  Shortly thereafter, as a result of the difference she saw in John’s behavior, Anna (John’s live-in girlfriend) also gave her life to Christ, and they were married!   They then followed the Lord’s leadership to outwardly demonstrate (1) their rejection of the old way of life and (2) their new commitment to follow the Spirit of the living God through the act of baptism!  And there is no question in anyone’s mind (of those who know them) that these two physicians have experienced a radical life change!

Since that time, Dr. Redman has extensively exercised the gift of evangelism that the Lord blessed him with.  He has become a powerful speaker for the Lord, and has allowed his new Spiritual Father to position him in many high-level positions to share his testimony of how the Lord can bring salvation to even the most hardened sinner.  In similar fashion, Anna utilizes every opportunity to share the good news of life through Jesus Christ, even being blessed to lead some of her patients to Christ in her office!

This is truly a victory story of reaching the pinnacle of what the world has to offer, coming up empty, and finding the pathway that leads to real life [written for me 7 Jan. 2004 by my…and Dr. John Redman’s…friendD. O.].