The Adam Gene

The Adam Gene

I wonder if anyone remembers comedian Flip Wilson? One of his stock characters was a character named Geraldine? She was a woman of easy virtue, who when someone dared to point out her misbehavior, would raise her voice in a shrill and defensive pitch, The Devil made me do it!

I am surprised that some liberal theologian has not materialized to suggest that there probably is a sin gene that does force people to do evil things. In past years we have seen scientists promote the existence of a gene that causes alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction and so on. Some researchers have unsuccessfully tried to discover a gay gene.

In 1991 Dr. Simon LeVay, a homosexual, declared he had found subtle differences in the post-mortem brains of heterosexual and homosexual young men while working at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. By 1995 most science had given up trying to find this elusive gene. Had they been successful, it would have taken away any moral context from homosexual behavior. If they have all been born that way, who can argue against God’s unfathomable creation?

Other scientists believe they have located a god gene, which would explain why anyone would believe in a Supreme Being and all the alleged superstitions that follow from that belief, whether it be Catholicism, Islam or any other form of religious faith.

In truth, the gods of scientific determinism said that the millions of believers who died rather than betray a faith in God were evolutionarily programmed to hold such irrational views. According to this thinking, all addictions that dominate people’s lives started out as innocuous habits. Due to the chemical or physical high that comes with them, after so many times, the high becomes part of their wiring, and by that time it has become too hard to stop doing. This can hold true of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as religious devotion. The unmentioned corollary for religious people is that they too are not responsible for any extreme behavior… even a terrorist murder or two.

I think this is all a stirred but unshaken blend of the Zeitgeist and an agenda-driven pseudo-science, which starts with a conclusion and then tries to adapt or create the evidence by assembling dubious, erroneous and even falsified data to prove their theory. The multi-billion dollar money drain, global warming, also known as climate change, is a perfect example of a Junk Science trying to engineer human behavior like some prehistoric deity.

Behind this post-modern compulsion to find a scientific determination for every kind of personal self-abuse or natural phenomenon is a conscious policy to destroy every scintilla of human responsibility for the individual. It is a perfect fit for our Entitlement Society.

This moral and scientific compulsion revolves around the one essential question that strikes at the heart of all human political, moral and economic debates. Every dispute about philosophy, history, science and economics can be reduced to a discussion of the nature of man.

Scientific determinism has many fathers. John Calvin, with a little help from St. Augustine and French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, sowed the seeds for this wing of social engineering. Calvin held that man was by nature an evil being. At the beginning of time God had had selected his Elect who would reign with Him for all eternity in Heaven. Rousseau, Denis Diderot and the Philosophes in pre-revolutionary France said the exact opposite. Man was naturally good.

According to these French philosophes, the evil that existed was the fault of the sinister and corrupting social institutions, like churches, families and commercial establishments. If there were no free will and things are already determined, then there could be no sin. Today, no one man can be responsible for anything unless he disagrees with the liberal power structure. Then he must be silenced and even punished.

But this is all unnatural. Humans will never be separated from their feelings of guilt and their need to unburden their souls. It is native to the human condition. One need only turn on any one of the public confessionals that masquerade as daily TV entertainment, such as Oprah, to witness a myriad of celebrities perform their graphic form of public penance in search of, not absolution, but validation.

Actor Charlie Sheen’s mental and moral breakdown years ago is a perfect example. Instead of seeking the penance of the Confessional, like his father Martin probably would have, the younger Sheen got his own webcast program to tell everyone how great and perfect he was.

While there is no evidence of a sin gene, I do believe that all men and women have a predisposition to evil. By that I mean that there is something in evil that humans mysteriously find alluring. It is more a preference than compulsion. Since it permeates our DNA, I call it the Adam GeneBoth St. Augustine and St. Paul knew only too well how sin and evil could enslave their souls. Until the grace of God intervened they were both prisoners of their flesh. They found God, not while lounging on Oprah’s couch, but on their knees in deep prayer and supplication. This is the only position for a fallen mankind.

Several things can mitigate against this predisposition, such as good parents who will say No to their children. The newspapers are filled with examples of children, who left to their own devices, turned into uncontrollable miscreants. I have a story that I use to illustrate a means to avoid a lot of trouble in one’s life. I would ask my friends what they would do if they broke your nose in three places? A puzzled look usually was the first response. The answer is simple. I would stay out of such places.

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Written by
William Borst