The Secular, Progressive Religion of the 21st Century (2/4) - Who Is Man?
Evolution says you're an animal. Culture says animals are your equals. The Bible says something entirely different. What exactly?
In the previous article, I showed that modern culture has not freed itself from religion - it created a new one. With dogmas, priests, heresies, excommunication, confession, penance, indulgences, and even eschatology. Every element of traditional religious structure has its secular counterpart.
Now it is time to examine the specific dogmas. We will start with the foundation - with the question to which this new religion gives an answer radically different from the biblical one: who is man?
Dogma 1 - Evolution: “You Are an Animal”
What culture says
The official dogma goes like this: you are an advanced animal. A product of billions of years of blind, purposeless processes. There is nothing special about you - you are the same as a chimpanzee, just with a slightly bigger brain. Your consciousness is an illusion, your free will a chemical mechanism, your soul nonexistent.
Questioning this is not “a different opinion.” It is intellectual suicide. You will be excluded. Mocked. Ignored. Not because you have bad arguments - but because you dare question the dogma.
This is not a scientific attitude. It is a religious one.
What the Bible says
The Bible gives a diametrically different answer - and a far more dignified one.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
- Gen 1:26-27 (ESV)
Notice three things.
First: “in our image” - imago Dei. No animal was created in the image of God. None. Only man. This is not a step on the evolutionary ladder - it is a qualitative leap. The difference is not quantitative (“a bit smarter than a chimp”) but ontological - concerning the very nature of being.
Second: “let us make” - plural. God as a community of Persons (the Trinity) deliberates before creating man. He does not do this for any other creature. Man is not “just another species.” He is the culmination of the entire act of creation.
Third: “let them have dominion” - man receives authority over the rest of creation. He is not part of nature on equal terms with everything else. He is its steward.
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
- Gen 2:7 (ESV)
Notice the difference. Animals come into being by command - “let the waters swarm,” “let the earth bring forth.” Man is formed by God’s hands and brought to life by His breath. This is an intimate, personal act. God does not say “let man appear.” He forms him and breathes life into him.
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.
- Ps 8:5-6 (ESV)
“A little lower than the heavenly beings.” “Crowned with glory and honor.” This is the biblical picture of man - not a random product of blind forces, but the crown of creation, intentionally shaped by a personal God.
Consequences
Now think about what follows from each of these visions.
If evolution is right and you are merely an animal - you have no rights. You only have power. A lion does not “violate the rights” of a gazelle when it tears it apart. A wolf does not “commit a crime against” a sheep. Evolution knows no morality - it knows only survival of the fittest.
On what basis do you say murder is “wrong”? On what basis do you claim rape is “immoral”? If you are an animal - these categories do not exist. There is only: stronger and weaker. Survival and extinction.
This is not rhetoric. This is logic. Every atheist who speaks of “human rights,” “dignity,” “justice” - is standing on a foundation he himself has cut away. The concept of human rights is a Judeo-Christian invention, based on imago Dei. Without God - without the image of God in man - “human rights” are a convention of the powerful, which the powerful can change whenever it suits them.
Dogma 2 - Animal Rights = Human Rights
What culture says
Since you are an animal - the logical next step: animals are your equals. Culture has gone further. Now it is not enough to say that man is an animal. One must add that animals deserve the same rights as humans. That “speciesism” - the conviction that humans are more important than animals - is a form of discrimination comparable to racism.
Some philosophers (Peter Singer) openly argue that the life of a healthy chimpanzee has greater value than the life of a disabled infant. This is not intellectual provocation. It is the logical consequence of rejecting imago Dei.
What the Bible says
The Bible teaches something that modern culture finds scandalous: man is more important than animals.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
- Gen 1:28 (ESV)
“Have dominion” - not “be equal.” God gives man authority over creation. This is not tyranny - it is stewardship. But it is hierarchy. Clear, intentional, established by God.
Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
- Matt 10:31 (ESV)
Jesus says it plainly: you are of more value. Not “equal.” Not “one of many.” Of more value.
Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!
- Matt 12:12 (ESV)
“How much more value.” This is not ambiguous. Jesus is not saying “animals and humans have equal worth.” He is saying: man is worth more.
And at the same time:
Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.
- Prov 12:10 (ESV)
Care, not equality
Here is the key. The Bible teaches care for animals and human uniqueness. This is not a contradiction - it is a hierarchy of love.
A good king cares for his subjects. He feeds them, protects them, tends to their needs. But he is the king. He is not one of the subjects. His role is different. His responsibility is different.
Man stands in the same relation to animals. You are to care for your animals - the Bible requires it. A righteous person tends to creation. But this care operates within hierarchy, not instead of it.
And here we arrive at a dark paradox. The same people who demand “animal rights” and condemn “speciesism” - often simultaneously support abortion. They defend the “rights” of a chimpanzee, but not the right of a human child to be born. They protest against chicken farms, but not against abortion clinics.
This is not inconsistency. It is the logic of a system that has rejected imago Dei. When man ceases to be the image of God - he becomes just another animal. And among animals, the law of the strongest prevails.
Who, then, is man?
The answer to this question determines everything. Morality, law, politics, relationships, the meaning of life.
If you are a product of blind evolution - you have no rights, no dignity, no meaning. You are a biological machine that functions for a while and then breaks down. Your “morality” is an evolutionary adaptation that helps you pass on your genes. Your “love” is brain chemistry. Your “conscience” is social programming.
If you are created in the image of God - you have infinite dignity. You have rights not because someone granted them, but because God shaped you in His image. Your morality is not a convention - it is a reflection of God’s nature. Your love is not chemistry - it is an echo of the Creator’s love. Your conscience is not programming - it is the voice of God within you.
Modern culture has chosen the first answer - and is now desperately trying to preserve the consequences of the second. It wants human rights without God. It wants dignity without imago Dei. It wants morality without a Lawgiver.
It does not work. It has never worked. And the consequences are all around us.
In the next part, we will see what new commandments this secular religion imposes - what you must eat, what you must think, what you must accept, and who you must feel you are.