What's behind the hate speech?

I recently joined the Yahoo group, EvolutionGroup, and I've been struck afresh by how virulent the attitudes of evolutionists are towards anyone who questions their view of the world. It seems they will habitually accuse their opponents of lying and incompetence. No matter what evidence is being presented against their ideas, some of them will, almost without fail, descend to ad hominem attacks. In fact, the better the evidence, the more virulent they become.

They seem to be quite incapable of taking part in a reasoned debate about this subject.

I believe that the reason for this is spiritual and that what seems frankly irrational behaviour can be understood when spiritual things are taken into account.

As a biblical Christian, I have a prior commitment to the bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. As far as I am concerned, the existence of God and the inerrancy of the bible are two basic axioms that should inform all human reasoning, in science as in everything else. (I don't, therefore, have a great deal of sympathy for pure ID, which claims not to make any assumptions about the creator; but at least it is not totally blinkered by naturalism.)

When we use the bible to explain what is happening, a lot of things become clearer. Almost at the very beginning we see our enemy and God's deceiving Eve and enticing our first parents away from God. As a result of that sin, Adam somehow handed over authority to Satan, so that Paul calls him the "god of this world" who has "blinded the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor 4:4). It is clear that Satan has power over unbelievers to deceive them: he is called "a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). Jesus also calls him "a murderer from the beginning" (ibid). In Genesis we saw Satan as the serpent, the deceiver. In Revelation we see him as the dragon, the murderer. These are the basic elements of his character.

As deceiver, Satan has been very successful over the past 300 years in turning men away from the bible to believe in fantasies of their own—as they think—but really of his making. Multitudes have been turned from faith because they believed the lie of evolution. This should not be a great surprise to us. Evolutionary ideas have actually been around for thousands of years and are bound to be attractive since they allow people to think they can deny God's rule over the world. The difference with Darwinism was that it provided a pseudo-scientific mechanism by which evolution could supposedly happen. Along with this goes the hijacking of science by naturalism, claiming that even the possibility of divine action should be excluded from science. The creation science movement, and ID too, are attempting to expose these lies. If they succeed, they will derail Satan's efforts to turn the whole world away from God. This explains the extraordinary virulence of evolutionists against us. Since (like all unbelievers) they belong, by nature, to the devil (1 John 3:8), they are his tools and to some extent express his character.

Do not be surprised, then, when Dawkins and his like indulge in hate speech against Christians, especially creationist ones, and accuse ID writers of incompetence and dishonesty. They are merely serving as their master's mouthpieces, though they do not (I hope) know it. Christians need to realise that this is not just a debate about science, but is a battle in the heavenly places that will ultimately be won not by reasoned argument, for our opponents mostly do not listen to reason, but by prayer and the word of God.

For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience will be made full. (2 Cor 10:3-6)