Secular Education Rejects God
Educators did not look to God's revelation for instruction on founding an educational system. They used their human reason and adopted NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. Because they saw through the superstitions of the Middle Ages, modern educators rejected religion in general and the Bible in particular. They assumed that the pagan practices foisted upon the world during the preceding centuries came from the Bible! This demonstrates how little they studied to prove what they believed.
The situation is no better today. Instructors are too often slaves to their textbooks — slaves to "authorities" who, cut off from God, disagree among themselves.
People today are not fully aware of the trend in modern education — a trend into materialism and specialization without training the character and mind of man to control and utilize his discoveries.
Young people are not being taught that spiritual and technical knowledge go hand in hand. The rules of right living are not understood because the entire society has departed from God's ways. While humanity has suddenly progressed UP the road of industrial achievement, we are at the same time traveling down the highway of greed and vanity. Instruction in self-control and character development is almost entirely lacking in the home, the school and the church.
But not at Ambassador College! At Ambassador College, students are taught to think! Too often, today, college students merely memorize, and take for granted, what the textbook says.
Or, if they are told to think, they are not taught how!
Education in most institutions of higher learning has become a matter of memory training. Of accepting the latest scientific fad!
Not so for Ambassador Students.
Opportunity for Young People
Education in the world today is basically atheistic. It refuses to admit God into its academic studies. It limits itself to mere material knowledge of science. It judges everything by faulty human reason.
Suppose you were a geology student at one of the leading universities in America or Great Britain. What would you be taught? Why, the theory of evolution, of course! Every textbook in use would take it for granted.
And what if you should ask, "Where does God fit in all this?"
You would probably be laughed out of class. The lecturer would most likely suggest that this is a class in geology, not theology! One student, who later came to Ambassador College, was pointedly told to discuss theology outside the classroom. "What has God," asked the professor, "got to do with geology?"
At Ambassador College, education is different. Students are taught all sides of a subject. They are taught how to think a problem through, how to uncover the truth.
What is it like, for example, in a geology class? Are Ambassador Students taught both the theory of evolution and the facts of creation?
Indeed! We use, as a basic text, the latest standard work in evolutionary geology! Why? Because there is no better means to discover the fallacies of evolution than in an evolutionary textbook!
Students are, at the same time, challenged to prove the account of creation. They are taught to obtain all the facts, and then make right decisions.
A Liberal Arts Education
Ambassador College is a co-educational institution of liberal arts. Its purpose is the education of the total personality.
Twentieth century education has been too often reduced either to the intellect alone, or the pursuit of technological knowledge. The underlying philosophy, even in most liberal arts institutions, is the theory of evolution. It colors every facet of educational life. Even Home Economics ("Domestic Science" to our British readers) and Literature are not immune.
I, for example, teach to graduating seniors at Ambassador College in Pasadena a course in Classical Literature. Every year I find students amazed to learn that the concept of evolution has influenced literature ever since the time of the pagan Greek philosophers.
Scientists, today, would have you believe that the theory of evolution is modern. Darwin is given much of the credit for it.
What students are often not aware of is that the theory of evolution — and it is still a theory — was originally put forth over 2000 years ago by ignorant pagans in the DIM REACHES OF ANTIQUITY!
Its real history has been carefully guarded and concealed. Yet, strangely enough, it has been preserved in classical literature for us today. Our students read it every year.
Evolution in Roman Schools!
Imagine, if you can, a class of students studying geology or any of the sciences in the average high school or college of today. Now place them in a science class two thousand years ago in the Roman World.
You would probably imagine that the typical student in the Roman World would be shocked and surprised at the "new knowledge" of the twentieth century science student. But such is NOT THE CASE AT ALL!
The student of two thousand years ago would disinterestedly exclaim — upon hearing the "modern" theory of evolution — "Why, that is what WE'RE TAUGHT in Our schools."
These Roman students would have been exposed to and taught fundamentally the same evolutionary ideas as are promulgated today!
Impossible, you say? UNBELIEVABLE? Yes, but absolutely true!
The theory of evolution as taught in the pagan Roman schools is preserved by the famous Greek writer, Diodorus of Sicily. He wrote around 50 B.C. — over two thousand years ago!
Here's what Ambassador Students read, in Classical Literature, from Diodorus:
"When in the beginning," wrote Diodorus, "the universe was being formed, . . . — he doesn't tell us how — "Then, when their bodies separated horn one another" (that sounds quite like the modern "big bang theory") " . . . the air set up a continual motion, and the FIERY ELEMENT IN IT gathered into the highest regions" (Diodorus Siculus, vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 7, part 1-4).
This is little different from what is taught today in evolutionary scientific circles. The ideas are now dressed up in scientific terminology of course.
What Diodorus recorded is today called the "big bang theory." It’s the latest fad of science. You can read it in most geology or science textbooks — if you carefully compare!
"Now as regards the first origin of mankind" said Diodorus, "two opinions have arisen among the best authorities both on nature and on history" (Diodorus Siculus, vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 7.1).
Even in the days of Diodorus — "opinions" were put forth by the "best authorities." And they still remain opinions to this day!
To continue the ancient pagan theory of evolution:
"When in the beginning, as their account runs," that is, as taught in Roman schools, "the universe . . . took on in all its parts the ordered form in which it is now seen . . .
"Since its surface was in a ferment because of the warmth, portions of the WET SWELLED UP in masses in many places, and in these [masses] pustules covered with delicate membranes made their appearance . . . and while the wet [swampy region] was being impregnated with life, by reason of the warmth . . . the living things forthwith received their nourishment from the mist that fell from the enveloping air . . .
"And since the earth . . . was finally no longer able to generate any of the larger animals . . . each kind of living creatures was now begotten by BREEDING WITH ONE ANOTHER" — by the process of gradual evolution (bk. 1, chap. 7.1-7).
How strikingly similar to what is taught in the average science classroom today!
Nothing Really New
But even more shocking is what our students discover in Diodorus' account of how the ancients viewed the origin and condition of early man. One would think he were reading from a modern textbook on anthropology, paleontology, or geology.
Diodorus continues:
"But the first men to be born, they say, led an undisciplined and bestial life, setting out one by one to secure their sustenance and taking for their food both the tenderest herbs and the fruits of wild trees.
"Since they were attacked by the wild beasts, they came to each other's aid:
"Though the sounds which they made were at first unintelligible and indistinct, YET GRADUALLY they came to give articulation to their speech . . .
"Now the first men . . . led a wretched existence, having no clothing to cover them, knowing not the use of dwelling and fire . . . little by little, however, experience taught them both to take to the CAVES IN WINTER and to store such fruits as could be preserved. And when they had become acquainted with fire and other useful things, the arts also and whatever else is capable of furthering man's social life were gradually discovered" (Diodorus Siculus, vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 8.1-6).
Here is the pagan Roman attempt to explain how the universe and life came to be without a Creator.
Educators today have adopted the same ignorant, pagan idea.
And what does God say of these pagan philosophers and "thinkers," these "best authorities"?
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became VAIN IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS [reasoning], and their foolish heart was darkened.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . Who changed the truth of God into a lie" (Rom. 1:20-25).
God brands the pagan philosophers. He also brands modern-day "science" and "education" for what it is.
Why have most leaders in education refused to see the facts? "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God . . . but became VAIN IN THEIR [REASONINGS] . . . Professing themselves to be wise, they BECAME FOOLS" (Rom. 1:21-22).
God is soon going to reveal Himself to a deceived, godless, miseducated world. He is going to come in power and might to shake educators to their senses.
Never Too Late!
Perhaps our older readers have never had opportunity for the fundamental or technical training needed through life. But that is the least important. The most important part of education is character development — becoming like God — patterning your life after His. That part of education you can obtain in your own home through prayer and diligent study.
But for young people of college age there Is an unusual opportunity to obtain the right kind of education. That opportunity is Ambassador College, with its three campuses — two in the United States and one in England. High School graduating seniors who are interested in the true kind of liberal arts education should write for the College Catalog — or the Prospectus for the English campus.
Send your letter to the Registrar, using the Pasadena, California, or Bricket Wood, St. Albans addresses on the inside front cover of this issue.