At the end of the 18th century, Founding Fathers like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were becoming increasingly troubled by the revolution that was unfolding in France.

Unlike the American Revolution, which was founded on the Christian principles delineated in the Declaration of Independence, the French version was virulently anti-religious (particularly in regard to Christianity). The revolutionaries sought to replace religion with human reason, even going so far as suggesting that Notre Dame be renamed the "Cathedral of Reason."

Adams observed of France with great alarm: "I know not what to make of a republic of 30 million atheists." Hamilton was just as appalled by the arguments undergirding the revolution. Commenting on French attacks against Christianity, he wrote in disbelief: "The very existence of a Deity has been questioned and in some cases denied. Death has been proclaimed an eternal sleep."

Adams and Hamilton recognized almost from the start that the move to supplant religion with reason would lead to wholesale slaughter (as it did during the Reign of Terror) and ultimately end in dictatorship (as both of them predicted long before Napoleon proved them right).

Well, don't look now, but a move is afoot by leftists in media and government today ? having learned nothing from the horrors of the French Revolution or the Soviet experiment or other such examples throughout history ? to once again enshrine human reason, with the twin engine of scientific discovery, as man's guiding light. They hope that by doing so they can do away once and for all with what they view as the "superstition" of religion.

Comedian Bill Maher, for instance, divides people into two classifications ? those who follow the compass (science) and those who would rather "read the chicken entrails" (religion).

But the idea is not just fodder for comedians on cable television. It's a recurring theme these days among Democratic Party politicians. Indeed, in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, John Kerry included a line he'd been using on the campaign trail in which he called for a president like himself who "believes in science" so we can "unleash the wonders of discovery." Bush, you see, wouldn't bow the knee before Darwin and confess natural selection.

It's also being propagated in left-wing intellectual circles, and not just by the nutroots crowd. In a piece entitled "Bush's God" published in the American Prospect (which he has since revised for its website), former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich originally wrote: "The conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism ... The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face."

That's right up there with Maher's statement that "drugs are good and religion is bad." To paraphrase Reich's main point, "terrorism is bad but religion is much worse."

Thus, we hear a great deal from these people about a "Republican war on science," but nothing at all about the moral implications of such "scientific advances" as embryonic stem-cell research. Perhaps that is because they wholeheartedly and full-throatedly support sticking needles into the skulls of babies who are partially-delivered from their mothers' wombs, then sucking the babies' brains out. If they have no moral qualms with the cold-blooded killing of partially-born babies, what chance does a human embryo have with them? Or a brain-injured woman who can't speak to defend herself, like Terri Schiavo?

The experimental method known as science, you see, was founded by Christians who wanted to explore the universe for the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. But when you remove God from that equation, then man is the final arbiter of what is good and what is bad, what is morally acceptable and what is not. The result of this is the embrace of godless concepts like evolution and communism, which in turn leads to such inhumane practices as eugenics (which means "a good birth") and euthanasia ("a good death") ? in short, the perverting of language to redefine ethical norms.

This is because man is a fallen creature, whose heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). Yet liberals believe in the inherent goodness of man, so they end up essentially deifying human reason and science. They believe, as the proponents of the French Revolution did, that doing so will lead to a more enlightened and civilized world. But history has repeatedly shown that such humanistic folly always ends in a bloodbath of epic proportions and atrocities that shock the world hundreds of years after they are committed.

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Tom Flannery writes a weekly political column called "The Good Fight" and a continuing religious column called "Why Believe the Bible?" for a hometown newspaper in Pennsylvania. His opinion pieces have appeared in publications such as Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and Christian Networks Journal. He is a past recipient of the Eric Breindel Award for Outstanding Opinion Journalism from News Corp/The New York Post, in addition to winning six Amy Awards from the Amy Foundation.