On Mon, 17 Aug 1998 20:42:34 -0500, Glenn R. Morton wrote:
>>GM>Only humans bury their dead and engage in mortuary practices.
>>>The following is the oldest proven case of human burial and it is very
>>>old. Two citations for this activity.
>SJ>There is no evidence in my anthropology books or presented by Glenn
>>that indicates that Bodo Man was buried, and it may not be as old as
>>Glenn claims (see below).
GM>Stephen, good grief. Do you not understand the gramatical use of the
>word 'and'?
Indeed I *do* "understand the gramatical use of the word 'and'". Glenn
said *first* that "Only humans bury their dead" and then went on to relate
this to "the Bodo skull". I addressed that first point by pointing out that
"There is no evidence in my anthropology books ...that Bodo Man was
buried."
GM>I noted 'engage in mortuary practices'. Secondary burial or
>defleshing IS a mortuary practice.
My first point was addressing Glenn's point about "burial" not the question
of "mortuary practice." I repeat. "There is no evidence in my anthropology
books ...that Bodo Man was buried."
GM>You play such silly, silly verbal games"
See above. I was just addressing Glenn's first point that "Only humans bury
their dead." If anyone is playing "silly, silly verbal games" it is *Glenn*!
When Glenn resorts to bluster like this, I assume my argument is doing
well! It's a bit like the old preacher's sermon notes which said:
"Argument weak here: SHOUT!"
GM>and if this is the best that an anti-evolutionist can come up with
I certainly do not claim that what I write is "the best that an anti-
evolutionist can come up with"!
GM>then no wonder Christianity is being marginalized in modern society.
Here Glenn plays a variation his usual quisling theme of blaming the victim!
The fault, according to Glenn, is all on the side of the "anti-evolutionist"
that "Christianity is being marginalized in modern society."
My assessment of why "Christianity is being marginalized in modern
society" is as follows:
1. 1800-1850. The 19th century Christian Church, four centuries after the
Reformation, was decadent, deistic, and leaning too heavily on "natural
theology" at the expense of Biblical revelation. Because it was relying too
heavily on Paley's version of the argument from design, the Church was a
`sitting duck' for a naturalistic explanation of design.
2. 1850-1880. Charles Darwin, a flawed genius, with spiritual and
psychological problems, set out to destroy Christianity by deliberately
slanting his relatively modest scientific findings as though they somehow
disproved the Christian doctrine of creation:
"...in the earlier editions of my Origin of Species...I had two distinct objects
in view; FIRSTLY, TO SHEW THAT SPECIES HAD NOT BEEN
SEPARATELY CREATED, and secondly, that natural selection had been
the chief agent of change...Some of those who admit the principle of
evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget, when criticising my
book, that I had the above two objects in view; hence if I have erred in
giving to natural selection great power, which I am very far from admitting,
or in having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I HAVE AT
LEAST, AS I HOPE, DONE GOOD SERVICE IN AIDING TO
OVERTHROW THE DOGMA OF SEPARATE CREATIONS." (Darwin
C., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex", [1871],
Modern Library (bound in one volume with The Origin of Species),
Random House: New York, nd., pp441-442. Emphasis mine.)
3. 1880-1930 The Church, because of its theologically weakened stance,
and because the Darwinists deliberately slanted the evidence as anti-
theistically as possible, was forced on the defensive in order to survive. The
cream of the world's Christian scientists (with only a few exceptions), as
*their* defensive strategy, took the line of least resistance and sided with
their naturalistic colleagues, espousing theological liberalism and/or
Theistic Evolution (TE). In effect, the TEs abandoned their ordinary
layman Christian brothers who were unable to accept evolution (with its
then heavy Social Darwinist emphasis), to less able science-trained laymen
who formed the basis of today's Young-Earth Creationist (YEC)
movement.
4. 1930-1960 Meanwhile, Darwinism had its own problems, primarily to do
with its failure to grapple with the facts of Mendelian genetics. But in the
1930's classical Darwinism was synthesised with Mendelian Genetics and
Neo-Darwinism was born and then gradually consolidated its position as
*the* theory of evolution. Increasingly under the leadership of avowed
atheists like Julian Huxley, deists like Simpson and pantheists like
Dobzhansky, the `culture war' was resumed against creationism.
5. 1960-1990. With the advent of the space-race, increased science
education became a national priority in the West and particularly the USA.
Neo-Darwinists jumped on this bandwagon and pushed for evolution to be
taught in schools. This provoked a reaction from creationists and the
various `institutes for creation research' were formed. Meanwhile cracks
were starting to appear in the walls of the Neo-Darwinist `Jericho' over the
lack of naturalistic mechanisms for the origin of life and for the major
features of the life's history. Darwinists increasingly and sometimes
vitriolically disagreed with each other in the scientific literature and these
cracks were exploited ably by the creationists under the inspired leadership
of great men of God like Henry Morris and Duane Gish (who are today's
equivalent of the Maccabeans).
5. 1990-2000. With the conversion and call of Phillip Johnson, a Senior
Professor of Law at Berkeley University (and a man of genius intellect),
creation has entered a new phase. Johnson through his brilliant critical
analysis of Darwinism and his refusal to follow the TE strategy of attacking
YECs, has quickly seized the Creationist middle ground (eg. Progressive
Creationists/OECs-Moderate YECs) and has welded it into the Intelligent
Design (ID) movement. Rightly sensing that Johnson is a threat to their
respective positions, first leading TEs and lately some leading YECs have
attacked Johnson. Johnson has not retaliated against the YECs (and indeed
has very cordial relations with many YECs), but he has vigorously
defended himself against the leading TEs, whom he has rightly pointed out
are really Theistic Naturalists.
6. 2000-2050 Darwinism will increasingly fragment into materialist (eg.
Dawkins), nihilist (eg. Gould) and new-age (eg. Kauffman, Goodwin),
wings. ID will become the dominant Christian scientific position at the
expense of TE and YEC. Increasing numbers of TEs and YECs will defect
to the broad ID movement. But hardline TEs and YECs will probably not
defect and will find themselves increasingly isolated and irrelevant. ID will
even be adopted by some non-theists (eg. Denton, Davies) and may even
become a major force in secular science. Theistic ID may never become the
majority position in science but non-theistic positions will lose their
monopoly power to suppress theistic voices from being heard.
"Christianity" will emerge from its `Roman occupation' and no longer be
"marginalized in modern society"!
[continued in thread "Playing on the words `human' and `animal'...]
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ senojes@hotmail.com
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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