Reflectorites
On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:46:28 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
>>SB>but ID is a transparent ploy to get creationism taught in public schools or
>>>at least to get evolution suppressed.
Note. I inadvertently had "SJ>" before the above, which I have reinstated.
>SJ>http://www.cbn.org/newsstand/stories/991007.asp CBN News
>>Evolution Under The Microscope October 7, 1999 ...
>>Phillip Johnson takes a different approach. "I always say we ought to
>>teach the young people much more about evolution than the science educators want
>>them to know -- because the science educators don't want them to know about the
>>problems, they want them to think that all you need to have is variation and
>>everything is perfect."
SB>Johnson, like a lot of creationists, believes his own rhetoric about
>evolution being a religion. Therefore if any part of it is wrong or
>incomplete, then it can be dismissed as false. Science is sometimes wrong
>(that's why there's peer review) and always incomplete. In other words
>this statement is an utter straw man.
Disagree. But in any event, Susan's claim was that "ID is a transparent
ploy... to get evolution suppressed." But Johnson is on public record that
he doesn't want "to get evolution suppressed", but in fact wants *more*
about evolution to be taught.
[...]
>>>SJ>Not really. The ID movement *inherently* makes no claims "about who
>>>>the designer might be".
>>SB>as I said. I cannot. Must not.
>SJ>I am afraid this is too obscure for me. Maybe Susan would care
>>to explain it?
SB>since biblical-based "scientific" creationism got thown out because it was
>religion, then one must strain for ID to not be a religion in order for it
>not to run into me same problems.
It is no "strain" at all. ID is not based on any "religion" (some of its
members are not even theists) so it has no difficulty in not running into the
same problems as "`scientific' creationism" which quite clearly is based on a
particular interpretation of the Bible.
SB>It's so transparent that this is the
>case, that the courts are not going to be fooled or anybody else who has a
>smattering of science education and no religious ax to grind.
Well, we will have to wait and see. But I would hope the Supreme Court
has more discrimination than Susan in this matter, and could tell the
difference between Scientific Creationist claims based on the *Bible*
and ID claims based on the evidence of *nature*.
[...]
>>SB>they have human intelligence and artifacts to compare with and the natural
>>>world to contrast with. You've already said we are to detect divine design
>>>against a backdrop of divine design.
>SJ>Not with SETI they don't.
SB>if alien artifacts (or signals) not resemble human design then they will
>look "natural" and we won't be able to recognize them as having an
>intelligent origin.
Agreed. SETI assumes that even alien intelligence will resemble human
intelligence, e.g. being able to recognise the pi = 3.14159... units which
should be the same for *any* intelligent life in the universe.
Similarly ID assumes that the Intelligent Designer's intelligence will
resemble human intelligence, especially since the Designer designed human
intelligence.
[...]
>SJ>See above re SETI. It makes no difference who the designer was. We can
>>easily recognise the difference between something produced by an intelligent
>>cause and something produced by unintelligent natural causes.
SB>exactly. Because we have unintelligent natural causes to compare/contrast with.
See above.
[...]
>>>SJ>This sounds nice but *on atheistic principles*, why should it be true
>>>>(Einstein was a theist in the Spinoza mould)?
>>SB>Einstein was definitely a theist. But morality doesn't have anything to do
>>>with religion. (Religion likes to get involved with morality, but it doesn't
>>>go the other way.) His pacifism made a lot of religionists really mad, for
>>>example.
>SJ>Susan does not answer the question: "*on atheistic principles*, why should it
>>["the striving for morality in our actions"] be true"?
SB>The answer is in front of you. You simply can't see it. I've had this
>conversation with other religionists and they couldn't see it either. It's
>like once you get the notion that morality flows into a human being from
>some external source, you can't wrap your mind around the idea that
>morality can flow *from* the human--and that there are very sound logical
>reasons for it to do so.
Susan still hasn't answered the question *on atheistic principles*. Most
humans aren't atheists. What is there *uniquely* about atheism which
generates moral/ethical principles like:
"The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our
actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only
morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
--- Albert Einstein"
If there is nothing in the above that is *unique* to atheism, then Susan
(and Einstein) must be deriving them from somewhere else.
>>>SJ>Why shouldn't an atheist, *on atheistic principles*, simply look after
>>>>Number 1, as far as possible without provoking a counter reaction?
>>SB>Atheists don't need someone up in the sky to make them be good. They do it
>>>because it's logical and useful--and because it brings beauty and dignity to
>>>life.. To answer your question: because I evolved as a social organism. As
>>>humans, morality and compassion are our chief surival mechanisms.
>SJ>Why should an atheist care about what a `blind watchmaker' cobbled
>>together? Why should he/she not encourage *everyone else* to exercise
>>"morality and compassion" while he/she looks after No. 1?
SB>because it would cause psychological pain. Even a flatworm avoids painful
>situations.
Why would it "cause psychological pain" if there was not any *uniquely*
atheist principles against it? Here is an excerpt from Stalin's autobiography
that was posted to another List I am on, which shows that an atheist can
kill millions of his fellow human beings, without going against atheistic
principles (indeed arguably because of them) and not suffering any
"psychological pain":
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH STALIN, by Richard Lourie, pp.
34-37 (Counterpoint, 1999)
I was eleven when my father was murdered in a barroom brawl. I wasn't
surprised. My father was a very murderable man. Even his own son had
thrown a knife at him.
Now the great philosophical questions, what Dostoevsky calls the
"accursed questions" became pointed and vivid for me.
Where was my father now? Was he in Heaven? Or Hell? Someplace where
he could still see what was happening in this life?
If there truly was a God, there'd truly be an afterlife. If there was truly an
afterlife, my father was somewhere in it. And from there he could see into
his son's heart.
And in my heart was the certainty that there was a line, a straight, magic
line, between my own desire for my father's death and his murder by a
stranger in a brawl. It was not that I felt guilt. Not at all, I felt wonder.
And fear that my father could somehow strike back at me, even from there.
But if there was no God, there was no afterlife, and my father would be
nothing.
So now my greatest wish was that there be no God.
To look up into empty sky.
I had declared war on God and I waited for Him to strike me down as any
enemy should be struck down. But He did not strike me down. And the
more of His power over me I shed, the better I felt, the lighter, the freer.
My new faith in myself was growing, but God was my doubt.
When I sang in the choir at services, I looked around at the faces of the
other boys and of the priests for signs of faith, while mocking God in my
thoughts and singing like an angel.
To have those kinds of thoughts and feelings is one thing, but to bring them
to a head is another. One afternoon I went for a long walk alone in the
mountains, up past the ruined castle. It was a clear day. Eagles were flying.
I sat down by a tree on some pine needles the color of iodine.
I looked up and, using the high-flown language I'd learned from the priests
and my mother, I said to God: Right now, right here, I offer up myself to
You and if You are there to take me as I've been taught, then You will take
a soul sincerely offered. If You exist, it isn't worth being myself, and so I
will die in You and be what my mother has always wanted me to be, Your
servant and Your priest. Take me, Lord! And I was untaken by the Lord.
Just as I had hoped. I had tricked God. Into revealing his nothingness. Yet
there was something lacking. Compelling corroboration. And I found it. In
my third great book. Darwin.
I looked at the pictures of monkeys' hands and human hands. Everything
was clear. People weren't created by God. They came from the apes.
Science said that God wasn't necessary. And what could be more
unnecessary than an unnecessary God?
My joy was boundless, I bubbled over. I ran to tell everyone. Trotsky
quotes one of my classmates who remembers me saying: 'You know,
they're deceiving us. There is no God ... it's all proved in Darwin ... read it
right away."
Here Trotsky makes a double error. He says: "A thirteen-year-old boy in a
backward town could hardly have read Darwin and derived atheistic
convictions from him."
Gori was not a backward town. By the end of the nineteenth century, it had
sidewalks, streetlights, a telegraph office, and was directly connected with
Tiflis by rail. There was nothing to prevent a volume of Darwin from
arriving by train. Not only that, in Gori there was a bookseller by the name
of Arsen Kalandadze who took pleasure in feeding young minds with
various sorts of incendiary literature.
"... could hardly have read Darwin and derived atheistic convictions from
him. "Not _could_ but _did._ What other kind could you derive?
As I later learned from passing the time of day with comrades from the
working class, many of them had read Darwin around that same age and it
had exactly the same effect on them as it did on me. Didn't matter what
their religion was before-Christian, Jew, Moslem. They had seen the
monkeys' hands
Reading Darwin had an enormous impact on me. It corroborated my
defiance of God and inspired me to systematically break all the Ten
Commandments, which I now realized were only chains. Though I had
stolen and lied before, I now stole and lied with a higher purpose-freedom
of self. And the effects on my political philosophy were equally lasting.
Historians of the future may even conclude that Darwinism + Leninism =
Stalinism.
Trotsky hates the idea of the young Stalin reading Darwin, and not only
reading him but understanding him more profoundly than Trotsky ever
could. For Trotsky, Darwin had not been part of any inner struggle but just
another important theory. And Trotsky of course did not have a
"mediocre" memory for theories.
Trotsky had never wrestled with God-he'd snubbed him just as he had
snubbed me that day in London in 1907. And he ignored both at his peril.
If he had struggled more with God instead of just spitting on his Judaism
and walking away, Trotsky would have been a better man. And what
Trotsky of course can never admit to himself is that I am his superior in
spiritual depth. You do not become Joseph Stalin without first settling
accounts with God.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
>SJ>Susan again tries to sidestep the question. We all agree that Bakker was
>>a hypocrite, judged against the standard of the Bible's teachings.
SB>I didn't sidestep, you just couldn't recognize the answer. I don't *care*
>about him being a hypocrite. I didn't think his morality came from his
>religion in the first place. I don't think your or the Pope's morality
>comes from your religion either.
Where the does Susan think specifically Christian morality comes from
then?
>SJ>But as I said: "if a fellow atheist did the same things, on what grounds
>>would Susan cricise him/her?"
SB>for violating his own, and society's moral standards.
If the atheists "own...moral standards" was `adultery is OK' but the
Christian's was "Thou shall not commit adultery", which would Susan
regard as normative?
>SJ>Again Susan sidesteps the question. The point is that while most would
>>disagree with Dawkins, no one could say it was against his atheist
>>principles to commit adultery. In fact Dawkins' point was that it
>>was *in agreement* with his atheist (i.e. Darwinian) principles for
>>Clinton to maximise his selfish genes by seducing as many women as
>>he could!
SB>hmm. . . I think I see the problem (at least partly). There's no such thing
>as "atheist principles." *you* are an atheist where Zeus is concerned. And
>you don't have "anti-Zeusian" principles. YOu have your own moral
>principles that have nothing to do with all the many things you don't
>believe in.
Well Susan has just conceded the main point! So where does an atheist get
his/her ethical/moral principles from if there is "no such thing as `atheist
principles.'"?
>>>SJ>And how does this ideal of "striving for morality in our actions" work
>>>out in the *real* world for atheists when they are confronted with those they
>>>>profoundly disagree with, like creationists?
>>SB>we keep arguing!!! Nothing wrong or immoral about debate .
>SJ>Susan does more than just "arguing"!
SB>I also like to belly dance. But what on earth are you talking about?
If Susan really doesn't realise what I am talking about, then I am not
going to tell her.
[...]
>SJ>Susan is still fighting a battle that ended in 1517! There is no
>>possibility that Christianity would again "become a dominant
>>religion from oppressing everyone else". The nearest thing to a"dominant
>>religion...oppressing everyone else" these days is secular humanism-
>>Susan's `religion'!
SB>"no religion is religion" has a wonderful Zen-like feel to it, but it just
>doesn't fly.
Maybe Susan does not even realise that she could be an unwitting follower
of Julian Huxley's "new religion":
"Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however
incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will
arise to serve the needs of the coming era. Just as stomachs are bodily
organs concerned with digestion, and involving the biochemical activity of
special juices, so are religions psychosocial organs concerned with the
problems of human destiny, and involving the emotion of sacredness and
the sense of right and wrong. Religion of some sort is probably necessary."
(Huxley J.S., "The Humanist Frame," in "Essays of a Humanist," [1964],
Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1969, reprint, p.91).
>SJ>Why on Earth would I be bothered trying to force Susan to pray with
>>me. I have enough trouble forcing myself to pray with me! :-)
SB>ROFL!!!
I note that Susan doesn't answer this question either.
>SJ>Less than *10%* of the *general public* believe what Susan believes (i.e.
>>fully naturalistic evolution) and yet *100%* of the public's children must be
>>taught it compulsorily.
SB>science isn't decided by popular vote. (and your statistics are extremely
>off) We have a duty to teach children what we know--in school. They can
>learn religion in sunday school.
The "fully naturalistic" aspect is not "science" but *philosophy*. Children
are being forced to learn atheistic philosophy in the guise of science. They
are learning a "religion" - Julian Huxley's "new religion".
And as for the "statistics" they are right: polls consistently show that in the
USA only about 10% of the general public believe in evolution with God
playing no part. The remaining 90% of the population either believes in
God-guided evolution or creation:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1998 The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
The Public Perspective, August, 1998 /
SECTION: RELIGION AND AMERICAN VIEWS ON THE ORIGINS
OF THE SPECIES; Vol. 9, No. 5; Pg. 39
[...]
Gallup and other pollsters didn't begin asking questions about the issue of
human origins with any frequency until 1981-82 during the height of the
creation/evolution controversy in the US and during the Arkansas "equal
time" trial. After experimenting with different question wordings on beliefs
about human origins, Gallup settled (in July 1982) on a version which asks
respondents to identify themselves as having one of three different views:
"Which of the statements on this card comes closest to describing your
views about the origin and development of man?
A. God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the
last 10,000 years.
B. Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of
life. God had no part in this process.
C. Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of
life, but God guided this process, including man's creation."
The first statement identifies the respondent with what is widely considered
the "creationist" view, the second with what we will call the "Darwinist"
position, and the third with what has come to be known as the "theistic
evolutionist" perspective.
Much as with other indicators of the religious worldview in the US, there is
little or no evidence of any change since the question was first asked 15
years ago (see Figure 1). Presently, the percentage of Americans who
identify themselves with the biblical, creationist worldview is about 44%;
nearly 4 out of 10 (39%) subscribe to the theistic evolutionist view; and
only one in ten endorses the Darwinist position of natural science despite
the rising percentage of college graduates, a trend which might be expected
to have reduced significantly the proportion of adults believing in biblical
creationism. From 1982 to 1997 the percentage of those with less than a
high school education in the Gallup samples dropped from 26% to 14%,
while the percentage of those with at least some exposure to college,
including college graduates, rose from 35% to 51%, a net shift of about
29%. And yet, as Andrew Greeley might have put it, rumors of a decline in
the American religious worldview about human origins are greatly
exaggerated.
[...]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>SJ>And when a democratically elected Kansas School
>>Board tried to resist the full imposition of that "dogma", that 10% minority
>>which is in power did everything it could to keep it imposed, even
>>threatening to discriminate against innocent Kansas children who had not
>>been taught that "dogma".
SB>a LOT more than 10% of Kansans were up in arms over that. Those
>democratically elected school board members are out the door next election.
>I know few Kansans who like to be lied to and even fewer that want religion
>shoved down their throat.
Even I and the ID movement did not agree fuly with the KBoE's answer to the
problem.
But I was talking about the reaction of the 10% who believe that "God had no
part in this process".
It will indeed be interesting to see how the board members fare in the next
election.
>SJ> . . . of our dusky cousins, though it is by no
>>means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest." (Huxley
>>T.H., "Emancipation-Black and White", "Lectures and Lay Sermons",
>>[1871], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Co: London, 1926, reprint, p.115)
SB>Huxley lived in the 19th century and was a man of his times. Somebody call
>the newspapers!!!
Nevertheless, his statement above and Darwin's statement below has lent
support to racist policies by governments well into the 20th century:
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the
civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the
savage races throughout the world. At the same time the
anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will
no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies
will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised
state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a
baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
(Darwin .R., "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 NY, nd., p.521).
We are starting to go around in circles so unless Susan comes up with
something new, this will be my last post on this thread.
[...]
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Thus all Darwin's premises are defective: there is no unlimited population
growth in natural populations, no competition between individuals, and no
new species producible by selecting for varietal differences. And if Darwin's
premises are faulty, then his conclusion does not follow. This, of itself,
does not mean that natural selection is false. It simply means that we
cannot use Darwin's argument brilliant though it was, to establish natural
selection as a means of explaining the origin of species." (Augros, Robert
[philosopher] & Stanciu, George [physicist], "The New Biology:
Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala:
Boston, MA, 1987, p.160).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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