Sorry, I couldn't resist:
from answersingenesis.org
Posted on 01/26/2006 1:47:10 PM PST by jennyp
...
Third, complexity does not imply “design.” One of Adam Smith’s most powerful insights, developed further by Friedrich Hayek, is that incredible complexity can emerge in society without a designer or planner, through “spontaneous order.” Hayek showed how in a free market the complex processes of producing and distributing goods and services to millions of individuals do not require socialist planners. Rather, individuals pursuing their own self-interest in a system governed by a few basic rules—property rights, voluntary exchange by contract—have produced all the vast riches of the Western world.
Many creationists who are on the political Right understand the logic of this insight with respect to economic complexity. Why, then, is it such a stretch for them to appreciate that the complexity we find in the physical world—the optic nerve, for example—can emerge over millions of years under the rule of natural laws that govern genetic mutations and the adaptability of life forms to changing environments? It is certainly curious that many conservative creationists do not appreciate that the same insights that show the futility of a state-designed economy also show the irrelevance of an “intelligently designed” universe.
...
Evolution: A Communist Plot?
Yet another fear causes creationists to reject the findings of science.
Many early proponents of science and evolution were on the political Left. For example, the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 affirmed support for evolution and the scientific approach. But its article fourteen stated: “The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible.”
Subsequent humanist manifestos in 1973 and 2000 went lighter on the explicit socialism but still endorsed, along with a critical approach to knowledge, the kind of welfare-state democracy and internationalism rejected by conservatives. The unfortunate historical association of science and socialism is based in part on the erroneous conviction that if humans can use scientific knowledge to design machines and technology, why not an entire economy?
Further, many supporters of evolution were or appeared to be value-relativists or subjectivists. For example, Clarence Darrow, who defended Scopes in the “monkey trial” eight decades ago, also defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. These two young amoralists pictured themselves as supermen above conventional morality; they decided to commit the perfect crime and killed a fourteen-year-old boy. Darrow offered the jury the standard liberal excuses for the atrocity. He argued that the killers were under the influence of Nietzschean philosophy, and that to give them the death penalty would hurt their surviving families. “I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all,” he said. “I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love.” This is the sort of abrogation of personal responsibility, denial of moral culpability, and rejection of the principle of justice that offends religious conservatives—in fact, every moral individual, religious or atheist.
In addition, nearly all agnostics and atheists accept the validity of evolution. Creationists, as religious fundamentalists, therefore see evolution and atheism tied together to destroy the basis of morality. For one thing, evolution seems to erase the distinction between humans and animals. Animals are driven by instincts; they are not responsible for their actions. So we don’t blame cats for killing mice, lions for killing antelope, or orca whales for killing seals. It’s what they do. They follow instincts to satisfy urges to eat and procreate. But if human beings evolved from lower animals, then we might be merely animals—and so there would be no basis for morality. In which case, anything goes.
To religious fundamentalists, then, agnostics and atheists must be value-relativists and subjectivists. Whether they accept evolution because they reject a belief in God, or reject a belief in God because they accept evolution, is immaterial: the two beliefs are associated, just as are creationism and theism. By this view, the only firm basis for morality is the divine edicts of a god.
This reflects the creationists’ fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of morality.
Morality from Man’s Nature
We humans are what we are today regardless of whether we evolved, were created, or were intelligently designed. We have certain characteristics that define our nature.
We are Homo sapiens. Unlike lower animals, we have a rational capacity, an ability to fully, conceptually understand the world around us. We are self-conscious. We are the animal that knows—and knows that he knows. We do not survive automatically, by instinct, but must exercise the virtue of rationality. We must think. We must discover how to acquire food—through hunting or planting—how to make shelters, how to invent medicines. And to acquire such knowledge, we must adopt a rational methodology: science.
Furthermore, our thinking does not occur automatically. We have free will and must choose to think, to focus our minds, to be honest rather than to evade facts that make us uncomfortable—evolution, for example—because reality is what it is, whether we like it or acknowledge it or not.
But we humans do not exercise our minds and our wills for mere physical survival. We have a capacity for a joy and flourishing far beyond the mere sensual pleasures experienced by lower animals. Such happiness comes from planning our long-term goals, challenging ourselves, calling on the best within us, and achieving those goals—whether we seek to nurture a business to profitability or a child to adulthood, whether we seek to create a poem or a business plan, whether we seek to design a building or to lay the bricks for its foundation.
But our most important creation is our moral character, the habits and attitudes that govern our actions. A good character helps us to be happy, a bad one guarantees us misery. And what guides us in creating such a character? What tells us how we should deal with our fellow humans?
A code of values, derived from our nature and requirements as rational, responsible creatures possessing free will.
We need not fear that with evolution, or without a god, there is no basis for ethics. There is an objective basis for ethics, but it does not reside in the heavens. It arises from our own human nature and its objective requirements.
Creationists and advocates of intelligent design come to their beliefs in part through honest errors and in part from evasions of facts and close-minded dogmatism. But we should appreciate that one of their motivations might be a proper rejection of value-relativism, and a mistaken belief that acceptance of divine revelation is the only moral alternative.
If we can demonstrate to them that the basis for ethics lies in our nature as rational, volitional creatures, then perhaps we can also reassure them that men can indeed have morality—yet never fear to use that wondrous capacity which allows us to understand our own origins, the world around us, and the moral nature within us.
Edward Hudgins is the Executive Director of The Objectivist Center.
Sorry, I couldn't resist:
from answersingenesis.org
Even the Ten Commandments don't oppose lying, just bearing false witness.
I have selected most of these links because they are friendly to those with religious beliefs. Sorry I don't have time for a major discussion right now, but real life sometimes intrudes.
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth CreationistsThe American Scientific Affiliation: Science in Christian Perspective Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
Tree Ring and C14 DatingHow does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
I read with interest your post #1098, concering myself more with the 'religious' part of your post, rather than the larger part 'scientific' part...
I would say this...when you came to the part, discussing whether or not a 'seven days' , as opposed to a 'seven thousand years' time frame in Genesis, you state that its not what is at stake, and that it wont alter the discussion..but on this point I do think you are wrong...
Because there are many on FR, who do absolutely insist on the literal meaning of 'day' in Genesis, to mean nothing but a 24 hr day as we know it now...and they apply this to creation, as they see it....they will not accept that there are those(myself counted among them), who do affirm belief in the Bible, and also belief in TOE...we see God as the beginning Creator, who created, but not in the 'day' timefame as these literal reading folks would have us believe....
We are then told, we cannot at all believe in the Bible, if we shed the belief in the 24hr hour day...they post endless scriptures, and tell us that we are absolutely wrong, that our reading of the Bible is incorrect, that only they, the Bible literalists really know what the Bible is saying...and then they condemn us to Hell(not all of them do this, but enough do), because we refuse to believe in the Bible as they do...they tell us, simply by refusing to believe in a 24hr day of creation, we are calling God a liar, and for that we have earned eternal damnation...I find that whole thing absolutely revolting...
Whether the days of creation were 24hr 'days', or thousand year long 'days', or millions of years long 'days', is always under attack, and in the minds of some, incorrect belief on this point, is good enough to have Satan drag you into Hell...
Whenever a person says that they believe in God, believe in the Bible, and also believe that evolution as a process, may have been used by God the Creator, as a wondrous way of creation, immediately that person may find himself attacked for believing in such a way...they are called ignorant of Biblical teachings(and are immediately subject to reams of Biblical passages being posted), they are told they may believe in a god, but certainly not the God of the Bible, and other such stuff...
As I see it, you have people in many different categories...
1. Creationists who believe that the God of the Bible, created every living form in its present state, and did it in six 24hr days of creation...and also believe that the earth is only about 6-10 thousand years old...
2. IDers...who, from what I read, admit to a type of evolution, taking millions of yrs, but always want a 'creator' involved in the beginning...and perhaps a special supernatural creation of humans(giving them a soul)..and tho they are sometimes not willing to admit it, the want the creator to the God of the Christian Bible(tho some Iders have admitted it could just as easily be some other deity, who might even be dead or no longer exits...
3. Those who believe in TOE, fitting in nicely with God of the Bible, who see God as creating evolution as His own tool of the creation of living things(here I would include myself...would not this be a wonderful tool, to have God create the first cells, and from those first cells, allow his tool of evolution to proceed according to His Will, and produce the world around us today?
4. those who believe in TOE, and further, do not believe that there is a 'God', who created the first living cells...
I am sure there are many folk who have other categories to list here, I am new to this whole discussion on evolution/Creationist/ID...\
Perhaps one might see me as rambling...perhaps...but my point is, even among those who claim belief in God and belief in the Bible, there is so much disagreement when it comes to creation, including the time frame...for so many, their emphasis on the time frames that they derive from their own personal interpretations of the Bible, is of utmost importance, for they feel if another does not see the time frames as they see them, then that other person richly deserves damnation...I find this a hideous thing for one person to say to another, when in fact, what they are saying is that their personal interpretation is the right one(gee, do they have a phone line straight to God?), and all the rest of us are religious dunces, ready to be burned...
So altho the matter of the time frames may not enter into importance in all discussions of this matter, surely one must see, that they have a huge influence on how people come to their beliefs regarding creation and evolution...
Well let’s try this - Do you ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?
*Die, so sayeth the Lord!"
Disobey Me, will you? Now this puppy's going to get it! Die! Die! Die!
It coulda been worse. Imagine if Adam had been into kiddie porn.
I used to believe pretty much the same as you, and would similarly dismiss the Christians as pie-eyed, knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers.
However, my change was not based on emotion, or it would not have persisted so long.
It was truly a spiritual phenomenon, occuring in my heart and soul.
When I was first converted, all my friends said things like, "You'll get over it."
When one of them tried to lure me with drugs and alcohol, and I easily brushed it aside, he said to me, "It's as if you died and someone else is living in your body."
Exactly.
That was almost 16 years ago.
It only gets better as time moves along, because my God is faithful.
But to you, and most of your fellow travellers, all my testimony is viewed as a silly, superstitious and emotional response to a series of not-so-peculiar, albeit not-so-ordinary coincidences.
When my heart and soul were changed, I looked upon the world with new eyes and was able to see things very differently.
Perhaps, to you, this means I was brainwashed.
Trust me, if you can.
No salesman called.
Nobody came to my door with a Bible and asked me to say a "sinner's prayer".
I did not attend any "classes" or "orientation".
God led me in His own way in His own time.
I can only pray that He does the same for you.
Do you ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?
Stick with the discussion. We were talking about Darwin, Mendel, and eugenics. I take it from your complete change of subject you knew you lost that debate and wanted to throw some crap onto the conversation. I am not amused :)
Do you ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?
That's funny.
I don't remember saying any such thing.
But you're as free to put words in my mouth as anybody else.
Nobody has addressed any of the philosophical points in my original post.
Oh, and you will have to provide the link to the enumerated list of Creationist Lies, or is the existance of that list an Evolutionist Lie?
So Adam really wasn't supposed to eat that fruit.
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