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What Are Creationists Afraid Of?
The New Individualist ^ | 1/2006 | Ed Hudgins

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Heated Discussion; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: antitheists; atheist; biblethumpingnuts; creationism; creationisminadress; crevolist; ignoranceisstrength; ignorantfundies; intelligentdesign; keywordtrolls; liarsforthelord; matterjustappeared; monkeysrule; moremonkeyblather; objectivism; pavlovian; supertitiouskooks; universeanaccident
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To: Heartlander

I win, you lose. You can't handle I demolished your argument about Darwin, Mendel, and eugenics, so you bring in a completely irrelevant *point*. How pathetic. Now go away.


1,121 posted on 01/29/2006 4:30:43 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Westbrook
Nobody has addressed any of the philosophical points in my original post.

Maybe because it was nothing but a load of "argument from consequence", founded in faulty premises and having no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the theory of evolution.
1,122 posted on 01/29/2006 4:30:57 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
Fine. Darwin and Mendel are in a room discussing various topics. They turn to you and ask, ‘Do you ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?’
1,123 posted on 01/29/2006 4:31:52 PM PST by Heartlander (History is for the dogmatic fools to ignore and repeat - thus it is science.)
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To: Westbrook
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?

link & learn

1,124 posted on 01/29/2006 4:32:45 PM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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To: Heartlander

Idiot. When you decide to stick to the topic you originally pinged me on, then we can talk. Until then, go away loser.


1,125 posted on 01/29/2006 4:33:22 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Heartlander

Why are you trying to change the subject? Are you really too much of a coward to admit that you made a mistake?


1,126 posted on 01/29/2006 4:33:32 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: VadeRetro
So Adam really wasn't supposed to eat that fruit.

How about this one?


1,127 posted on 01/29/2006 4:34:02 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Dimensio; Heartlander

Yes, he IS that much of a coward.


1,128 posted on 01/29/2006 4:34:15 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
You’ve won the argument in your ‘mind’. Hey, now answer the stupid question - ‘Do you ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?’
1,129 posted on 01/29/2006 4:36:33 PM PST by Heartlander (History is for the dogmatic fools to ignore and repeat - thus it is science.)
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To: Heartlander

I said go away, or stick to the topic, moron.


1,130 posted on 01/29/2006 4:37:21 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Dimensio
When confronted with facts that you could not counter you retreated into religious preaching.

You too can do battle in this fashion: Verses at random : Whole book, Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiasticus or Gospels. Make a choice in the first selection box, then keep hitting "refresh" to find the right verse.

1,131 posted on 01/29/2006 4:38:00 PM PST by PatrickHenry (True conservatives revere Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and the Founding Fathers.)
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To: Coyoteman
If it's growing in the woods I leave it there.
1,132 posted on 01/29/2006 4:44:20 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Dimensio

I’ve now been called an idiot and a loser. Your friend isn’t being a very good agnostic.


1,133 posted on 01/29/2006 4:44:56 PM PST by Heartlander (History is for the dogmatic fools to ignore and repeat - thus it is science.)
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To: All; anyone

Does any person ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?


1,134 posted on 01/29/2006 4:48:42 PM PST by Heartlander (History is for the dogmatic fools to ignore and repeat - thus it is science.)
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To: Heartlander
Does any person ‘believe’ that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness?

I categorically do not believe that human consciousness ultimately comes from mindlessness.

We are expressions of his consciousness and his conscious life-force.

Wolf
1,135 posted on 01/29/2006 4:52:41 PM PST by RunningWolf (Vet US Army Air Cav 1975)
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1,136 posted on 01/29/2006 4:55:20 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: RunningWolf
I’m curious, how could human consciousness be a subset of mindlessness? If Neo-Darwinian principles are true than they should apply to a mindless and undirected universe.

There cannot be any direction or goal. Even morality must be made up in the human mind and does not exist elsewhere - beauty and design are only constructs in our mind and the human mind can not be designed by or for any purpose or reason according to Darwinism.

1,137 posted on 01/29/2006 5:08:14 PM PST by Heartlander
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To: PatrickHenry
I think this snippet is a little better for that quote:
The woman ... suddenly loudly exclaimed, 'my goodness, when I hear a man read scripture, it makes me HOT!'. I was startled, and I calibrated this experience to some other Sunday afternoon experiences I recalled.

1,138 posted on 01/29/2006 5:08:45 PM PST by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: your mind)
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To: Dimensio
Maybe because it was nothing but a load of "argument from consequence", founded in faulty premises and having no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the theory of evolution.

Really?

Doesn't the following come close to characterizing fundamental Evolutionist/Materialist premises?

Does this not give rise to a hedonistic or nihilistic response? Since, when you die you are just so much compost, then the best we can hope for is a life of self-gratification and a painless extinction.

1,139 posted on 01/29/2006 5:10:54 PM PST by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it!)
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To: Westbrook
"Everything came from nothing out of nowhere for no apparent reason."

Nothing to do with evolution.

"Life is just a curious side-effect of an unknowing, uncaring cosmos."

Nothing to do with evolution.
1,140 posted on 01/29/2006 5:12:46 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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