What Are Creationists Afraid Of?

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.

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.

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.

First off you erroneously have changed your premise in stating that Adam Smith was your father of Evolution (Snidely implying his fathership also of intelligent design)

Because you were rightly lambasted over your ignorant and poorly chosen premise you have changed it now wrapping Darwin as the central figure not Smith. And in your new premise via this footnote -- The author makes a supposition that Darwin would have had to have read Smith, and that not only would he have had to have read him but that be based his theory of adaptive biology, a theory entailing on how species adapt to their climates and their environmental surroundings -- one how men buy, sell and manufacture products.

Not only this this utterly laughable buy you now say. No don't laugh I'm serious if you are arguing with me on this you are not arguing with me but with -- Hayek - a Nobel Prize winner.

You are in the wrong forum to wave around a liberal professor that has received an award from an organization of liberals -- your whine may carry weight in DU but not on FR. Year after we read articles about the liberal hacks that receive Nobel prizes and they are torn to shreds on this website.

But you want to dig yourself in deeper. So I say go ahead. Bring it on.

Hayec cites, in a footnote, work done by H. von Foerster & Zopf and more particularly, in regards to the anticipation of the main conceptions of cybernetics by Adam Smith.

Well who the hell is Heinz von Foerster that would give him such a lofty position to be able to make such a claim and have this claim be unassailable as the author has now implied? Is the man a biologist, is the man a physicist, NO HE IS NOT Heinz von Foerster the architect of cybernetics -- artificial intelligence for computers. The man was computer a programmer and he was able to make a buch of logic questions that he said would make a piece of silicate when having had then entered into their code would make it appear to simple minded dolts that the computer actually could think on its own when it is only using as filters questions that mr Hienz and his colleagues devised -- the man is dead now and his work in the 1970's and 1980's however ground breaking in the area of logic programming and that is really what it is -- hardly makes him an expert on intelligent design and creationism unless one is willing to make the leap that this man's work on artificial intelligence somehow rivals what is going on in all of nature with as the libs say No creator. Yet the man himself and his team are a creator and the so-called artificial intelligent and intelligent design they created which is but a poor shadow of any leaf or even a cell much less the entire tree or entire animal they are but a spec of, was none the less created by men of intelligence they did not wake up and find their AI it did not happen in the lab by itself it was in fact created howbeit intelligently.

I have refrained from being pulled into these intelligent design discussions. I have little confidence in so called science to bolster my faith in God. When I was a child and a young man I lived and breathed evolution I read everything I could read and I had at one time had memorized the 1940's evolution charts that were still displayed in schools in the 1960's -- but after I came to know God the lord emphatically spoke to my soul and showed me the fallacies in what I had once adored and worshipped and by the time I came to Highschool I openly debated my high school teachers in class and in private and won hands down time after time so they ceased all mention of it in the years I attended those classes. Later when I went to bible school I found to my disdain that there was a doctrine taught of Christian evolution called the Gap Theory in which Christians (Dr. C.I.Schofield around 1900 ad)had come up with a doctrine to try to patch the difference between the bible and so called science basically adopting darwins tenants and sciences announcements of the earth being millions and billions of years old. Once again my former evolution background became somewhat indispensable as I have an understanding of radio carbon dating methods and the other dating methods with layers of strata and rocks etc. As these people who preached and belevied in the gap theory had little idea what they really believed or why they believed it. Just like the author here. Instead of searching out the matter yourself as the people on FR are prone to do, You have followed the words hook line and sinker of what you want to believe to bolster your agnostic or atheistic view.

Did you know that the term Atheist was originally in the Roman emptire spoken of Christians be cause they worshipped no idols or images? And unlike your college educated friends these people died for their beliefs --but then what worth do word origins have anyway when we can call out selves or name things whatever we want and create our own meanings. And that is what evolution is something made up and ascribed by men.

I will go back to your supposition but I will continue with what happened at bible school. I was a lone I was but one for in Pinecrest the students the faculty and the president were all of one stated mind they all believed in the gap theory because they could not say anything against evolution because they did not understand it and they had in hand a one shoe fits all answer to nullify someones weak kneed complaint that(in sales you call it a rebuttal)the bible does not go along with science. the gap theory is designed to duck the issue because the clergy are afraid to talk about any of this lest people leave their places of business in droves. And again this is because these men are hirelings not true believers, not men that walk and talk with God and have a personal relationship though they talk a good game -- they are but hirelings.

So I found myself in a most uncomfortable position in A school that was of a pentecostal strain. A school, that was deemed the school of the Spirit -- that some thirty years later is on the verge of being blotted out.

And so I cried out to the Lord for an answer and a book was thrist in my hand called unformed and unfilled and is a discussion of the Hebrew in the first few verses of genesis -- something that I had a lack of knowledge of.

To be brief the gap theory alleges that there was a pre-adamic race that committed great evil before the lord and were utterly destroyed without trace and during this time the dinosaurs lived and millions and billions of years occurred. And this is built upon the supposed strength of the English translation of Hebrew in the king james version (which also was and is held in some quarters as being an inspired God breathed translation) of the word "VOID" that in the 1500's meant "NOTHING" and "EMPTINESS." But in American and British society by the early 1900's the word had taken on a new meaning with the use of paper checks and their being voided out -- so that there was now new populist redefinition of terms that void meant and always had meant taking something that was and making it empty or null.

First the idea of sin and corruption having entered into the world via a preadamic race who they further teach are the origin of demons -- is unscriptural and is utterly refuted with a single verse in the Bible. ( as an aside I will mention that the former president of this bible school whom I am still on contact with on at least a weekly and in some cases a daily basis recently wrote an article and made references to this, and he called me for 30 minutes and told me he had relieved over 200 letters of complaint and protest from believers as to his theory on demons and fallen angels)

And that verse is: "For sin and death came into the world by one man." And that man was Adam, Not a preadamic race, nor by the devil or his fellow fallen angels. - Art Bell and his crowd would be disappointed to hear this.

So in bible school I ended up in a debate with students and faculty and I cried out to the Lord and this book with some Hebrew was popped in my hand and then God Spoke to my soul and this is what He said

When He created the trees did He create them as seeds or as trees -- Immature or mature? When He created the herbs and plants did He create them as seeds or fully grown? When He created the animals did he create single celled animals that needed millions and billions of years to evolve or did he create every creature mature and after its like kind? When God created Adam did He create Adam as a sperm crawling across the ground, did he create him as some gelatinous blob or did He create Adam as a mature person in God;s own Image and in God's own likeness?

So then when God created the earth did he create it as a unformed blob that had to evolve or did he create the earth mature? Did He create the heavens in an immature or mature state?

We are told that uranium has a half life of 38,000 years so did God create that Uranium and other isotopes immature or in its mature state. The answer is in a mature state so that man with his so called science when they look out in the heavens and tell us all they see and all the millions and billions of years are seeing nothing but the mature state God has created -- and in so doing they are confounded as scripture states. When scientists to their radiological tests and spout off about their findings about rocks and petrified things they are only able to read what is there and so also are confounded.

Men and theologians declare that they can by their own means read that is with learning , their own understanding, so called science and philosophy plumb the depths of heaven and earth and the bible says they can not. It even says that theologians can not find God with their much study and learning. The Bible says God has hid his ways from those who proclaim they are Wise and Prudent -- so in God's creation of the world and the universe because they were created matures science with its lens and technology can not see past that, And on the the subject of radiological dating of objects buried in the earth whether man-made and fossilized plants and animals in the earth that have leeched minerals and chemical compounds in them from the surrounding soils and rocks can not be properly read either.

Job 5:9 (God)Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number:

Psalm 145:3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.

Proverbs 25:3 The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.

Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

In radio carbon dating it works on the basis of carbon 12 and carbon 14 atoms. The accumulation of one in life and their release upon death. And the other is slowly gained after death -- yet after a certain year in the 1700's the dating is noticeably off with items that historically were named and dated and then dated by carbon 14 and this shift becomes father and father off the farther back items are dated. we can talk potassium agron dating or whatever they are all inherently flawed and and produce less and less reliable results the father the dating is extended. Dr Libby who pioneered radio Carbon dating in the 1940's in his own writings noted these flaws. And in the 1970's and 1980's a living mollusk was placed in carbon dating and declared dead for a million + years in the 1990's trees along California highways were cut down and samples were carbon dated and these read as being over a million years old. All of these methods are based upon a constant. A constant is a baseline that remains the same for all time. However in the past 50 years there has been a large rise of carbon 12 in the atmosphere. No body in the 1600's or on 1 ad or 6000 bc was able to take carbon 14 levels to assume they were always the same is very poor science. Volcanos spew hundreds of tons of this and ozone depleteing clorofloro carbons in a single belch. Mount Pinotubo in the Philippines in that one blast emmitted more florochloro carbons that the us had made from the 1940's until the year 2000 -- (that was repeatedly posted here on FR) the carbon 12 emitted was more than the production of carbon 12 in california from 1900-2000 and the earth has had thousands of said eruptions -- how have those altered the ecology of the earth -- how have those altered the level of carbon 12 and carbon 14 by casuing it to rise and rise?

So now this author tries to hide behind the skirt of Hayek who says Smith now is credited with entire theory of evolution, he attempts to also use Heinz von Foerster the father of the science of Cybernetics -- artificial intelligence to carry the day or him. And then name drops two old theorists from the 1600 and 1700's as being the father of the father of darwinism or pre-darwinists

In FR we speak of jurists as not being so on their own rights. Thomas Scalia Roberts and now Alito but we speak of them being Justis's on the basis of being originalists. If you want to talk evolution give up all the liberal and atheistic hype that was made up of whole cloth in the last 100 or so years. Think of this as libs rewriting the constitution to suit their own means and agenda

If you want to talk darwin be an originalist read his writings not just the book but his notes and the writings of those who worked with him and knew him best. That would be akin in FR to reading the constitution the federalist papers and the writings of jefferson and the gang.

I as a former student of evolution in my youth read darwin's writings you have not because you do not and can not cite from him and his fellows any connections between Dawin and Smith life's work as to the way men buy sell and manufacture goods.

And if I were a darwinist I would spit on you for having sullied Charles Darwins Name by lowering his findings and theories to any scientific bearing to plagiarizing Adam Smith. You have not idea what you are even arguing and that is why it is so contemptible and laughable.

Be an originalist

And for some of my snide church goers my word to you is the same -- you are in deep trouble with many of the corrupt doctrines and traditions that pollute the church of this hour -- be originalists read the bible, read the Greek read the Hebrew, and read the writings of the apostollic fathers and if what you beleive nd teach can not stand that scrutiny then abandon it.

These thoughts of corrupt church leaders that intelligent design will finally prove to all men that the bible is true is utter false and utterly corrupt. And already we see the backlash beginning.

Does God need men to prove he exists? Preachers seem to think so.

Does God need men to prove that the word of God is true? Preachers and theologians think so.

God does not need intelligent design and its proponents to prove that He is or His word is true.

For thousands of years men have on their own looked athteh heavens and seen the handiwork of God. their have looked at leaves and all of nature and seen God without the attestation of men to say it is so with their tools they use to quantify God.

Deuteronomy 32:2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

And of this Christ said God rains upon the just and the unjust his words and revelation come to both as he strives with men against sin and unrighteousness. some heed his call but many do not. But God strives with all men and rains upon all men.

John 7:16-17 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will DO HIS WILL, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

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