Posted on 01/26/2006 1:47:10 PM PST by jennyp
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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.
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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.
Then you can't possibly believe in ID.
Well, it's been fun, but Shabbat is upon us, and I'm off for more relaxing activity. Since most of you are just repeating objections that I already answered earlier in the thread (many in my first post), I see no reason to go on repeating myself. You can have the last word on this thread. Have a pleasant evening.
Politics had nothing to do with that.
FRegards,
I said real meaning.
All atheists have is a localized, personal meaning that really makes no difference whatsoever. They might as well be Genghis Kahn or Jeffrey Dahmer. They're all ending up in the same place, anyway.
No meaning whatsoever.
Be good, be bad...no difference...you all die, melt, burn...and who gives a rat's as$...
Okay, I'll bite: Why not?
Your description is of abiogenesis, not evolution. Chemistry may do such a thing in the correct environment, but we don't know that. But evolution does use such chemistry, and is known from many different examples in the data to be true.
I'm sure you knew that. And I'm equally sure the lurkers could tell by your careful wording that you knew it as well.
Would you oppose the mere mention in class that evolution is not the only viable explanation of life?
If it's been removed from the curriculum, it's because mouth-breathing creatard parents are more worried about having to deal with supposed threats to their fantasies than they are in actually educating their children. They elect lying dopes, like the Dover IDiots to do their dirty work.
Applause ping
Scientists perhaps?
And in doing so again you impose your subjective definition of "meaning," as if it is somehow objective and self evident. To the atheist, religious folks, especially clergy, have no "real" meaning in their lives, because they waste it by their devotion to an irrational end. You might as well spend all your waking hours repeatedly reciting "Mary had a little lamb" for all the meaning prayer and religion have, and therefore all the meaning a clerical life has.
All atheists have is a localized, personal meaning that really makes no difference whatsoever. They might as well be Genghis Kahn or Jeffrey Dahmer. They're all ending up in the same place, anyway.
LOL! All anyone has is a localized, personal meaning. You may adopt someone else's thoughts as your own, but you, like everyone who's ever lived, is in every way an individual and the meaning you ascribe to life is likewise individual.
And there are many, many reasons for a human being not to want to be a Genghis Kahn or Jeffrey Dahmer other than the fear of a petulant god.
No meaning whatsoever.
Only a different meaning than that which you objectively believe to be worthy. Again, to someone who thinks that faith is an odd and wasteful peculiarity, devoting your life to what they might describe as "invisible friends" and ancient "fairy tales" is not only unworthy of a thinking being, but sadly wasteful, in light of all of the concrete things you might otherwise have done.
Be good, be bad...no difference...you all die, melt, burn...and who gives a rat's as$...
If you think that there is no difference between being good and being bad, absent faith in a religion, you have some serious misunderstanding about what it is to be a human being. (And it is only the theist (or at least several kids of theist) who would fear melting and burning after death. You attributing it to the thoughts of the atheist is rather odd.)
I'm responding to your post to me. I don't have the time, nor the inclination to read all you've posted. If you're responses to me are any indication, your other posts would likely be worthless.
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