Since Jan 26, 2006
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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.
Wrong.
I've argued that there is plenty of evidence for many things that we haven't seen first hand. Especially and including God.
But there is no such evidence for evolution. Big surprise. Because it is a lie.
It closed them, not opened them.
Right. God's Word lies to people and blinds them.
I wonder where that argument comes from.
Don't put words in my mouth, lie about what I said, then attack me based on your lies.
When you stop looking for truth, then your eyes are closed.
If you seek truth, and you believe that God is truth, then no matter what you find, you found God.
Even if that truth contradicts your earlier beliefs.
If scientists can prove that the claims made by the theory of evolution are true, then they found God, because God is truth.
God did not give you eyes so that you can be blind to the wonders all around you, nor did He give you a brain so that you could not use it.
There is a mountain of evidence, but your eyes are closed, so you can't see it.
Since Jan 26, 2006
4...3...2...1...
Here's a good place to begin your literature search. Each section has a list of predictions, ie things that should be found in nature or the lab if ToE is true, and also lists of things which, if they were ever found, would show ToE to be false.
ID, of course has no such predictions or potential falsifications.
Biblical/Koranic creationism does make predictions, some of which are known to be false. EG, Noah's flood was disproved decades before Darwin, but the Bible never mentions the Ice Ages. Another example is the fifth day has the creation of fish and birds, and the sixth has land animals; this is the wrong order, land animals are found earlier than birds in the fossil record.
Please. Show me where I have ever lied about you, put words in your mouth or "attacked" you.
SHOW ME THE POST.
You can't, because I haven't.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to address something I've actually said.
Are you sure you are not a liberal. Conservative means to hold to family values, one of those values would be respect. Which I do not see in you.
Incredible.
Only an evolutionist could post this sort of convoluted crap and think it actually makes sense.
Another recycled disruptor troll (as predicted yesterday) bites the dust!
Hey Jose!...I'm an ex-evolutionist.
I've SEEN this so called "mountain of evidence", believed in it and spouted it for years.
But my eyes have been opened and I will NEVER believe that idiot crap again as long as I live.
What I believe now, and the Light in my life is so far beyond that mentally crippled up evolution deceit that I can't even describe it. All I can do is pray for you.
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner! And he's already bitten the dust! What is it about some anti-Evos and their inability to follow the few simple, relatively unobtrusive rules of FR? Makes you wonder.... hmmmmmmmmm?
From my post #778:
What a laugh. Pay your dues, newbie, before you start running the place.Post #779 -- gone!Unless you're a retread? If so, what was your old screen name?
That must have been a real winner! I took a break for dinner and missed it. Anybody able to FRmail a copy to me?
That must have been a real winner! I took a break for dinner and missed it. Anybody able to FRmail a copy to me?
Dunno; but he was (apparently) a recycled disruptor troll; his account is nuked, and ALL his posts along with it, not just 779.
That must have been a real winner! I took a break for dinner and missed it. Anybody able to FRmail a copy to me?
Dunno; but he was (apparently) a recycled disruptor troll; his account is nuked, and ALL his posts along with it, not just 779.
#779 must have been a doozie. PH will get a kick out of this, when he crawls out of the sack at about 3 AM (real time).
This guy was obviously a retread; you certainly caught that early--you don't just spring full-blown into the fray if you are new to the threads.
It is also a warning to all of us to obey the rules.
God gave me a brain so I could use it to deny His Word and make Him a liar. Right.
By the way, I graduated first in my college class with a perfect 4.0 GPA, so please don't lecture me on how to use my brain.
Evolution is a delusion sent for those who reject God and His Word ALREADY.
Just read your post 778, and got a little bit of info, as to what this Sha2006 said...good grief, the guy signs up yesterday, and then he starts making nasty cracks about evos, and then goes on to question why we would even be on a conservative site...guess he thought he should be running FR, instead of Jim Robinson...
Also a bit of DNA evidence.
From the above. How do you explain this without common descent? How much evidence is required before doubt becomes unreasonable?
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