Posted on 09/13/2005 4:15:07 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
So what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between today's evolutionists and intelligent designers?
Probably nothing.
[snip]
Even after he became one of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always content to let surrogates argue his case.
[snip]
From his university days Darwin would have been familiar with the case for intelligent design. In 1802, nearly 30 years before the Beagle set sail, William Paley, the reigning theologian of his time, published "Natural Theology" in which he laid out his "Argument from Design."
Paley contended that if a person discovered a pocket watch while taking a ramble across the heath, he would know instantly that this was a designed object, not something that had evolved by chance. Therefore, there must be a designer. Similarly, man -- a marvelously intricate piece of biological machinery -- also must have been designed by "Someone."
If this has a familiar ring to it, it's because this is pretty much the same argument that intelligent design advocates use today.
[snip]
The first great public debate took place on June 30, 1860, in a packed hall at Oxford University's new Zoological Museum.
Samuel Wilberforce, the learned bishop of Oxford, was champing at the bit to demolish Darwin's notion that man descended from apes. As always, Darwin stayed home. His case was argued by one of his admirers, biologist Thomas Huxley.
Wilberforce drew whoops of glee from the gallery when he sarcastically asked Huxley if he claimed descent from the apes on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's. Huxley retorted that he would rather be related to an ape than to a man of the church who used half-truths and nonsense to attack science.
The argument continues unabated ...
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
"Where does this moral principle to which you appeal come from? A statement that itself presupposes some sort of moral code that presumably is just part of the furniture of the universe is inconsistent with the notion that morality evolved."
No it isn't. I never said that the morality that evolved was the right one. I don't look to my evolutionary history to determine my moral code. Or to determine what I value or don't value. What a strange concept.
"Evolution provides no accounting for the origin, evolution or existence of morality in the first place, and no basis for any moral judgment concerning different approaches."
Not true. Evolution most certainly does give an account of the origin of morality and ethical codes.
See Sociobiology. It is true that evolution doesn't have much if anything to say about what moral code is correct; it does have a lot to say how the dominant code came to be. It can help explain why parents will fight to the death to protect their children, it just won't be able to tell you if they SHOULD. That's what philosophy and theology are for.
"If mindless, purposeless Evolution is true there is no such thing as good and evil."
You don't believe that morality can have a rational basis without a supernatural entity telling us what to do? How odd.
I have to say in recent times the incidence seems to be going up in your case. I've even started looking forward to your postings. Now there's an admission.
If God spoke to us all, in clear unmistakable words, and announced that His work here was done, and He was leaving this universe forever in order to take care of business elsewhere, wouldn't we still be able to determine things like right, wrong, and truth?
It's like I said. God, the dutiful parent, has tried to train us up to be rational, thinking adults. Unfortunately, there are some who refused to "put childish things away."
Its "Pastament".
May you be touched by his Noodly Appendage.
LOL. You haven't been keeping up with the discussion.
Christian writings were referred to as "clutter" in post #468.
Bible-believing Christians were accused of "risible sophistry" in post #486, with a delightful comparison to "fundamentalist Barbarian vandalism" tossed in for effect, apparently.
In post #306 we have the usual assault that a secure belief in Scripture is "something peddled by false prophets."
And finally we have a complete and hysterical rewriting of history and this country's founding tenets under the guise of anti-Calvinism.
Same old, same old. And this is only from a few dozen posts I've read on this thread.
No, but if I'm not mistaken, the Inquisition did specifically declare heliocentrism heretical, but not until Galileo's time.
It is an interesting parallel that Pope John Paul II made a similar statement that evolution is not heretical, though there is a self-appointed inquisition against the theory that is alive and well today.
The IRS has nothing on him. Kent is resident (president?) of the National Republic of Florida.
You think you can refute the man's extended and well documented tyranny to one case?
What part of man creates for himself a moral structure? Is it something we have more of now than we did 2,000 years ago? Has science imbued us with morality now?
Have we so quickly forgotten New Orleans?
He was referring to "tracts." You know, those gawdawful pamphlets, bifolds or trifolds found in laundromats and busstop benches, and which claim that God is going to condemn just about everyone, but especially atheists, Catholics and Jews, to everlasting hellfire and damnation, and how, by just renouncing all rationality and blindly accepting the pamphleteers particular point of view one can escape this fate and spend an eternity navel-gazing in the presence of the Almighty.
Bible-believing Christians were accused of "risible sophistry" in post #486, with a delightful comparison to "fundamentalist Barbarian vandalism" tossed in for effect, apparently.
No. Creationists were. The two are not synonymous.
Well, sure. Joseph Stalin was once rumored to have murdered his wife. She actually committed suicide, so he wasn't really responsible for her death. That bad thing that was said about him wasn't true, so none of the bad things said about him were true. Ergo, Stalin was really a nice guy. See how easy that was?
BWAHAHAHA! And we haven't yet brought out the cushions or the comfy chair.
You really need to get back to some basic American history, Professor, with a quick refresher course in 16th century European city/state development.
Science doesn't imbue anything with morality. Morality is a social construct based upon the principle of enlightened self interest. All successful moral codes (and Christianity ain't necessarily the only one) can be distilled down to that.
Can we borrow yours?
"though there is a self-appointed inquisition against the theory that is alive and well today."
What do you mean by "inquisition"? Is anyone being fired as a result of believing in evolution? No. But they are certainly being fired and professionally harassed for even considering Intelligent Design.
So who is doing the inquisition?
I hope nothing in my posting to you on Calvin came across as 'vitriol;' if it did, I sincerely apologise, that was not my intention.
You have raised many points via these links, some new to me, some I'd like to challenge when time permits. The sources you provided, I will note, do strike me as short on objectivity and tending to the panegyric. That Calvinism was part of the intellectual heritage of the American colonists is certainly not disputed, but I would argue that still more contemporary ideals of the Enlightment were of greater moment. But our views here are likely to differ over matters of degree than kind, I suspect
I did note in my posting that I did not doubt Calvin was probably motivated by noble intentions; but did not elaborate my view that this can only be part of our assessment. It can be argued, though not by me, that Marx also had 'noble intentions' (the amelioration of poverty among the people displaced by the Industrial Revolution), but the most appalling tyrannical regimes and brutal, institutionalised forms of human degradation and misery arose from Marxist doctrines.
But it is folly to argue from 'intentions,' which we cannot properly know. Even if we grant some desirable features of the Genevan model--it nonetheless remains a powerful instance of the perils of theocracy and the evils which they can inflict.
And Calvin really cannot be held blameless in the murder (no other word will do) of Servetus, which he deemed necessary on politcal as much as religious grounds
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