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 ...
My apologies, you are right. Work has me in a bit of cranky mood today. I'll try to lighten up. :^)
Your moral outrage and indignation is amusing, given your presuppositions. What is the exact foundation for evolutionist blame of Calvin's morals in Geneva? What basis do you have for your implicit complaint that the universe, the world, or some aspect of it is not "fair" or "right"? For how could mindless evolution possibly produce anything 'evil'? or 'wrong'? Are there good atoms and bad atoms? Why would an atheist have any rational basis to expect that an impersonal, blind, purposeless, concatenation of atoms, the universe, should be fair? Why have such expectations when, based on your own presuppositions, your very beliefs and expectations with regard to the universe, including John Calvin's Geneva, are nothing but brute and irresistible physical forces of chance or mechanical necessity?
Given your worldview's assumptions, can you explain how time and chance acting on matter can produce reason and morality? Why do you have language of wrongdoing and of things being evil in themselves in your vocabulary when in your worldview, taken to its logical conclusion, there are no such things?
The reason you can't take your presuppositions seriously is because then your moral assessments would be merely reduced to personal preference, nothing more than expression of whatever feels good or bad to you, devoid of ethical content. You can't rationally engage in praise and blame of people unless you have a standard that stands outside of everyone, including John Calvin, and including you, and me, that says for instance that we ought not punish the innocent and let the guilty go free. Mindless Evolution provides no such consistent and coherent standard. It precludes the kind of moral indignation against John Calvin that you wish to engage in. You really have to borrow from Biblical theology to do that.
Cordially,
bluepistolero
Maybe that might help some of them grasp the actual time spans involved.
Give it a rest. You attempt to assert that your own little sect is the monopoly purveyor of ethics to the entire world has been shot down a hundred times, and isn't improved by repetition.
And by the way, telling someone they are incapable of moral judgments is anything but cordial. Lose the hypocrisy.
Sure there is. An evolutionarily-derived morality would promote the survival of the group (society) and hence its members. Societies lacking such concepts would cease to exist, while those promoting such concepts would succeed and reproduce.
Betcha you can't say that quickly three times
Considering that they generally overlook that Shem and Isaac were literally contemporaries, I doubt they have a sense of time
I notice that you say 'my' moral code? Is there more than one moral code? Does your moral code obligate me? If so, why? If not, why not?
You say that moral codes come from "the nature of our existence", and that if you don't follow your reason you will not last too long. I can think of many exceptions to that principle, for example people who do good and end up be killed for it, or people that do evil and prosper. Second, do I have a necessary moral obligation to survive? If so, then where does this moral rule come from, that is, to survive? If you are going to explain how evolution produced morality you can't posit a prior moral rule to explain it.
Third, regarding "the nature of our existence". Is there a fixed nature to our existence? If not, and if our nature changes (and Evolution teaches that it has and will continue to do), does morality itself then change?
Cordially,
I've never heard an answer from the evos to your question. If you ever get one, please ping me.
bluepistolero
Why should I care what's good for society, or for the group? Where did this force, this law, to always seek the survival of the species come from? Where does this moral rule positing the good of the group come from? If you appeal to the good of society, you are already appealing to a prior moral rule that is in place and you need a further justification for that moral rule. Saying that it evolved begs the question.
Cordially,
bluepistolero
Can you back up your assertion that I have ever asserted or even iniminated that my own little sect is the monopoly purveyor of ethics to the entire world?
telling someone they are incapable of moral judgments is anything but cordial. Lose the hypocrisy.
I never said you were incapable of making moral judgments. Exhibit "A" - your moral assessment of my hypocrisy. I just said that such assessments were inconsistent with atheistic presuppositions.
and I never let anyone tell me I can't say;
Cordially,
I've never heard an answer from the evos to your question. If you ever get one, please ping me.
You're asking for an explanation of everything from the Big Bang to geology to abiogenesis to evolutionary biology to anthropological origins to religious origins to contemporary moral problems all in one post.
Considering it takes scholars and scientists decades to gain mastery of even minor aspects of these questions, that's a pretty tall order!
Yes. Will I submit myself to the tedium of engaging your repetititious questions yet again? I'm not that stupid.
I never said you were incapable of making moral judgments
Lie. From your post 944: You can't rationally engage in praise and blame of people unless you have a standard that stands outside of everyone, including John Calvin, and including you, and me, that says for instance that we ought not punish the innocent and let the guilty go free.
Since I am heartily tired of moral hucksters who claim theirs is the only and one true font of goodness, while all the time exemplifying the worst of behavior, I remain, uncordially, yours, RWP.
Because without the group your chances of survival go way down. As an individual, you are not the fastest or strongest critter in the environment and would be short work for some mediocre predator if you don't starve first. As part of the group, though, you can have help fighting off the predators or hunting for food.
The proto-people with the greatest sense of cooperation were able to survive and pass their genes on. Those lacking this sense were slowly weeded from the genepool.
That's funny, I never got your answer to my questions about Christian Reconstruction, either.
Probably why I like the brevity of the Christian response.
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