Posted on 01/11/2006 8:28:26 PM PST by saalebhosdike
A few thoughts regarding the recent foolishness in the courts of Pennsylvania over Intelligent Design:
A pertinent question is why the curricula of the schools should be the concern of judges, who are little more than the enforcement arm of the academic and journalistic elites, imposing on Kansas what could not be legislated in Washington. I see no evidence that judges deploy intelligence, knowledge, or any other qualification other than boundless belief in their unlimited jurisdiction.
Another question is precisely what is meant by Intelligent Design. The answer is not easily divined by reading newspapers: The press have many virtues, but facility in communication is not among them. Reporters, whose thinking is tightly templated, seem to think that Intelligent Design has something to do with Christianity. I know many who suspect intelligent design, but are not religious. This idea is too difficult for reporters, and too dangerous for Darwinists. If one heresy may be discussed, so may others be, and the cracks in the foundations become evident.
It is interesting to put the matter in historical context. To simplify exuberantly, but not inaccurately for present purposes: People long ago saw the world in (I hate words like this one) non-mechanistic terms. They thought that events occurred because Someone or Something wanted them to occur. They believed in dryads and maenads, sylphs and salamanders, gods and demiurges. It can be debated whether they were foolish, or responding as in a fog to things real but intangible.
They thought more about death in those days, perhaps because they saw more of it, and wondered. Existence was to them more moral than physical, and more often seen as a passage from somewhere to somewhere. Come Christianity if not much earlier, they accepted Good and Evil, upper case, as things that actually existed. In the cosmic order as they understood it, mind, intention, will, and consciousness trumped the material.
Then in roughly the fifteenth century a shift began to a mechanistic view of the world. Next came Newton. There were others before him, but he, though he was himself a Christian, was the towering figure in the rise of mechanism, the view that all things occur ineluctably through mindless antecedent causes. He said (remember, I’m simplifying exuberantly) that the physical world is like a pool table: If you know the starting positions and velocities of the balls, you can calculate all future positions and velocities. No sprites, banshees, or Fates, no volition or consciousness. He invented the mathematics to make it stick, at least for pool tables.
This notion of mechanism spread to other fields. Marx said that history was a mechanical unfolding of economics, Freud that our very personalities were a deterministic result of strange sexual complexes, Darwin (or more correctly his disciples) that we were the offspring of purposeless material couplings, first of molecules and then of organisms. Skinner made us individually the will-less product of psychological conditioning. Sociology did much the same for groups, giving rise to the cult of victimhood: I am not what I am because of decisions I made, but because of social circumstances over which I have no influence. Genetics now seeks to make us the result of tinker-toy chemical mechanism.
No will, free or otherwise. No good or evil, right or wrong. Consciousness being an awkward problem for determinists, they ignore it or brush it aside. Death is harder to ignore, but accepted only as a physical termination. One says, “John is gone,” but does not ask, “Where has John gone?” The world offers no mystery or wonder. All questions come down to no more than a fine tuning of our analysis of Newton’s pool balls. (Again, I am exuberantly….)
These two views, which reduce to the age-old puzzle of free will and determinism, can be endlessly argued, and have been. Mechanism prevails today because, within its realm, it works, and perhaps also because it does not suffer from the internal contradictions of religion. Technology, almost the only advance made by our otherwise unimpressive civilization, produces results, such as iPods and television. It does not answer, and cannot answer, such questions as Where are we? Why? Where are we going? What should we do? So it dismisses them. Mechanists are hostile to religion in part because religion does not dismiss these questions, but harps on them.
The two conflicting schemes attract adherents because mankind always seeks overarching explanations, particularly regarding origin, destiny, and purpose. Some of us are willing to say “I don’t know.” Others, well denominated True Believers, have to think that they do know. The country is replete with them: Feminists, Marxists, Born-Agains, rabid anti-semites, snake handlers, Neo-Darwinists. They care deeply, brook no dissent (a sure sign of True Belief), and have infinite confidence in their rightness (or perhaps don’t and pretend certainty to ward off a disturbing uncertainty).
In re Intelligent Design, the Darwinists have pretty much won. Their victory springs not so much from the strength of their ideas, but from their success in preventing Intelligent Discussion. They control the zeitgeist of the somewhat educated, as for example judges. It is enough.
Evolution is one of the three sacred foundations of political correctness, along with the notions that there can be no racial and sexual difference in mental capacities, and that religion is unprogressive and should be suppressed, Yet these are delicate things all three, and cannot well bear scrutiny. Thus the various determinists grimly avoid examination of their ideas.
The lacunae are nonetheless obvious. All is material? If I were to talk to a Neo-Darwinist, I might proceed as follows. “One day you will die. Where will you then be? Yes, yes, I know. We do not speak of this. Yet death does seem to be a bit of a reality. Do you never wake up at three in the morning and think, ‘Where in the name of—in the name of Logical Positivism, I suppose you would think—are we?’ If not, you are a great fool.
“Let me put the matter differently. Either you believe that there is life after death, or you believe there isn’t, or you aren’t sure—which means that you believe that there may be. If there is, then there exists a realm of which we know nothing, including what if any effects it exerts on this passing world. If there is nothing beyond the grave, why do you care about anything at all? You’ve only got a few more years, and then—nothing.”
Or I might say, “You don’t mind if I boil your young daughter in oil tonight, do you? The world being purely material, the only effect would be to interrupt certain chemical reactions conjointly called ‘metabolism’ and to substitute others. You cannot object to such a small thing. She will not mind: Consciousness not being derivable from physics, she cannot be conscious. Boiling children cannot be Wrong, as the term has no physical meaning, and in any event all my actions follow inexorably from the Big Bang. I am only doing as blind causality instructs me.”
In truth we know very little about existence, neither you nor I nor biochemists nor even federal judges. We defend our paradigms because we crave a sense of understanding this curious place in which we briefly are. We do it by ignoring the inconvenient and by punishing doubt. Thus the furor over Intelligent Design.
Oh yeah, and of course because I believe God created the world, that puts me right in your idiot book huh? Because it would really hurt my feelings if it did.
Hmm...that's an odd response to a post stating that majority rule would be bad for schools.
But if you'd rather play games than discuss I guess that's your prerogative.
The trump card. Wins all arguments, huh?
Do you guys feel that curriculum should match the latest polls or not? Keeping yall on the point is like pulling teeth.
So 90% of the USA is "dictating?" Also, why should you dictate what gets taught as science? I mean, no one needs approval to teach physics, math, etc.
I think teaching Creationism in school is a great idea -- in philosophy class. Don't forget to include the Indian, Hindo, Shinto, etc. etc. myths too.
ID is mythology. As thr author himself says -- it suggests "I don't know" is a valid FINAL response to scientific inquiry.
ID is Creationism in sheeps' clothing.
Use technology much? You know, like using a computer to post on fora. If so, then it must be from the Devil (or at least not a "True Christian," whatever the heck that is).
Here is my whole complaint in a nutshell: Just because people believe in God and His creation, we are deemed as ignorant and stupid by the secularists.
I am fine with teaching only science in science classes. Science is great, The world would be a much darker place if it weren't for scientific advances. I have taken quite a few science classes and know first hand that there is an agenda being pushed onto every student that takes a science class, and it isn't a creationist agenda. There is no critical thought being taught at all.
after your response to me, you accuse me of being off point? In a nutshell, I am sick to death of the superior and condescending attitude that secularists have concerning Christians. I love science, and the world would be a much darker place without the scientific acvances we have made. Curriculum based on polls? Never. Science being taught as science without bias? Yes.
Not true and not here. It is when someone makes a statement such as "Creationism is a THEORY that should be taught alongside of Evolution" or "Evolution is a Religion" or "All Evos are Athiests" that the fur flies. These statements splash all with the tar of idiocy.
What gets a lot of us (IMHO) is the last one. I am willing to wager 95% of the Freepers posting on the Evo side of things are Christians. And I, for one, will not let someone so intellectually challenged as to mistake myth for science to challenge my relationship with God and Christ.
Oh good, so you're against ID. Good to hear.
If by chance you are for teaching ID in school, you're skipping a logical step. The cold hard facts are that Evolution is objective, unbiased science and ID is a transparent remasking of Creation which, while fine on its own, has nothing to do with science.
So until you can actually make a case that ID is science, I guess you'll continue to be "sick to death" when those of us (including Christians like myself) are forced to keep you from screwing up science education in this country. If that feels like "arrogance" to you (and if you feel the need to make up the fallacious viewpoint that it's all from "secularists") then you're going to continue to be frustrated, I'm sure.
So you profess yourself to be a Christian. Do you believe that the Bible is the unfallible word of God? That all scripture is God breathed? If not, where do you draw the line? What is real and what isn't? Does it simply make you feel good that you are part of a church? Those of us that really know the Truth are sick of trying to keep you from screwing it up. If that feels like arrogance to you, then read your Bible.
Where do you draw the line between what the Bible says, and what you believe? I don't want to seem intellectually challenged or anything, because I am not, but when and at what point do you pick it all apart and say,"That part is right, no that part is wrong, there it's OK again." And then ask yourself if you really believe int he infallibility of God, that the whole Bible is THE word of God. You can't pick parts, that is the slippery sploe and the highway to hell. And I am not judging injustly.
Nope. Where do I draw the line? That's what theology is, right?
I'll say it again. If you're a strict literalist then you and I both agree that there are parts of the Bible that are literal and parts that are to be interpreted/symbolic. We just disagree on which parts.
And if a part turns out to be in conflict with good science, then I readdress my intepretation. I don't rationalize a way to pretend the realities presented to me are not real.
It is a thought provoking article. Thank you for posting it.
Nice try. The "slippery slope" argument, although amusing, carries no weight. Keep in mind the following:
1. Unless you are reading the Bible in its original Arameic, you are reading a translation and thus an interpretation.
2. There are 2 Creation stories. There is a 6 day one and a 7 day one. They have been "blended" in what people read today.
3. EVERYTHING a human being reads is filtered through a lens of interpretation. It is physically impossible not to.
I am not picking and choosing at all. I am seeing the Bible in its entirety as a spiritual guide, not a scientific text. It refers to historic events (the largest being the birth, death and resurrection of Christ), but those events are highlighted to provide a context and framework.
Are you saying Catholics (who IIRC agree with TToE as a matter of doctrine) or Calvinists (who interpret the Bible quite differently than mainstream Protestantism) or Angicans, Methodists, Lutherans, etc. etc. etc ALL OF WHICH interpret the Bible differently are all on the highway to hell?
When God speaks to me through the scriptures, he speaks to my Immortal Soul, not the transitory Mortal Sciences.
I believe the proper term here is "those of us who THINK we really know the Truth."
Does the quote "vanity of vanities, all is vanity" ring a bell?
What do you do with the part that says you shouldn't eat meat from animals with cloven hooves?
Or
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death." Leviticus 21:9 NAB
Don't you have better things to do than digging up old threads?
Condescension here by noted.
Thanks. It's hard to get my props.
Too bad the point of my post was missed, tho.
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