Posted on 01/19/2006 2:12:48 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator
We can expect more battles about Darwin before school boards across the country. But who cares? Impatient by now with the legal and religious debate around intelligent design, many of us may wonder just that. In fact we all need to care -- Darwinian theory has practical ramifications beyond the narrow question of what mechanism drives evolution.
Darwinists say the evolutionary mechanism must be purely material. ID theorists find evidence in nature of an intelligent purpose shaping life's history. Which view we convey to our children may affect their adult lives.
The scientific impact: Consider our country's role as the leading exporter of scientific ideas. Modern science from its start has been fueled by religious wonder. In his new book, "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success," sociologist Rodney Stark points out that real science arose only once. That was in Europe at the hands of devoutly Christian scholars: "medieval scholastics, sustained by that uniquely Christian 12th-century invention, the university."
Unlike the ancient Greeks who believed the universe had no beginning and thus no designer, Christians and Jews read the opening chapters of Genesis as an affirmation that nature is God's handiwork. To understand Him, it helps to understand His creation. Writes Stark, "Newton, Kepler and Galileo regarded the creation itself as a book that was to be read and comprehended."
In erasing God's role from the history of biological existence, Darwinism erases a primary motivation to pursue scientific discovery.
The economic impact: In formulating his theory of natural selection, Darwin said he drew inspiration from the work of Thomas Malthus, the 18th-century political economist. Malthus portrayed life as a "struggle for existence," pitting animal against animal. Darwin added that organisms maximized their chances of survival if they possessed favorable variations (later explained as genetic mutations).
In economics, Malthus's view leads to the dismal belief that people are merely consumers, competing with one another for scarce resources. Similarly, Darwin's theory teaches us to think of life as a fierce struggle against others. It thus subtly undercuts the healthy belief that seeking wealth means providing a service to people rather than a way of robbing them. As my friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin points out, humans do best in careers they consider morally commendable. If we want our children to enjoy affluence as we do, it matters what we teach them about the nobility of creating wealth.
The moral impact: In "The Descent of Man" (1871), Darwin spells out the moral implications of his theory, notably that unguided evolution produced the moral laws as much as it did the plants and animals. Such laws could have turned out differently, as the animals could have turned out differently had chance variations led life's history down a different path.
So there is nothing absolute about our ideas of right and wrong. Wrote Darwin, "We may, therefore, reject the belief, lately insisted on by some writers, that the abhorrence of incest is due to our possessing a special God-implanted conscience." If ethics has no such secure foundation, there can be nothing sacred about doing the right thing.
No, I am not saying that Darwinism necessarily leads to scientific, economic and moral breakdown.
On the other hand, one can hardly deny the sad coarsening of our culture. Whatever its merits as science, Darwinism as a philosophy is far from uplifting or ennobling. Today when young Americans could use a little uplift and an appreciation for what's noble, letting them know about intelligent design, an alternative scientific theory with none of Darwin's drawbacks, couldn't hurt and might help.
Hi RWP! So what's so "stupid" or "provocative" about Klinghoffer's article? Details, please!
Thanks for the great post, ZC!
Well, such honesty would be refreshing, Dan.
Thanks for your post!
Are you RWP's alter-ego?
You continue to, "protest too much".. What a hard head..
I like that.. however.. at least you're not a wuss..
Caution: Academe can make you ignert..
Just kidding, you obviously misunderstood my ping ;o)
So --- Who is RWP?
I have been know to do things like that.
Right Wing Professor
LOLOL hosppipe! Oh, I do agree with you there!
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to study our origins apart from a belief in God.
To explain our existence as merely a product of random chance and extremely "lucky" mutations seems so shallow and futile. Why would this planet be so fortunate? And if "evolution" is scientific "fact" then why have we still not seen any evidence to support it, on our planet and planets elsewhere? It just hasn't been seen - ever.
The universe I live in is orderly, makes sense, is governed by laws of physics and morality.
Even Einstein believed in God. I see intelligent design as simply a motivating tool to explore the mind of God.
> I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to study our origins apart from a belief in God.
Just keep in mind that your lack of understanding does not define the universe, and you'll do ok.
Well, I guess you made a good try but not quite the answer I was looking for.
> not quite the answer I was looking for.
That's life. The question now is what do you do with it. Two historical options:
Science: change or abandon your theory
Religion: fall into despair or assume that it was a trick of the Devil
Another option, of course, is to re-examine your question.
I'm waiting for details, too...
excuse me? I am a proud creationist so putting me in the same category as Rightwing Professor is "beyond the pale"
THE only category you are put in, is the one that you may have some interest in this thread's content; you got pinged along with members of BOTH sides of the discussion...
"Gen 3:17-18
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;"
The scriptures cited do not refute what I wrote. Satan enticed Eve to engage Adam into a sexual relationship. That is why they were ashamed and were hiding. God wanted Adam and Eve pure, but their free will condemned them to parenting, and all the troubles associated with it.
"Rom 8:21-22
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
Don't know why this was cited.
The clincher:
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. (red letters indicate words spoken by the Christ in Christian)
(Mar?) Of course God made all knowing creatures male and female. How else would they perpetuate their existence to serve Him?
Here is the real question of this thread: Do you believe Adam and Eve, thus all mankind, were created around 4,000 years ago, per the biblical geneology? Regardless of archaeological records of civilizations thousands of years before in other areas? Are you just focusing on the Jewish People creation?
Read the thread. Or this.
I could just as easily say that some atheists are psychopaths/sociopaths, and have their urges held in check only by the threat of a lifetime in prison. His "point" was ridiculous, as they usually are. FWIW, I'd rather trust a person who holds his "urges" in check because of his desire to follow his god's law, and not simply because a cop may be looking.
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