Posted on 08/16/2008 12:51:32 PM PDT by missanne
All I need to know...
I’ve already respondes to some of Art Hobson’s columns....thought you might like to read the last one I did. MissAnne
It’s ironic the day after we celebrate the Declaration of Independence and America’s 232 birthday a column titled, “The Arrogance of Creationism; Malarkey Like Intelligent Design Has No Place in the Classroom” by Art Hobson is published. As a Christian-American I wish to exercise my God given First Amendment rights with this response.
By the title alone, Hobson claims children should be denied the exposure to the germs within The Declaration of Independence, along with much of America’s history. According to Hobson “Creationism is like a mutating virus.” Tell that to Thomas Jefferson who penned the Declaration read to the world on July 4, 1776….
“When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation……
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”…….Jefferson and the Continental Congress unanimously voted for a document that declared our rights and liberties are derived from God, not by government. One would assume by Hobson’s writing he’s willing to disavow himself from his own rights. That’s his choice, but he hasn’t the power to impose his will upon others who believe as our founding fathers.
The Declaration contained a solemn “appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world,” and expressed “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”
Mr. Hobson further states that “It’s a sad commentary on superstition in our culture that, when polled, about 50 percent of U.S. adults claim to believe literally in the biblical account of Earth’s creation.” Actually, Mr. Hobson, close to 93 percent of Americans polled believes in God. Interestingly enough, the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic faiths all believe in the Creator God and the Creation thing.
Mr. Hobson writes in his closing paragraph, “Like true believers everywhere, creationists are among the most arrogant of humans, for they assume that they know for sure, how life developed on Earth….” I assume nothing, sir! I don’t know how life developed on earth but the Creator that Thomas Jefferson acknowledged does. God was, after all, the only one there!
According to Hobson our children in public schools couldn’t read, nor be exposed to “the virus” contained in the Treaty of Paris, 1783. John Jay, our First Chief Justice to the Supreme Court, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, our American envoys insisted that the Treaty of Paris begin with: “In the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity” before signing the document ending the American Revolution.
Belief in God’s word and His creation isn’t “arrogance of creationism. Nor is the theory of intelligent design “malarkey” or have “no place in the classroom”. Great Scientists have believed in God’s existence and that God was the source of creation. Albert Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” As indicated by Einstein’s quote real scientists study with an open minds eye to all possibilities, including the Creator, God.
National Center for Science Education
http://www.ncseweb.org/default.asp
“I believe in the primacy of “values” over “knowledge,” which is why I call for genuine pluralism in publicly funded schools, whether this is achieved by vouchers or by wholly re-imagining what counts as a “public” school. The problem is not that we rule God out of science classes, but that we rule God out of schools entirely, disenfranchising a large part of the citizenry; this is a political issue not a scientific one. “ ~ Ted Davis (see below the Johnson item)
National Center for Science Education [] []
Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol19/9021_phillip_johnson39s_respon_12_30_1899.asp[] []
(Phillip Johnson’s) Response to Edward Davis
by Phillip E Johnson
Originally published in RNCSE 19 (4): 25. The version on the web might differ slightly from the print publication.
[In RNCSE 18(6) we published a review essay by Edward B Davis which examined 3 major books focused on the issue of design in nature. In this issue we print a response from Professor Phillip Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley, followed by Davis’s reply.]
On the whole, I thought the review essay on the Intelligent Design Movement by Edward B Davis (Nov/Dec. 1998 issue) was thoughtful and fair-minded. So I write not to complain, but to clarify a single point.
Davis says that I needlessly polarize the debate by referring to methodological naturalism (MN) as “methodological atheism,” and by trying “to equate evolution and MN with atheism.” Not exactly, as they say in the rental car commercial. I did use the term “methodological atheism” in Chapter 5 of my book Reason in the Balance>, but that was in the context of my response to Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Nancey Murphy, who had used that term before me.
In fact I think that atheism and naturalism are significantly different, and that naturalism is by far the more effective in eliminating God from reality.
Atheists (like Richard Dawkins or William Provine) call attention to the importance of the “God question” by noisily insisting that God does not exist.
The scientific leadership could not endorse the Dawkins/Provine view and still insist that “science and religion are separate realms.” If Darwinian evolution and theism are conflicting answers to the same question (”Who created us - God or nature?”), then it is very difficult to justify saying only that only one answer may be considered in public education, or even in scientific research.
Provine recognizes this, and combines his own advocacy of atheism with calls for opening the discussion - in the science classroom and elsewhere - to advocates of theism who think they have evidence to support their position. Wiser heads in the scientific community regard such an open debate as an invitation to disaster.
Atheism accepts the legitimacy of the “God question” by giving a negative answer.
A more effective way of disposing of the question is to rule it out of order as irrelevant in science, where we study what really happened.
Scientific naturalism accomplishes this by teaching that science is committed by definition to methodological naturalism and that we can have “knowledge” only of things that science can investigate.
Instead of “God does not exist,” the scientific naturalist position is that “we have no need for that hypothesis.” For intellectual purposes, Occam’s razor takes care of the rest of the job. Anyone who wants to bring up God (or intelligent design) is banished instantly to the realm of “religious belief”, where subjectivity (faith) rules and there is no objective knowledge to be found.
This is the strategy of Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA) proposal, for example.
Religious people may take their seats as citizens when subjects like moral values are under consideration, but they must cede to science (guided by MN) the sole authority to describe factual reality.
When the religious people accept that division, as many do, they implicitly concede that God is just as real as Zeus and Santa Claus.
Phillip E Johnson
Professor of Law
University of California, Berkeley
National Center for Science Education [] []
Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol19/3716_edward_davis_replies_12_30_1899.asp[] []
Edward Davis Replies
Originally published in RNCSE 19 (4): 25-26. The version on the web might differ slightly from the print publication.
Reply to Phillip Johnson
I very much appreciate the genial tone of Professor Johnson’s letter and invite further conversation elsewhere, and I thank the editor for space here to elaborate on aspects of my position about which Johnson raises good questions.
The comments providing context for his use of the term “methodological atheism” are especially helpful. I have not read Reason in the Balance and did not know that this term was (apparently) first used by Nancey Murphy - a very interesting point. I had known of his use of the term from friends who are close to the “Intelligent Design” (ID) movement.
It is also helpful to see how Johnson distinguishes between “naturalism” and “atheism” and that he views the former as more dangerous to religion than the latter. I would say myself that atheism is a religious interpretation of the world, based on an extrapolation of methodological naturalism into ontological naturalism - an extrapolation that is certainly not necessary for doing good science (as various historical examples would illustrate well) and that begs the question of whether truth can be attained apart from methodological naturalism. Science is an “as if” story about natural phenomena that assumes, rather than demonstrates, that all things happen “as if” they had only natural causes.
I agree with Johnson that Ockham’s razor would be applied by many to cut away any explanations of any phenomena (whether or not they had only natural causes) that appeal to agents or causes beyond those recognized as natural, but I would call for us to recognize (again) that Ockham’s razor is itself a methodological principle that originates outside of science per se; that is, it regulates what counts as a proper “as if” story and cannot be regarded as infallible.
Who are we to say, really, what causes could or could not be producing all the events in the whole universe?
Nor do all practitioners of a given science agree what is the “simplest” explanation, even without considering agents or causes beyond the natural. And who or what determines when explanations are “multiplied beyond necessity,” to cite another form of the principle? Necessary for what, and to whom?
To state categorically, for all purposes, that religious explanations of events go beyond necessity is to beg the question of whether religion itself is necessary, and for what purposes.
Questions such as these cannot be decided by “science” which is one important reason why the founders of the Royal Society tried to establish a forum free from discussions of religion and politics - a goal they found impossible to implement in practice.
There are legitimate truth questions that science cannot answer with “as if” stories constructed according to its own rules.
Indeed, the very reason why science has attained such a high level of prestige in our culture is that it has restricted its inquiry, or tried to restrict its inquiry, to questions for which “as if” stories can be constructed -stories that are capable of gaining a consensus within the scientific community.
Might it not be the case that people disagree - that is, they lack a consensus - about moral and religious beliefs precisely because they are more important than scientific beliefs, since they deal more openly and directly with values? Such a question cannot be answered apart from a direct appeal to those same values, and thus defies a response that could be called “objective” in the usual sense.
I believe in the primacy of “values” over “knowledge,” which is why I call for genuine pluralism in publicly funded schools, whether this is achieved by vouchers or by wholly re-imagining what counts as a “public” school. The problem is not that we rule God out of science classes, but that we rule God out of schools entirely, disenfranchising a large part of the citizenry; this is a political issue not a scientific one.
This is not to say that I reject Johnson’s belief that evidence for theism can be found in the world - even within the world that science has constructed for us according to its own rules - but I do not always look for it in the same places. As William Whewell stated in a passage quoted by Darwin opposite the title page of the first edition of the Origin of Species, “we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.” Like Aristotle, I believe that meanings and mechanisms are both legitimate, complementary, even necessary parts of explanations; I do not accept the false dichotomy between them erected by post-Cartesians. The fact that human beings come from fertilized ova does not mean that we are not, as individual persons, made in the image of God.
*I find evidence of purpose in the astonishing fact, pregnant with meaning, that a deep and often subtle order exists and can be found by rational creatures - in the fact that methodological naturalism is so fruitful, rather than in efforts to demonstrate the inadequacy of methodological naturalism to account for certain natural phenomena.*
This fact about the intelligibility of the world is hardly necessary for our evolutionary survival and raises profound questions about why this should be so. Such questions are meta-scientific in nature and have often been asked by great scientists who do not share a common religious orientation. I also see evidence for theism in various anthropic phenomena discovered by cosmology; in the persistent human belief in a meaning for existence that goes beyond our own time and place; in the equally persistent belief in “right” and “wrong” as moral categories compared to considering “good” and “bad” simply as attributes of things that happen; and even in aspects of the biological world, such as the progressive development on this planet of an extraordinarily diverse and interrelated system of organisms, which in some respects mirrors (in my view) the Trinity itself.
Neither Zeus nor Santa Claus represents a serious answer to questions of this type, but many would say that God does. I count myself among them.
Edward B Davis
Professor of the History of Science
Messiah College
Grantham PA
” As indicated by Einstein’s quote real scientists study with an open minds eye to all possibilities, including the Creator, God.”
That sums it very nicely, but your whole post (and the letter it derives from) were almost certainly “inspired”, in that word’s original meaning. Well said!
genesis, 1:28: “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
what problem would these people have with that?
Thanks so much for your compliment! I feel as Christians it is our duty to respond to someone like this with the real truth of our American History....there are so many people who don’t know the truth about our rich Christian heritage as Americans.
“I feel as Christians it is our duty to respond to someone like this with the real truth of our American History....there are so many people who don’t know the truth about our rich Christian heritage as Americans.”
The thing that really irritates me about this thing is that Thomas Jefferson was the first Democrat. Do they have ANY idea just how far they’ve strayed from HIS ideas? If I still had a beard, I’d be muttering darkly into it.
This is true.... This is letter responding to just that...this Glen R. Salter wrote a respond to my letter above to which I responded with this one:
May I redress the letter in the NW Times, July 19?
Mr. Glen R. Salter states I “falsely accused Art Hobson (Physics Professor at the University of Arkansas) of not having an open mind about creation being taught in the public school system.” Logic indicates if the Creator were banned in schools, much unique American history would be also. Hobson stated, “Creationists are among the most arrogant of humans”. Salter opines believers are ignorant.
Salter claims my faith in the Declaration of Independence with its reference to God “is humorous” and “shows a lack of knowledge of Mr. Jefferson and the history of that period.” Hardly! I read Jefferson’s original writings from my personal library collection. Jefferson read David Hume’s works at nineteen, along with a staggering list of literature that would overwhelm most that age. For Salter to state, “The Founding Fathers were not privy to this later philosophical literature, so we do not know what their religious beliefs would be today”, smacks of sneering elitism.
Salter wrote, “The Christian clergy back then accused Mr. Jefferson of being an atheist.” That’s true. “My views…are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection and very different from the anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. I am a Christian….” Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush. Salter said, “It is well documented that Mr. Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.” However, Jefferson’s writing illustrates opposite. Its interesting the clergy of Jefferson’s time thought him atheist. Now, atheists and modern historians, and those who want to keep intelligent design out of the classroom, repeat this falsehood.
Jefferson penned in Query XVIII of his Notes on the State of Virginia: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God?” to be violated, but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” This is why Christian-Americans cannot disavow the Declaration from our beliefs. Our rights originate from the Creator who made us free. The Declaration’s truths are the bedrock of our founding; to separate from this concept severs our freedoms.
“The Christian Religion, when divested of the rags in which they (the clergy) have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its Benevolent Institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science and the freest expansion of the human mind.” Does Jefferson sound arrogant, ignorant? Words of an atheist? No! A testimony of a Christian who authored and signed a pledge with “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” pledged his “life, fortune and sacred honor” to overthrow tyranny.
Ben Stein’s movie Expelled is the ultimate discussion of intelligent design within academia and science. I recommend it.
Economic growth is like body heat, organisms don't live to be warm, they are warm because they live. Economies don't grow to live, they grow because they live.
This entire mindset is a failure of the human mind to grasp just what market economics does and is, as it is way beyond their depth of what we call understanding.
Thus, they wish to reduce their world to something they can understand, inevitably resulting in the horrors of the totalitarian nightmare that is leftist ideology.
"Environmentalism is the history of what didn't happen", you can quote me.
It's a funny thing, but I strongly believe in Intelligent Design, and not in New-Earth Creationism. I don't understand how anyone can, really, and particularly since Bishop Ussher was an Anglican. God works on a different time scale than we, just as we work on one different from that of the mayfly. If I'm not making sense, here, I've got a headache that won't quit, and have been trying to fix my wife's computer all day. This is the ops check.
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