Posted on 09/23/2003 1:23:37 PM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
As they say, simple things for simple minds... Most of the rest of us realize it's hardly as "simple" as your erroneous view of it.
First, most "Darwinists" I know are staunch anti-Marxists, so your equation falls flat on its face right there. Second, "Darwinism" is a scientific view and Marxism is an economic system -- your statement is as vacuous as saying, for example, "astronomy=the barter system". Finally, the economic system that actually most closely matches the Darwinian process is free-mark capitalism (market competition is an excellent analog to "survival of the fittest"). Ironically, Marxism more closely resembles creationism, in that it believes that the economy must be maintained by an all-powerful, benevolent overseer who designs the rules of the economy and constantly regulates it, down the fall of every sparrow, and who decides which of the favored will receive what rewards.
Come back when your understanding of the world isn't so "simple".
Quoting from a letter to Benjamin Rush, 1803, Jefferson wrote of Jesus' teachings...
3. According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and reform mankind, he fell an early victim to the jealousy and combination of the altar and the throne, at about thirty-three years of age, his reason having not yet attained the maximum of its energy, nor the course of his preaching, which was but of three years at most, presented occasions for developing a complete system of morals.
4. Hence the doctrines he really delivered were defective as a whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.
5. They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an impostor.
(My remarks: The 'Grecian sophist' he's referring to was Paul. Note that Jefferson went so far as to suggest that Jesus's rational powers were not fully developed; that the Gospels are 'mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible', and were further 'disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers'. There is absolutely no doubt that if Jefferson were a FReeper, he would be accused of 'Christian bashing')
You're right. It just annoys me when the pig compares my cleanliness unfavorably with his.
But I'm done.
To: f.Christian
Dakmar...
I took a few minutes to decipher that post, and I must say I agree with a lot of what you said.
fC...
These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!
Dakmar...
Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.
God bless you, I think we both have a common enemy in the BRAVE-NWO.
452 posted on 9/7/02 8:54 PM Pacific by Dakmar
...a distinction without difference masquerading as a tautology...
Not by me, or by my students.
I'm not on a high horse. Colson is. He's the one lecturing us on our amorality.
You guys publish a few papers a year, while a columnist has to write several pieces each week.
Some manage to do it themselves, without taking credit for the work of others.
Which materialistic morality do you hold to? Aristotle, Kant, Mill, Rand?
I admire aspects of the first three, but I argue that none is applicable in all situations, any more than the Bible gives a clear answer on what situations it is acceptable to kill another human being. I've never been much of a fan of Rand.
I'll give it a try. Theists believe that the ultimate reality is spirit, not matter. The fundamental building blocks of everything are thought and mind, not the other way around. Good luck explaining consciousness by materialists means only. Dennett tried and Searle demolished his arguments completely. Since I assume reality is based on spirit and thought and not the other way around, then morality is a natural consequence of my relationship to other minds and to the ultimate Mind who simulates the material world for my senses. I call my assumption, that matter is dependent on God's mind, faith. What do you call your assumption, that all that exists is matter?
Additionally, before asking "how" it "came into existence", you're begging the question, "*is* there actually an "objective, absolute morality" in the first place?
Of course my asking the origins of objective, absolute morality assumes that morality is objective and absolute. I can't see any way to live in a world with other human beings, unless I believe in objective, absolute morality and I dare say that 99.9% of the people on this conservative forum share my opinion in this matter. I also submit that if someone punched you in the nose, you too at least for a brief moment would also believe in objective, absolute, morality.
I'm not on a high horse. Colson is. He's the one lecturing us on our amorality.
Read the column again. His point is that materialism undermines the basis for morality. This may not be the case with you or even the majority of materialists, but it undeniably has been the case with enviro-whackos, who value animal rights above human rights, and by Marxists. Many have done evil in the name of Christianity, but Christianity has done an exceptional job at weeding out those who do so. I fear a society that moves steadily towards materialism, jettisoning traditional Christian morality, before it adopts a consensus view on morality based on materialism, that will reign in the less restrained materialists. It is the responsibility of you materialists to come up with this consensus and its basis. If you don't, then I am afraid anachy will result.
But he attacks Darwinian evolution, a biological theory that is not necessarily materialist. Darwin himself, on the last page of The Origin of Species, spoke of evolution as the force which produced a diversity of kinds of life from the original form into which life had been "breathed by the Creator."
It is bad enough to attack a scientific theory not on scientific grounds, but on the grounds that one does not like its philosophical implications. It is even worse to do so based on a misunderstanding of exactly what the theory actually teaches.
Well, "materialists" seem to be blind to their amoral underpinnings. I would assert that any concept of morality has a religious basis. The amoral underpinnings of materialism are readily apparent in this world. Every animal, excepting humans, in existence is evidence of amorality. That is not the same thing as immorality. Humans consider human amorality(some) as immorality. I know that I will be pilloried for pointing this out, but hey that's the truth as I see it.
Now we don't see lions "murdering" each other willy-nilly nor do we see them inviting starving strangers over to their family soirees. They are amoral.
Ridiculous and arrogant is no way to go through life...you should at least consider therapy, since you reject your Creator and the eternal life and peace that only He can provide.
I have.
Newland, do you reject Zeus or Odin?
Capitalism bump.
Are you telling me this is stating that if your beliefs are in evolution, you are automatically pro-abortion and pro-sexual promiscuity?
Then why do you believe it?
And, for the 50,000th time, your belief does not make it true, your belief is not evidence, and your belief is not reasoning.
Tell me how do you determine right from wrong?
If you cannot demonstrate an absolute morality, it isn't absolute now is it? And yet you want me to demonstrate how I determine right from wrong?
See Right Wing Professor's and Junior's posts for a few clues
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