Why do you debate about evolution?

me ^ | 2-5-2002 | me

[JediGirl]

For those of us who are constantly checking up on the crevo threads, why do you debate the merits (or perceived lack thereof) of evolution?

[Looking for Diogenes]

Of course the Christian faith served as the nation's theological foundation. It was in fact, nearly the only theology in practice. But that (as you pointed out) has nothing whatsoever to do with the country's political foundation.

Gee, that was easy. We agree.

[JMJ333]

I really wish you would read the posts before jumping to conclusions. I said they are based on Judeo-Christian thought--not theological documents. Is there some reason you people can't figure of the difference?

[Terriergal]

hubby had a chat with some teenage evolutionists once about 5 yrs ago. We asked where the matter came from in the first place which eventually gave rise to life. Their response "can't you believe that something always existed?"

Well, as a matter of fact, no, it's not that hard to believe. It's just that evolutionists choose to believe that something impersonal and inanimate always existed and creationists believe there is a personal intelligence that always existed. I guess for me, if a personal intelligence exists it makes more sense where all the intangible invisible things that seem to transcend mere biology came from.

[OWK]

The context he was calling "ugliness" was the horrific communist, fascist, and nazi atrocities made possible by the diminishment on Man's importance in their philosophical systems.

To be complete in our disclosure of the "ugliness", we must include the conquistadors, and the crusaders, and the inquisitors, and countless other butchers.

And while there is no disputing the existence of both theological and secular butchers throughout the course of history, it is not theology, nor is it secularity which is to blame.

It is a fundamental disregard for the rights of other human beings which carries the blame. And this is neither a uniquely theological OR secular trait.

[OWK]

Gee, that was easy. We agree.

I don't think we ever disagreed.

It was JMJ333's hasty misread of my post which fostered the controversy.

[spoiler2]

Excessive concern for a continuous fossil record ignores the fact that life continually "cleans up" after itself, one gruesome way or another.

Volcanos, landslides, floods, and all othe natural geological activities assure that the few fossils that we come across are the exception, rather than the rule.

[L,TOWM]

No argument here. Evil has many justifications, but, sadly, always the same results.

[PatrickHenry]

Either the founding fathers were influenced by their religious beliefs or not. You say there is nothing in regard to Christian thinking in our documents? I say everything from the bill of rights to the DOI shows Christian belief systems. Certainly they didn;t flow from atheism!

A complex subject. First, let's look at the history of political systems in Christendom before the American Revolution. All monarchies (the Swiss are an exception). All absolute monarchies too. There is nothing in the history of European nations -- or the bible -- that would serve as a model for the US Constitution. Put the bible and the Constitution side by side. Where do you find separation of powers? Where do you find the electoral college? Where (except Switzerland) is there a federal system such as ours was supposed to be? Where's the free press? Hey -- where's freedom of religion as we have it here? I could go on and on, but you will not find that our system of government is based on scripture. True, most of the founders were Christians, and all were excellent men. I readily grant that our Christian heritage contributed greatly in making their morality what it was; but they didn't create a theocracy, and they didn't make scripture our law.

[Libertarian_4_eva]

I don't expect to "convert" anyone into believing in evolution.

I wonder if those who do not believe in evolution also do not believe that the earth is not the center of the universe?

[JMJ333]

It wasn't a "hasty misread" of your post. Everything we do is based on learned behavior, personal conviction, religious belief or lack of religious belief.

There is no doubt that the constitution reflects the religious convictions of it's authors.

If they were radical moslems, do you think it would've included a Bill of Rights?

[OWK]

There is no doubt that the constitution reflects the religious convictions of it's authors. If they were radical moslems, do you think it would've included a Bill of Rights?

Where precisely does the Bible specify the concept of rights?

[colorado tanker]

No Christian model for the political structures of the Constitution?

The Presbyterians govern themselves by electing commissioners to attend meeting of presbyteries which form the basic building block of church government (roughly corresponding to states in the federal structure). Once a year commissioners are sent to a national general assembly, which passes the laws and policies binding the national executive offices. Sound familiar?

BTW, John Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and a professor at what would become Princeton. He taught many of the framers of the Constitution and himself signed the Declaration of Independence.

[PatrickHenry]

No Christian model for the political structures of the Constitution? The Presbyterians govern themselves by electing commissioners ...

The Vikings had assemblies too. Lots of non-Christian societies did. I'm talking about the Constitution. It is unprecedented, and it is certainly not modeled on scripture.

[JMJ333]

Thank you for asking. I am off to make dinner, when I return I'll give you an answer. I won't forget. =)

[Physicist]

I am a Christian who believes that the universe was created by God for His purposes.

I am a deist and evolutionist who believes the same.

I am still looking for an evolutionist who will tell me where all of the matter of the universe came from. Since evolutionists do not believe in creation, they apparantly have no explanation as to the origin of inorganic matter.

Of course we have an explanation; that's precisely what Big Bang cosmology is all about!

I'm not going to produce a textbook about it here on the spot, but the basic idea is that the total energy of the universe is--and always has been--zero. Really! Gravitational fields have a negative energy (which is simple to show even in the case of Newtonian gravity). The universe is very large and full of gravitational fields, so there is obviously an enormous cancellation that takes place; the total energy of the universe must be something smaller than the sum of its matter. We can't measure all of the fields throughout the universe, but we can measure how well the two quantities cancel by examining how the universe expands. It turns out that the two quantities cancel as nearly as we are able to measure, which means that they cancel to an exquisite degree.

I am told that it was always in existence -- a very poor explantion for the origin of matter I might add!

Very poor indeed; no serious scientist has maintained such a notion for going on probably a century.

[colorado tanker]

OK, I'm not a scientist so you'll have to explain to me why the Earth only destroyed the fossils of the mutations that lost in the war for the "survival of the fittest" and only preserved the winners. Darwin himself conceded the that the fossil record would prove or disprove his theory and that the fossils had not then be found. Darwin assumed they would later be found. 150 years later, they still haven't been found.

In any other field of science, people would start looking for an alternative to the natural selection theory.

[Physicist]

Physicist, you made an eloquent post a couple weeks ago on this very question. Have you saved it?

Thank you for the kind words! I think this is what you mean.

[OWK]

The Presbyterians govern themselves by electing commissioners to attend meeting of presbyteries which form the basic building block of church government (roughly corresponding to states in the federal structure). Once a year commissioners are sent to a national general assembly, which passes the laws and policies binding the national executive offices. Sound familiar?

Representational democracy long predates the Presbyterians.

And in fact, it was not representational democracy that what the revolutionary aspect of the American republic. It was the concept of inalienable individual rights which was novel. In fact it really had no legitimate precedent in any practical sense, in all of recorded history (although it was advanced theoretically by many upon whose shoulders the American founders stood).

And certainly rights were not a concept thought highly of by the church in ANY sense. And the Bible makes no mention of them whatsoever. The 10 commandments (when considered as codified state law) run diametrically opposed to the concept of rights.

A reasonable apologetic in support of rights can be constructed from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (I have done so myself), but I haven't seen it advanced by many Christians.

[jennyp]

You know, Jenny, I had a preacher at a charismatic church utter the EXACT same line when he discussed the origins of moral relativism in one of the first apologetics seminars I ever attended. Uncanny.

LOL! Then that must be a good omen for the quality of the debate. (Best arguments from both sides, & all.)

BTW, The two sources he pointed to as the starting point for post modernism and moral relativism was in the mid 1800's. Darwin and Nietzche. After the mind numbing atrocities of the 20th century, It looks like he had empirical observation to back up his statement. In my book, that trumps your "hijack" fear.

Ah, but both Communism & Naziism owe much more to Hegelianism than to any biological theory. The fundamental evil here is their fundamental rationale for moral collectivism. Both ideologies believe there's a relentless logical process that plays itself out on the world historical stage. Hegel thought it was the rise & clash of nations, according to his theory of dialectical clashes of contradictions on some Ideal plane. Marx & Engels explicitly turned Hegel upside down, & argued for a predictable & inexhorable world historical progression based on "material" contradictions. Hegel thought one's nation was the moral actor and the person themselves was just a cog in the greater moral machine. Marx thought a person's economic class was the moral actor, with the individual essentially helpless to think in any meaningful way outside the box of their own economic class.

Hitler took this Hegelian endowment (very well known & accepted by all sides in the political debate in Germany) and decided that one's race was the collective instead of their nation or their economic class.

The resulting moralities might be "objective" when applied within one's collective, but they're "relativistic" when you look at the interaction between a person in one collective and a person in another. It's similar to when a postmodernist smugly assures us that all cultures' moral codes are merely "competing texts", with no objective moral basis for judging one over the other. It's that self-serving, ad hoc trap I mentioned earlier.

You could even use Darwin to argue against moral relativism: Humans are one species amongst many, but we are the only species with the ability & the necessity to use our big brains to consciously direct our lives, shape our society, etc. I think it's morally neutral for a lion to instinctively hunt down & chew into a gazelle that's minding its own business, since we are the only species who can even conceive of debating whether such actions are good or evil. But since we're the ones trying to decide what's good & what's evil, we have to base our decisions on what the effects are to us humans. OTOH, if we were gazelles discussing this... well, then we wouldn't be gazelles if we were discussing such abstract ideas, would we? :-)

I'm sure this isn't as clear as it seems to me, but the point is the Theory of Evolution does not imply moral relativism. Moral questions occupy a whole different subject area, only tenuously connected to questions of speciation & the Tree of Life.

[Physicist]

OK, I'm not a scientist so you'll have to explain to me why the Earth only destroyed the fossils of the mutations that lost in the war for the "survival of the fittest" and only preserved the winners.

Huh? Most fossils represent creatures that are extinct. Do you see any dinosaurs around?