Posted on 08/08/2005 8:49:04 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
THE GOD VS. Darwin debate went to the White House last week when President Bush weighed in, stating in a roundtable interview with reporters that ''intelligent design" should be taught along with evolution in public schools. It's a move that has undoubtedly pleased the president's conservative religious base. However, it has also caused much unhappiness among those conservatives who want the Republican Party to be something other than a political arm of the religious right, including such strong Bush supporters as columnist Charles Krauthammer and University of Tennessee law professor/blogger Glenn Reynolds.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
You suggest Rome? A great beginning, but in the end...disaster!
I would argue that you do.
That is, if what you depend entirely on what 'societies' determine as your barometer of right and wrong, and base it on public opinion instead of moral absolutes.
It's not an impossible hypothetical - lots of people were once Christian and then decided they aren't any more - and it's not feigned sympathy. I truly feel sorry for someone who has to cling to a strange and obsolete theory of the world because they're afraid that if they don't, they'll turn into a monster.
FWIW, in addition to a rational basis, I think that quite a bit of morality is 'hard-wired'. The incest taboo is an example. Brothers and sisters almost never want to have sexual relations, even in the absence of a moral code forbidding it. There's just a natural revulsion to it. Likewise, we have a natural and very sensitive cognitive facility for detecting cheating, and an equivalent dread of being caught. Steven Pinker in 'How the mind works', has an excellent discussion of our internal ethical compass and how it evolved in order to make reciprocal altruism possible.
So, oddly enough, I have a higher opinion of you than you have of yourself. I'm sure that even if you were a 'rabid atheist' like myself, you would probably behave pretty much as ethically as you do now. There are certainly bad people in the world, but there's precious little evidence a religion ever made a bad person good.
In fact, it's in the states with the highest level of religious observance that we find the lowest ages of consent. You can get married in Kansas, where creationists won their most recent victory, at the age of 12. So who is pushing the envelope?
to a strange and obsolete theory of the world
To which theory or belief do you refer???
I've been wading in on these on and off for years. Some of the evolutionist folks are my FRiends, even though I disagree with them on this subject, and I often find interesting information and useful links. It can be a good exercise in making a salient point clearly and politely.
Wrong. A significant portion of our society says that killing a child before birth is not wrong. That is a violent change from the society that I grew up in, in the 1950's.
A significant portion of our society does not think that cheating on your income tax is wrong (theft), and the vast majority of students do not think that cheating on tests is wrong (also theft).
This culture has changed drastically for the worse in the last 40 years because of the abandonment of absolute moral principles.
(And sexual immorality, causing destruction of families and children, rampant disease, and even death, is one area where our collective 'society' says OK, do whatever you want, and standing idly by as the culture goes rapidly over a cliff).
Creationism.
This is a demeaning ad hominem attack. Which is worse and more cowardly than an ad hominem attack.
You love to set up straw men and then knock them down.
No. I described an idea - creationism - as strange and obsolete. An ad hominem attack is an attack on a person.
If we can't negatively criticize ideas, we can't have a discussion.
What a vivid imagination you have. Do you teach creative writing?? Because I thought you were a science prof who dealt with facts and not fantasy....
And morality is 'hard-wired' by whom? How can an impartial, random evolution, hard wire any set of standards?
No.......actually, if I weren't a Christian, I would have an entirely different set of standards. My human nature is geared towards theft, lying, cheating, temper tantrums and fighting. It is only through the grace of God that I behave in a moral manner. "Religion" makes a whole lot of bad people 'good'........including me.
If you make a point to ignore all the nasty things they say about us, you can actually learn something about how they perceive life.
You can argue whatever you want.
That is, if what you depend entirely on what 'societies' determine as your barometer of right and wrong, and base it on public opinion instead of moral absolutes.
You do the same thing. Your morality is based on the society you were born into. If you were born into a fundamentalist Islamic society, your moral views would be quite different.
I know all about GAAP.
I prefer my answer.
We'll have to see, long-term, if that was a good shift in morals.
A significant portion of our society does not think that cheating on your income tax is wrong (theft), and the vast majority of students do not think that cheating on tests is wrong (also theft).
Again, we will need to see, long-term, if that was a good shift in morals.
This culture has changed drastically for the worse in the last 40 years because of the abandonment of absolute moral principles.
If you say so. I think, as a society, we are better off now than we were 40 years ago.
Well now, we could get into a whole long discussion of theology, and pre-destination here (that God would have called me, even out of an Islamic culture), but that's not even close to what this thread is about.
Thank you again for another civil discussion, Modernman. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating......
I have a lot of respect for you.
Evolution isn't random. If you really want to know how, read the Pinker reference I cited, or Dennett, or any decent reference on modern evolutionary psychology or the theory of reciprocal altruism.
My human nature is geared towards theft, lying, cheating, temper tantrums and fighting.
People aren't entirely good, of course, but they don't want to be caught stealing, cheating or lying, and will fight only under limited circumstances. An intelligent society tries to understand human nature and build on it to most effectively construct an ethical society.
Preconceived notions of human nature are not a rational way to build a society - as evidenced, for example, that Christianity, even where it has been the official moral code of societies, has not generally prevented societal evils.
I wasn't the one who brought up Rome.
If you were born into a fundamentalist Islamic society, your moral views would be quite different.
And in need of the same respect, but possibly very wrong headed. (i.e. 75 or whatever number of virgins if you kill an infidel)
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