I'm not sure how a persons personal belief system in anyway imparts itself onto a scientific theory. If a Geologist believed a person should be killed for damaging a geological structure, should we then throw out the science of geology? Obviously this geologist is immoral, but the science of geology is still sound. On another note how do we determine the morality of a society based on the Bible? Should we toss the Bible out also since people were put to death using that same book?
As I read many of the post of the creationists, I see a tremendous amount of credence given to a single Biblical verse or an interpretation from a particular scholar. The rub is how does anyone know if that verse is really the correct one. Is it argued from an imprinted engram, or is it argued from a personal revelation? From many observations, I have come to the conclusion that the environment directly influences the worldview taken on by the individual that this individual grew up in. This also includes the fundamental belief systems imprinted into the brain over the years. So people end up taking a particular stance on a many thousand year old writing colored by personal experiences and or a long-term environment that was inhabited.
I constantly hear from the various churches, “baby steps”. Why is this? It is because we learn this way. We have to allow the brain to build those neural interconnects to over a period of time. It’s not unlike flying an aircraft. What was so terribly difficult at first becomes absurdly simple as our brains adapt to the new directives we are imprinting on it. This is the same with the different religions. Over time people imprint the “truth” that is then defended vehemently because it’s “known to be true”.
So here is the rub. How can we determine on a pure faith based belief system, which is the correct model or “truth”? When I ask this question I get answers like; the Bible told me, my pastor stated it, or I prayed and God himself told me. Well, if there were immutable truths, wouldn’t everyone get the same answer when they prayed or read the same book? Since there is an ongoing fierce argument between the different religions, obviously this is not the case.
Now we will throw another monkey wrench into the equation. There have been a number of councils that have determined what is “truth” in scripture and what is not: i.e. the Church Councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419), the council of Nicea, etc. So here is another rub, if the word of God has been handed down, why the requirement for the councils?
There also seems to be contradictions in the Bible. For example, the resurrection stories from each of the different Gospels. They are different enough that just to say they were seen from different perspectives does not wash. I always have wondered which is the correct one or the “truth”. If there is that kind of discrepancy in the very thing that defines Christianity (the resurrection itself), how can we not suspect the other verses in this same book? I get answers like the Bible is divine because God stated it was. Well where did he state that but in the Bible. This is not unlike me writing a letter and then stating in that letter that it’s divine because God says so. Would you take that seriously? This is in effect what you are doing with the Bible.
Now we will throw a final monkey wrench into the works. There is a body of knowledge that has been painstakingly complied over thousands of years we refer to today as science. Unlike a belief system, science is a series of models that describe the universe we inhabit from both observation and experimentation. Again unlike an immutable text such as the Bible, science will revise its models as new evidence comes to light. This also gives rise to the false belief that science is shiftless sand that has no firm foundations. This is far from the case. Over the millennia we have made discoveries that we continue to build on as we obtain further knowledge and understanding. Do old ideas get thrown out? Of course! However, not without coming up with a better model to fit the observed phenomena in question. Take gravity for instance. It is a theory and no matter how much evidence accumulates, it will always remain a theory. One of my problems is that we don’t revise (or at least re interpret) the Bible as new facts come to light.
Now if an atheist looks at this, he will see a group of individuals or a church blindly following a faith system that has been handed down over thousands of years that ignore the basic findings of science. For example, there is not one shred of Geologic evidence for a word wide flood approximately 4-6 thousand years ago. However, there are groups that vehemently will defend such to their dying breath just because the Bible told them so. No wonder he/she (the atheist) sees the religion as a foolish waste of time.
So the question is where is the line drawn? Parts of the Bible already have been modified or rejected from what once was considered scripture via the councils. So why not take into account the findings from the scientific community?
But, to converge upon (if never reach) a perfect understanding of the world, you have to keep making changes. That's what all those changes over the centuries have created: a convergence upon real, useful knowledge.
Bravo!
In the case of Darwin's morals, the answer is quite simple - it is part and parcel of his theory (which BTW is philosophy not science). In fact it is at the heart of his theory. There is much in his works promoting eugenics:
Yet he might by selection do something not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realised until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids towards this end.
From:Darwin, Descent of Man, Chapter 21.
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With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.
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a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life,
From: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", last chapter, last paragraph.