Oh, I see.
OK, name an eternal and universal reference point for right and wrong that isn't an omniscent God.
Posted on 06/07/2002 11:35:28 AM PDT by jennyp
To Seattle area residents the struggle over how evolution is taught in public high schools may seem a topic from the distant past or a distant place.
Don't bet on it. One nearby episode in the controversy has ended, but a far-reaching, Seattle-based agenda to overthrow Darwin is gaining momentum.
Roger DeHart, a high-school science teacher who was the center of an intense curriculum dispute a few years ago in Skagit County, is leaving the state. He plans to teach next year in a private Christian school in California.
The fuss over DeHart's use of "intelligent design" theory in his classes at Burlington-Edison High School was merely a tiny blip in a grand scheme by promoters of the theory.
The theory is essentially this: Life is so complex that it can only be the result of design by an intelligent being.
Who is this unnamed being? Well, God, I presume. Wouldn't you?
As unlikely as it may seem, Seattle is ground zero for the intelligent-design agenda, thanks to the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and its Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC).
Headed by one-time Seattle City councilman and former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Discovery Institute is best known locally for its savvy insights on topics ranging from regionalism, transportation, defense policy and the economy.
In the late '90s, the institute jumped into the nation's culture wars with the CRSC. It may be little known to local folks, but it has caught the attention of conservative religious organizations around the country.
It's bound to get more attention in the future. Just last month, a documentary, Icons of Evolution, premiered at Seattle Pacific University. The video is based on a book of the same name by CRSC fellow Jonathan Wells. It tells the story of DeHart, along with the standard critique of Darwinian evolution that fuels the argument for intelligent design.
The video is part of the anti-Darwin agenda. Cruise the Internet on this topic and you'll find something called the Wedge Strategy, which credits the CRSC with a five-year plan for methodically promoting intelligent design and a 20-year goal of seeing "design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."
Last week, Chapman tried to put a little distance between his institute and the "wedge" document. He said it was a fund-raising tool used four years ago. "I don't disagree with it," he told me, "but it's not our program." (I'll let the folks who gave money based on the proposed strategy ponder what that means.)
Program or not, it is clear that the CRSC is intent on bringing down what one Center fellow calls "scientific imperialism." Surely Stephen Jay Gould already is spinning in his grave. Gould, one of America's most widely respected scientists and a prolific essayist, died just two weeks ago. Among his many fine books is one I kept by my bedside for many weeks after it was published in 1999, "Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."
In "Rock of Ages," Gould presents an elegant case for the necessary co-existence of science and religion. Rather than conflicting, as secular humanists insist, or blending, as intelligent-design proponents would have it, science and religion exist in distinct domains, what Gould called magisteria (domains of teaching authority).
The domain of science is the empirical universe; the domain of religion is the moral, ethical and spiritual meaning of life.
Gould was called America's most prominent evolutionist, yet he too, was a critic of Darwin's theory, and the object of some controversy within the scientific community. There's a lesson in that: In the domain of science there is plenty of room for disagreement and alternative theories without bringing God into the debate.
I have no quarrel with those who believe in intelligent design. It has appeal as a way to grasp the unknowable why of our existence. But it is only a belief. When advocates push intelligent design as a legitimate scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations of evolution, it is time to push back.
That's what they continue to do in Skagit County. Last week, the Burlington-Edison School Board rejected on a 4-1 vote a proposal to "encourage" the teaching of intelligent design. Bravo.
Despite proponents' claims of scientific validity, intelligent design is little more than religion-based creationism wrapped in critiques of Darwin and all dressed up in politically correct language. All for the ultimate goal — placing a Christian God in science classrooms of America's public high schools.
I seem to remember you post a similar refutation in the form of the "irriductibly complex" oil industry, too...
Your whole train of thought here is very confusing to me, for it seems to support some points I've been making in other posts. Economics may be an "evolutionary" process in terms of how things change in a process that is often unpredictable, but the fact that any "economy" is nothing more than an interaction between rational human beings at its root makes any comparison to evolution in the plant and animal kingdoms pointless. You seem to be confusing "evolution" with "development," and "unpredictability" with "chaos." A comparison between free-market economics (something that is unique to the human species, particularly in that a system can be passed from one generation to the next) and an evolutionary process that is the result of natural forces, isn't an accurate one.
What economics does show us, though, is that human beings are unique among animals in that our rational minds give us some measure of control over our own "evolutionary process." If a certain species of animals is living in an area that undergoes a dramatic change in climate, "natural selection" tells us that the members of that species that learn to adapt (either by moving elsewhere or by being strong enough to deal with the changes) will survive, while those that do not will die off.
Humans aren't constrained by this kind of limitation because they can "adapt" without any real change in their physical condition (their location or their physical attributes). If the world suddenly turned colder, I could survive in a reasonable manner by dressing in heavier clothing and building a home that is more insulated. I don't even have to know anything about making clothing or building homes -- I simply have to know someone who does and pay him for his product or his services. Where else in the evolutionary process does something like this occur?
Even under these colder conditions my life may not change all that much. Instead of buying bread made from North Dakota wheat I'd be buying bread made from South American wheat, and I (unlike any other animal) wouldn't be required to migrate to South America to get it.
It's been a non-cyber day.
After all, you never know when Bigfoot's gonna take you out. Might as well be ready for the life after.
Dunno... His ways are not our ways.
You claimed that God was necessary for morality. I paraphrase Plato in suggesting otherwise.
Oh, I see.
OK, name an eternal and universal reference point for right and wrong that isn't an omniscent God.
Standards of morality, whether divinely inspired or logically deduced, can always be twisted toward evil ends. Your link merely points out the one, and ignores historical evidence for the other. The larger question remains unanswered.
If God were silent on the subject, would murder still be wrong?
I was specifically addressing this item, which was posted as one of the three main tenets of Darwinism: A species that is ill equipped to deal will suffer or change.
That must make anything we refer to as a "crime" nothing more than a natural process, which is precisely the point that I was trying to make with my biology teacher.
Behe, Biochemistry, and the Invisible Hand by Niall Shanks and Karl Joplin
Enjoy ;-D
. . . the simplest prediction that Darwinism makes is that, the farther back in the fossil record you go, the simpler the life forms get.
Not an exact analogy. But there is a virulent anology to ID within communism and socialism. The failure of both to recognize that a complex system like the market and myriad cultural norms need not be designed leads them to look for villians, creators and beneficiaries of the established order.
That is the communist version of the watchmaker argument, and every radical leftist group -- feminists, environmentalists, etc. -- has a variant strain of it.
You seem to have forgotten to answer the initial question, opting instead for the "mysterious ways" argument. I am not trying to bait you, I'm honestly interested in your answer.
With a little bit of effort, a consistent system of right and wrong can be deduced without the need for threats of eternal hellfire and damnation. The libertarian principle against initiating force, fraud, or coersion comes to mind.
We believe that murder is wrong – why? Where did this come from?
Even still, we do things that we know to be wrong. Right and wrong; good and bad; logical and illogical, where do this come from? Free will?
If free will exists, than logical absolutes must exist. A logical absolute being; ‘X’ cannot “be” ‘X’ and not be ‘X’ at the same time. Or – ‘if I go into the house that is on fire, I will be burned’ and ‘if nobody goes into the house that is on fire, the baby inside will die’.
Now if logical absolutes exist, do moral absolutes exist? A basic moral absolute is ‘do not hurt an innocent person intentionally’. For morality to exist there must be good and bad.
If good and bad does not exist, than we are only left with logical and illogical choices. So we are left with the question of ‘is it logical to hurt an innocent person intentionally?’. If the answer is ‘no’ we must have a reason. This reason can only be in the realm of morality. Even still, logical absolutes are conceptual, they transcend all people at all time and are absolute in all circumstances since they are absolute.
Who says that's right?
What's wrong with coercion?
Define fraud.
Where does the libertarian principle come from?
Objectivism is the first philosophy to identify the relationship between life and moral values. "Ethics," writes Ayn Rand, "is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival -- not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life."The Philosophy of Objectivism: A Brief Summary.The standard of ethics, required by the nature of reality and the nature of man, is Man's Life. "All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil."
If God was silent on the subject, He would not be God.
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