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 don't see an apology coming!
Good News For The Day
‘But I say to all of you: In the future, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty One.’ (Matthew 26:64)
"If the universe is moral, (and the fact that such a person as Christ existed, is strong evidence that it is), then what Jesus said about himself and the future, must come true. If morality has an infinite source, and backing, then the moral excellence of Christ will ultimately... triumph---over evil."
"I know some very agreeable people. I know some that I would call gentle giants. But their easygoing spirit is never a threat to greed and corruption. Kindness, patience, understanding, and love are not better than envy and bitterness, if they only ever exist as counterweights to their opposites. A good man who is content to coexist forever with badness, and wrong, cannot be a good man in any absolute sense."
"The goodness of Jesus is surpassing because he not only sorrowed over sin, and was outraged by it, he set himself against it, and warned his enemies that by suffering for it, he would rise above it, and eliminate it."
"If our universe is a moral one, then Jesus' values can never be viewed in any offhand way. Rather, he must be seen as a hazard to every act, motive, system, institution, or law, that is not in sympathy with him. A question that governments and their constituents ought to ask is: Are we making laws; invoking policies that clash with Christ and the direction of his Spirit? If so we are building badly. The universe itself will not back us. The future belongs to Christ-and to all who follow him."
When Boris Yeltsin jumped on the tank and let let off a shot at the Russian Parliament building I really didn't know what to think...to do---to get the commies out of Russia--America!
Yeltsin and Reagan are heroes!
Why do catastrophists in the Velikovsky school subordinate the absolute datings from tree rings, ice cores, and other phyiscal sources to the results of their elaborate mental gymnastics in the service of chronology revision?Ow!. . .
One good reason why the radical chronology revisions envisioned by such as Velikovsky and Heinsohn cannot be taken seriously is the simple fact that all such revisions move the Minoan eruption of Thera to a lower epoch during which there is no evidence for ANY eruption of that magnitude. This argument is supported by the fact that ALL, known similar eruptions since then have produced a volcanic acid signature in the world's ice caps at the correct date, an argument that is either ignored or naively discounted by the revisionists. It is also instructive to note that, with the confirmation of the 2300 B.C. date for the global climate crisis in Mesopotamia affecting civilization, we can be confident that such high dates are valid, contrary to the proposal of Heinsohn. In other words, history really happened then, in the third millennium.
How do you "know that some things are just wrong?"
Who decides?
Your assertion that morality can be derived from experience, intuition, and a consensus of society is as mystical as any appeal to a higher power.
To hold all men to the standards of YOUR religion is not proper, unless the intent is to establish a theocratic society enforcing a single religion. (I don't mean to imply you have suggested that, of course, but that is the only way to enforce a divinely dictated morality.)
In order for people of all religions to hold a common standard of morality, such assumptions as I postulated must be necessary. "It's self-evident that all men are created equal," so on and so forth. To assume the equality of all men with respect to rights and morals is a logical assumption. From there, morals and rights can be deduced.
The danger of assuming that the only legitimate source of morality is via religion is the automatic and necessary assumption that atheists are immoral. This position is obviously false, as is the assumption that an atheist must by definition hold arbitrary standards of morality.
The short answer is that we disagree. I appreciate your courtesy.
This one ain't a prediction, Reep. Predictions involve the future; this one has basically already come about. It's just a question of how long it takes to filter down low enough for your ilk to read about it. I'd say five years and no more.
"Ow!" is right.
Whatever the discrepencies between Natural History and a literal reading of the first few chapters of Genesis, the concurrence of Archaeology and Scripture, with reference to the History of Civilization, is remarkable.
A good book on the subject is "The Bible as History." A thoroughly engrossing read, whatever your theology...
It's kinda jarring to see the Bible suddenly take a back seat to Velikovsky on a crevo thread, just to score a few throwaway points about Dynastic Egypt.
Do you have any critics who aren't serious whack jobs? With your canned posts and canned Fill-in-the-Name responses, you could be undetectably replaced by a poorly programmed robot.
...as is the assumption that an atheist must by definition hold arbitrary standards of morality.And obviously not the position I stated.
What I've said is that any universal standard of morality requires something by which to measure morality, and that God (I didn't say religion) is the only candidate. As a corollary, all attempts to establish a universal standard without reference to God require arbitrary assumptions, as you demonstrated in your "libertarian principle" at #269.
In order for people of all religions to hold a common standard of morality, such assumptions as I postulated must be necessary. "It's self-evident that all men are created equal," so on and so forth. To assume the equality of all men with respect to rights and morals is a logical assumption. From there, morals and rights can be deduced.That is not an assumption.
An atheist has no universal reference for morality, unless he appeals to God with his fingers crossed. I don't know if you're an atheist, but the following could be considered an example...
Again, an assumption is an assumption, and therefore arbitrary. Assumptions can be reasonable, but not logical. If they were logical, they wouldn't be assumptions. They would be deductions.
To hold it necessary that "assumptions must be postulated" changes none of that. It only confirms what I said earlier. Any morality devoid of God as a reference is arbitrary at it's core.
Interesting that your premise hinges on the notion that "all men are created equal," isn't it?
I'm sure you'll want to rephrase it, but the inescapable reason it sounds reasonable is because it echoes a God-derived axiom we've all heard a thousand times.
If you want to postulate "everyone is equal," by what non-arbitrary standard is that a better postulate than "to the victors go the spoils?"
<snicker> Filed away for future plaigarism...
Just curious ... do you believe Charles Darwin was on a government payroll?
will... this---help?
What I get from it is as much as wisdom is valued it isn't all there is.
It works for me. Cut-n-paste this into your browser:
http://home.talkcity.com/Terminus/brent4861/zit.gif
It is an error to suggest that God's commands are arbitrary. The appropriate adjective is "sovereign." Whatever our inability to understand the basis of His commands, they are no more arbitrary than our command to a dog to stay off the sofa, though our reasons are well beyond canine understanding (we just don't want their hair on the furniture).
Therefore it is an error to suggest that "it is perfectly reasonable to argue that one day God might decree that committing adultery is a good thing to do," since it hinged on a belief that His will was arbitrary.
It's perfectly reasonable to say that God could change His inscrutable mind & declare adultery moral all of a sudden. Maybe God bought a new couch & put the old one in the basement, so He now lets us shed on the old couch at will. Does He have to explain his actions to you? NO, he's sovereign, and He assures us that He's beyond our understanding! So just receive His new commands, that go against everything you believe is right regarding adultery, and just have faith that He has good reasons of His own. (Now who's putting God in a box???)
Here is the key to misunderstanding... "But this implies that there is a moral standard greater than God to which God's decrees must conform."
God doesn't require an external, supramoral standard by wich He must conform. God is eternal, irreducible Virtue. Morality is intrinsice to His nature. God is good, and good is God.
Equating God == good is a reification error. Just like saying God == a supernatural man on a supernatural throne would be an anthropomorphization error, a specific kind of reification error. It's like saying "God is profit and profit is God", or "God is the color blue and the color blue is God", or "God is hurry up and hurry up is God". It's a category error. The Good is a class of actions and attitudes, and God is a supernatural person. They're fundamentally different things. So you can't solve the Euthyphro dilemma that way.
Isn't that a tautology? Sure, because that's the type of explanation we finite beings of four-dimensional space-time are going to get when trying to perceive the Eternal the Omnipotent, and the Omniscient. That's not due to God's limitations, but to ours.
Maybe if you defined God as the universe itself you could say that. But then God would equal Bad as well as Good. If God equals everything, then making any kind of moral distinctions based on God's existence would be pretty much a moot point, and you're right back where you started with the dilemma.
Most attempts to put God into a box, including Plato's Euthyphro dilemma, revolve around attempts to undermine God's nature... "Can God make a mountain bigger than He can lift? If no, He's not omnipotent, if yes, He's not Omnipotent."
This reduces to, "Can God make Himself not Omnipotent? If no, He's not Omnipotent, if yes, He's not Omnipotent." And...
"If Omnipotent, then not Omnipotent," and...
"If omnipotent, then not God."
And the paradoxes just keep coming, getting sillier and sillier. As with the earlier tautology, our inability to fully grasp Omniscience and Omnipotence is exactly that: our inability.
Not God's.
But don't you see, what you dismiss as "trying to put God in a box" is merely our attempt to reconcile God with logic! The box IS the constraints of logic. If you don't want your God to have to be limited to being logical then that's your choice, but you really have to shut your mind off at that point, IMO. Then the only thing that's left is chanting.
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