Posted on 09/18/2006 1:51:27 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. Politically, 60 percent of Republicans are creationists, whereas only 11 percent accept evolution, compared with 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. A 2005 Harris Poll found that 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. What these figures confirm for us is that there are religious and political reasons for rejecting evolution. Can one be a conservative Christian and a Darwinian? Yes. Here's how.
1. Evolution fits well with good theology. Christians believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God. What difference does it make when God created the universe--10,000 years ago or 10,000,000,000 years ago? The glory of the creation commands reverence regardless of how many zeroes in the date. And what difference does it make how God created life--spoken word or natural forces? The grandeur of life's complexity elicits awe regardless of what creative processes were employed. Christians (indeed, all faiths) should embrace modern science for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divine in a depth and detail unmatched by ancient texts.
2. Creationism is bad theology. The watchmaker God of intelligent-design creationism is delimited to being a garage tinkerer piecing together life out of available parts. This God is just a genetic engineer slightly more advanced than we are. An omniscient and omnipotent God must be above such humanlike constraints. As Protestant theologian Langdon Gilkey wrote, "The Christian idea, far from merely representing a primitive anthropomorphic projection of human art upon the cosmos, systematically repudiates all direct analogy from human art." Calling God a watchmaker is belittling.
3. Evolution explains original sin and the Christian model of human nature. As a social primate, we evolved within-group amity and between-group enmity. By nature, then, we are cooperative and competitive, altruistic and selfish, greedy and generous, peaceful and bellicose; in short, good and evil. Moral codes and a society based on the rule of law are necessary to accentuate the positive and attenuate the negative sides of our evolved nature.
4. Evolution explains family values. The following characteristics are the foundation of families and societies and are shared by humans and other social mammals: attachment and bonding, cooperation and reciprocity, sympathy and empathy, conflict resolution, community concern and reputation anxiety, and response to group social norms. As a social primate species, we evolved morality to enhance the survival of both family and community. Subsequently, religions designed moral codes based on our evolved moral natures.
5. Evolution accounts for specific Christian moral precepts. Much of Christian morality has to do with human relationships, most notably truth telling and marital fidelity, because the violation of these principles causes a severe breakdown in trust, which is the foundation of family and community. Evolution describes how we developed into pair-bonded primates and how adultery violates trust. Likewise, truth telling is vital for trust in our society, so lying is a sin.
6. Evolution explains conservative free-market economics. Charles Darwin's "natural selection" is precisely parallel to Adam Smith's "invisible hand." Darwin showed how complex design and ecological balance were unintended consequences of competition among individual organisms. Smith showed how national wealth and social harmony were unintended consequences of competition among individual people. Nature's economy mirrors society's economy. Both are designed from the bottom up, not the top down.
Because the theory of evolution provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, it should be embraced. The senseless conflict between science and religion must end now, or else, as the Book of Proverbs (11:29) warned: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
Numerous posts have been removed, one poster has already been “nuked” and two have received a suspension.
Now, concerning the excerpt at 1286 and the links at 1296 and 1310: that particular original source (Evidence Bible) does not assert a copyright. They encourage their material to be distributed. The second link credited the original source – and the excerpt here at 1286 should have likewise credited the original source.
Whenever a poster quotes a source --- even if it is in the public domain, such as this appears to be --- it is both customary and necessary for the source to be provided.
The standard does not apply to quoting Scriptures and other such broadly available information which has long been in the public domain.
Besides the obvious problems which can arise from using unsourced excerpts – the practice itself is presumed to be plagiarism and therefore reflects on the poster.
Again, that does not apply to quoting Scripture – which would be a desired kind of plagiarism anyway.
My humble appologies to you for my part in this. I allowed others to goad me into making some responses which were wrong. This won't happen in the future.
'Desired' and 'plagiarism' do not belong in the same sentence.
I'm done. There is no point in exchanging with people who resort to insult. No future posts from me.
One would also wonder what the point is in exchanging with people whose response to all evidence posted is essentially, "You can't make me see!"
However there are plenty of lurkers. They can see who provides evidence, and who dismisses it with an airy handwave while refusing to address its substance. They can form their own conclusions from that behaviour.
If you are still following this thread you'll see I'm still a target of their attempts to goad me. Illusionists are also very good at what they do to get people to see what is not there.
When and how have I insulted you?
Can lead a horse Placemarker
You are in the right forum to argue the case that evolution et al (except for math and physics) are derived from the philosophy of naturalism and thus cannot form a complete picture and perhaps may even form deceptively erroneous pictures simply because they refuse to look.
Naturalism is a choice these disciplines of science make because they presume that anything that can be known will be physical or natural (methodological naturalism.)
It is a choice, a philosophy and nothing more. When a discipline declines to look at the non-spatial, non-temporal, non-corporeals (such as God, spirit, soul, conscience, mind, information or successful communication, autonomy, forms, geometry and other mathematical structures, qualia such as likes and dislikes) - it should not then be declaring that "all that exists" is all that it considers (microscope to telescope, matter in all its motions.)
And when that is the assertion it amounts to no more than a sleight of hand.
Give it a good thrashing right here on the Religion Forum! “All that there is” is not microscope to telescope.
After all, encouraging science to abandon the presupposition of "methodological naturalism" was the original goal of the intelligent design movement.
then science would no longer be science - it'd be philosophy and/or theology and/or navel-lint contemplation.
humanity already groans under a sufficient burden of those - there's no need to corrupt the viable alternative in order to please the vanity of masochists, is there?
[hiatus mode re-engaged]
And we've been utterly correct so far.
It is a choice, a philosophy and nothing more. When a discipline declines to look at the non-spatial, non-temporal, non-corporeals (such as God, spirit, soul, conscience, mind, information or successful communication, autonomy, forms, geometry and other mathematical structures, qualia such as likes and dislikes) - it should not then be declaring that "all that exists" is all that it considers (microscope to telescope, matter in all its motions.)
Show us your pixie, your leprechaun, your Invisible, Pink Unicorn; dazzle us with your repeatable and measurable phenomena and we will change our minds.
And when that is the assertion it amounts to no more than a sleight of hand.
That, unlike any other philosophical approach, yields repeatable and demonstrable results.
Give it a good thrashing right here on the Religion Forum! “All that there is” is not microscope to telescope.
See above on pixies - otherwise you are just babbling nonsense.
After all, encouraging science to abandon the presupposition of "methodological naturalism" was the original goal of the intelligent design movement.
Why is encouraging scientists to abandon the only guaranteed knowledge-producing process in the history of mankind is a good thing in your mind?
My pleasure RunningWolf. I've enjoyed this thread immensly, and look forward to future exchanges. Although, I'll not respond to those who look only to ridicule and put down others. There comes a point where education clouds judgement and get in the way of dialogue. Being acceptant of everything taught in colleges today can be detrimental to your abililty to relate to others in respectful ways. Happily I did not allow this part of me to be lost when I was in college.
promises, promises placemarker.
"Take heart! Opponents use spitwads when they have no ammunition left. LOL!"
Thanks Alamo-Girl, for being supportive when others wish to just look down their noses and put others down.
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