Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Pantera · 01-31-2002, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Photocrat:
Fundamentalism, from which we derive most of the 'resistance' as it were, is pretty much a USA thing; though I understand that it reaches farther than that by now. Ask some Brits about it, if you care to--I remember something about Darwin being put on the pound notes there; one of the requirements for that being that the figure be "uncontroversial" ...

I don't need to ask - I am a Brit. I've never met a real live creationist over there, despite a Christian upbringing and a Catholic school. Oh, and it's the ten pound note.

Just posting it again because I think it's so cool.

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The point of all this? I would question the number of average folks who do not believe in evolution and yet who are educated enough to know much of anything about it. In other words, I don't think that there's enough support behind the anti-evolutionists to effectively legislate their beliefs, nor do I see how they could grow large enough to. Given how marginalized they are, I do not think that they could ever actually wield the power of the conservative right enough to do such a thing.

I hope you're right, but I think you may be being a little over-optimistic here. The evo/cre thing isn't really a question of education, but raw emotionalism ("I ain't descended from no monkey"), and it is making a disturbing amount of headway in some areas. Alabama requires a big disclaimer to be stuck on biology textbooks, Kansas scrapped evolution from the curriculum altogether (though they admittedly reintroduced it when the school board was replaced with people who knew their arses from their elbows), and even my own Ohio is currently debating a bill which would require schools to teach "all scientific theories about the origins of life". So I think there is cause for concern, if not necessarily blind panic.

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In any event, I cannot claim any special proficiency in terms of evolution--certainly nothing more than a group of doctors & geneticists like you have here.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that it is your *personal* responsibility to enter the fray, just wondering if you had any insights on why <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060930497/internetinfidelsA" target="_blank">Kenneth Miller</a> notwithstanding, even Christians with backgrounds in the right area of science seem to take less of an interest in debunking YEC than our group of infidels do. Or whether I just haven't been noticing that they do.

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However, all I can do for you in the way of arguement is to attest to the fact that it's valid science and prove that I understand what you're saying. If that's what you want, you have it right here.

I already realised that, but cheers anyway.

Dr Rick · 01-31-2002, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Photocrat:
To say that a story is a parable does not deny that it tells us *some* truth--in fact, they're used as teaching devices to explain hard to understand things in simpler terms. It's just that the truths they tell us are the morals of the story; not some sequence of literal events (e.g. it would be improper to reason from them that they really imply that the earth came to be 6000 years or so ago)

That humans are by nature sinful creatures as a result of "the fall," and that we can only be "saved" through belief in Jesus Christ and His death for our "sins" (none of which was necessary prior to the fruit tree episode) is not "*some*" Christian truth; it is basic to the teachings of the religion.

Photocrat · 02-02-2002, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rbochnermd:


That humans are by nature sinful creatures as a result of "the fall," and that we can only be "saved" through belief in Jesus Christ and His death for our "sins" (none of which was necessary prior to the fruit tree episode) is not "*some*" Christian truth; it is basic to the teachings of the religion.

To deny that the text of early Genesis should be understood literally does not deny the fallen state of mankind. It can be understood as a simplified portrayal of whatever really happened (which makes a lot of sense, considering things like the symbolism behind 'fruit' in the OT, etc.). I'm not sure what you're driving at?

It's not like the 'mechanism' of the sin nature is encoded in our genome or something...

scigirl · 02-02-2002, 04:17 PM

Where are the evolutionist christians? They are doing their work, just like all the other "evolutionists" like my <a href="http://vmb.montana.edu/faculty/quinn/quinn.html" target="_blank">boss.</a>

Several of the faculty here at VMB are Christians of a variety of flavors.

But they have better things to do with their time than beat their heads against YECS, like. . . actually research evolution, and find cures for diseases and stuff.

I do wish, though, that the more "liberal" Christians would speak out against the rabid fundies.

scigirl

Photocrat · 02-02-2002, 04:37 PM

Quote:

I don't need to ask - I am a Brit. I've never met a real live creationist over there, despite a Christian upbringing and a Catholic school. Oh, and it's the ten pound note.

<http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/newten/images/bigback.jpg>

Just posting it again because I think it's so cool.

Yeah, that's my understanding of things over there.

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I hope you're right, but I think you may be being a little over-optimistic here. The evo/cre thing isn't really a question of education, but raw emotionalism ("I ain't descended from no monkey"), and it is making a disturbing amount of headway in some areas. Alabama requires a big disclaimer to be stuck on biology textbooks, Kansas scrapped evolution from the curriculum altogether (though they admittedly reintroduced it when the school board was replaced with people who knew their arses from their elbows), and even my own Ohio is currently debating a bill which would require schools to teach "all scientific theories about the origins of life". So I think there is cause for concern, if not necessarily blind panic.

Mmmm, perhaps. But I'm not sure that any extrodinary vigilance is required.

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Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that it is your *personal* responsibility to enter the fray, just wondering if you had any insights on why Kenneth Miller notwithstanding, even Christians with backgrounds in the right area of science seem to take less of an interest in debunking YEC than our group of infidels do. Or whether I just haven't been noticing that they do.

Couple optimism (see above), with no particular expertise (I probably have more than the average person, but nothing much, really) and you have most of your answer.

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I already realised that, but cheers anyway.

NP.

Dr Rick · 02-02-2002, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Photocrat:
To deny that the text of early Genesis should be understood literally does not deny the fallen state of mankind.

Then what figurative interpretation explains "the fallen state?" What non-literal interpretation is to be taken from the subsequent expulsion from paradise?

Did God "literally" create the "heavens and the earth" or is that just a metaphor, too? And if Genesis is not to be taken literally, then why should Luke or St. John? How are we to know the difference? Maybe Jesus didn't "literally" die for us; maybe even the whole story of His existence was just a metaphor. Perhaps Biblical stories about God were merely parables and we are not supposed to infer His existence from them. Afterall, how does one know where the figurative references end?

Employing these machinations to their conclusion, one can deny every Christian belief and yet still claim to be talking about Christianity. Likewise, every idiosyncratic idea imaginable could be attributed to a Biblical parable and called "Christianity."

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I'm not sure what you're driving at?

Christianity contradicts evolution. Many people do genuinely believe both, but this is not the first time that humans have been known to hold contradictory beliefs. Convoluted interpretations of the Bible morph the belief system into something other than Christianity. Most Christians who accept evolution appear to simply ignore the contradictions; that's a lot easier than trying to twist Bible stories into figurative knots.

HelenM · 02-03-2002, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rbochnermd:
Did God "literally" create the "heavens and the earth" or is that just a metaphor, too? And if Genesis is not to be taken literally, then why should Luke or St. John? How are we to know the difference? Maybe Jesus didn't "literally" die for us; maybe even the whole story of His existence was just a metaphor. Perhaps Biblical stories about God were merely parables and we are not supposed to infer His existence from them. Afterall, how does one know where the figurative references end?

Employing these machinations to their conclusion, one can deny every Christian belief and yet still claim to be talking about Christianity. Likewise, every idiosyncratic idea imaginable could be attributed to a Biblical parable and called "Christianity."

LOL - you noticed, huh?

I expect some Christians just hate it when that happens...

But I daresay a lot of them go back to this passage:

1 Cor 2:13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

See? It's spiritually discerned - Christians have the Spirit, you don't, so no wonder you don't get it...

What do I do? Just *sigh* I suppose...

love
Helen

Dr Rick · 02-03-2002, 04:06 PM

Excellent observations, Helen, but not all Christians can rationalize accepting evolution this way. Some recognize the obvious irreconcilable contradictions between the two.

Kurt Wise, a Harvard-educated Ph.D., has recently gained some notoriety in the secular community for his blunt honesty in this regard. Richard Dawkins wrote about and quoted him in the essay, <a href="http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_21_4.html" target="_blank">Sadly, an Honest Creationist</a> :

Quote:

Kurt Wise...is a contributor to In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation...Much of [the contributors'] fire is aimed at weaker brethren who think God works through evolution, or who clutch at the feeble hope that one �day� in Genesis might mean not twenty-four hours but a hundred million years. These are hard-core �young earth creationists� who believe that the universe and all of life came into existence within one week, less than 10,000 years ago. And Wise�flying valiantly in the face of reason, evidence, and education�is among them. If there were a prize for Virtuoso Believing (it is surely only a matter of time before the Templeton Foundation awards one) Kurt Wise, B.A. (Chicago), Ph.D. (Harvard), would have to be a prime candidate.

Wise stands out among young earth creationists not only for his impeccable education, but because he displays a modicum of scientific honesty and integrity. I have seen a published letter in which he comments on alleged �human bones� in Carboniferous coal deposits. If authenticated as human, these �bones� would blow the theory of evolution out of the water (incidentally giving lie to the canard that evolution is unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific: J. B. S. Haldane, asked by an overzealous Popperian what empirical finding might falsify evolution, famously growled, �Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian!�). Most creationists would not go out of their way to debunk a promising story of human remains in the Pennsylvanian Coal Measures. Yet Wise patiently and seriously examined the specimens as a trained paleontologist, and concluded unequivocally that they were �inorganically precipitated iron siderite nodules and not fossil material at all.� Unusually among the motley denizens of the �big tent� of creationism and intelligent design, he seems to accept that God needs no help from false witness.

All the more interesting, then, to read his personal testimony in In Six Days. It is actually quite moving, in a pathetic kind of way. He begins with his childhood ambition. Where other boys wanted to be astronauts or firemen, the young Kurt touchingly dreamed of getting a Ph.D. from Harvard and teaching science at a major university. He achieved the first part of his goal, but became increasingly uneasy as his scientific learning conflicted with his religious faith. When he could bear the strain no longer, he clinched the matter with a Bible and a pair of scissors. He went right through from Genesis 1 to Revelations 22, literally cutting out every verse that would have to go if the scientific worldview were true. At the end of this exercise, there was so little left of his Bible that
". . . try as I might, and even with the benefit of intact margins throughout the pages of Scripture, I found it impossible to pick up the Bible without it being rent in two. I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible[emphasis added]. . . . It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science."

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]

Photocrat · 02-03-2002, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl:
Where are the evolutionist christians? They are doing their work, just like all the other "evolutionists" like my <a href="http://vmb.montana.edu/faculty/quinn/quinn.html" target="_blank">boss.</a>

Several of the faculty here at VMB are Christians of a variety of flavors.

But they have better things to do with their time than beat their heads against YECS, like. . . actually research evolution, and find cures for diseases and stuff.

I do wish, though, that the more "liberal" Christians would speak out against the rabid fundies.

scigirl

*shrug* Tell him, not me, then.

Unless you want me to code some sort of Markov chain prog (say, rehash.pl) & just remix the standard replies with it :] Of course, its output would be rather unpredictable & it might not support the most reasonable position, but... :]

Sorry, I just try to keep my mouth shut when I would otherwise be talking out of my arse.

Photocrat · 02-03-2002, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rbochnermd:
Then what figurative interpretation explains "the fallen state?" What non-literal interpretation is to be taken from the subsequent expulsion from paradise?

Did God "literally" create the "heavens and the earth" or is that just a metaphor, too? And if Genesis is not to be taken literally, then why should Luke or St. John? How are we to know the difference? Maybe Jesus didn't "literally" die for us; maybe even the whole story of His existence was just a metaphor. Perhaps Biblical stories about God were merely parables and we are not supposed to infer His existence from them. Afterall, how does one know where the figurative references end?

Employing these machinations to their conclusion, one can deny every Christian belief and yet still claim to be talking about Christianity. Likewise, every idiosyncratic idea imaginable could be attributed to a Biblical parable and called "Christianity."

This is called the fallacy of the beard.

We reason that the text says whatever the writer meant; not something else we invented just because we felt like it [not that people don't do that!] The allegorical interpretation of the Bible dates back to the church fathers and some passages are clearly allegorical. We do not have to throw out the parable of the Good Samaritan even if the fellow in it did not exist; they are just a literary device used to tell us something about theology--not a page from the history book.

Now then, if you're asking for some method to figure this out without and uncertainty; tough luck. If you want to approach the text, you have to study it and to be reasonable. Shall I conclude that there is no such thing as "reasonable" because people disagree over who is being reasonable? That's the trick you're trying to pull on me here...

As for the history, you can usually identify that genre because it purports to tell the story of eyewitnesses [or those who claim to be such]. Usually, such writings are actually pseudonymous [not actually written by said eyewitnesses], but this was a common & respected practice in the ancient world. That pseudonymous quality seems to introduce errors every here & there in some of the texts (e.g. Daniel) but they can be corrected with knowledge we have from other records of history. It does not, however, 'remove any semblance of historicity' from the texts as you seem to suppose.

In any event, you're now being like the man who asked two Rabbis to explain the Torah to him while he stood on one foot [e.g. quickly] -- but I am not Hillel. To understand these issues, you must study history and put each of these events into their historical context. There is no substitute for that.

The understanding of the Genesis story for us & the fall of man is the same for us. The literal history of a parable is not terribly relevant to the theological understanding thereof. What we look for in them is the intent of the author--that is how we know what they mean.

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Christianity contradicts evolution. Many people do genuinely believe both, but this is not the first time that humans have been known to hold contradictory beliefs. Convoluted interpretations of the Bible morph the belief system into something other than Christianity. Most Christians who accept evolution appear to simply ignore the contradictions; that's a lot easier than trying to twist Bible stories into figurative knots.

Then the Pope is not a "Christian"? While we're at it, there are plenty of creeds, for that matter, to define orthodox beliefs. I think that a great many of us would fall under the Nicine creed, for one. Please note that, since "catholic" means "universal" even Protestants don't mind it [though some change that bit, e.g. to "universal" instead] My church [Methodist] leaves it alone but marks it "optional" or somesuch.

Your view of "christianity" appears to consist of nothing more than modern fundamentalism. You've confined a movement of two millenia & a world-wide phenomina to a few hundred years of recent history, most of which is in *one* country, which is not the center of the world--namely, the USA.

What I'm trying to say is that you're being a tad narrow here. What you think of as "Christianity" is but the tip of the iceburg.

If I employ the definition you seem to, I will have to conclude that Christianity actually started a few hundred years ago & that everyone before that wasn't "really" Christian. How, pray tell, is that reasonable?

When you told me that it's "easier" not to have to deal with this stuff, you were half right. The problem is that the factor which makes it "hard" to deal with these things is that they require *thought*

Therefore, I do not see why a scientist like you would want to discourage us from thinking or studying, as you seem to be arguing with that line of reasoning?

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02-02-2002, 04:17 PM	#24
scigirl Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Seattle Posts: 4,261	Where are the evolutionist christians? They are doing their work, just like all the other "evolutionists" like my <a href="http://vmb.montana.edu/faculty/quinn/quinn.html" target="_blank">boss.</a> Several of the faculty here at VMB are Christians of a variety of flavors. But they have better things to do with their time than beat their heads against YECS, like. . . actually research evolution, and find cures for diseases and stuff. I do wish, though, that the more "liberal" Christians would speak out against the rabid fundies. scigirl

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