Jayhawker Soule

BE THE SHIRT! <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

hezekiah jones

Your comment is irresponsible.

For your information this "idea" neither infuriates nor disgusts atheists. If this "idea" in and of itself provokes any emotional reaction, it is likely bemusement.

That people cynically use this "idea" in an attempt to gain control, political or otherwise, over other people is what infuriates and disgusts atheists.

Surely you understand the distinction.

Wyrdsmyth

I think Darwin was just a guy who was taking the pieces of the puzzle and trying to fit them together. That is not to say that he got them to fit together perfectly, and that since Darwin, we now have a complete and perfect picture of the history of biology. We don't.

Darwin isn't the "prophet of atheists," or anything like that. But there is often a lot of rhetoric to that effect -- as if atheists put their "faith" in Darwin and his theory of evolution, just as theists put their faith in their holy men and revelations. Or, as we often hear, Darwin "made atheism respectable."

I get the impression that this is what drives a lot of the "ID theory" phenomenon, with the overreaching idea that if people can discredit Darwin enough, that will deal a mortal blow to atheism. And that is why "ID theory," far from being its own scientific programme, is primarily about focusing on the blind spots or problem areas that evolutionary biology still has.

Most atheists are used to living with a lot of "I don't knows." If the current theory of biological evolution has anomolies which make it obsolete, it will be succeeded by other, superior theories -- but they also, will be naturalistic; It's not going to send all the atheists running back to church, lamenting over how they could have ever been such godless heathens.

"We renounce the heretic Darwin! Jesus, take us back!"

[ March 23, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

Lizard

Wrdsmyth wrote:

Reasonable Doubt, this is why I posted what I did, that the more important question is whether all evolutionists are atheists. The ID promoters say you can't accept evolutionary science without ruling out God. In this way, they hope to "drive a Wedge" and make people choose: Science or God, take your pick. That Wedge creates a false dichotomy. There are many scientists who are atheists and agnostics; however, there are also others who are theists of one sort or another.

I'm interested in keeping religiously motivated pseudoscience out of public school science classes. There are active, organized efforts afoot to redefine science to include non-natural causation, and to teach public school science students ID. That's why I think "are all atheists evolutionists" is a less important issue than "are all evolutionists atheists." However, I apologize if turning the focus of the thread in that direction is considered being "off-topic."

Jayhawker Soule

What "is why" -- that someone else joins you in asserting that Darwin isn't seen as some religious icon by atheists? I, for one, have yet to find anyone who would suggest, much less argue, that all evolutionists are atheists. Perhaps you could direct me to some quotes.

Those bastards! Actually, I wasn't aware that they took this position. If and when they raise it here, I'll join you in exposing them.

Me too. And the same can be said for any other kind of pseudoscience.

At the same, atheism is not best served by creating and defeating straw-man arguments. I am not suggesting that this is your intent. I am, however, suggesting that the "all evolutionists atheists" argument is easily weak enough to serve as one.

[ March 23, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Augustine

Thanks, I enjoyed reading all the responses, and please keep them coming.

Like I said before "forgive my ignorance", but mturner how does a "non-materialist atheist" seem to you as an oxymoron?

I consider myself to be an idealist, or more specifically, a follower of Kant. Kant did not deny the existence of matter, however he did say that the consciousness had a great deal to do with what we precieve. He defined in his "Critique of Pure Reason" that everything we see is subjective because our mind ordered the universe according to what we could understand.

I believe your confusion is in your concept of idealism - many people seem to make that mistake.

It is from that point that I begin to doubt evolution. I see the proof and the reason behind Darwin's theory but my belief in the conciousness of man draws me to the conclusion that it based on our subjectivity and nothing else. So then my question arises, where are the other options? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Jayhawker Soule

What would the Kantian alternative to evolution be?

mturner

Hi Augustine;

In answer to Bill's assertion that the term 'atheist' applied solely to those who denied the existence of a caring, concerned, involved divine agency, I looked at dictionary definitions and found, to my surprise, that he had a point. The surprise comes from having been taught, many years back, that an atheist was someone who denied a divine agent of any kind, including an impersonal, uncaring, uninvolved divine agency. This is not true, apparently, at least not in today's common usage of the term. In which case my statement re an oxymoron does not hold, at least for purposes of debate.

Personally I still do not accept that Deists, Pantheists, Buddhists and the rest can be rightly considered Atheists. It just doesn't make sense to me. How is it that a non-materialist spirituality is only atheistic if it denies any meaningful relationship with a divine agency? Meaningless impersonal relationships with some cold, unloving abstraction are considered to be something other than atheistic. Just what, I can't presume to imagine.



**
It's a long, long time since I read any Kant, because (no offense), he didn't impress me the first time. My vague recollection is that he was an epistemologist, working from a Platonic ontology, which is, of course, Dualist,(Mind/Matter), and that he determined that of Noumena/Phenomena, only Phenomena were accessible to human 'knowing', leaving the other, mental/spiritual/abstract side of human experience only to be guessed at or intuited. At the same time he maintained that these unknowables, (the Noumena, the Forms, the Ideas) were the only true Reality and that Phenomena were just their epiphenomena, or something to that effect. In short, that what we all call Reality, isn't real. What was it, Transcendental Idealism? Something like that. But my recollection is skimpy and I'm quite possibly wrong here. I have no use for Dualism, be it Platonic or Cartesian, and I don't believe that the world is a fabrication out of nothing.


**
Again, my impression of Idealism is as above; basically that Idealism is an ontological position, or doctrine, wherein Reality is equated with mind, spirit, psyche, persona, soul, thought, or, as in Plato, archetypal ideas, while at the same time the empirical world of the senses is discounted as illusory and unreal, that is, untrue. I think that they are both real. In fact, I think that they are both the same thing, and only our understanding and knowledge of the truth behind this apparent paradox is faulty. But that's just me.

**
Of course you're confused. Every thinking person is confused. Only non-thinking knuckle-draggers believe that they've got it all figured out. But one word of advice: do not confuse Darwin's theory for evolution itself. There are other theories, just as there are other philosophers besides Kant.

pax,

mturner