Second, and about damn time, Ethics Daily announced a website resource called The Green Bible where they plan to warehouse information about environmental stewardship. This is exactly the kind of leadership the evangelical community has needed for a long time.
One of those links, however, caught my eye, and I am not sure how I missed it. The 7th of this month, Robert Parham noted that James Dobson was angry at John McCain for more than his support for stem cell research. The great mob boss of the evangelical right is also angry because McCain is concerned about global warming and wants to shut down Gitmo and stop American torture.
McCain spoke last week during to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on Foreign Policy, and reiterated his support for governmental intervention in the global warming debate, proposed shutting down Guantanamo, blamed the U.S military for torturing prisoners of war and promised to pander to our European allies before defending America's interests around the worldSigh. It just warms your heart, doesn't it? The founder of Focus on the Family doesn't mind torture.
I wish this shocked me, but of course, it does not.
30 comments:
Why are evolutionists upset about global warming or climate change? Evolution offers no reason to consider climate change anything other than a natural occurance.
I am not really sure what your point is here. Because we believe in the scientific facts of evolution, we are not supposed to be concerned about the planet?
And it isn't a purely natural occurrence, is it? Human action is the part that we are all concerned about because that is the part we can do something about.
Streak,
Humans aren't a part of nature? According to evolution they are. And therefore, whatever humans do is as natural as whatever else happens in nature.
Of course humans are part of nature, but you are being a little too cute here. By that logic, then anything goes--murder, drug abuse, war, incest--whatever, since all would be performed by humans who are part of nature.
You avoided the first part of my question. So let me rephrase and amend: Do you think a) that people who accept the scientific truth of evolution cannot also believe in God? and b) do you think that people who believe in evolution cannot have questions about human action?
Evolution says that the universe came into existance by chance and that life evolved by chance and with no design or purpose. God is excluded as creator, designer, source of purpose or morality or anything else.
If you believe in a God, did the God you believe in have anything to do with the existance of the universe? If yes, then you have denied the central premise of evolutionary thought. It seems logical to ask then, if you don't believe the main idea of evolution, why would you believe anything else evolution says? It seems irrational to say you believe evolution is true, but then deny its central premise.
If evolution is true, then morality is only human opinion, which, as far as I know carries no authority, unless the government gets involved to enforce it. But it seems even then morality would be arbitrary. One might go to jail or be fined for polluting the environment, but humans lack the authority to say it is immoral since other humans could say it is not.
Putting aside the obvious that belief in religion is, almost by definition, irrational, you have at least one logical fallacy here. Evolution, as science, has no opinion on the existence of God. Science, after all, cannot prove or disprove the existence of a supernatural deity, as science, as a discipline, is about things that can be verified and tested.
We are not denying evolution's central premise. You are creating a premise that isn't there. Especially since evolution has testable evidence on the process of evolution that, at least by itself, has nothing to do with the origins of the universe, but rather is the observable process of speciation. Not believing that, I would add, is certainly more irrational than anything you have accused me of.
What is more interesting to me, is that from what you present here, you are moral, when you are moral, only because you believe that God will smite you if you are not? If so, then fine. But many of us adhere to a broader idea of ethics and morality that is a part of a historical negotiation. 150 years ago, the same people who believed that morality is only the domain of God, endorsed and defended slavery, and did so with no sense that it contradicted any divine law. In fact, they had numerous Bible passages to justify their actions.
It must be a scary world for you when you only assume that Christian fundamentalists believe in any kind of morality. The rest of us would kill you just as soon as look at you, I guess, and are held at bay only by the threat of the government.
Real science IS about things that can be verified and tested. That fact has not hindered some people who call themselves "scientists", and many non-scientists, from claiming as scientific things which have not been verified and tested. For instance, there is no verified and tested evidence that any kind of animal evolved from another kind. No evidence that simple cells, which are not so simple it has been leared, evolved into anything else.
If you disagree with me about evolution's central premise, I invite you to attempt to introduce God anywhere into evolutionary theory to a real evolutionist. You will quickly be told that the universe, and life within it, has no designer or creator. So evolutionists do have an opinion on God's involvement, or lack of involvement, in the existance of things.
My point about morality is that evolution provides no reason for it. If morality is a human invention, why isn't it arbitrary? You may believe that slavery is morally wrong, but what evidence do you have that you are right?
Science is not driven by the principle of verification, but by the principle of falsification. This recognizes all knowledge as provisional and subject to falsification. See, for example, the writings of Sir Karl Popper.
If you disagree with me about evolution's central premise, I invite you to attempt to introduce God anywhere into evolutionary theory to a real evolutionist.
Hmm. You assume much that you don't know. My neighbors are both evolutionary biologists and we often have discussions about this. They have no objection to belief in God (though I don't think they are believers) but simply don't want belief in Creation taught as science. I know they would also love your assertion that there is no documented or verifiable evidence of speciation--in fact, they would probably laugh.
Here at the blog, we have had this discussion with a lot of fundies, and it seems like a rather useless debate. YOu believe evolution is not science--the scientists who study evolution and biology for a living disagree--who am I going to find more convincing? But either way, you will not be convinced and so the discussion becomes rather boring.
As for morality, your own example betrays you. Yes, I rather agree that morality is relative and rather arbitrary. Some cultures define murder differently than others. Some define incest broader and some more narrow. Your own example is people who believe God dictates all morality, and yet it is me who has to defend opposing slavery?
Do you also hold Dobson in contempt for not finding torture immoral--from a divinely ordained morality?
For instance, there is no verified and tested evidence that any kind of animal evolved from another kind.
Wrong, and more specifically, wrong. Here's a very recent example of speciation.
No evidence that simple cells, which are not so simple it has been leared, evolved into anything else.
Wrong (link to PDF is on the right-hand sidebar), and boring. The transition from prokaryotes to eukaryotes is harder than unicellular than multicellular.
When did you start thinking that biologists say cells are simple? I've never seen anyone in the field make such a claim--certainly not students, some of whom have nervous breakdowns just trying to memorize all the relevant vocabulary in introductory cellular biology. And those are just the watered-down heuristic oversimplifications that professors and researchers feed the students in hopes not scaring too many of them away.
If you disagree with me about evolution's central premise, I invite you to attempt to introduce God anywhere into evolutionary theory to a real evolutionist. You will quickly be told that the universe, and life within it, has no designer or creator.
Wrong, and still boring. My roommate in college did research with biologists who taught evolution, and I had meals with them on several occasions. I also had lunch a couple of times with biologists in grad school who were working on projects I thought were mathematically interesting. By historical accident, each one of them was a Christian (possibly excepting one guy who never talked about religion). You're talking like someone whose only experience with people who advocate evolution is on the internet. Now why would that be...?
My point about morality is that evolution provides no reason for it.
Wrong. Societies that behave morally--that is, populations comprised of individuals who are nearly all hardwired to favor things like altruism, egalitarianism and fairness most of the time--do better when compared to populations that embody perpetual, violent, individualistic conflict. Cooperation is more a more powerful survival tool than individual might.
If morality is a human invention, why isn't it arbitrary?
Many of the specific things that are considered moral tend to depend on human culture, but the tendency toward morals is hardwired in almost everyone. Find me an atheist that can behave any way he likes, and I'll show you a sociopath who isn't bright enough to be a convincing Christian pastor. They aren't that common in the population.
You may believe that slavery is morally wrong, but what evidence do you have that you are right?
Why do you need evidence? I don't need evidence to argue that I ought to love my family or to treat my boss's clients fairly; I just do. Why is that something that would need an argument to bolster it?
Great point about morality, Leighton. One of the effects of the morality that Curtis seems to advocate is an externalizing of those moral impulses. At least some Christians needed a verse to tell them that slavery was wrong. Absent one, they were able to defend and embrace it.
Excellent post, Leighton. Regarding morality, I for one am glad our society has "evolved" beyond those dominated by religion in centuries and millennia past. Thanks to humanism and modern religious influences we're beyond the brutal "morals" of days gone by.
I'm somewhat baffled by the way people's faith is so threatened by evolution. Historically religion has fought tooth and nail against any science that challenged church dogma. It looks embarrassing now but intelligent, educated men and women were convinced that the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth, the male ejaculate contained all that was necessary for life and the woman was simply an incubator. The religious powers of the time killed people over protecting these ideas. It's great to question things that challenge our assumptions or beliefs, but the total dismissal of scientific assertions is just irrational, in my opinion. There's an incredible amount of cherry-picking going on. Shoot me up with the genetically engineered vaccine or antibiotic, but don't bring up your evolution.
Later- BB
If evolution is true, then humans would have had to evolve a sense of morality, which is actually only a chemical process in the brain. I suppose humans also had to evolve a chemical process that would cause us to think that life, the universe, etc. has meaning and purpose, since most of us think it does. And this evolution of chemicals in our brains is supposed to be an adequate reason for us to care about our survival? I don't think so.
Ok then. Nice avoidance of Leighton's (and the rest of us) critique of your comments.
Like I said, this gets pretty boring. Fundies think evolution is some kind of hoodoo and people who study science think otherwise. Some Fundies have been taught that all evolutionists are amoral murderous aborting gay flag burners and that the very idea of a Christian who accepts evolution is, well, like a Christian voting for a Democrat.
I guess I am asking what else you have here. Saying that those of us who believe in evolution can have no morality is boring and stupid. Especially in the comment thread on a post where Christians who pronounce morality as an absolute given from God endorse torture.
If that is all, perhaps time to move on.
The point is, and this was meant to be my original point, you evolutionists can't live consistantly within your own philosophy. There is not one thing in evolutionary thought that gives any meaning to life, or gives a basis for any sort of morality. You have to borrow that from theism, or maybe somewhere else because evolutionary theory does not provide it. Yet you insist that evolution is true even as you deny what it teaches.
If evolution is true, then humans would have had to evolve a sense of morality,
Wrong again. Morals were around before humans came about; research on primate populations (I'll dig up links if you care, which I somehow doubt you do, though Jane Goodall's works are a good start) has demonstrated that concepts of fairness and equality don't require human levels of abstract thought.
And this evolution of chemicals in our brains is supposed to be an adequate reason for us to care about our survival?
I don't think you're clear on what you're saying. Pursuit of survival happens at a different level of processing than reason--most people most of the time don't need justification not to walk into traffic. It's not because someone sat down and argued from first principles that life is worth living; it's because their hindbrain tells them "Hey, don't do that."
Maybe really desperately bored Christians whose lives are deeply unfulfilling might need such a reason, but most Christians and most people seem not to need much convincing that life is a good thing, or at least that good things can be done in life, and that it is worth the effort.
The point is, and this was meant to be my original point, you evolutionists can't live consistantly within your own philosophy.
Okay, let me unpack an assumption you've smuggled in here. Why is hypocrisy the worst possible sin? I'm more impressed with the character and integrity of the goofy philosophy major and Nietzsche fan I knew in grad school, who believed he could do anything he liked, but was still a kind and gentle person, than I am with Christians like James Dobson who believe child abuse is just dandy and live according to their principles. C.S. Lewis once remarked that he would rather play poker with an atheist bred to believe that gentlemen don't cheat than with a Christian who constantly proclaims the grace of Jesus to cover all sins.
Surely it's best to live (1) ethically and (2) consistently with one's principles, but if you have to choose one or the other, isn't the first the best choice?
There is not one thing in evolutionary thought that gives any meaning to life, or gives a basis for any sort of morality.
You're right here, and it doesn't pretend to. There's nothing in biology or chemistry or physics that tells people how they ought to behave. Evolution doesn't say we should treat each other badly, or act like predators, any more than Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism tell us we should shock each other with tasers. It doesn't say there's meaning or no meaning in life. That's outside the scope of science, which you would know if you read any science from sources other than the professional liars who call themselves apologists.
Leighton,
If humans evolved from "lower" life forms, "molecules to man" as it were, then EVERYTHING about humans, including what we think and feel and value and believe also evolved by purely naturalistic, purposeless, random, meaningless processes. There is no reason why it happened. It's an accident.
Your instinct not to play in the traffic evolved just like your fingers and toes did. What you call "morals" is nothing but a biological instinct. But it has no meaning or purpose since the universe and the process of evolution has none.
Your belief that life has meaning and can be worth the effort is also only a biological instict. A chemical/electrical process in your brain. Nothing else. It can't mean anything because the universe doesn't mean anything. There is no evidence that your life matters or that it matters how you treat others. You might think it does, but again, its only a biological instict. You're an animal. A machine. You have no meaning. You're a biological accident. Purposeless, random mutations, remember?
Still boring, btw. Perhaps turning the question around might make it less so.
Why then, do so many people who get their moral meaning from God almighty, have such difficulty with the moral questions of racism, sexism, torture, etc.? Why do people who believe that God reached down and created the universe from hand have such little concern about its destruction? Why do people who believe that human dignity comes directly from God have such little problem with bombing women and children--or hooking up random people to electric shock or pouring water down their nose?
If humans evolved from "lower" life forms
No, no, no. "Higher" and "lower" is a meaningless and arbitrary classification imposed by the natural philosophers of Milton's day. Remember the Great Chain of Being? That's been out of fashion in science for, oh, 150 years or so.
then EVERYTHING about humans, including what we think and feel and value and believe also evolved by purely naturalistic, purposeless, random, meaningless processes.
Oh, you are a tedious one, aren't you? Thoughts and values and beliefs are normed by conscious, deliberate actions on the part of humans. Seems like there's intent there to me.
Your instinct not to play in the traffic evolved just like your fingers and toes did.
Right--because there has been sufficient time since Ford's invention of the automobile for genetic selection of traffic-runners and non-traffic runners. It has absolutely nothing to do with parents teaching their children to avoid dangers. Clearly.
What you call "morals" is nothing but a biological instinct.
Wrong yet again. Instinct is only one component of morality, or hadn't you noticed? Thanks to the power of imagination and reason, people are able to predict the long-term, broad-scale effects of their action and plan (or at least try to plan) the ethically optimal consequences of actions on a worldwide scale. The instinct of empathy tends to work better at close range and face-to-face.
Your belief that life has meaning and can be worth the effort is also only a biological instict.
I'm starting to wonder if you know what the word "instinct" means. It's not a cognitive phenomenon. No belief is instinct, though some instincts do give rise to verbalized beliefs.
There is no evidence that your life matters or that it matters how you treat others.
Every interaction we have with ourselves and other people is evidence that how we treat each other matters. We see the consequences of love and anger and boredom, usually first-hand. If you can see that, if you can interact with the people in you live with and work with and decide that's not good enough to believe there's a point to living, that says more about you than it does about the universe.
You're an animal.
Yep! So are you, by the way. Or do you turn down medicines that have been tested on other mammals on the grounds that you're a different kind than those filthy nothings?
A machine.
An arguably nondeterministic machine. You haven't studied computer science, either, if you think this is an insult.
You're a biological accident.
Good guess! My parents actually were trying for my little brother, but I was just in a hurry. Bad timing on my part (not that I could help it), but they worked it out in the end.
Purposeless, random mutations, remember?
Yep, and natural selection, and sexual selection, and genetic drift, and extinctions and migrations and all sorts of other selection factors, some of which we may not have even modeled yet. Isn't it great? :)
Streak,
I don't personally know anyone who wants to destroy the earth. Neither do I know anyone capable of destroying it.
You might ask a Muslim why they have no problem bombing women and children.
I have seen no evidence the U.S. is picking people at random to be tortured. If you object to all "torture" then you are placing a greater value on the comfort of people involved in terrorism than you are on those people who they are planning to kill. I think the lives of women and children are more important than whether a terrorist is waterboarded. Now that does not mean that I like waterboarding people, even if they are bad people. But if waterboarding a terrorist can save someone's life, I don't object.
Okie dokie. Most conservative evangelicals oppose any environmental protection (though that is slowly changing) even as they assert creationism as their model.
I am not sure why you would measure a Christian's moral stance by a terrorist. As long as you are better than someone willing to blow up women and children, then you don't have to answer the question?
The evidence is pretty clear that our government allowed, encouraged, and even sent people to "gitmoize" Abu Ghraib where individuals who were not terrorists, but lived in the wrong house, or ended up in the wrong place were abused and tortured. In some cases, by self-professing Christians. And the President, who claims to be born again, and also claims that his morality comes directly from God--approved these actions and would do it again.
But as long as it will save lives. That isn't moral relativism at all.
Leighton,
I agree. "Higher" and "lower" are meaningless distinctions in evolution since evolution makes no distinctions. How could it, since it has no intelligence, no meaning, and no purpose?
Have you noticed that we are using terms like "meaning", "distinctions", "purpose", "morality", etc.? All of those terms point clearly to the fact that evolution is fiction since evolution is nothing but chance. And what is chance? Nothing. Chance is nothing. How can nothing do anything? How can nothing form a universe, cause life to arise and evolve? Create in biological beings rational thought, morality, and purpose? Of course it can't. Yet that is exactly what you evolutionists believe happened. Amazing.
Bored now.
Sorry, dude, if all you're going to do is tell people what they believe and make up new, previously unused definitions to words, I've got some overdue visa applications to process. Have a fun life.
I am with Leighton (who inspires me to be smarter, btw).
Nothing to see here. Move on. These are not the droids you seek. Move on to a blog where fundy thought is THE thought.
Wait! Wait! What am I going to read??? (/snark)
Evolution says that the universe came into existance by chance and that life evolved by chance and with no design or purpose.
Ummm...isn't this a complete misunderstanding of evolution? Genetic mutations may be random, but there's nothing random about the process of natural selection.
Just sayin'.
Whew, based on that last riff I'm thinking Curtis has some serious munchies now.
Later-BB
I have the munchies, too. How random. Whoah.
Two thoughts --
"These men are nihilists, Donnie, there's nothing to be afraid of here."
and
"You're out of your element, Donnie."
Sarah,
Why isn't natural selection random?
Sigh
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