Much can be said in the creation vs. evolution debate but what can be said about the dispute itself? The creationist movement is Darwin’s illegitimate child. The father doesn’t want to know his child and the child hate its father for rejecting it. Before Darwin there was no such thing as a creationist movement. Science worked under the watchful, and sometimes vengeful, eye of the church. The church answered questions that science was not allowed to ask, among them were those of origin (cosmological) and those of the soul (who and what am I?). The latter intrinsically linked with the former. But throughout history there have been those who were not satisfied with the narrow confines that had been imposed on science and demanded access to the domain reserved for pious dogmatic philosophy.
There have been theologians such as Luther who questioned the church as source of historical truth, stating that historic evidence has primacy over dogma (I know this statement need modification). In more ancient time church fathers who were philosophically inclined questioned dogma as the foundation for morality stating that that is good is good in itself and not because an external agent (God) says it is good. We also have those famous men in natural science, such as Galileo. Darwin and Freud, who dared to take scientific enquiry into the domains of dogma. The result has always been the same anathema. Al of these men have been accused not only of blasphemy but of moral depravity, carnal motives and lies.
My thought about the creation vs. evolution debate is that it is not a matter of different interpretations of data because it never has been and never can be a question of facts. But it is, and will always be, a question of authority. Religion need and craves for a tangible basis for its claims. That base is the privilege of solely have possession of an answer to; why man is and what man is.
Modern biology just as astronomy and psychology offers answers to that question. They offer answers, though not in the all comprehensive way religion does, that aren’t outside the sphere of religion. Religion is thus threatened at its power base, it is no longer the sole player in the arena, and it can’t lay claims on explaining man’s place in the universe without bumping into science.
When one surveys the creationist camp the core arguments that are lashed against ToE are not about certain facts in nature but about theology. If mere facts were at stake the score would have been settled in the laboratory and not in court. Why does defenders of creationism otherwise go to great length in expounding the moral implication of Darwinism? Why does creationist proponents otherwise make a big fuss over “the methodological atheism” in science. And why, oh why, would creationists otherwise insist that their “theory” should be taught in school even when it is a field without research, without academic support and without a program apart from the idea of creation/design being taught?
So the thing I’d like to ventilate is “why all this fuss?”. Why are people so upset and religious leaders so zealous in this matter? In short, reflections upon the motives behind the creationist movement.
Edited by jerker77, : No reason given.
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