ID and the bias inherent in human nature

Hi Limbo,In Message 65 Zyncod wrote: This is worth expanding upon. Many Creationists believe evolutionists are opposed to religion and so have adopted evolution as a sort of alternative religion. Its is easy to see how Creationists reach this conclusion. After all, evolution implies a different version of creation than the Bible, and they can't both be true, so you must choose one or the other. Anyone choosing evolution must be rejecting the Bible, rejecting God, and worshipping evolution, which is why you said this: Except that science isn't atheistic. Just like plumbing, accounting and county fairs, science takes no position one way or the other on God.The actual situation of God and scientists isn't anything as simple as Creationists like to believe. More scientists than not believe in God. Many believe in the Christian God. Where they differ from Creationists is not in their belief in God or in the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but in their rejection of the Bible as a literally inerrant account of events. It isn't God or religion that scientists reject but a literally inerrant Bible.Like Jar and some other evolutionists here, I believe in a God who created existence. What I don't believe is that the Bible is an accurate account of how God created. I believe Genesis records one of the Middle East's early creation stories.It is for this reason that evolutionists like Jar and myself and others have no emotional investment in evolution. We try as much as possible to be "follow-the-evidence-where-it-leads"-ists. If evolution turns out to be wrong, all it means is that we've improperly followed the evidence. It would carry no more significance than taking a wrong turn while on a trip. In other words, if evolution is shown to be wrong it wouldn't affect our religious beliefs at all. We'd still think of Genesis as a creation myth of a pre-scientific people.This is in stark contrast to Creationists. If Creationism is proved wrong, then it means Creationist religious beliefs are wrong. Creationists have an enormous emotional stake in this debate, and so they're able to justify almost any means of countering what they perceive as a threat to faith. Science deals with the world of the senses, the spirtual deals with the world of God and the soul. They are two different realms, and outside of Creationism, they are not mutually exclusive.--Percy

All science is doing is the best that can be done to write a current creation myth.Science has shown that some other creation myths are wrong that is all.Those few who worship a creation myth have a conflict with that. If you wish to side with those you are doing your best to cause rejection of this creationmythist religion. If you do that don't start whining about the results.

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I am a Creationist and also know for a fact that Evolution happened.

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Then you are a Theist-evolutionist, not a Darwinian. You are not a naturalist, because you admit a supernatural cause to evolution. Right? Life has a cause, a purpose in your worldview, right?So why does it seem as if you are in the Darwin camp?This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-17-2005 04:50 PM

Life has a cause under any of the scenarios. Something caused life to start. We don't know how that happened yet, that is what the study of abiogenesis is all about. It will most likely though turn out to be entirely normal and natural.Purpose is something else entirely. I might have a purpose but to say life has a purpose is IMHO pretty silly. You keep bringing that up like it has some meaning. Perhaps one day you'll explain what you mean.If you mean do I subscribe to the Theory of Evolution, random mutations when filtered through Natural Selection, then of course that's where I stand. Right now there are no other theories that even begin to explain the fact of evolution.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Except that science isn't atheistic. Just like plumbing, accounting and county fairs, science takes no position one way or the other on God.

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Its like you seek to disembody the ideals of science, let them rise above the mere mortal men and women who collectively make up the scientific community.Religion did that.The problem was, mortals dont live up to them. They pull them down.

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Like Jar and some other evolutionists here, I believe in a God who created existence. What I don't believe is that the Bible is an accurate account of how God created. I believe Genesis records one of the Middle East's early creation stories.

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Well then we have something in common.

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Science deals with the world of the senses, the spirtual deals with the world of God and the soul.

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This is one of the disembodied ideals scientists try to live up to, but fail.

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I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive of religious belief, and I’m all for that! One of the things that in fact has driven me in my life, is the feeling that this is one of the great social functions of science to free people from superstition. Lest there be any doubt about what Steven Weinberg here means by superstition, he adds, this progression of priests and ministers and rabbis and ulamas and imams and bonzes and bodhisattvas will come to an end, that we’ll see no more of them. I hope that this is something to which science can contribute and if it is, then I think it may be the most important contribution that we can make. [Weinberg, a Nobel laureate physicist, is well-known as an ardent evolutionist. He has debated Phillip Johnson on a number of occasions on this topic. Note that the demise of religion is for Weinberg the most important contribution of science.]
Steven Weinberg, Free People from Superstition, 2000

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When a scientist says something like this, they destroy the ideals science is supposed to live up to.

Jar, I believe that the Darwinian camp has no real grip on its philosophy, has no consistant basis for their belief, and upon examination the reasoning for thier worldview falls apart or becomes inconsistant with anyone who is not a strick philosophical naturalist or atheist. The only thing binding them together is hatred of religion.I can see many people whose worldview is ultimetly inconsistant with naturalism/materialism/Darwinism, such as yourself, yet they support the status quo.They join the Darwin camp not because of shared belief, but because of their common enemy: organized American religion.This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-17-2005 05:22 PMThis message has been edited by Limbo, 05-17-2005 05:24 PM

Sorry, this makes no sense to me. I can't figure out what you're trying to say. Can you clarify? Again, I can't make sense of this. How is dealing with the evidence of the senses a "disembodied ideal" that "scientists try to live up to, but fail." Sounds like you have a beef with Weinberg.--Percy

Sheer nonsense.Never has so little been said in so many words.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Don't you think you're overgeneralizing? Scientists are a varied group. Some are religious, some aren't. Some are anti-religion, most aren't. Attitudes about religion are so varied among scientists that it couldn't possibly serve as any unifying force. What scientists hold in common is the view that the universe is comprehensible through observation, study and analysis. --Percy

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Don't you think you're overgeneralizing? Scientists are a varied group. Some are religious, some aren't.

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If scientists are a varied group, then let them take varied approaches. When science takes one approach, and evicts other approaches, science speaks with ONE voice. I dont see why this is so hard for you to understand.Want science to speak with more than one voice? So do I. ID is that other voice.

I think most evolutionary biologists, like myself, are quite dispassionate about religion. It really doesn't enter into the equation of how we go about testing what is a good explanation of life processes and what isn't. Many are actually Christians that view evolution as God's mechanism of creation.I would contend it is the other way round. The only thing binding creationists together IS their religion. So what if its wrong? They don't have a scientific method, or any analogous mechanism to collect or evaluate evidence. They only have 'faith'. Isn't there a chance they are wrong ?

They do. That is one of the big reasons we have been able to work out common descent. It began long before Darwin and was based on similarities. Darwin provided a proposed method of how those similarities came about. Later geologists, biologists, physicists, geneticists, paleobiologists, paleontologists each using varied approaches found that the evidence supported common descent. Before ID can speak it must find something to say. So far that has not happened.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

"I think most evolutionary biologists, like myself, are quite dispassionate about religion"174 thoughtful posts (in one month) like yours seems extremely passionate, albeit, toward the ToE. (And yet (curiously) all the mega-ToE out there seems really just another religion to lean on)Granted, I am extremely emotional and heated up, too (like yourself).
That is to say, I'm not the only one in denial.Again, that your religious faith is tied strongly to empirical events still seems like passionate religion to me.And what difference is there really between the physical and metaphysical. You have an evolutionary handle on matter and energy, quantum realities, etc? Are not quantum realities practically metaphysical?What say you?

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I think most evolutionary biologists, like myself, are quite dispassionate about religion. It really doesn't enter into the equation of how we go about testing what is a good explanation of life processes and what isn't. Many are actually Christians that view evolution as God's mechanism of creation.

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I would contend it is the other way round. The only thing binding creationists together IS their religion. So what if its wrong? They don't have a scientific method, or any analogous mechanism to collect or evaluate evidence. They only have 'faith'. Isn't there a chance they are wrong ?

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You seem to think that the public should share your insider perspective on mainstream science. I hope someday you will realize how unreasonable this expectation is.For instance, do you share an insider perspective on being a celebrity? Or do you share the publics perspective on hollywood? Do you have an insider perspective on what it means to be an officer in the military? Or do you share the publics perspective on the military?If you asked military officers about a military issue, you would get varied opinions, I'm sure. Yet the military acts as one from the public perspective, and they speak with one, united voice to the public. In this reguard its the same with science.And I would like to apoligize for using this phrase: "The only thing binding them together is hatred of religion."What I should have said was, "The only thing binding them together is a shared political agenda."This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-17-2005 07:31 PM

--Percy