On his blog View from the Right (added to blogroll), conservative Christian blogger Larry Auster summarises his views about evolution. Auster’s views and my own evolved independently, but on the following five points our views converge.
The truly scientific position (i.e. the honest recognition of the difference between what we know and what we don’t know) is that we DO NOT KNOW how new life forms came into existence. We know that various forms preceded or succeeded others, but we do not know how new forms came into being. It is a mystery.
Many Darwinians (not all) believe in Darwinian theory, not because they have any real interest in or knowledge of it, but because it abolishes God and validates a view of man as wholly material and a form of society based on nothing but supplying the material needs of man.
Their belief is correct. It is indeed the case that Darwinism precludes God from playing any role in the evolution of life (as well as any role in the conduct of human affairs). Despite the many people who want to believe in both Darwinism and in a divine ordering of life and the universe, they are mutually exclusive principles, as I have demonstrated repeatedly. See this discussion about whether God and Darwin are compatible. And here is a more concise statement by me on the question of whether God’s direction of evolution can be reconciled with Darwinian randomness:
From “The never-ending Darwinian two-step”:
I dealt with this as far as I was able in a recent blog entry. This “stochastic” idea is apparently that God could plant all the apparently random mutations in the mix which would still lead to fish and spiders and birds and chimpanzees. And I repeat, if the “randomness” was created by an intelligence to have certain results, then the process is not random, even if it appears random to us.
This idea is exceptionally hard for people to get, for two reasons: one, because it is so simple; and two, because they want so strongly to believe both in God and in Darwinism, and this idea precludes that. If the mutations occur randomly, then there’s no intelligent purpose behind them. If there is an intelligent purpose behind the mutations, then they are not random. Any definition of randomness that is used to get around this fundamental logical contradiction is not honest in my opinion.
If the explanation for the origin of species is either Darwinism or some intelligent purpose and direction, and if Darwinism and intelligent purpose are mutually exclusive, and if Darwinism is not and cannot be the explanation of the origin of species, then the origin of species must proceed from intelligent purpose, a divine intelligence of some kind.
The last point is an inescapable logical inference. It is not a scientific theory, it does not offer a how of evolution. It simply recognizes that given the impossibility that life and new species originated from random material events, the origin of life and the origin of species must come from a “higher” source, which remains beyond our ken. This insight means the acceptance of mystery, something that human intelligence is not able to penetrate.
There is a certain type of argument which, in fact, is not an argument, but a means of forestalling debate and extorting an opponent’s agreement with one’s undiscussed notions. It is a method of bypassing logic by means of psychological pressure. It consists of threatening to impeach an opponent’s character by means of his position, thus impeaching the position without debate. Example: “Anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn’t deserve what he got needs to have their head examined.” The falsehood of the position is asserted arbitrarily and offered as proof of the opponent’s immorality.
In today’s epistemological jungle, this method is used more frequently than any other type of irrational argument. It should be classified as a logical fallacy and may be designated as “The Argument from Intimidation.”
The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: “Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, deluded, etc.) can hold such an idea.”
You can read the whole thing (minus “Goblian interpolations”) here. But I’ve given you the gist of it.
I’m currently reading The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins. I’ve just finished reading Chapter One and, so far, Dawkins has not presented one jot of evidence. Not even a skerrick. In lieu of evidence, Dawkins commits the logical fallacy that Rand identified and dubbed the Argument from Intimidation. Not just once, but … umpteen times.
First, though, to warm up, Dawkins likens creationists to Holocaust-deniers …
Imagine you are a teacher of more recent history, and your lessons on twentieth-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organized, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers. … Holocaust-deniers … are vocal, superficially plausible, and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to ‘teach the controversy’, and to give ‘equal time’ to the ‘alternative theory’ that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators. Fashionably relativist intellectuals chime in to insist that there is no absolute truth: whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of personal belief; all points of view are equally valid and should be equally ‘respected’.
The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context – which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents, and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word ‘evolution’ systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into ‘change over time’. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom – abetted by the official commitment to ‘multiculturalism’ and the terror of being thought racist.
… and blames Muslims, multiculturalists and their pusillanimous appeasers for resistance to his ideas in the classroom.
Next, Dawkins ingratiates himself with the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, “senior clergy,” other “educated priests and professors of theology” and “thoughtful and rational churchmen and women” all of whom tout the luke-warm liberal doctrine of theistic evolution and supposedly agree with Dawkins that
Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.
Dawkins reproduces an open letter to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, jointly penned by himself and the then Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries.
Dear Prime Minister,
We write as a group of scientists and Bishops to express our concern about the teaching of science in the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead. Evolution is a scientific theory of great explanatory power, able to account for a wide range of phenomena in a number of disciplines. It can be refined, confirmed and even radically altered by attention to evidence. It is not, as spokesmen for the college maintain, a ‘faith position’ in the same category as the biblical account of creation which has a different function and purpose. The issue goes wider than what is currently being taught in one college. There is a growing anxiety about what will be taught and how it will be taught in the new generation of proposed faith schools. We believe that the curricula in such schools, as well as that of Emmanuel City Technology College, need to be strictly monitored in order that the respective disciplines of science and religious studies are properly respected.
Yours sincerely
The Rt Revd Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford; Sir David Attenborough FRS; The Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans; Lord May of Oxford, President of the Royal Society;Professor John Enderby FRS, Physical Secretary, Royal Society; The Rt Revd John Oliver, Bishop of Hereford; The Rt Revd Mark Santer, Bishop of Birmingham; Sir Neil Chalmers, Director, Natural History Museum; The Rt Revd Thomas Butler, Bishop of Southwark; Sir Martin Rees FRS, Astronomer Royal; The Rt Revd Kenneth Stevenson, Bishop of Portsmouth; Professor Patrick Bateson FRS, Biological Secretary, Royal Society; The Rt Revd Crispian Hollis, Roman Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth; Sir Richard Southwood FRS; Sir Francis Graham-Smith FRS, Past Physical Secretary, Royal Society; Professor Richard Dawkins FRS
Note how the authors, chillingly, want school curricula to be “strictly monitored” for conformance to doctrines approved by Dawkins.
Here are some further excerpts from the remainder of Chapter One. I’ve bolded some words to identify the numerous occasions on which Dawkins resorts to Rand’s Argument from Intimidation and his also numerous (and as yet unargued for) assertions that evolution is a fact.
Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.
More than 40 per cent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we – and by implication all of life – were created by God within the last 10,000 years. … I shall be using the name ‘history-deniers‘ for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs. … they constitute more than 40 per cent of the American population. … I shall from time to time refer to the history-deniers as the ‘40-percenters‘.
To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely ‘symbolic’ meaning, perhaps something to do with ‘original sin’, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused.
Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. … Shouldn’t you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay? Lest ye fall into condemnation …
The history-deniers themselves are among those that I am trying to reach in this book. But, perhaps more importantly, I aspire to arm those who are not history-deniers but know some – perhaps members of their own family or church – and find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case.
Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. …Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it. Why, then, do we speak of ‘Darwin’s theory of evolution’, thereby, it seems, giving spurious comfort to those of a creationist persuasion – the history-deniers, the 40-percenters – who think the word ‘theory’ is a concession, handing them some kind of gift or victory?
Even the undisputed theory that the moon is smaller than the sun cannot, to the satisfaction of a certain kind of philosopher, be proved … But massive accretions of evidence support it so strongly that to deny it the status of ‘fact’ seems ridiculous to all but pedants. The same is true of evolution.
A scientific theorum has not been – cannot be – proved in the way a mathematical theorem is proved. But common sense treats it as a fact in the same sense as the ‘theory’ that the Earth is round and not flat is a fact, and the theory that green plants obtain energy from the sun is a fact. All are scientific theorums: supported by massive quantities of evidence, accepted by all informed observers, undisputed facts in the ordinary sense of the word.
This book will take inference seriously – not mere inference but proper scientific inference – and I shall show the irrefragable power of the inference that evolution is a fact.
The slow drifting apart of South America and Africa is now an established fact in the ordinary language sense of ‘fact’, and so is our common ancestry with porcupines and pomegranates.
Our present beliefs about many things may be disproved, but we can with complete confidence make a list of certain facts that will never be disproved. Evolution and the heliocentric theory weren’t always among them, but they are now.
Biologists often make a distinction between the fact of evolution (all living things are cousins), and the theory of what drives it (they usually mean natural selection, and they may contrast it with rival theories such as Lamarck’s theory of ‘use and disuse’ and the ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics’). But Darwin himself thought of both as theories in the tentative, hypothetical, conjectural sense. This was because, in those days, the available evidence was less compelling and it was still possible for reputable scientists to dispute both evolution and natural selection. Nowadays it is no longer possible to dispute the fact of evolution itself – it has graduated to become a theorum or obviously supported fact – but it could still (just) be doubted that natural selection is its major driving force.
By the time Darwin came to publish On the Origin of Species in 1859, he had amassed enough evidence to propel evolution itself, though still not natural selection, a long way towards the status of fact. Indeed, it was this elevation from hypothesis towards fact that occupied Darwin for most of his great book. The elevation has continued until, today, there is no longer a doubt in any serious mind, and scientists speak, at least informally, of the fact of evolution. All reputable biologists go on to agree that natural selection is one of its most important driving forces, although – as some biologists insist more than others – not the only one. Even if it is not the only one, I have yet to meet a serious biologist who can point to an alternative to natural selection as a driving force of adaptive evolution – evolution towards positive improvement.
In the rest of this book, I shall demonstrate that evolution is an inescapable fact, and celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past.
I’m now half of the way through Chapter Two. It’s a big improvement on Chapter One, but there’s still no evidence for evolution in sight … stay tuned.
In his earlier book, The Ancestor’s Tale (2004), Dawkins traced human ancestry back to the dawn of life. Cool story, bro, but where’s the evidence? To answer the question, Dawkins wrote The Greatest Show on Earth. The book is subtitled The Evidence for Evolution and that’s why I’m reading it.
So far I’ve read only the first paragraph of the Preface, and it’s not off to a good start.
THE evidence for evolution grows by the day, and has never been stronger. At the same time, paradoxically, ill-informed opposition is also stronger than I can remember. This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the ‘theory’ of evolution is actually a fact – as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.
FAIL.
In order for a theory to even be counted as a scientific theory it must be controvertible, i.e., falsifiable. If it’s not falsifiable, then it’s not scientific. An incontrovertible theory is not a scientific theory. It is pseudo-scientific hocus pocus. So say I – a good Popperian.
I’ll report back on the rest of the book when I’ve read it.
Meanwhile, philosopher Thomas Nagel has a new book out. It’s called Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Worth a look inside! Here’s Amazon’s book description.
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology.
Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such.
Nagel’s skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.
In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Pompous and self-deluded Atheists…of various degree.
John Cleese, Penn Jillette, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, (above) Frederick Nietzsche, (below) George Carlin,, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage, Michio Kaku
(I exclude Carl Sagan…. as though he was an evolutionist he was an honest Agnostic not an atheist)
Without wasting too much precious time, I wish to hack off another limb from the Mythical Atheist Beast.
It is connected to that absurd delusion that reason and science are the preserve of Atheism…
Many Atheists rationalize that the theistic mind is given wholly over to Superstition and Mysticism, and as such opposes Naturalistic explanations and scientific progress. They love to quote the common interpretation of Galileo’s conflict with the Roman Catholic church re The Heliocentric model of the Solar system as being typical of The Religious mentality, and other such gems as ‘American Farmers superstitious attitude towards Jefferson’s scientifically designed Steel plow replacing the wooden Old world style plow ‘proposing the steel ‘would poison the soil’.
It is via such arguments that Atheists sit smugly in their assumed intellectual and rational superiority, and further argue that with the advance of Naturalistic science God himself will be increasingly squeezed out of existence… there being nothing left for him and his hocus pocus to do.
Now I of course understand that superstition and myth has always been a problem for mankind and that it does thrive in ignorance, yet I would argue that Atheists are not immune to either.
I suggest that atheism is itself a form of Anti-scientific superstitious Ignorance!
Yet let me show you that contrary to the Atheist assertion that Theists are quick to accept Superstitious explanations for phenomena , that Judeo-Christian theism has always maintained strong opposition to superstition, and condemned it, and that The Judeo-Christian cosmology embraces the idea that the Natural realm obeys Natural Laws.
First of all The Book of Genesis states that after the six days in which God had restored the Universe to order and created Man, that on the seventh day he rested from his work.
…and yet the Universe continued to function!
This shows that not only is God distinct from the universe, but also that it does not require any ‘work’ from God to function. Ie He has set it up so that it maintains itself and operates independently.
Thus while Egyptian and Maori myths may say that The Sun rises and sets according to the ‘work’ of deities and spirit beings, the bible does not say this.
The Bible says The Universe operates according to the Order of God’s design.
It was in appreciation of this Divine order that Einstein said that the Natural Laws inspire Awe and reveal super intelligent design.
“God is a Geometer”. “God forever arithematises” saith other Mathematicians.
Now let’s see how the Bible disproves the Atheists idea that Biblical theism corrodes the mind and renders a believer susceptible to superstition and mysticism by looking at biblical accounts and personalities.
Let’s consider the Birth of Isaac, which was a Divine intervention into the Natural order.
Now The Book of Genesis lays out the strict Natural Laws of Kinds… Humans give birth to Humans, fish to fish, Sheep to sheep, etc.
Furthermore in 2000 BC, it was understood by Experience that a woman’s natural ability to bear children was limited to her youth.
This was Natural.
And so when Abraham told his aged wife Sarah that God was going to ‘open her womb’ and that she was going to bear him a son… she did not automatically… superstitiously believe Abraham.
Instead she laughed! (Isaac means Laughter)
This is because she knew that ‘Naturally speaking’ she was too old to have children, and that though she believed in God, still she did not expect ‘Divine intervention’ to step in and alter the natural order of things.
Yet She did fall pregnant, and History was forever altered.
This shows that Sarah’s Naturalistic rationale, though understandable was wrong!
That God can and does intervene in the natural order when it suits his purposes to do so.
This is what miracles are.
Rare and exceptional interventions.
What is important to appreciate in this historic account is that Sarah displayed what we today might call ‘a healthy skepticism’ towards miraculous interventions of the Natural Order.
This attitude explodes the atheist notion that Theists are Brain dead morons given to swallow suppositious and mystical ideas and fables.
We find this same attitude… a resistance to accept supernatural explanations… in the events that surround the incarnation. When Righteous Joseph discovers his espoused Woman Mary is Pregnant with Christ, Knowing how woman get Pregnant he naturally assumes she has had sex with someone else and was thinking about ditching her.
It was only when he is visited by an angel whom explains Mary’s miraculous condition that he accepts Mary has been faithful and that the Child she is carrying is very special.
Again this account shows that the Jewish Theistic mind does not leap to supernatural …’Superstitious’ conclusions.
When Miracles do occur Theists can be very stubborn and slow to accept them.
When The woman returned from Christ’s tomb declaring he had Risen from the dead the response of the Disciples is a natural incredulity, not belief.
They check the tomb themselves, and discuss it as a mystery. Thomas Refuses to believe it point blank…unless he puts his fingers in Christ’s nail holes!
Christ Obliged him.
The Miracle of the resurrection changed World history. The Disciples of Christ, and the Apostle Paul were willing to die for the testimony that Christ really did rise from the Dead.
This was not something they herd.
This was not an ideological ‘faith’.
It was something they witnessed as really happening!
A real time event… an Extra-ordinary Empirical Fact!
The reality is Miracles only have the power to amaze if the person recognizes them as deviations from the normal nature.
The miracles of Christ we see this truth.
Ie whenever Christ performs a miracle it creates a sensation!
People are well aware something unusual has occurred.
That is why Miracles are considered ‘Signs and wonders’ because they violate what is known to be the understood Natural Order of Things!
The Narrow Atheist mindset is a throwback from the ignorant past when Materialists assumed the Universe was Eternal. Though this cosmology has been overthrown, Atheists have clung to their superstitions, and would still have you think that The Natural order is absolute, and thus to believe in a supernatural realm is to be utterly deceived, yet the reality is That The natural order is a temporal, and finite, and dependent orderly system, which exists within a greater Super-natural/ primary reality… ie It is within the bounds of modern science to say that there was ‘a time’ when this universe did not exist, and neither did the Laws of physics as we know them.
True Science has caught up with the Bible!
The Universe is a created thing, and there is no good reason to say that super-natural events can not or have not ever taken place within the universe.
Statements such as ‘Miracles never happen’ are articles of blind faith… an unsubstantiated dogma which contradicts some of the Greatest milestones of recorded History.
To maintain this they enter into far fetched and convoluted attempts to explain away these recorded miraculous events of history like the celebration of the Passover, or the disciples belief in the Resurrection of Christ… in Naturalistic terms… eg they conjecture that Christ faked his death… or that his body was stolen… and one of their chestnuts they like to employ is thir delusion that ‘primitive theistic minds’ were ignorant of nature, and thus quick to accredit mystical causes for things they experienced.
Yet as my post has shown. Jews living 2 millennia ago were not ignorant of the natural order, nor were they quick to claim miracles or other supernatural explanations for things.
Thus the Atheist notions that theism necessarily corrupts the mind is proven false… It is their arse which is hanging out in the breeze!
Isaac Newton.
Their delusion is also exposed by the reality that most of the greatest scientific Minds have been also men of Religious faith.
Science owes a great debt to Theists.
Thus it is the atheist whom is found to be self-deluded and irrational with their false dichotomies between Religion and science, between Faith and Reason.
I have encountered several times the Delusion of atheists that men of faith like myself are incapable of understanding how the Natural world functions and so have expressed that they would not trust in my capacity as an engineer!
Again Reality shows up just how Pompous these atheist delusions are.
My religious faith makes me a better Engineer than many of my contemporaries, not because I am more intelligent, but because it imposes ethical standards of behavior.
God is not the Author of confusion.
I aspire to emulate his Reason, and Purpose, and Art.
In environments of Laxity and poor work culture, my Christian Ethics drive me to resist the flow of apathy and maintain High Order discipline and Methodology even when I am Tired, or angry, or see that nobody else gives a damn.
This results in a consistently superior quality of workmanship …Better Engineering.
Christian Ethics inspire me to do an Honest Job, to go the extra mile to provide Good value to those whom employ my service, and not to cut corners to maximize my personal profit.
Consistent adherence to these ethics helped Me out perform hundreds of others to win ‘Contractor of the year 2012’ at Fonterra Te Rapa.
As a scientist, Christian values ought to keep your integrity to objective truth, as a higher priority than serving corrupt political agendas… like Global warming, etc… resisting the urge to provide Pseudo scientific endorsements of Ideas which may Bring personal wealth and Status via, government funding and pandering to popular delusions.
“… whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men…”. (Col 3vs23)
Thus it is that not only does Theism *not render me stupid and irrational*, It actually inspires Betters Engineering, Higher standards of scientific Rigor, etc… the very opposite of what Atheists assert.
Thus it is the Atheist whom today suffers superstition. They have deluded themselves as to the Efficacy of Theistic faith in stimulating, integrity to objective truth, and superior prowess via self-discipline in the Secular arts and in reason.
We live in a secular society which has actually Banned the teaching of Creation science and Christian values in our schools, thus is their any surprise that Today Science is in Disorder?
That Scientism and Atheism dominate our centers of learning and permeate the values and ideals of our society?
Secular Science has not saved us.
Science has been corrupted by Politics, Profit, and Atheism, and Atheist Pseudo science has in turn corrpted our politics and ethics.
Materialism has ‘successfully’ exorcised Man of his God given inalienable rights and unchained the Totalitarian secular state.
Materialism has destroyed Moral absolutes and rendered all ethics to be merely culturally relitive or Evolutionarily ‘expedient’.
Every type of phobia and crackpot idea is served up to us on a scientific dish.
The result is chaos and confusion… mass supperstition and delusion!
This is what the result of Materialism has been.
Divorcing Science from Theistic ethics.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian, Libertarian, Dispensationalist, King James Bible believer.
Commenting on another post, Fellow Vigilante, Reed has posted a You tube Vid of Ray Comfort’s ‘Banana argument’ for the existence of God.
I am not sure whether he posted it in Ernest or in jest, as even though the argument has some merit, Ray’s particular version has been debunked.
(Banana’s come in various shapes and sizes)
As far as simple arguements go, I prefer the Peanut butter argument… Because in spite of ridicule from Atheists, it rests on absolutely Rock solid science, and so Atheism have no valid arguements against it.
A similar argument is that when we feel ill and go to the doctor… (even atheist doctors who claim to believe in Evolution) they never diagnose “a new life form has spontaneously generated in your Gut”…even when they cant find the cause of your illness.
In deed if you told your doctor that you were sick and believe a new life form had spontaneously generated in your body they would burst out laughing! They certainly would not give you any credence.
Why?
Because Spontaneous generation is scientifically speaking… an absurdity!
Louis Pasteur…’The Father of Micro Biology’
His Experiment.
Louis Parteurs refutation of spontaneous Generation has never been overthrown, never contravened…. And this is why any claims to a spontaneously generated disease would be considered ridiculous!
(likewise Ridicule would be forthcomming if you insisted that your jar of Peanut butter had been spoiled by a spontaniously generated organism)
Spontaneous generation is an atheistic myth… a naturalistic superstition.
Pasteur so utterly devestated the notion of spontanious generation, that it is an absolute embarrassment to the Atheist naturalist position that they have actually abandoned using the term, insist it has nothing to do with Atheism, and now talk of ‘Abiogenesis’…. HA HA HA!
Despite their protests.
Despite their claims to be applying more modern ideas…It’s the same Myth in a new Skirt!
And Pasteurs Law stll holds good against it!
*This surely ranks as one of the Greatest self delusions of our age!*
The reality is advances in Technology and general Knowledge about single cells has indeed grown immensely yet this advance has only served to magnify, not deminish the problems for naturalism because modern geneticist today stagger at the super complexity of living cells.
Modern apprehension of the complexity of the cell exposes the naivety of the early Naturalistic Naturalists whom assumed single celled life forms would prove to be quite simple… something easily imagined to be able to form by happenstance.
Thus with progress over the past century the evidence has been contradicting this hypothesis.
Today evolutionists must stagger at the complexity which must be achieved via self assembly …of even the most simple possible life form.
Geneticists have been busy paring away at the DNA from within the most simple life form they could find to determine what genes within that cell were essential for ‘life’. Dr Craig Venter and a team of Geneticists attempted to use the smallest genome they could find as a template for the construction of artificial DNA.
They However switched to a more complex genome to take advantage existing experience in transplating this type whole… and after years of effort, filled with failures, they syntetically replicated a perfect copy of that genome and placed inside the membrane of a cell which had been stripped of it’s DNA and to their great joy the cell apparently replicated itself…
His own explaination is here:
In the link above *He talks about the painstaking efforts… the perfect accuracy required…1 error in an over one million base pairs was enough to render their genome useless!
Now what must be appreciated in respect to our topic is that just achieving this much… engineering the simplest chains of Synthetic DNA, was considered a spectacular feat… a Historic Milestone of science and Technology!
And they did not create life but used a pre-existing cell ‘body’.
Contrary to what Atheists and Evolutionists claim these experiments and modern advances in genetic science make the Idea of spontaneous generation even less plausible… not more!
That Blind Natural forces are supposed to have done much more that what Dr Venter and his team of geneticists have achieved Beggars rational belief!
In deed Dr Venter has demonstrated the need for Genius and care, and purposeful manipulation to produce a technological wonder which in no way would or could form via nature or chance.
In creating and installing the Synthetic DNA into this cell Dr Venter has assumed the Role of God!
Pasteur has never been given his due.
‘Pasteur’s Law’ is absent from all biological text books… why?
Because it utterly undoes the entire edifice of Naturalistic evolution!
It is however a rock solid Law of Biology.
Mendels Law also does this and yet because they have not been able to overthrow it with ‘Darwin’s Law’… (Because the is no such thing as Darwin’s Law)… they simply ignore the real implications of Mendel’s Law and pretend that it is a mechanism for carrying successful evolutionary traits into future generations!
Thus while Medical science progresses with leaps and bounds because it does not rely on evolutionary theory, The religion of many biologists is corrupting the academic community… as ‘specialisation’/ the division of labour in scientific research and expertise means that academics in all the other disciplines accept by blind faith that Evolutionary Biology is rock solid… because they trust the biological fraternity …as experts in their own field… ie The Physicist rarely feels competent to question the publications of the Biologist… even when their claims appear to contravene the known tendencies of physics…in particular the tendency towards entropy. They assume the biologists are applying rigorous scientific method… and being Naturalists… it is assumed that Naturalists are brutality clinical and incapable of fostering let alone imposing personal prejudices onto raw data. Ie the Naturalist is automatically assumed to be of higher scientific calibre…more objective, and thus a superior interpreter of Evidence and data to that of the ‘mysticism’ which haunts the theistic mind.
Thus being of Naturalistic faith, and specialisation in the various fields of science has all worked to protect and perpetuate the myth that Evolution has scientifically validity… and that Creationism is ‘unscientific’.
This is a Joke!
Tim Wikiriwhi
King James Bible believer/ Dispensationalist/ Libertarian.
Are you Lost in Scientism?
Lies destroy our grip on reality.
The Bible tells us of a Necromancer whom raised the prophet Samuel’s Ghost.
Do you doubt this really happened? Do you assume science proves this is impossible? If so you have been decieved!
Science has proven no such thing!
You have been decieved into believing Science proves Materialism/ monism/ Naturalism!
You have been Mentally Hobbled!
If you have been conditioned to believe Reality is strictly limited to only what Empirical Science can substantiate, then you are trapped in the Straight jacket of Scientism.
If you Believe absolutely in Naturalism, No God, no Ghosts, No miracles… You are a prisoner of Scientism.
If you Believe that Material reality is the only reality… You have been Smoked by Atheist Scientism.
Scientism is form of intellectual Coffin Torture!… a closeted mentality… a short sighted blindness… a vanity.
Scientism is a Religion…and not a very intelligent one at that!
Scientism is Irrational.
The day anyone realizes the trap that is Materialist Naturalist Scientism, and boldly embraces the possibility of Super-naturalism…is a day of personal Liberation!
It is an awakening…to a greater reality… Greater possiblities… more plausible probabilities!
It is mind expanding… Freewill is not an Illusion!
It puts Emperical Science (and our sences) into their proper context.
It apprehends their limitations.
It allows the enlightened person to shrug off the absurdities, the Gross implausibility, the wild superstition, The Deadness, The Amorality, The Meaningless, The Purposeless, The enslavement and surrender to Determinism…that Materialist Naturalism demands of it’s devotees.
Hour Of Power. The Great Dr Robert Schuller (Senior).
“Faith is the Optimistic vison of a Possiblity thinker, whereas Atheism is the Pessimistic lack of vison of an impossiblity thinker…” (Quote from memory)
Then One can look back at the past 500 years and appreciate the how the Ideologies of Materialism, Naturalism, and Scientism came about, and why they have successfully blinded the minds of millions of Men whom vainly consider themselves ‘Superior’… ‘Modern’… ‘Men of Reason’…. ‘Liberated from ‘Faith’ and Superstitious Error’, Etc yet ultimately have proven to be Blind, leaders of the Blind.
Thus saith THE LORD…
There is No conflict between True Religion/ The Bible, and True Science!
The Bible gives us access to a reality which is otherwise beyond our reach.
The Bible is Super Natural…Divine Revelation.
“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”
Francis Bacon…The Father of Modern Science.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor2vs114)
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:…” (1Tim6vs20)
St Paul
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian. Libertarian. 1611 King James Bible Believer. Dispensationalist. Possibility Thinker.
Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.
The term frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam to describe the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable.
Scientism may refer to science applied “in excess”. The term scientism can apply in either of two equally pejorative senses:
To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims.
This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to claims made by scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. In this case, the term is a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority.
To refer to “the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry,” or that “science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective” with a concomitant “elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience.”
The term is also used to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all fields of human knowledge.
For sociologists in the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas, the concept of scientism relates significantly to the philosophy of positivism, but also to the cultural rationalization of the modern West.
Contents
1 Overview
2 Relevance to science/religion debates
3 Philosophy of science
4 Religion and philosophy
5 Rationalization and modernity
6 Dictionary meanings
7 Media references
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
OverviewReviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R. Petersondetects two main broad themes:
It is used to criticize a totalizing view of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true way to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things;
It is used to denote a border-crossing violation in which the theories and methods of one (scientific) discipline are inappropriately applied to another (scientific or non-scientific) discipline and its domain. An example of this second usage is to label as scientism any attempt to claim science as the only or primary source of human values (a traditional domain of ethics) or as the source of meaning and purpose (a traditional domain of religion and related worldviews).
Mikael Stenmark proposes the expression scientific expansionism as a synonym of scientism.In the Encyclopedia of science and religion, he writes that, while the doctrines that are described as scientism have many possible forms and varying degrees of ambition, they share the idea that the boundaries of science (that is, typically the natural sciences) could and should be expanded so that something that has not been previously considered as a subject pertinent to science can now be understood as part of science (usually with science becoming the sole or the main arbiter regarding this area or dimension).
According to Stenmark, the strongest form of scientism states that science has no boundaries and that all human problems and all aspects of human endeavor, with due time, will be dealt with and solved by science alone. This idea has also been called the Myth of Progress.
E. F. Schumacher in his A Guide for the Perplexed criticized scientism as an impoverished world view confined solely to what can be counted, measured and weighed. “The architects of the modern worldview, notably Galileo and Descartes, assumed that those things that could be weighed, measured, and counted were more true than those that could not be quantified. If it couldn’t be counted, in other words, it didn’t count.”
Relevance to science/religion debatesThe term is often used by speakers such as John Haught against vocal critics of religion-as-such.[25] Philosopher Daniel Dennett responded to criticism of his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by saying that “when someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don’t like, they just try to discredit it as ‘scientism'”.
Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, draws a parallel between scientism and traditional religious movements, pointing to the cult of personality that develops around some scientists in the public eye. He defines scientism as a worldview that encompasses natural explanations, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason.
The Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr has stated that in the West, many will accept the ideology of modern science, not as “simple ordinary science”, but as a replacement for religion.
Gregory R. Peterson writes that “for many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins”.
Susan Haack argues that the charge of “scientism” caricatures actual scientific endeavor. No single form of inference or procedure of inquiry used by scientists explains the success of science. Instead we find:
the inferences and procedures used by all serious empirical inquirers
a vast array of tools of inquiry, from observational instruments to mathematical techniques, as well as social mechanisms that encourage honesty. These tools are diverse and evolving, and many are domain-specific.
Philosophy of science
In his essay, Against Method, Paul Feyerabend characterizes science as “an essentially anarchic enterprise” and argues emphatically that science merits no exclusive monopoly over “dealing in knowledge” and that scientists have never operated within a distinct and narrowly self-defined tradition. He depicts the process of contemporary scientific education as a mild form of indoctrination, aimed at “making the history of science duller, simpler, more uniform, more ‘objective’ and more easily accessible to treatment by strict and unchanging rules.”
[S]cience can stand on its own feet and does not need any help from rationalists, secular humanists, Marxists and similar religious movements; and … non-scientific cultures, procedures and assumptions can also stand on their own feet and should be allowed to do so … Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science… In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.
— Feyerabend, Against Method, p.viii
Religion and philosophyPhilosopher of religion Keith Ward has said scientism is philosophically inconsistent or even self-refuting, as the truth of the statements “no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically (or logically)” or “no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true” cannot themselves be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically.[32]
Rationalization and modernity: Rationalization (sociology)
In the introduction to his collected oeuvre on the sociology of religion, Max Weber asks why “the scientific, the artistic, the political, or the economic development [elsewhere]… did not enter upon that path of rationalization which is peculiar to the Occident?” According to the distinguished German social theorist, Jürgen Habermas, “For Weber, the intrinsic (that is, not merely contingent) relationship between modernity and what he called ‘Occidental rationalism’ was still self-evident.” Weber described a process of rationalisation, disenchantment and the “disintegration of religious world views” that resulted in modern secular societies and capitalism.[33]
“Modernization” was introduced as a technical term only in the 1950s. It is the mark of a theoretical approach that takes up Weber’s problem but elaborates it with the tools of social-scientific functionalism… The theory of modernization performs two abstractions on Weber’s concept of “modernity”. It dissociates “modernity” from its modern European origins and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral model for processes of social development in general. Furthermore, it breaks the internal connections between modernity and the historical context of Western rationalism, so that processes of modernization… [are] no longer burdened with the idea of a completion of modernity, that is to say, of a goal state after which “postmodern” developments would have to set in… Indeed it is precisely modernization research that has contributed to the currency of the expression “postmodern” even among social scientists.
— Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
Habermas is critical of pure instrumental rationality, arguing that the “Social Life–World” is better suited to literary expression, the former being “intersubjectively accessible experiences” that can be generalized in a formal language, while the latter “must generate an intersubjectivity of mutual understanding in each concrete case”:[34][35]
The world in which human beings are born and live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom; the world of social pressures and individual impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts and conventions, of shared language and unsharable feelings and sensations…
— Aldous Huxley, Literature and Science
Dictionary meanings
Standard dictionary definitions include the following applications of the term “scientism”:
The use of the style, assumptions, techniques, and other attributes typically displayed by scientists.
Methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist.
An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation, as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities.
The use of scientific or pseudoscientific language.
The contention that the social sciences, such as economics and sociology, are only properly sciences when they abide by the somewhat stricter interpretation of scientific method used by the natural sciences, and that otherwise they are not truly sciences.
“A term applied (freq. in a derogatory manner) to a belief in the omnipotence of scientific knowledge and techniques; also to the view that the methods of study appropriate to physical science can replace those used in other fields such as philosophy and, esp., human behaviour and the social sciences.”
“1. The collection of attitudes and practices considered typical of scientists. 2. The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry.”
The Atom. Monists say that Each Individual, All Humanity, All Life, Love, Artistic expression, Every Moral crusade, Politics, Religion, Every Conscious thought, Every moment of Ecstasy and wonder are nothing more than the interaction of Atoms.
Its been one of those days…Reading the Waikato Times pg 7.
So much Atheist Bullshit… So little time to Rub their noses in it!
One of the favorite Atheist ‘Group hugs’ is their Self delusion that their beliefs are planted in ‘superior soil’ to Balmy Religious ‘Hocus pocus’.
They claim to dwell at the pinnacle of the evolutionary advance, having Superior Intelligence and Superior Education to their Lesser Religious cousins, and having escaped the primitive mindset which is religiously prone, they claim *Reason* as the mighty Rock upon which they stand.
Now if the stench of vanity is not enough to make you question the validity of these claims, The Exploits of one of their Sects ought to.
I refer to that sect of atheists known as ‘Evolutionary psychologists’ whose primary ambition is to take the mind of mankind and using scientific jargon make up a rationale to vindicate their faith that everything in the universe conforms to their Atheist Naturalistic Cosmology.
That is their brief, their duty, their delight.
What is important to realize about this process is that insodoing they De-Humanize Mankind from being a Freewill/ reasoning/ Moral Agent into a mere Automation… a robot.
This can be clearly seen in such declarations as this….
How Flocking Ridiculous!
They want you to believe your little Tot has a Pre-disposition to vote Left! (Or Right, or Whateva)
What more via this notion that Genes make our political decisions for us, they have negated your power of reason and freewill …which is what the very purpose of their conclusions are aimed at achieving… forcing the Mind to comply with materialistic determinism, and just as importantly undermining the Moral culpability which underpins The Christian Argument in respect to freewill and Divine judgment.
Many Atheists will get warm fuzzies from this announcement and say to themselves…”Yes! Freewill is a myth! Everything in the Universe has a purely Naturalistic explanation… There is no God and Man is not a Moral Agent.”
“Everything that is… from the Moon, to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was Pre-ordained in the Big Bang”
Ie they will accept these findings simply because they conveniently integrate with their Materialistic faith…. Ha ha…. Think about that! Blind leading the Blind…
I ask you this…Why would anyone believe any such research produced by such a partisan lobby to be objective and valid?
To think this sect is capable of Real Scientific Objectivity is as Nieve as believing the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ruling that Maori own the Water rights of New Zealand was an objective and impartial judgment in respect to 1840 British Law, and the treaty!
To expect the Evolutionary psychologists to present findings that were contrary to their personal Materialist delusions would be as Naive as expecting Anti-slavery Abolitionist John Brown to have been found ‘Not Guilty’ of treason and insurrection by the Slave State Virginia court!
John Brown did not receive justice, and like shambolic rulings of The Waitangi Tribunal, in declaring Politics to be a Genetic trait, the Priests of Materialism have simply dictated their own prejudices.
This is not Science!
It’s a scam!
And these ‘findings’ fly in the face of Common experience!
Materialism is absurd!
(I had the option of saying Materialism is Ridiculous!… ie we exercise freewill every day!)
We change our political opinions based upon convincing enough Rationale.
*If The Atheists apply their own arguments upon themselves and their Atheism… they must concede that their atheism is not based upon Reason at all but that their rejection of the Idea of a God is simply a Genetic Predisposition!
They ought to conclude that they are not more intelligent…. Not more rationale…. Their education counts for Naught…. They are simply Genetic Atheists… and no amount of reason will convince them God exists.
Thus their own arguments render them stupid.
In the light of this ramification by what act of self delusion do they continue to insist that they are guided by reason, or that Reason is the preserve of atheism?
They have utterly destroyed Reason and enshrined Chemistry!
Our thoughts have been reduced down to chemical actions.
This is where Monism leads to.
The annihilation of the Human being.
Reason is a Theistic/ spiritual concept. Understandable in the Idea of God *THE CONSCIOUS REASONING SPIRITUAL BEING*.
It involves Liberty, and Choice.
Things which are completely alien to Materialistic determinism, and random chaos.
Computers don’t Reason.
Humans Reason. We are not computers… We are like God. We are Free, and we can make real choices. We are Moral Agents.
An ‘Educated’ friend of ours tells me he finds the notion of dualism to be incomprehensible… He’s been saturated in materialism too long!
I must remind him that the fact that we may not be able to understand something (ie Dualism) does not necessarily make it irrational or superstition to accept it and believe in it.I accept Dualism and Biblical morality because it’s explanatory power is vastly superior to Materialism Naturalism.
You cannot expect science to synthesize God, or weigh/ measure the Human soul.
That does not negate their reality. It merely sets limits to the power of science.
(The materialist Tech-myth of artificial consciousness is sooo in fashion!)
I accept spiritual Being as absolutely necessary because materialist naturalism is woefully inadequate to explain reality, and laugh at the pathetic efforts of Materialists to render everything sterile and dead… and accidental.
Scientifically speaking The Human soul is like The Higgs Boson. It’s a Theoretical spiritual particle postulated to explain Consciousness and freewill. Nobody has ever seen it. It’ cant be directly observed. Yet we can trust/ believe in it’s existance because of indirect observations …
How many Atheists feel this way?
Those of you who do feel this way are one and the same as the religious extremists who want ‘their Man’ in power, In fact you justify them by your own position. You are just as Petty.
You have no higher ground… no Better vision.
Personally I want a Leader whom respects the inalienable and equal rights of Individuals, and understands that he himself has no special privileges which put him above the same laws and morality as every one else…. and Objectively speaking Few Atheists would be fit for duty because they believe Morality is merely Culturally relative… or Genetic predisposition (So they don’t believe in any higher power to answer to for their Corrupt deeds) , and they believe Mankind are merely smart monkeys…that came from fish…. that came from germs…. that came from a gigantic cosmic accident.
These materialistic Fantasies are incompatible with the Ideals of Inalienable rights, which are only Rational within a Theistic Cosmology.
Denying the Theistic Idea of Mans Fallen Sin Nature Atheists are prone to Utopian delusions.
Utopia being part of an evolutionary progression.
The following Dictators are just a handful of Atheists whom applied ‘Scientific Materialism’ to Politics and came up with… Communism and the Absolute Sovereign State.
Vladimir Lenin. ” Whatsoever Means Serves the Party State and World revolution is Moral”
From the university days of Karl Marx to the present, official spokesmen for Marxism have been consistent about the content of their theology—that God, whether known as a Supreme Being, Creator, or Divine Ruler, does not, cannot, and must not exist.3
God is considered an impediment, even an enemy, to a scientific, materialistic, socialistic outlook. The idea of God, insists Lenin, encourages the working class (the proletariat) to drown its terrible economic plight in the “spiritual booze” of some mythical heaven (“pie in the sky by and by”). Even a single sip of this intoxicant decreases the revolutionary fervor necessary to exterminate the oppressing class (the bourgeois), causing the working class to forfeit its only chance of creating a truly human heaven on earth: global communism.
Re: The Freewill vs Materialist determinism debate.
Today I found an interesting scientific study done in New Zealand vindicating skepticism in the fashionable ideas of Evolutionary psychology, which as a ‘Naturalistic Doctrine’ argues that all human morality is determined by Genetics… ie that there is no such thing as freewill moral choice.
This New Otargo research now says Babies lack morals… (Suprise!….not.) This overturns previously Reaserch submitted in 2007 by Yales Kiley Hamlin whom argured that 6-10mth old infants could already make moral choices and that these must be Innate .
We can see that Yales Kiley Hamlin was predisposed to the Evolutionary/ materialist/ genetic/ hypothesis when she presented her research which she argued that Babies are born with an original moral blueprint …
Quote: “… It also reminds us that behavior is not simply nature versus nurture; it is about the interaction of genes and their environments…”
And so we can understand why she now continues to defend her hypothesis against the critisism from New Zealand.
The new New Zealand study undermines these sorts of Evolutionary/ deterministic theories.
To my way of thinking it ought to be Obvious that Both Nature, and Nurture play significant roles in the Morality of individuals, Yet I would add a third and most critical element… an element Naturalist/ materialists are keen to Exorcise from mankind…. The Individual ‘Soul’ or inner spiritual being unique to each individual (The real ‘US’…. indwelling our bodies like a man indwells a house), which has the capacity to make freewill choices which either endorses the amoral desires of our physical being (our lusts), which Licence may or may not be sanctioned by the culture the individual has been nurtured in, or it/we may overcome both these external factors and choose to embrace either a higher’ or ‘lower’ morality than what is ‘the norm’ for his day and age. In my view it is this inner spiritual character which will determine the quality and height of morality any particular individual will aspire to….or settle for. This is why Individuals can appear in complete contrast to the Times and customs of their Peers, and forsaking the accepted norms of the society that surrounds them, and become aliens …. on a pilgrimage of either light or darkness… depending upon the intents of their heart. This Road is steep, yet is a two way street. You can simply stay put with most of your peers… and make camp at the spot you where you feel most comfortable…Why bother going anywhere?
Or you can turn your face to the mountain and labour upwards towards Heavens light…good luck finding faithful company who will not forsake you half way along your arduous journey!
Or you can turn your back and take the direction of least resistance, downward into Darkness…
What this means is that we as individuals are responsible for the sort of human beings we become (or remain). We are not simply slaves to our biology and Environment. We each have an unique inner Being which determines our moral character as individuals. This explains why a child raised in a religious home can choose to forsake the beliefs and values they were taught, and instead choose to become an atheist adult, and why someone raised to accept atheist materialism can later choose to forsake Atheism for God… demonstrating Humanity is in constant Flux… and that Liberty/ freewill and rationality are what matters most in the moral question … not Chemical determinism.
Prior to Darwin, Christians always believed that while Children posess Adams fallen Human Nature, that they are born ‘innocent’, and later develope their moral sence, at which point in time (differeing between individuals) they become morrally responcible for their actions and accountible unto God.
And Our Society also ‘believes’ this to be true in that it does not convict children for crimes.
This rationale also underpins the Doctrine that all innocent little children whom die, Go to heaven… and this doctrine is supported by various scriptures.
I must also point out that even if it was discovered that babies had some ability to make moral choices, that this would not prove that morality stems automatically from Genes.
