Riley Thinks: Additional Thoughts on Absolutes and My English Paper
So my Controversial English paper topic is on teaching one-sided evolution secularism in public schools. My previous post was from my research on my topic.
I found something else interesting you guys might appreciate.
When describing the Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District federal court case, often referred to as the “Scopes II Trial,” where intelligent design was ruled as being in violation of the first amendment establishment clause, lawyer John Calvert comments:
The twisted decision of the court in Dover, PA on December 21 effectively establishes a state sponsored
ideology that is fundamental to non-theistic religions and religious beliefs. By outlawing discussion of the
evidence of design and the inference of design that arises from observation and analysis, the court has
effectively caused the state to endorse materialism and the various religions it supports. Thus the court
actually inserted a religious bias into science, while purporting to remove one.
The incorrect assumption implicit in the decision is that there is only one kind of “religion” – the kind that
holds that life and the world were created by a God or gods. In fact religion includes the other kinds, those
that embrace material causes for life rather than any God that might intervene in the natural world. These
include Atheism, Secular Humanism, Buddhism, Agnosticism,, etc. The Court’’s second error was to
ignore the obvious: any explanation of origins will unavoidably favor one kind of religion over another.
(from http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/Dover%20Court%20Establishes%20State%20Materialism.pdf)
Interesting. I talked about this in my paper: that teaching evolution without weaknesses is essentially a biased religious view in itself: biased towards materialism.
Thoughts?
-Riley
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about 1 year ago
I actually wrote a paper about this topic a month or two ago.
My thought is this: I think both sides have so diluted the debate that it no longer has anything to do with school curriculum. The problem with the ID movement is its supposition that since there are holes in Darwin’s theory, then there must be another answer (God). Darwin’s theory does have holes in it, but so did Newton’s theory of Gravity. The discrepancies weren’t fixed until 300 years later when Einstein came along. The ID movement uses problems with Darwin’s theory to try and undermine the whole system. It is supremely arrogant to believe that since we can’t describe everything in natural terms, no natural explanation exists. Darwin’s Einstein may still be out there, or it could be that we’ll never have an airtight theory. Some things are just cognitively closed to us.
When you get to talking about strengths and weaknesses, I feel like it sets up a false dichotomy of God vs. Evolution. Science classes should be methodically naturalist. Science is only meant to comment on what we can see. Science errs when it tries to do philosophy.
From a Theological standpoint, one major problem I have with the ID movement is that it makes God into a God of the gaps. He uses evolution or whatever until there is something that can be done by only him, and then he steps in, does his thing, and steps out. I feel like if God chose to create the earth using nature or evolution, that the system would work without needing God to fix every little discrepancy. I understand things like Math, Logic, and Physical Law to be eternal and immutable, existing as perfections of God. They exist because God exists. I feel like making God into a guy who just presses buttons when we need him makes him out to be the Wizard of Oz rather than the almighty Creator of the Universe.
Of course, far be it from me to dictate God’s nature to him. I don’t know how creation took place. Frankly, I don’t think it matters much.
about 1 year ago
“When you get to talking about strengths and weaknesses, I feel like it sets up a false dichotomy of God vs. Evolution. Science classes should be methodically naturalist. Science is only meant to comment on what we can see. Science errs when it tries to do philosophy.”
This was essentially what my paper was about. Freedom of Religion in my opinion, though I am biased, is too often used as a basis for allowing secular philosophy to trample any sort of discussion of problems with materialism. My paper dissected the evolution-weaknesses argument and both the left and right wing points. Quite personally, whether creationism can be taught or not, teaching only the strengths of a scientific theory like evolution in the classroom doesn’t make much sense.
In my paper I shied away from discussing the strengths and weaknesses of evolution and tried hard not to discuss the differences between religions. Instead, I made a case for the scientific discussion of a created Earth and discussed the paradoxes with the secular viewpoint of religious pluralism, the clash of materialism vs. theism in the classroom, and the problems with how, according to recent Texas legislation, for the next ten years only the bright side of evolution’s naturalism will be taught in public schools.
about 1 year ago
Wow, I just read over that comment and noticed how many words ended with “ism.”
about 1 year ago
“I understand things like Math, Logic, and Physical Law to be eternal and immutable, existing as perfections of God”
I’ve wondered about this recently, although I have no idea where to even start looking for an answer. The question “Part of God or a creation of God?” can apply to lots of things: logic, time, morality, physics, etc. I think most Christian philosophers would agree that absolute morality exists as part of God’s nature–it’s not that he created morality, but rather that we get our sense of morality from His character. However, when you consider Time (as in the sequence of events, not as in minutes and hours) it could go either way. Either God could have created Time when he created the world, or Time could be one of His perfections, like morality. I can’t really understand either option, and I’m not sure that it really matters, but it’s an interesting question to ask.
“I understand things like Math, Logic, and Physical Law to be eternal and immutable, existing as perfections of God”
Agreed, but what about miracles?
about 1 year ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_qCeBCWQzI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desiringgod.org%2FBlog%2F&feature=player_embedded
This is one reason why perhaps the question of Time matters.
If God created Time, then it will (presumably) end when the world ends Time will also end (see Heb. 12:27). This means that it would be logically impossible for someone to fall, because they would simultaneously be perfect and sinful, since Eternity is the neverending Present (see C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce–not that Lewis’ word is Scripture, but I think he’s right in this).
However, if God is Time, the Time will still exist for all eternity, so it is theoretically possible for a soul to fall away as Lucifer did (although Piper does rightly point out that Scripture promises that it won’t happen). Also, if Time exists then the Universalist argument starts to make some sense (George MacDonald presents the universalist case pretty well in his sermon “Consuming Fire”, although I also think Scripture is clear that universalism is false.
Anyway, just some more to think about.
about 1 year ago
Agreed, but what about miracles?
Good question. I think of it this way: God can’t do things that are nonsensical. For instance, I believe he could make someone fly, but he could not make them fly and not fly at the same time. I don’t believe he can make 2+2=5 or square the circle, because these things are just nonsense. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, a nonsensical phrase does not make any more sense when you put the words “God can’t do” in front of them. I think miracles are miracles as we understand them, but not in the sense that they violate the basic tenets of logic. I believe God is a rational being. I don’t think miracles violate anything, because it makes perfect sense that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator the universe could heal the sick, quiet the storm, or split the red sea. It doesn’t make sense for this being to violate his own nature (God cannot both be God and not-God at the same time).
Hope that makes sense.
And again, far be it from me to tell God what he’s supposed to be like. It’s all a mystery to me.
I am not a universalist (though I admit, I hope for universalism to be true). I just don’t see the evidence in scripture, and the earliest Church fathers weren’t universalists. Again, I’ll leave that one to God.
about 1 year ago
When you consider Time (as in the sequence of events, not as in minutes and hours) it could go either way. Either God could have created Time when he created the world, or Time could be one of His perfections, like morality. I can’t really understand either option, and I’m not sure that it really matters, but it’s an interesting question to ask.
I would actually probably consider Time to be something of an illusion. I believe God made our minds to experience moments in sequence. I still fall under the belief that God is “outside of time” (though I wouldn’t put it that way), and time is an imperfect way of measuring our existence. I sometimes wonder if Adam and Eve began experiencing time only after the Fall. If you think about it, Time is often the manifestation of our spiritual sickness. Augustine said something about the Past existing only in Memory and the Future existing only in Expectation. There is so much pain involved in Memory, just as there is anxiety in Expectation. And really, the ultimate anxiety of all our lives is Death, to which every moment moves us closer. I just wonder if somehow part of the “Knowledge” revealed to Adam and Eve was the knowledge of Time. With Time comes pain and decay, and the knowledge that someday, we will all die.
The only way I can imagine Heaven is a place without the pain of memory and the anxiety of expectation. It’s imperfect, of course, but its the best way I know to describe eternity.
about 1 year ago
That’s interesting. I’d never heard that take on Time before.
I wonder what a post-Fall theory for Time does to the Creation story. Could that theoretically reconcile the Genesis account with evolution? (Not that we particularly need to, but it’s an interesting thought.)
Here’s my main problem with the idea that Time came after the Fall: since timelessness is the eternal Present, wouldn’t that require Adam and Eve to be at the same time both perfect (pre-Fall state) and fallen (at the moment of the Fall)?
Or is C.S. Lewis wrong about eternity being most like the Present?
about 1 year ago
“Hope that makes sense.”
Yes, it does. I agree.
“though I admit, I hope for universalism to be true”
I know what you mean, and from reading Romans 9, I think Paul did too.