The Cellar - View Single Post - A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin

Urbane Guerrilla · 05-17-2007, 10:29 AM

I am a conservative.

I am persuaded of the truth of the origin of species by descent with modification -- evolution. This is because unlike some, I took some sciences in high school, and more in college.

Some unfortunates seem to believe that you have to reject knowledge and the science of seeking it in order to be a holy, virtuous person. I am living proof otherwise, but that may be a topic for some other thread, in some other forum like Philosophy.

They get trapped in this pitfall mainly through confining their studies to belief systems. All they know is belief, religious or otherwise. Consequently, they mistake the theory of evolution for yet another belief system. It isn't. What science is, in the words of Stephen Jay Gould, "is a way of knowing." Knowing and believing are two quite different things.

The pitfall of the Young-Earthers (and fundamentalists generally) is in a way more specific: where they fail is in their habit of trying to nail the Omnipotent, the Eternal, into a box designed to human specifications. They're allowing one week for the creation of the Earth in its present form because their favorite book says it happened like that. They don't consider when that book was composed (if not perhaps written down) -- in the Bronze Age, when human knowledge was not what it is now. They don't consider for whom it was written: a Bronze Age people without science. Yet still, it is surprising just how well Genesis agrees with the tale told in the rocks and in the light of the stars and even the lesser light of the voids between them.

What the Young-Earthers don't understand is this: if you're immortal, eternal, literally possessed of all the time in the universe, why shouldn't you take your time and do it right? Why shouldn't you take 13.7 gigayears in the making of the universe as it now is? How often have we heard the phrase "in the fullness of time?" Do you really have to rush perfection -- if you want to call it that?

05-17-2007, 10:29 AM	#5
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	I am a conservative. I am persuaded of the truth of the origin of species by descent with modification -- evolution. This is because unlike some, I took some sciences in high school, and more in college. Some unfortunates seem to believe that you have to reject knowledge and the science of seeking it in order to be a holy, virtuous person. I am living proof otherwise, but that may be a topic for some other thread, in some other forum like Philosophy. They get trapped in this pitfall mainly through confining their studies to belief systems. All they know is belief, religious or otherwise. Consequently, they mistake the theory of evolution for yet another belief system. It isn't. What science is, in the words of Stephen Jay Gould, "is a way of knowing." Knowing and believing are two quite different things. The pitfall of the Young-Earthers (and fundamentalists generally) is in a way more specific: where they fail is in their habit of trying to nail the Omnipotent, the Eternal, into a box designed to human specifications. They're allowing one week for the creation of the Earth in its present form because their favorite book says it happened like that. They don't consider when that book was composed (if not perhaps written down) -- in the Bronze Age, when human knowledge was not what it is now. They don't consider for whom it was written: a Bronze Age people without science. Yet still, it is surprising just how well Genesis agrees with the tale told in the rocks and in the light of the stars and even the lesser light of the voids between them. What the Young-Earthers don't understand is this: if you're immortal, eternal, literally possessed of all the time in the universe, why shouldn't you take your time and do it right? Why shouldn't you take 13.7 gigayears in the making of the universe as it now is? How often have we heard the phrase "in the fullness of time?" Do you really have to rush perfection -- if you want to call it that? __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.