Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 20 Oct 2003 21:16:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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905 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Justin Pankey wrote:
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There are numerous books that refute the claims of evolution, point out
missing links, reveal statistical impossibilities, etc. I am not blinded by
faith. If someone could reconcile all of these inconsistancies to me maybe
they could make me a believer (or at least an “accepter” :o) You should
thoroughly examine the claims of Scientists who happen to be Christians and
be able to rebut those claims before you accept the “theory” of evolution.
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If you can recommend any such books I would be greatly interested to explore
them. I would steer you away from such authors as William Lane Craig, William
Dembski, or Michael Denton, all of whom commit grievous logical and statistical
errors. And by all means, avoid anything by Kent Hovind.
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I’m not looking to debate evolution as I don’t have time for that level of
debate here. I’m primarily debating what I believe is a false assumption
about what make somebody a Chritian based on defintion. If Richard has a
dictionary that states something different, there’s not much I can do about
that, but at least I’ve tried to point out that it makes little sense.
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Dictionary definitions are sometimes inadequate in real-world discussions, since
they seldom take into account the context or connotation of the words as they’re
used day-to-day. Regarding Christianity, might we say that the belief in the
divinity of Christ is a central requirement?
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Further I’d be more interested in your response to a question I posed Richard
last night. Framed differently, I’m basically asking if there is no God and
no universal truth or morality...who gets to decide what is right...someone
peaceful like Richard or the Hitlers and Saddams of the world? What would
give you the right to say they are wrong? True there have been many wars
fought over religious differences and that is tragic, but Hitler and Saddam
would be just as evil without claimimg any religion. If all religion were
eliminated, peace still would not exist.
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A valid question. As a starting point, I heartily recommend the book
Belief or Nonbelief by Umberto Eco and Cardinal Martini. In the last essay, Eco
provides an excellent discussion of non-deity-based morality.
In the briefest possible terms, I do not believe that there is any transcendent
“good” or “evil.”
However, I would point out that there are some near-universal truths among
humans (we don’t generally enjoy pain, or starvation, or the loss of loved ones,
etc.), and, as social creatures, we are able to empathize with others. If I am
thus able to empathize with another person, then I am able to appreciate that my
performance of certain acts against other people (like torture, theft, or
murder) that I would perceive as “evil” if they were to happen to me. With this
in mind, I am able to conclude that these acts would likewise be “evil” if they
were performed against other persons, as well.
This defaults to a restating of The Golden Rule, but I’d suggest that the
classical Golden Rule is actually an articulation of this underlying human
trait, rather than the other way around.
The fundamental distinction occurs at the point at which one is able to
recognize a different person as sufficiently similar to oneself for this empathy
to be a dominant factor. During WWII, this has taken the form of dehumanizing
Germans and Japanese civilians into Huns and Nips. In the current “War on
Terror,” we’ve seen attempts to paint the “enemy” as some kind of inferior
inferior idol-worshipper, or “evil-doers” or even simply as “terrorists.”
Either way, the intent is the same: to reduce empathy for the “enemy” so that
it’s easier to justify firebombing their cities and innocent civilians into
oblivion.
So that’s the essence of it. I do not believe in any metaphysical, “good” or
“evil,” but I accept that humans have developed certain basic and near-universal
concepts that enable us to judge the actions of certain particularly “good” or
“evil” individuals in terms of those concepts.
Dave!
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