Re: The puzzle of Adam

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 07:44:02 -0500, [1]RFaussette@aol.com said:

Dave wrote:

There is a major problem in Ham's statement. He confuses science
with philosophy and theology. Science has to be empirically
checkable or tied to that which is thus testable.

Sometimes scientists make the same disconnect. Note the
following from page 1460 in last week's Science?
Theorists in other sciences focus on explaining experimental
data, but most string theorists study formal aspects of the
theory itself, says Gordon Kane, a particle theorist at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "Only in string theory is
there a complete disconnect in which string theorists don't make
any effort to make contact with experiment," Kane says. Stuart
Raby, a particle theorist at Ohio State University in Columbus,
says string theorists must find a way to account for
experimental observations, especially in particle physics, in
order to maintain the theory's credibility. "You're not going to
believe string theory until you see the real world coming out of
it," he says. [emphasis mine]

rich:
I spoke of Ken Ham's concern as being appropriate and it is.
Dave wrote:
Morality is not determinable empirically.
rich:

Let's talk about that. I think the measure of morality in a
society CAN be determined empirically. If you're talking
Biblical morality, consider Genesis 9:7 which reads, ";you must
be fruitful and increase..." If we take that Biblical injunction
at face value, then the measure of our morality is a measure of
our birth rates. Since our birth rates are dropping and the
cultural elite are importing immigrants to fill our vacant
niches, then I suggest it is easy to measure morality by
considering our willingness to replace ourselves with children.
Another measure of morality is the prevalence of STDs in the
Christian population which demonstrates our adherence to what
are essentially "purity" laws in Leviticus.

Such a posteriori reasoning is really broken. There is a reason
why casuistry is used to determine morality. Namely, there must
be an a priori component that must be applied to the situation.
You empirically derive from Scripture what the principle is but
in the end you need to discover the first principles and apply
them to the contemporary situation. What you don't do is
arbitrarily apply the commands found in Scripture. For example,
when Abraham tried to be fruitful with Hagar, that was described
as being wrong. Why? Because the first principle is not
maximizing the number of humans but faith and covenant blessing.

Why don't these "measurables" occur to you? Why might you think
they are invalid?

The measurables are fine if what is being measured is correct.
If you take an eisegetic approach to the Bible like the gnostics
and mystics did, then you end up being like the string theorists
mentioned above. In the end, the morality being proposed ends up
being arbitrary like the over 10^300 different possibilities for
vacuum energy. We must make contact with Scripture like the
string theorists need to make contact with the experiments. What
the opinion of Jewish mystics is all well and good but is not at
all relevant to the issue at hand. We still don't know what
God's morality is. Rather, all we know is their opinion.

References

1. mailto:RFaussette@aol.com
Received on Thu Dec 9 12:48:34 2004