If you believe that, then you are the one who is ignorant about history.
>But my concern has always been with the materialist presupposition, buttressed
>(wrongly, IMO) by evolutionary data.
>
><<2) It certainly IS a distortion to 'move from "only the fittest
> survive" to "I define fitness as X, and I am X, therefore I
> am more fit to survive."' Such an extrapolation is not only
> absurd, it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. >>
>
>Again, I agree with you, UNLESS it is a philosophical materialist who makes
>the extrapolation. If we are all purposeless atoms, there can be no objective
>standard of morality.
But, of course, since you haven't proven that there *is* an objective
standard of morality, then this gains you nothing. If it is not a distortion
for a "philosophical materialist" to twist evolution to distort racism, then
it is no more a distortion for a theist to quote Biblical scripture to support
slavery.
><<3) You previously insisted that your position was and
> always had been that racists distort evolution to support
> their beliefs.>>
>
>I don't remember saying anything like that.
I do. You wrote:
>Russell Stewart writes:
><<It has everything to do with causality. Do racists simply distort evolution
>to support their beliefs, or is the theory of evolution directly responsible
>for the origin of those beliefs? You and others claim the latter, and the
>evidence clearly contradicts you.>>
>This is a mischaracterization. I urge you to read my posts more carefully, and
>not distort what I'm saying. If you go back over them, you'll clearly see I am
>NOT claiming the latter, but the former, and have from the very start. That is
>why I use the word "justification" and not "causality." If that was not clear
>to you before, it should be now, right?
It was clear to me, but since you are now denying having said it, I must
confess that nothing about your argument is clear.
>My position has always been that
>there is no logical argument AGAINST a materialist making an argument as in
>#2, above. If I indicated otherwise, I apologize for being unclear.
You have never been anything *but* unclear. You claim that there is no logical
argument against a materialist using this argument, and yet you continue to deny
(apparently by mere force of will) that neither is there a logical argument
against
a theist who uses scripture and other religious arguments to back up racism.
>Let me ask you a simple question. Without using any theistic presupposition,
>can you explain to me why Hitler was evil?
Because he denied individual human rights and destroyed human lives.
Now, let me ask you a simple question: Just because God says something is
"evil", why should we believe that it is?
>I think you'll agree with me that you can't.
Obviously not, since I just did.
>And that's been my only point all
>along.
And that has been the problem all along. Your point is intellectually bankrupt.
_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
|_____________________________|_______________________________|
2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2.