I would like to make one comment to this list, however, about something
that was discussed earlier: contrary to someone's statement, we
philosophical naturalist, materialist, secular humanist types do not hate
creationists of any kind, nor do we seek to disparage their personal
religious and scientific beliefs. But we are extremely dismayed and
angered by the attempts of some creationists to use politics, elected
officials, the courts, and the power of the states and school boards to
force their creationist views on unsuspecting public school students, who
we believe have a right to a legitimate and trustworthy science
education, and we will therefore oppose such creationist efforts.
Furthermore, contrary to the same statement, we respect theistic
evolutionists, because they appreciate the methods and evidence of
science and because their private religious views are irrelevant (as far
as we are concerned) to those appreciations.
We tend to look at someone's religious views as their personal
philosophy, and since we naturalistic humanists have our own explicit
philosophy, we understand better than most that our individual
philosophies are irrelevant to the practice and conclusions of science,
since the whole point of science is to explore the universe and discover
reliable knowledge by a method that (contrary to the postmodernists)
eliminates--or tries to eliminate--subjective influences such as personal
philosophies. Of course, religious supernaturalists will have personal
conflicts with philosophical naturalism, but that's their problem, not
ours, and it doesn't seem to stop theistic evolutionists from
appreciating scientific evidence and accepting the fact of evolution. In
short, we naturalistic humanists have a "live--let live" philosophy, and
don't want to take the time to become involved in legal, political,
educational, and philosophical controversies unless we are forced to by
events and the practices of others (which means that we usually become
involved in such controversies). Without claiming to speak for her, I
believe that Genie Scott of NCSE shares this viewpoint, and she has gone
further than most of us would in accomodating the religious sensibilities
of others.
Best to all,
Steve
Steven Schafersman
schafesd@muohio.edu
http://www.muohio.edu/~schafesd/