Evolutionism used the same tactics in the 1920's. It succeeded with
secular humanists, we creationists are merely copying your successful
tactics. If creation by God is so specious you should not in the least try
to block its teaching. After all, your position should reveal its
superiority plainly.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.. Pr. 3:5
Ron Chitwood
chitw@flash.net
----------
> From: Steven Schafersman <schafesd@muohio.edu>
> To: evolution@calvin.edu
> Subject: Reply to creationist students
> Date: Wednesday, March 18, 1998 1:42 PM
>
> Members of this email list may be interested in something I posted on the
> web at
> <http://www.muohio.edu/~schafesd/documents/creationist-reply.htmlx>. I
> usually don't take the time to respond to creationists (for reasons I
> explain on that webpage, and which is why I only lurk on this list and
> don't reply to the many mistakes, misrepresentations, and
> misunderstandings expressed here by creationists), but in this case I
> made an exception--because the creationist is a student at the university
> at which I teach, and he advertised his creationist website in our
> biology building!
>
> 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/
>