Re: Signs of Scientism

In a message dated 1/24/2006 1:14:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, kbmill@ksu.edu
writes:
The answer is that you cannot derive moral principles or ethics from the
natural world. Features of the natural world can be used to legitimize
virtually any ethic. You can use natural metaphors to validate
ruthless competition, and you can with equal ease use it to support
altruism, cooperation and self sacrifice for the common good. I
disagree with all attempts to derive an evolutionary ethic. Ethics can
only be read into nature, they cannot be read out.
Of course you can. Where do you think the Hebrew Bible and subsequently
Christianity got its ethics?
First of all, ruthless competition is a fact of nature/God (I've stayed out
of the threads discussing God as acting apart from or transcending nature - God
is nature).
Ruthless competition causes differential reproductive rates. Some species
survive. Some don't.
To develop an ethic in the face of natural selection you counter the
debilitating effects of competition and differential survival rates by establishing an
ethic that specifically raises reproductive rates and ideally addresses both
modes of reproduction: high K (quality) and high r (quantity). The Levitical
prohibitions accomplish high r and were specifically written to address
extinction.

Here is a snip from my essay coming out in the near future:

In the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 18, the Lord tells Moses that the
Israelites are not to conform to the institutions of Canaan or Egypt. The Lord then
introduces a host of sexual taboos, among them a prohibition against a man lying
with another man as with a woman. Most interesting are not the prohibitions
themselves, which we will address later, but what the Lord says after he lists
the prohibitions. He says:
 
You shall not make yourselves unclean in any of these ways, for in these ways
the heathen, whom I am driving out before you, made themselves unclean. This
is how the land became unclean, and I punished it for its iniquity so that it
spewed out its inhabitants. You, unlike them, shall keep my laws and my rules:
none of you, whether natives or aliens settled among you, shall do any of
these abominable things. The people who were there before you did these
abominable things and the land became unclean. So the land will not spew you out for
making it unclean as it spewed them out; for anyone who does any of these
abominable things shall be cut off from his people. Observe my charge therefore, and
follow none of the abominable institutions customary before your time; do not
make yourselves unclean with them. I am the Lord your God. 3
            Have you ever really thought about what “spewing out” in these
lines from Leviticus means? When you look at each of the sexual prohibitions in
turn, you’ll notice that engaging in any of these forbidden practices
dissipates the focus on family stability, procreation, and child rearing and makes
sex an end for its own sake. A family, tribe, nation, or race that lost the
disciplined focus on reproduction must logically expect its population to drop –
quite literally “spewing it out” of the land. Less and less of the group would
occupy the land with each succeeding generation until the group was
threatened and then extinct.
 
            What had generated this fear of extinction and led to its
expression in these now fiercely debated sexual prohibitions in Leviticus? What was
life actually like around the time of the Babylonian exile?

The Hebrew Bible addresses Darwinian extinction directly by prescribing an
ethic that maintains high reproductive rates (high r).
The eugenics practiced by orthodox Jewish communities is the other variable
to control specifically in humans (high K) because we are the only species to
hierarchalize by niche.

I uncover the source of the mandate to eugenics found in Genesis in True
Religion, Biblical Symbols from a Darwinian Perspective.

Religion could not have evolved if it wasn't adaptive. The Jewish people are
the longest surviving people in the world. Judaism is adaptive. What you all
need to do is explore the implications of that for Christianity, then you will
understand the liberal/conservative divide.

I understand how embroiled you all are in the ID/YEC thing, but you've been
deliberately misled. Darwinian exegesis is not only possible, it's imperative
if you are to understand the evolution of religion and specifically the Hebrew
Bible upon which Christianity is based.

richard faussette
Received on Tue Jan 24 17:51:20 2006