Re: [asa] An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

"Each their own beliefs. / Superfluous merely means that God is not necessary but that does not mean that God was not involved. Is that not what causes so much concern when people believe that Darwinism has made God irrelevant when in fact all that it could possibly do is show that God is superfluous. Nothing prevents God from playing a role." -PvM

The issue of not caring whether God cares for God's creation is, however, a sad condition for a Christian believer to resort to. It seems awfully generous of Pim to *allow for the possibility* that God just might play a role. The fact that Pim actually believes God does 'play a role' shows that his science and faith are rigidly compartmentalized instead of acting in harmony seeking unison.

If scripture, as Jim notes, deals more with the non-physical aspects of our existence and natural science tells us that there is no more than physicality, then the two spheres of knowledge will inevitably be at odds with one other. If the physical Creation is relegated to the background, then what, the spiritual Creation can be shifted to the foreground and discussions of science, religion and philosophy can find a balance that is not present when physicalism (sometimes presented in the name of scientism) is allowed to dominate the discourse.

Terry's point reveals something about how TE's and atheistic evolutionists sometimes share common ground. A TE likely doesn't think believe in God is harmful, but rather simply excludes discussion of non-natural, extra-natural or supernatural things when they are 'safely insulated' in the halls of natural science. It suits the atheistic evolutionist quite nicely to use such logic against those creationists who accept certain varieties of evolution (especially biological, geological, botanical, etc.), while rejecting those varieties of evolution that cross-over to philosohical positions that are in fact anti-theistic.

 David O. writes: "I can, then, accept your more modest proposition that social norms and human moral codes have some grouding in human evolution. / What I couldn't accept is the reduction of all morality to conditioned responses / evolution."

By conditioned responses I hear behaviourist approaches, socio-biology, evolutionary psychology and other schools of thought reaching in. Some grounding in evolution can simply mean that we recognize that human beings obviously contain a biological aspect. Yet there are other aspects involved in ethics and morality that are not reducible to bio-physical scientific explanations. Pim cites Chomsky, presumably as an ally, when that is such a dangerous thing to do. See the link on psycholinguistics for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics

An important task is to define what varieties of a theory (e.g. evolution) are suitable to discussing 'right and wrong,' in the case of this thread. My contention for evolution, which Ted Davis would of course disagree with, is that there are very few things in naturalistic evolutionary theories that help us understand 'right and wrong' without returning to theology. Thus, it is not the evolutionary basis of 'right and wrong,' but those theists who accept evolutionary theories who intertwine it with their ethics that speak loudest on this topic.

Arago

p.s. Terry, could you please help with the bothersome delays my messages are experiencing at the ASA list - am I sending too large messages, too improper messages, or is there some intentional screening involved? Thanks.

Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net> wrote: This caught my eye as well. Actually, I like it. It seems to be
articulating the perspective that God may well be more actively
interested in the activities, relationships, and nature of the spiritual
aspect of our existence than to spend any more effort than required to
set Creation into motion in such a way as to serve as a competen,t
active, developing background for His real primary interest. WE make a
big deal of the physical Creation (which I highly respect, and think we
ought to understand and honor). We think it is so important that its
created character might require God's continuous, or at least
intermittant, husbanding in order for it to proceed on its desired
trajectory. But honestly, does not Scripture really deal more
importantly with the non-physical aspects of our existence? If one
follows that track to its sorta obvious conclusion, God doesn't need to
have a job of this physical-Creation-husbanding sort, ergo is
superfluous in that regard. But that certainly does not put Him out of a
job. It just relegates the physical Creation, with its perhaps
methodological naturalism, to the background of existence and relationship.
Or so it seemeth to me. . . . today! JimA

Terry M. Gray wrote:

>
> On Oct 31, 2006, at 3:42 PM, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>
>> Note that God being superfluous is not necessarily an argument
>> against God.
>
>
> This is actually a very interesting sentence. Are you meaning
> "superfluous with respect to our scientific theorizing?" In other
> words, this is just a way of talking about methodological naturalism.
>
> I'm fairly certain that both Dawkins and Hauser would resist your
> sympathies with belief in God, even if you distance yourself from
> including God in your theorizing. This seems to be the gist of the
> Wired piece--not only do these new atheists not believe in God they
> think that belief in God is harmful and needs to be resisted.
>
> TG
>
> ________________
> Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
> Computer Support Scientist
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Received on Wed Nov 1 05:21:40 2006