Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID

Lewis said,

'If there is "Something Behind," then either it will have to remain
altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way.
The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is
no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. '

This is why materialism is a religious view. Its not a statement that
science can make. Separation of materialism and state is appropriate just as
is separation of any religious view and state. Injecting materialism as a
preferred view into a government run science curriculum violates this.

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 6:29 PM, Marcio Pie <pie@ufpr.br> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> Speaking of Mere Christianity, I thought this quotation at the end of book
> 1 is particularly relevant to the ID discussion.
>
>
>
> "Ever since men were able to think, they have been wondering what
> this
>
> universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two
> views
>
> have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view.
> People
>
> who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist,
> and
>
> always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving
> in
>
> certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to
> produce
>
> creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By one chance in a
> thousand
>
> something hit our sun and made it produce the planets; and by
> another
>
> thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the
> right
>
> temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of the matter
> on
>
> this earth came alive; and then, by a very long series of chances,
> the
>
> living creatures developed into things like us. The other view is
> the
>
> religious view. According to it, what is behind the universe is
> more
>
> like a mind than it is like anything else we know.
>
> That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers
> one
>
> thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for
> purposes
>
> we do not know, but partly, at any rate, in order to produce creatures
> like
>
> itself-I mean, like itself to the extent of having minds. Please do
> not
>
> think that one of these views was held a long time ago and that the
> other
>
> has gradually taken its place. Wherever there have been thinking men
> both
>
> views turn up. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is
> the
>
> right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments.
> It
>
> watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long
> run,
>
> however complicated it looks, really means something like, "I pointed
> the
>
> telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 A.M. on January
> 15th
>
> and saw so-and-so," or, "I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it
> to
>
> such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so." Do not think I am
> saying
>
> anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the
> more
>
> scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that
> this
>
> is the job of science- and a very useful and necessary job it is too.
> But
>
> why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything
> behind
>
> the things science observes-something of a different kind-this is not
> a
>
> scientific question. If there is "Something Behind," then either it
> will
>
> have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in
> some
>
> different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the
> statement
>
> that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science
> can
>
> make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually
> the
>
> journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends
> of
>
> half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it
> is
>
> really a matter of common sense."
>
>
>
>
>
> I wonder if that means that C. S. Lewis is also part of the conspiracy to
> deny the scientific legitimacy of the ID movement…
>
>
>
> Marcio
>

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Received on Sun Nov 23 19:58:33 2008