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

John Walley said:
"Instead of attacking materialism and insisting on faith being accepted as science, the church should spend its efforts and energies educating its members on how to be educated and effective in this debate."

That sounds very wise to me.

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of John Walley
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 8:18 AM
To: Marcio Pie; David Clounch
Cc: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID

You are correct in calling materialism a religious view but wrongly calling ID science to counter this just further perpetuates the religious wars and accomplishes nothing constructive and confuses the debate.

The church should refrain from trying to keep the atheists from hijacking science by changing the definition of science to allow them to win the debate. MN serves an important function and keeps science constrained to the nautral world and therefore rational in thought. Instead of attacking materialism and insisting on faith being accepted as science, the church should spend its efforts and energies educating its members on how to be educated and effective in this debate.

C.S. Lewis was amazingly prescient in writing this when he did. The church should learn this lesson from him now.

Thanks

John

--- On Mon, 11/24/08, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID
> To: "Marcio Pie" <pie@ufpr.br>
> Cc: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Date: Monday, November 24, 2008, 11:57 AM
> 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
> >

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Nov 24 11:47:24 2008