Re: [asa] Anti-Creationist Psychobabble On the Web

Merv,

You are getting warmer. My belief is that MN emerged from the
creationism/anti-creationism warfare. Probably subsequent to the Chicago
world's fair where scientists declared Christianity to be dead. This cause
a flurry of creationist activity. So MN is sort of like scar tissue or a
callous forming on one's hands.

Part of what is suspect is the motivations of proponents. Are the
motivations truly not religious in nature, and don't have anything to do
with the intra-mural warfare between religionists? If one could show this,
then..... what would be left over would be the question, does the motivation
have anything to do with warfare between pro-religionists and
anti-religionists? If one could show this question is answered in the
negative THEN one would have (at last) a purely secular concept. And one
could then argue the concept has a purely secular purpose. Then we would be
in a situation where the principle truly is like chemistry or physics or
math. And belongs with the domain of knowledge that includes science.

I wouldn't care if it was only armchair theologians that were entangled with
this. But government bodies are officially adopting policies where they
use one set of Christian ideas to oppress another set of Christian
ideas. Government simply cannot be allowed to do that.
I don't want government choosing between creationism vs. anti-creationism
vs. materialism vs. secular humanism vs. any_other_ism. To me it basic
civil rights. I feel very much in the minority on the ASA list and
probably in the ASA organization as well.

-Dave C

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:18 PM, <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:

> I think the view below -- that this wasn't needed until we needed to
> discuss
> religion ... etc. -- has a good bit of truth in it. If the whole world
> is and
> had always been atheist, then "atheist" wouldn't even be word as there
> would be
> nothing to talk about. Until people started trying to abuse science to
> make
> claims like "God does not work in our world", we had no reason to clarify:
> "wait a minute --let's separate out your valid thought & process from the
> illogical leaps" & hence was born the need to distinguish. But this was
> NOT the
> birth of the "valid process" itself which is only now so elegantly
> described by
> the phrase "MN". If nobody had ever driven at unreasonably fast or
> unsafe
> speeds, there would never have been any signs posted or speed laws made.
>
> --Merv
> p.s. There is no term equivalent "mathematical methodology..." because
> nobody
> has yet tried to abuse math towards conclusions where math can't really go.
> But
> if they did --in a big enough way, the term would be born. But not the
> limits.
> Those already existed from the beginning.
>
>
>
> Quoting David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>:
>
> > On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 12:22 PM, D. F. Siemens, Jr.
> > <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>wrote:
> >
> > Dave,
> > One problem I have is I don't know what teacher A does differently by
> > teaching MN than teacher B who does not. It makes no difference.
> >
> > Until you have a religious student to whom you feel the need to try to
> > explain something. BINGO! This trips over the Lemon test (and some
> other
> > things). IMHO. :)
> >
> > To those who are completely secular there is nothing to talk about. To
> those
> > who are concerned with religion then MN is needed.
> >
> > An analogy (all analogies are flawed of course):
> > If I go to the store and buy meat I don't need to know that its
> > "methodologically natural" (even though someone may believe it might
> be).
> > But if I go to the store and ask for Kosher meat, then religion comes
> into
> > it. MN is like that.
> >
>

-- 
=========================
I often suffer from nostalgia, that fondness for something that never was.
Pleasant memories have a tendency to expand.
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