From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 06:21:18 GMT

brinkman@edseq4.llnl.gov writes:

>   In article <salem.702101753@pangea.Stanford.EDU> salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU 
>(Bruce Salem) writes...

>>	I have the view that there is something inherit about Christianity
>>and Judaism and Islam that leads all three to the kind of bigotry that
>>supports Creationism. I say this knowing full well that there are many
>>moderate people of all three faiths who are not either bigots or
>>Creationists. 

>   Now, this is a claim you have made repeatedly (i.e., Christians, Jews,
>and Moslems tend to be bigotted), Bruce.  Would you care to provide any
>evidence for this claim?

	Where have you been? I have given my argument before. Since I
have made the claim before, had you not followed it?

	I have said in the past that I agreed with Joeseph Campbell's
criticism of Christianity and the other religions of the Near East
that they have developed too concrete and autoritariann view of their
sacred books. This leads directly to Creationism as a literal taking of
Biblical symbols as historical facts.

>  Since you agree that there are many moderate
>people in all three faiths, pointing to immoderate people will not suffice
>(after all, who are we to believe really represents the true tradition of
>Christianity, Judaism, and Islam?).

	I am saying that the tendency to the immoderate behavior is
integral to the operation of ideas in these faiths, not that all
of the faithful were immoderate. But there are no checks against such
extremeism. 

>   Another example of what is NOT evidence is...

>>I am still inclined to agree with the criticisms of Joeseph
>>Campbell of our spiritual tradition that it inclines us to use Scripture
>>in an over concrete, inerrant, historically accurate and authoritarian
>>way. 

>   I would argue that Campbell merely provides a plausibility argument as
>to why our spiritual tradition breeds intolerance.  Plausibility arguments
>are NOT evidence.  For example, one can provide plausibility arguments as to
>how the eye developed, but such arguments are clearly not evidence for
>evolution (although they are evidence that the Creationist 'it just can't
>happen' arguments are unfounded).  Similarly, arguments as to why our
>spiritual
>tradition MIGHT lead to intolerance don't provide any evidence that our
>spiritual tradition DOES lead to intolerance.

	What nonsense! It seems that the Creationism attitude, intolerance
of conflict with sacred texts and all, is peculiar to Christians and to
certian American sects, in particular. All I need to find are some Christians
who use their faith in the manner that I put forward, which reaches to the
core of defining characteristics of Christianity, the first one I give is
the authority of the Law contained in the Word of God, i.e. the Bible, to
put forth a staunch authoritarian use of Scripture, and I make my point,
which is that SOME Christians are intolerant in a way that leads directly 
to the Creationist error. Creationism is a product directly of this use
of Scripture. I don't think that anyone has to look far to find Christians
who provide more than enough impetus for the ideas in Creationism by the
pursuit of their faith, alone. That is my whole point, IN THE ABSENSE OF
DECENT ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE, CREATIONISM IS PURELY A PRODUCT OF THE USE
OF RELIGION. The root of this type of thing is at the very center of
christian faith.

> I have put forward the request, let me demonstrate one form that
>evidence may take [1]...

>   Gallup International Institute, Inc. and the Princeton Religion Research
>Center, has conducted a study of the impact of religious faith on the
>day-to-day lives of Americans. 

>[1] "Gallup says he has evidence that faith is good for you", George W.
>     Cornell, Associated Press.  Quotes taken from the _TRI VALLEY HERALD_
>     Saturday, March 14, 1992, p. A-13.

>>Bruce Salem

>Matt Brinkman		brinkman@edseq1.llnl.gov

	Poll results do not constitute good evidence unless we know in
detail the methods used. This includes the set of questions used and
the sample size. The reason is that you may ask the same question over
and over again and get different results depending on what emotive
connotations the words in the questions have on the people in the
sample. Newspapers do a poor job of revealing how polls are taken
and generally such reporting should be taken with a grain of salt.


>P.S. Bruce, what exactly is the point of the Honig discussion?  Honig's 
>     indictment does strongly smack of a political hatchet job, but not one
>     engineered by Creationists.  Also, while it may be interesting to discuss
>     Pete Wilson and Dan Lundgren, you really should give credit where credit 
>     is due--Honig was done in by the Feds.  You might also want to mention 
>     Honig's strong ability to shoot himself in the foot by giving federal 
>     grant monies to and writing letters on Education department stationery 
>     on behalf of his wife who was running her group out of the Honig home.

	It is not clear that he has done anything wrong, whereas a political
climate exists so that Homig has many enemies who want to see him uhdone.
The news analysis, or background piece, I quoted from said that some of the
people who want to see Honig removed the most are Creationist lobbying
group members and a sympathizer, who was instrumental in bringing the
case to the Attorny General's attention. It is true that the Givernor
has fought openly with Honig, and that might be reason enough for a hatchet
job, but Honig's ire with Christian groups who oppose him on teaching
evolution or talking about AIDS and gay rights is a matter of record, as
the article sayes.

	The point of this is that here is a case where the role of
Creationism as a political strategy: oppose the work of appointed or
ellected officials to talk about teaching evolution, pressure the
states and book publishers to water down science texts that deal
with evolution, and brand anyone who doesn't agree with you as
subversive and perverted.

Bruce Salem