From: knightb@palmerc@abulafia.b21.ingr.com (William B. Knight)
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: Intergraph
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 20:57:17 GMT

In article <salem.702857217@pangea.Stanford.EDU> salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes:
>brinkman@edseq4.llnl.gov writes:
>
>	Matt is taking a statement of mine and transforming it to look
>like some religionist cant. He is trying to show that by taking an
>argument that I have made about the tendency to Creationism is
>integral to Near Eastern religion is the same kind of argument made
>by religious bigots against science.
>
>>   And through the magic of simple textual substitution come up with the
>>kind of argument Creationists are noted for (Mr. Tun being merely the latest
>>of that sorry lot)...
>
>>   What nonsense! It seems that the materialist attitude, intolerance of the 
>>religious rights of others and all, is peculiar to Scientists and to certain 
>>biological branches, in particular.  All I need to find are some evolutionists
>>who use evolution in the manner that I put forward, which reaches to the core 
>>of the defining characteristics of evolution, the first one I give is the 
>>authority of Science contained in the theory of evolution, to put forth a 
>>staunch materialistic use of Science, and I make my point, which is that SOME 
>>scientists are atheistic in a way that leads directly to the evolutionist error.
>
>	The pursuit of science is not to asail religion. The error of
>the one to one mapping of my statement to this one is that Matt has
>overgeneralized what I said, and what I ascribed to Campbell to suit
>his purpose. I said that there were basic tendencies in Near Eastern
>religion that led directly to the belief in Creationism, and I have said
>many times, not necessarily to it, that is not all Christians are Creationists
>and certiantly not all are bigoted. Matt seems to be blind to what these
>tendencies are, even after I have described them many times.
>
>	These are:
>
>	1) The Bible is taken as a literal historical and legal
> 	   authority. Its value as a sacred text is in its
>	   use as a law book, not as a set of symbolic guides to
>	   spiritual turths, the correct way to live. This is in
>	   sharp contrast to the use of sacred texts by most other
>	   great religious traditions. They are not taken so literally
>	   or regarded to be in conflict with science.

Is this true of Christianity (or other Near Eastern religions) in general?
Could you provide some (brief) examples?

>	2) The path to spiritual reward is taken by Christians to be
>	   to a point not in this world and distant from themselves,
>	   especially their corporal selves. The physical world
>	   contains few vestiages of the divine, and the divine is
>	   not to be found inside us. After the Reformation and in
>	   some modern sects there is a much more personalized
>	   relationship taken to God, but we are still estranged in
>	   this life from Him. This is not necessarily the case for
>	   other world religions who regard the divine as part of
>	   everyday existance, if mostly hidden from experience.

See above question.

>	   The meaning of this for Creationism is that the physical
>	   relaity is regarded as fallen and unimportant. It can
>	   have nothing to say about a teleology that has divine
>	   origins and motives.
>
>	3) The Near Eastern Religions are theocratic and monocratic.
>	   Until very recently Christinaity was used to keep Monarchs
>	   in power as it envisinged a hiearchy of relations from God,
>	   the king down through the temporal ruler and his clergy
>	   to their subjects. This is still the case in the "Islamic
>	   Republics". This scheme is justified in the same teleology
>	   believed in by Creationists. This is an authoritarian
>	   tradition, which has been overlain by Humanist ideals from
>	   other sources often taken by modern Christians to be in
>	   conflict with Christianity. The Rights of Man and the
>	   values that lead to democratic institutions were not
>	   invented by Christian religion. This is not to say that
>	   founders were not devout, this has nothing to do with
>	   it. In the argument for ideas, it says that our religious
>	   tradition is strongly authoritarian and that people resort
>	   to argument by authority often because of the real power
>	   given to kings, popes, bishops to enforce the Law.

Is there a culture or civilization in history which doesn't contain
an example of people using the conceeept of God to justify authority?

I, for one, am having a very difficult time seeing your point. Would you 
mind briefly stating the point you are trying to make and providing some
evidence for it?  Argument by assertion isn't very convincing and unless
I'm simply missing something, that's what you are doing.

Brad
knightb@abulafia.b21.ingr.com


-- 
Brad Knight 
knightb@abulafia.b21.ingr.com

Newsgroups: talk.origins