From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
Date:  9 Apr 92 22:06:57 GMT

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.

	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.

	   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.


Bruce Salem