matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (08/12/85)
OK, the gauntlet was thrown down and seems to have been accepted. Here's the lead quote to set the tone. In an unrelated(?) discussion a few people have been suggesting that each other are "scared" or "frightened" of various things. Our hero contributes the following rebuttal: > No! I am not scared in the least. That is why I do not stoop to such > depths as ..., ..., and the latest addition to the insult > club, Matt Crawford. I try to discuss the issues rather than attack > the person. This is because I am confident about what I believe. And, > if I am wrong than I have nothing to lose. So Dan is confident about what he believes. Is it then any wonder that evidence and logic will not sway him? The remainder of the article (<368@scgvaxd.UUCP>) from which the above is excerpted contained *NO* discussion of any issues. It did contain some attacks on persons. By the way, who should be taken more seriously: a scientist who stakes a career on careful work, or someone who has "nothing to lose" by being wrong? [N.B.: I admit this is just rhetoric, so don't bother to point out to me that the previous sentence proves nothing!] The next example is from Dan's reply to my previous (and well-received! Keep those cards and letters coming) foray into this newsgroup. I wrote: >>The urge to form parodies is irresistable. How about: "My model >>of the United States includes the fact that Ronald Reagan is the >>president. Therefore I have predicted that Ronald Reagan is the >>president." And Dan replied (in <376@scgvaxd.UUCP>): > This is utter nonsense! This in no way can be compared to a scientific > model of origins. A more reasonable comparison would be: :My model of > the United States system of government includes a Congress according > to a study of the constitution. Now we look at the United States and see > that there is in fact a functioning Congress." Now how many of you readers can see a meaningful difference between my parody and Dan's "more reasonable comparison"? I can't. If anyone can convince me that there is an important difference then I will type either "The Origin of Species" or "Genesis" into my computer and post it to net.origins. (Whoever finds the difference can choose). Moving right along, I quoted an older sentence: >>>>> I can just as easily say that I believe in creation because species >>>>> seem to have a common design. and I gave this comment about it: >>Let's suppose it were a valid argument. In that case stars must >>have been created by god because they are all round in shape, and >>that watches are not created because different ones work on such >>different principles. which met with this objection: >More nonsense! First of all I said species have a common design! Not >lifeless objects. Very well, my argument was invalid *IF* Dan's position is that species are created but stars are not. I assumed that creation was sort of an all-or-nothing proposition, or at least that if the later stages of the work (creation of life) were done `by hand' then the earlier stages (formation of elements and so on) must have been also. Some people, including some scientists, will admit the possibility that the universe was created by divine act and has since been running according to physical laws. Dan's refutation of my reductio-ad-absurdam above requires the opposite viewpoint - that the universe was chugging merrily along on its own when some cosmic joker created a bunch of species on one of the mudballs. This allows stars not to be created while life is. Next, I apologize in advance for the length of the next quote, but it's just too perfect to pass up. Even numbers of '>'s mark my words, odd numbers mark Dan's. >>Here's another choice tidbit which I found amusing. >>> Wrong! My conclusion was this: Since there is nothing in the present >>> structure of natural law that can account for its own origin, the Universe >>> could not have created itself. Therefore, it must have had a supernatural >>> origin. >>Now Dan might mean one of two things by this, depending on how you >>interpret his phrase "present structure of natural law". He could >>be saying that because we do not yet know a scientific cause for >>the the existence of the universe, there cannot be a scientific >>cause. Or he could mean that he knows somehow that the laws of >>nature forbid the spontaneous origination of a universe. Either >>way, he's wrong. Dare I go into the reasons? If I don't I will > Or, I could be saying that since we DO NOT KNOW of any way NOTHING > could have become SOMETHING through NATURAL PROCESSES, it is at least > AS REASONABLE to conclude that "supernatural processes were the > cause of origin" as it is to conclude that "we will someday discover > the natural cause of origin"!! THAT is definitely NOT what you SAID, although it is MORE REASONABLE than what you DID SAY. One parting wisecrack: > We don't know what a creator "would" do, but we do know what a creator > "did" do. Thus creationism is based on observation of the creation. Damn! I must have slept through it! I didn't observe any creation at all! Taking my tongue out of my cheek momentarily, let me ask some questions. None of us are paleontologists or theologians, are we? So what we are doing here is arguing about our opinions on a subject to which we have given a greater or a lesser degree of casual study, right? (Yes, I can see that some seem to have amassed large reading lists, so let's not argue about the word "casual", OK?) Do any of us really hope to convince others of the correctness of our opinions? Are there some silent readers who are forming their opinions on the subject of creationism v. evolution on the basis of what they read here? I would like to see some contributions from them. I compliment this newgroup for a lack of spelling flames, and for enthusiasm. If anyone wants to move the discussion from the biological to the physical, I'll see them in net.hell first!-) _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt
cjdb@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Charles Blair) (08/13/85)
> Taking my tongue out of my cheek momentarily, let me ask some questions. > None of us are paleontologists or theologians, are we? So what we > are doing here is arguing about our opinions on a subject to which > we have given a greater or a lesser degree of casual study, right? > (Yes, I can see that some seem to have amassed large reading lists, > so let's not argue about the word "casual", OK?) Do any of us really > hope to convince others of the correctness of our opinions? Are > there some silent readers who are forming their opinions on the > subject of creationism v. evolution on the basis of what they read > here? I would like to see some contributions from them. To echo Mr. T, pity the fool who would form an opinion "on the subject of creationism v. evolution on the basis of what [is read] here." I am sure opinions are being formed, but in my case it is about the methodology (or lack of it) in the approach to both the "problem" and the discussion itself. (Let me say right now that I subscribe to this newsgroup in preference to net.jokes--great humor here sometimes.) Since there might be some who feel as I do, and since contributions were solicited (see the quote above, though I don't fit the description of the hoped-for contributor), let me address the problems I perceive under the following rubrics: (1) creationists don't represent mainstream Christian thinking on this topic; (2) creationists don't read their Bibles; (3) both the creationists and the non-creationists on this net are discussing this subject "monodimensionally." (1) Creationists don't represent mainstream Christian thinking on this topic. In 1983 a book was published (New York, Scribner's; Roland Frye, editor) entitled _Is_God_a_Creationist?_The_Religious_Case_Against_Creation _Science. I have only had time to skim this book (it is a collection of articles), but the following is worth quoting: The persistent attempts of the members of the creationist movement to get their points of view established in educational institutions can only damage both the Christian cause and education. This forcing of creationism on the public will simply lend credence to the idea already entertained by many intellectual leaders that Christianity, at least in its modern form, is sheer anti-intellectual obscurantism. (p.93) In other words, creationism is not only embarrassing but also potentially damaging to mainstream Christianity. For a brief theological critique of creationism, as well as a synopsis of the scientific rebuttals, I would recommend the article by Langdon Gilkey in the collection just cited (pp. 56-67). Gilkey was called in as an expert witness in the creationism case in Arkansas (his expertise is in theology.) I won't excerpt the article because, as I implied, I find the argument as conducted so far to be ludicrous. However, since there isn't a net.origins.d (discussions on the content of net.origins articles)--there is a net.jokes.d--I am forced to make my contribution, such as it is, here. (2) Creationists don't read their Bibles. Since creationism is about creation, an appropriate question would be, Which creation story does one use? There are three that come to mind: the one beginning Gen. 1.1, the one beginning, Gen. 2.4 (read the footnotes in the Revised Standard Version at this point), and the one traces of which are found in Is. 51.9 and Job 26.12, for example. This one has God or Yahweh doing battle with a primeval chaos-monster, which echoes other ancient Near Eastern creation myths. So to be a creationist already involves some decisions, some choices, some ambiguity insofar as the Bible itself is concerned. Let's see what else it involves. Gen. 1.27 states: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (RSV). This implies that God is an androgyne since both male *AND* female were created in "his" image. That's what the text plainly states. But it says "*he* created *him*." Yeah, I know. "God" here is in Hebrew "'elohim," which morphologically looks like a plural but acts like a masculine singular. "Man" in this passage is not the same as "male," which also occurs in the passage--two different Hebrew words are being translated. The word translated "man" is in Hebrew "'adam;" it might more properly be translated "humankind;" it refers to all of us, male and female. (In the Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew dictionary it is translated "man, mankind." For "man" read "human"--the first edition was in 1907.) Grammatically, however, it too is masculine and singular, hence the pronouns used in referring to it. Let's not rely on grammar and morphology alone. That is not only bad method it is dangerous: in Hebrew, the word for "woman" has a masculine plural, and the word for "father" has a feminine plural. Try concluding something from that. Let's just conclude something from the plain text of the passage: if God created humankind in "his" image, and humankind is both male and female, which the text takes pains to state explicitly, isn't the logical implication that God, too, is both male and female? This is what a *literal* reading of the text demands, and isn't taking the text of the Bible literally what the creationist demands? If the creationist responds, "Yes, but ...", and superimposes some extra-textual presuppositions onto the text, it seems to me that by the creationist's own criteria, "he" has just "butted" himself out of business. Lest I be accused of complete squirreliness, let me add that Rashi (a medieval Jewish commentator) reports in his commentary on Genesis that according to the Midrash Aggadah, God created "man" with "two faces in the first act of creation, and after that he divided them" (_The_Pentateuch_and_Rashi's_Commentary, Brooklyn, N.Y.: S.S. & R. Publishing Company (1949), p.15; see also the Soncino Chumash, p.7). "Two faces" may not imply a complete androgyne, but that conclusion is sometimes drawn. Now, if "man" is an androgyne, and "he" is created in God's image, again I ask, Isn't God logically an androgyne too? What's the point of all this? This: if you're going to take the text literally, then go all the way with it. Any takers? (3) This discussion is too "monodimensional." By this I mean that by "origins" are meant either the big bang way back when, or the six days of creation several thousand years B.C.E. (or whatever the current dating is). These are probably appropriate parameters for a "scientific" discussion of creation, but not really so for a discussion of origins per se, and especially not for the people who claim to be religious. Consider the following commentary on Gen. 1.26-27 by Nachmanides (Ramban): ... in the case of man He said, _Let_us_make_, that is, I and the aforementioned earth, let us make man, the earth to bring forth the body from its elements as it did with cattle and beasts, as it is written, _And_the_Eternal_G-d_formed_man_of_the_dust_of_the_ground [Gen. 2.7] ... And He said, _In_our_image,_and_after_our_likeness, as man will then be similar to both. In the capacity of his body, he will be similar to the earth from which he was taken, and in spirit he will be similar to the higher beings, because it [the spirit] is not a body and will not die. Ramban (Nachmanides): Commentary on the Torah. New York, Shilo Publishing House, 1971, pp. 52-53. Nachmanides attributes this view to "Rabbi Joseph the Kimchite," the father of the famous commentator David Kimchi. I am not a theologian, but it doesn't require a great exercise of imagination to see that Nachmanides, in the thirteenth century, has already made it possible to divorce the physical origins of man from the origins of, in this case, man's spirit, by travelling only a short distance. Creation is viewed as a cooperative effort by God and the earth and its elements. Why not let the scientist tells us the precise role of "the earth" (the primordial slime was after all part of the earth, since even water is part of the planet) in creation, and those so inclined figure out the spirit part? If you say, But there is no scientific proof for the existence of the spirit, I will still accuse you of monodimensionalism--there is more to existence than can be held in a test tube, or looked at through a microscope or telescope, or the like. If you *choose* to ignore the spirit, fine, but that is a metaphysical decision you have made. Please take responsibility for it as such. (Ignoring metaphysics doesn't make it go away.) By the way, I am not saying that I necessarily believe in a spirit (for example, even if one posits a spirit, questions remain, such as, What phenomenologically verifiable entity are you trying to describe or intimate when you use the word "spirit?" What do you mean by 'spirit'?" and so on). Rather, I am questioning what I am calling "monodimensionalism," and using this particular approach as an example to the multidimensionality of the problem. I could also have expressed myself like this. Science is the best means we have of inquiring *how* something came to be the case. It is not a good means at all of asking why. How I came to be here does not explain *why* I am here. I view religion as attempting to come to grips in part with the why's of existence. In other words, the important point is not how the hell we got here, but what in hell we're doing here. (This is street metaphysics.) There are those for whom a "why" answer is meaningless; they would reduce all their "why's" to "how's." Fine, but that is a metaphysical decision, and I think that everyone does metaphysics, whether consciously or by default. I object, however, to everyone following everyone else's metaphysical ignorance or cowardice, and putting the causes of our being here all in the same plane, or dimension. It doesn't require a theologian, only a bold, imaginative layman, to render unto big bang what is big bang's, and unto God (Yahweh, Allah, the Force, whatever) what is God's.