Your mistake is in the assumption that Creationism and evolution are two scientific theories about why life on earth exists. Let me help you out: scientific minds laugh at mythology as an explanation for anything. We are not in competition with you. Our rejection of Christian God creating the universe has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, which I totally agree is nothing more than a best guess.

I know this article is very old. I am really only addressing Trenton, who may or may not see my belated comment. If you are not Trenton, I cannot imagine why you read this far.

Sincerely,
JMyste

So I’ll provide an outline shortly.

I will be looking more at the methodology behind the proposed experiment and whether you actually have developed an experiment that can verify scientifically the existence of God. Multi-media won’t impress me all that much and in and of itself will not make the experiment any more scientifically sound.

I was really just expecting an outline that could be evaluated on its merits. The multi-media, to the extent it is necessary to pull this off, could come later. Also, I was under the impression you already knew what this experiment was. Now it appears you are trying to develop it. Given I have taken the position all along no such experiment can be devised, you may want to save yourself a lot of work if this is something you are developing from scratch. That said, if you feel like putting this much energy into it, knock yourself out.

Read much?

A careful re-reading of the above article will reveal that the only Liberals to whom I referred were the Journalists in the paragraph preceding the reference.

I know it must be painful to read articles by Conservatives, but it will help prevent silly mistakes like this from occurring in the future.

Oh, and that “us vs. them” comment–please tell us all how the Liberal obsessions with Race, Class, and Gender aren’t all about “us vs. them.” Black v. White, Rich vs. Poor, Male vs. Female, even Evolution vs. Intelligent Design…all Liberal causes, so please, spare us your pretended sanctimony.

But other times, I’m okay with the mocking, so…

You do realize that evolution is more of a “scientist” thing than a “liberal” thing.

Is it possible for you wingnuts to make ANY argument without employing the “us vs. them” mentality?

http://www.reasonwithpassion.com

What saddens me more than anything is how much our emotional commitment to ideology stops us from engaging in this kind of debate in the public forum. Everyone is so hyper-sensitive and hyper-protective of their own egos and ideas that any challenge to them constitutes the kind of imminent threat we’ve already addressed and triggers its subsequent predatory response.

I’ll borrow and slightly modify an over-joked phrase from Rodney King: Can’t we all disagree in the open and still just get along?

I think we’ll both agree that in the end, one of us will be right, or we’ll both be wrong. Our over-arching responsibility is for each of us, individually, to try to be on the right side when the curtain falls. No one can take you there, you gotta want it (“you” being the generic linguistic device meaning “one”).

So thanks, Craig. I do appreciate you engaging in it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity.

I’m still going to post the challenge, however, so check back from time to time. Shouldn’t take me more than a day or two to get it ready.

Nor did I argue humans are not always subject to natural law. I stated evolution deals with biology. Astronomy deals with the planets and stars, but I would be hard pressed to find some kind of ethical philosophy there. Gravity is a force of nature, and we are all subject to it, but I don’t turn to the law of gravity for moral guidance when it comes to how I should treat others. While all the laws of nature impact everyone and everything to one degree or another, not all of them can or should be applied to moral decisions. Evolution is not a moral philosophy anymore than astronomy or physics are. In rare instances you may be able to apply a lesson from one or more of these fields to ethics, but they are not disciplines or theories dedicated to ethics and for the most part don’t apply.

With regard to equality, I believe I stated it depends on how you define equality. You asked, “if there is no creator, in what way are we all equal? This is a fundamental law or principle within our Constitution”, or something along those lines. Now you point out we are not all equal. I am not sure if you are standing up for the principle of equality as you believe it is outlined in our founding documents or taking issue with it. Regardless, the founders did not define the word equality, which gets back to the issue of interpretation being dealt with in the comments on the other post.

I said we are all equal in that we are all born human. That is the one thing we can all agree we share, our humanity. When the founders said “all men are created equal” we generally take that to mean “all humans are created equal” these days. I agree, physical differences such as gender can be pointed out to make the point we are not equal in all respects. It is our common potential as a species, our freedom to make choices even under the most trying of circumstances that I hope we can all agree provide us with some degree of equality or common experience. Whether this was endowed by nature or a creator doesn’t change the fact we share this in common with one another.

I don’t disagree with you ethics and morals are the basis of the law. You argue they have no meaning or real force behind them unless coming from a deity or other outside source. I argue, given humans have the ability and freedom to determine what is right and wrong for ourselves no outside source is needed. I can make a perfectly good case for why it would be wrong for me to kill you without needing God to do so for me. Furthermore, your will to live I would assume would be more than enough for you to want me not to whether you were a die hard believer or rabid atheist. Basically what you are saying is humans cannot figure these things out for themselves and need super natural intervention to do it for them. Or at the very least humans will have little motivation to be moral if they don’t believe morality is dictated from above. I am not sure why our creator would endow us with the ability to make moral choices for ourselves if he didn’t expect us to use that ability.

You are also arguing that if morality is completely subject to human freedom and choice, then morality is fluid rather than fixed. You are right. History shows this has been true for humans at least since we first learned to communicate with one another and started forming large social groups.

God (or the Gods as the case once was) has, conveniently, always sanctioned what we chose to be right and wrong. In the Old Testament he sanctioned massacres of whole towns, slavery, and polygamy. He doesn’t any more. Did he decide these things were no longer moral or did we make the decision and just project the sanctioning of that decision onto God? What believers in God say is sanctioned by God always eventually follows society’s decision about right and wrong, not the other way around.

So yes, in the cultural (not biological) sense values have evolved as humans have refined and clarified their moral choices over time. Religions collectively and individual believers eventually argue – at least more often than not – God has sanctioned these moral decisions, but that doesn’t change the fact we were the ones that made the moral choice in the first place. Projecting the decision onto God and insisting our choice is divinely sanctioned only enables us to dodge responsibility for making the choices we have. This is done by repressive regimes as well as real humanitarians. It seems the responsibility for our morality that comes with our freedom is often too heavy a cross for us to bear.

Finally, I would agree with you neither of our minds are likely going to be changed significantly by this dialogue. I can’t speak for you of course, but for me it wasn’t a waste of time. These discussions serve to clarify my beliefs and usually provide a clearer understanding of where the other side of the argument is coming from, even if I disagree. Thanks.