By Morris Dean
On a walk this morning, on the day of my writing this (August 3), I realized that the second installment of "Christian-atheist conversation: About Christianity’s non-'holy days'" [published on August 7] revealed a new proof for the non-divinity of Jesus or the errancy of the Bible, one or the other. Here's how it goes:
If Jesus was divine, then, by common definitions of divinity in Christian theology, he had a fully developed, top-of-the line conscience and would have included animals other than humans in his love ethic.Of course, both can be false, but the proof above does not establish that. There are other arguments that Jesus was not divine, and many other ways to demonstrate that the Bible is errant. For example, the Bible states that animals, including man, came into existence in their current form rather than by a process of natural evolution. This is patently false to us now, thanks to Charles Darwin and other dedicated, hard-working scientists, and an inerrant Bible would have had to say so.
The Bible does not report any such inclusion.
Either Jesus was not divine, or the Bible was errant in failing to report this.
It cannot be true that both "Jesus was divine" and "The Bible is inerrant."
| Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean |
In all reporting there is a deliberate selection of information. Much is omitted for the sake of emphasis and coherence. It is errant to believe that omission is necessarily error.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin…
ReplyDeleteThere are two strands of thinking here, and neither of them is "new" or "proof" of what it claims to be.
The first problem here is that animal-life is being glorified to the same rung on which humans stand. I would argue it is inherently inhumane to value the life of an animal to the same degree one values the life of a fellow human being, even from an atheist evolutionary standpoint. I think most human beings are in agreement with me here. So that line of reasoning seems to be a "new proof" only to Morris.
The second line of reasoning suggests that Charles Darwin proved anything at all. Darwin came up with a theory about how animals change over time, and even he admitted that it had some serious issues to confront (it doesn’t account for the genesis of life; it doesn’t account for how kinds of animals vary into different kinds of animals; it doesn’t explain how complex biological systems like the human eye could have developed over time (“absurd in the highest degree” were his words); it doesn’t jive well with the Cambrian explosion, etc.). Hard-working scientists today have said a lot about microevolution and accounted for adaptions within kinds of animals, the idea of which contradicts nothing in the Bible, but they are still hard-pressed for evidence that kinds of animals can change into completely different kinds of animals (let’s say an amphibian turning into a warm-blooded mammal: macroevolution). Even noteworthy evolutionist rhetoricians like Richard Dawkins are still debating the evidence of macroevolution with other atheist scientists
I think it is interesting how this theory of evolution has poked its head into the world of ethics.
As it is, Peter Singer has received quite a lot of press for his controversial (and to most, offensive) views of abortion and infanticide. Even the noteworthy atheist Christopher Hitchens did not understand how anyone could not view a "potential member of the human race" as something less valuable than a pig.
So here I think we need to keep in mind that atheists are not universally in agreement on how evolution occurs or to what extent it does, nor are they in agreement in how the theory of macroevolution intersects with the realm of ethics, just as Christians are not universally in agreement about how much evolution is involved in the Genesis creation account of life.
Kyle, your reading of Morris's post is very careless. The "first problem" you cite is a problem only in your imagination. Morris says noting about equally high "rungs" or of the "glorification" of animal life. He writes only of including them in a "love ethic." By this I assume he merely means compassion and caring for all animal life. (I hope he's not including spiders, worms, and sponges, but I don't know.)
ReplyDeleteThe "second problem" has no bearing on Morris's "proof" whatsoever. Of course the Bible is errant. It's a veritable swiss cheese of error. Dragging Darwin into the discussion is neither here nor there.
I looked at your exchanges a couple of weeks ago, Kyle. They are medieval—two scholastics pulling on a rope. The tortured thinking prevented me from finishing the posts. However Morris values the people and animals in his private life has no bearing on the assertion that an authentic compassion for people must necessarily be accompanied by a compassion for other life forms. That assertion stands or falls by itself.
ReplyDeleteThe errancy of the Bible can easily be established without Darwin. The evolution of species simply extends its errancy to a preposterous degree. I am long in the tooth, Kyle, and time is too precious to engage in a recitation of the Bible's errors.
The survival of the English language in the medieval period's scholasticism and scribal work (at the behest of King Alfred) is what enables our having this conversation today. So to call the exchanges "medieval" seems complimentary to me, though I do not think you intended it that way.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I agree that his assertion is axiomatic, and thus subject to scrutiny. Morris is convinced, however, that non-"compassion for other life forms" to any degree is intrinsically evil. My point was simply that most humans seem to be in agreement with me in that we have an inherent sense that human life is more valuable than beast life, and thus his first "proof" is one exclusive to his axiomatic thinking.
We are in agreement: the evolution of species is no qualm to me. Adaptations happen within and across species. What does not happen, in the realm of scientific observation, is the evolution of entire kinds of animals within a kingdom, such as mammalian herbivorous quadrupeds into avian predatory raptors.
And I am sorry for beleaguering you with such time-consuming questions; I would not bother if I didn't think the subject worth the time.
You're not beleaguering me, Kyle—not at this level of conversation. If you insisted on Biblical analysis, the beleaguering would begin.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree with the proposition that a lack of compassion for other life forms is evil. I'd say rather that a lack of compassion for the higher vertebrates (and the few intelligent invertebrates) is a form of mental illness. I see that proposition as one that many would readily accept. The sticking point comes when you ask, how much compassion? Humans are omnivores, and so there is an inherent conflict between compassion for animals and the desire to eat them. Does human life have a greater value than beast life? Certainly, because other people satisfy far more of our needs than beasts do. Like it or not, we are needy, and the better the satisfiers, the higher their value.
I'm unclear about your third paragraph. Are you saying fish didn't evolve into amphibians and that dinosaurs didn't evolve into birds?
I am definitely in agreement with your stance on the value of human life. My reasoning is a bit different, but the conclusion seems to be the same.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the proposition that the macroevolution of fish into amphibians and dinosaurs into birds is still open to interpretation of the fossil record.
On what grounds, Kyle? I have yet to read any expert in the field that doubted the source of amphibians. Recent evidence on the origin of birds seems to have convinced everyone as well. Please explain your reasoning.
DeleteI have to chime in with Chuck, Kyle. Both are indisputable.
DeleteHere are two sources that have been quite helpful to me in analyzing the fish-to-amphibian theory (again, neither from Ken Ham):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/do_amphibian-li054191.html
http://www.earthhistory.org.uk/transitional-fossils/fish-to-amphibian
What I find interesting about all the reading you can do online on this subject is that the research for or against the fish-to-amphibians theory seems to be best buttressed by research in the 2000’s: that is starkly recent in the world of biological and paleontological science where, again, paradigms and theories are re-written quite frequently, so we ought to be more honest and reserved with our science in calling the idea a “fact.”
I realize this may have just now become a tl:dr issue. Such seems to often be the case in our contemporary dialectic.
ReplyDeleteWhat is tl:dr? Haven't seen it before.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to take a look at those papers in the next few days.
Too long; didn't read = tl;dr
ReplyDeleteKyle, I looked at only one of the sites you provided. Five minutes of poking around convinced me that I needed to escape quickly from that asylum and avoid sampling the other sites. Sorry, but I have a visceral flight reflex when I see people in denial to a pathological degree.
ReplyDeleteI'll only add that the geological record tells us Phylum A appeared on the scene before Phylum B, that Phylum B appeared before Phylum C, and so on. I'll cast caution aside and call this a *fact*. Given this fact, "the evolution of entire kinds of animals within a kingdom" did indeed happen—a great many times.
Ken, is that to suggest that "both are indisputable" because you refuse to read any opinion other than the one you already believe? It seems pretty easy to call something "indisputable" when you won't give five minutes to anything that creates a dispute.
ReplyDeleteKyle, in my seven decades I've not once seen or heard a different opinion on this matter. Not in high school or college, not in the newspapers, not in any of the books I've read, not on news broadcasts or educational television. And never before online. Your point of view is a shocking novelty that I can't allow into my head.
ReplyDeleteKen, it does not surprise me that 70 years of experience has established a foundation for you. I would probably be in your shoes too, but I'm shy of your experience by half a century. Still, as I said before, our understanding of scientific theories is constantly being revised based on new findings. Good science remains mutable, open to new ideas and research: that is how scientific progress works.
ReplyDeleteI am merely suggesting that the information you are refusing to read is a product of the last two decades of dissident opinions based on the newest research. As it is, the discovery of Tiktaalik in 2006 is particularly shaking up what we thought we knew about Phylums A, B, and C as you put it. While shocking it may be, I think it is worth your perusal when you can stomach it.
Tiktaalik is a "transitional fossil," Kyle. Such fossils, which provide a transitional link in the evolution of one phylum to another, have been found before. It's very exciting, of course, when they are found because they are confirmations—hard evidence of what we knew had to exist. Tiktaalik is just one more link in the exhaustive chain of evidence of species evolution and, in this case, phylum evolution. No doubt creationists have appropriated the discovery and forced it into their counterfactual schema.
ReplyDeleteThis may have aged into irrelevance by now, but I did finally read your references. About the bird question:
ReplyDeleteThe paper your references discuss seems to be a legitimate one. (Why didn't you reference it rather than news reports?) I don't have the background to evaluate the guy's arguments (e.g. that the lung/leg interaction in birds couldn't have evolved from dinosaur phenotypes). Others have recently made a very big deal of the fact that some species of dinosaurs are now known to have had feathers. I can only say: don't believe any one study in this or any other field. You really need to see what consensus forms after many researchers have chewed over the new ideas.
The amphibian question is a bit trickier. The sources you cite are websites dedicated to disproving evolution. I spent some time patiently trying to figure out what their point really was here (the arguments weren't very coherent.) Apparently one of them was that since lungfish haven't evolved into amphibians, fish fossils with proto-limbs couldn't have either. This doesn't seem to follow... Anyway, a bit frustrated by this, I thought to look at what these people had to say about the age of the Earth, a subject I actually know something about. I'm sorry to say that their arguments on this were bullshit. They have no idea what they are talking about. Guessing that a paleontologist might react similarly to their evolutionary arguments, I gave up on them. Reminds me of the comment that real science proceeds from evidence to conclusions; junk science starts with the desired conclusion, then looks for evidence.
The best I can say is, depending on science news blogs for your science isn't so great. Depending on IE ideologues for scientific information is a really bad idea. That way lies madness.
Chuck, according to online articles, birds descended from theropod dinosaurs. There is near unanimity among paleontologists on this point. The few dissenters hold that birds descended from predecessors of the dinosaurs. Either way, birds evolved from reptiles.
ReplyDeleteCreationists, as you observe, begin with conclusions, not evidence—science in reverse. The conclusion that underlies all their efforts is that God created the universe and everything therein. Defending this belief is fundamental. If God loses credit for creation, he loses everything. He can no longer be God. His very existence disappears.
Ken, I've been following discussions of all this for many years in sources such as Science Magazine (which recently reported an apparent transitional form with four wings!) My impression is that while some recent evidence (such as feathered dinosaurs) has greatly raised the stock of the theropod theory, there is still nothing like unanimity. The work cited by Kyle's sources, e.g.,is by an apparently perfectly respectable paleontologist at Oregon State, and isn't the only serious work I've seen recently questioning the current conventional wisdom. Paleontologists are a quarrelsome crowd, and since this is a very long way from my field I'm content to watch them duke this one out for a few more years.
ReplyDeleteChuck, do you know of a respectable paleontologist who holds that birds did not evolve from reptiles? If so, a name or a link would be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteHere's a quote on this subject from a Wikipedia article on the origin of birds.
ReplyDelete"The origin of birds has historically been a contentious topic within evolutionary biology. However, only a few scientists still debate the dinosaurian origin of birds, suggesting descent from other types of archosaurian reptiles. Among the consensus that supports dinosaurian ancestry, the exact sequence of evolutionary events that gave rise to the early birds within maniraptoran theropods is a hot topic. The origin of bird flight is a separate but related question for which there are also several proposed answers."
Sorry, I haven't taken notes over the years. But I do see an article or two in the peer reviewed literature disputing the idea, Wikipedia notwithstanding. You might try the link Kyle provided that led to that guy at Oregon State. I have no way of knowing how respectable he is, but his institutional connections suggest he probably is. Sorry I can't do better. As I said, paleontology is way out of my field.
ReplyDelete