People often argue over the meaning of a text before really taking the trouble to discern - accurately and precisely - what the text says. Paying attention to the text first could prevent much subsequent disputation. So, if someone wants to take the six days of creation mentioned in Genesis as six 24-hour units, then to be consistent he would also have to take the tempting serpent as an actual reptile, since there is not the slightest indication that the tempter is anything other than that. To claim it is Satan is to go beyond the literal text.
Regarding Darwin, maybe, instead of trying to derive a theory of everything from him, we should concentrate on what he was trying to get across, which I think had something to do with the origin of species by natural selection.
Regarding Darwin, maybe, instead of trying to derive a theory of everything from him, we should concentrate on what he was trying to get across, which I think had something to do with the origin of species by natural selection.
Wow, talk about making something overly complicated.
ReplyDeleteThe problem underlying both the stem-cell research debate and the abortion debate, is that the embryo is not constitutionally a human being--not a protected citizen. That is a matter of acceptance, not even a matter of religion. We either say an embryo is a human being (which means stem cell research and abortion is murder) or we say it is not. By the way, we could do the same with trees. The Hindus did it with cows. We could do sheep.
None of this Darwinian neo-religious psychobabble is going to take away our responsibility of simply saying whatever it is that we are or will be willing to accept. No one is going to prove that women are human beings, that white guys are human beings, that black people are over 60% human, that anyone is truly human.
This is more about compassion and empathy, love and understanding.
Everything else, is an attempt to develop a model that supports the thinking of political groups. Here we have the possibility that, using philosophies developed through the different roads of arguments that Darwinian takes us through, politically conservative thinking can be supported.
But Darwinianism cannot answer the question as to whether we may accept an embryo as a human being in society, a citizen. Within its belief system, fundamentalist Christianity asserts that embryos are human. Some social psychologists define humans as being part of a social structure, with language and such, that makes us human after birth. Some philosophies accept that all life is tied together, that we are brothers and sisters with animals, even plants life, even rock life. All of these are models to thinking, and each model requires acceptance even when used as a tool toward discovery, versus a doctrine to live by.