Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mcnc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcnc!bch From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Rules question Message-ID: <2275@mcnc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 5-Oct-84 16:22:21 EDT Article-I.D.: mcnc.2275 Posted: Fri Oct 5 16:22:21 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 07:11:53 EDT References:@uwmacc.UUCP> <9652@brunix.UUCP> Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service Lines: 43 Summary: In article bmt@we53.UUCP ( B. M. Thomas ) writes: > >One point of clarification that I feel is needed is that we seem >to be looking down the wrong end of the telescope here. What I mean, if >my metaphor applies, is that the evolotionary theory arose out of an >unqualified rejection of the idea of a creator, specifically *the* >Creator of the Judeo-Christian teachings. The rejection stemmed from >the logical conclusion that if He existed, then He had something to say >about how I live My life, something that Darwin et al. had a personal >problem with, as do the evolutionists of today. Sorry, I can't buy that. Evolutionary theory did not arise from the unqualified rejection of a creator though it does bring under scrutiny the history of the world as described in Genesis. Let me quote from Darwin (something that has not been done, to my knowledge, in the history of this discussion on the net.) "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. ... There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by that Creator into a few forms or into one; and that...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." Darwin, Origin of the Species Clearly, these are not the words of one who has rejected the notion of a creator. Similarly, most people I know who subscribe to evolutionary theory are not atheistic in any sense. The idea that they are can only be attributed to fundamentalist creationist propaganda. Can we now dispense with this notion? -- Byron C. Howes {decvax|akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch