Actually, what I said was that when Darwinists treat people as if they’re the product of matter and random chance with value assigned by society (their choice) based on the characteristics that society happens to prefer (e.g., based on what the people in question are able to do or not do, what they look like, etc.) rather than on merely being human, they’re living out the ideas of Darwinism. When Christians act as if people aren’t valuable simply by being human, regardless of their characteristics or abilities, (because they’re made in the image of God) they’re acting against the Christian worldview.

Logical conclusions and actions don’t always match up on either side, as I mentioned. No one knows better than Christians that we (everyone, not just Christians) fail to do what is right and that we’re accountable for the wrong we do unless we’re pardoned. That’s the very problem Christianity deals with. I suspect that you know there’s an objective right and wrong (or why complain about what other societies did that you think was wrong?) and that even you have violated the right often enough. We have real guilt, and we need real forgiveness because there is such a thing as goodness and justice that’s anchored beyond human societies.

But here’s the cold, hard truth about the world if naturalistic Darwinism (I’m not talking about any other philosophy here) is true:

Some directionless, lifeless matter happened to randomly come together in a way that led to people walking around. As they evolved, societies developed codes on their own to ensure their survival. Do those codes ultimately mean anything? No. Good, evil…those words are just preferences developed by the societies, but there’s no ultimate standard represented by God’s character to which we’re trying conform ourselves and our societies, and there’s no law above what we happen to create for ourselves (or rather, what the people with power happen to create for everyone else).

The word “atrocity” doesn’t even make sense. Societies develop meaning and values for themselves, and their meaning and values are just as valid as the next society’s. What gives anyone the right to condemn genocide? You’re just comparing your society’s standard to another. It’s not like you have anything fixed by which to judge between them. That other society was just trying to ensure its survival, and it found that the best way to do that was to destroy another society. The most you can say is that your personal preference is that they not act in that manner. But so what?

We aren’t here for a purpose–we don’t mean anything. We’re only here because certain molecules happened to bump into certain other molecules. We can make up little stories about how the fact that we can enjoy life gives us meaning, but ultimately, that’s just a story. Soon, you’ll die, and you won’t exist. You’ll just be snuffed out forever. Anything you did on your short time on earth will be swept away. Sure, you lived, but so what? Soon, the sun will die, and all life on earth will be gone, and the meaningless, dead, cold universe will just continue to move around until it finally breaks down. Nothing you did lasted. There’s no transcending love or justice or personality. There wasn’t even anything good or bad–just the things that happened to be. The things that you did happened, but that’s about all you can say for them. They have no ultimate meaning whatsoever. So, experience life and create a meaning in your mind, or make up a meaning with your society–but it’s only in your mind or the collective mind of your society. When your mind is gone–and all societies are gone, so is your made-up meaning, and only the real truth of random matter remains forever.

I understand this is a conceit many Christians hold, which, like many conceits, is unfounded. Mostly, it reflects an ignorance of other belief systems, many of which are older than Christianity. Buddhism, for example, teaches…

…the innate dignity of human beings does not stem from our relationship to an all-mighty God or our endowment with an immortal soul. It stems, rather, from the exalted place of human life in the broad expanse of sentient existence. Far from reducing human beings to children of chance, the Buddha teaches that the human realm is a very special realm standing squarely at the spiritual centre of the cosmos. What makes human life so special is that human beings have a capacity for moral choice that is not shared by other types of beings. Though this capacity is inevitably subject to limiting conditions, we always possess, in the immediate present, a margin of inner freedom that allows us to change ourselves and hereby to change the world.

A belief in the intrinsic value of life doesn’t have to be religious. Humanism, which traces its lineage to the classical Greek philosophers, asserts, for example, that

…moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue life’s enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, and dehumanization.

Our society has been trained to value life (being rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs), but that will slip away as it loses its basis in the culture.

A manifestation of the Christian conceit, it suggests that non Judeo-Christian societies inculcate no such value.

And if what you’re asserting is true, then how do you explain tolerance of the death penalty among Christians in our society? What of their initial acceptance and perpetuation of slavery?

The logical conclusion of Christianity is that every human being has value.

History proves otherwise. In response to my example of the Albigensian Inquisition, you only disputed the number of dead (in fact, the link you provided doesn’t give a total number) and ignored its implications. Of course, that atrocity is only but one example of many committed in the name of Christianity over the course of its existence. You infer that such bloodshed is a perversion of Christian teaching, but the Bible contains numerous examples of mass slaughter, all putatively sanctioned by God.

The point is, it’s not important what Christians say they believe, but what they actually do. Let me illustrate with everyone’s favorite bugbear, the Mormons.

Utah has among the highest bankruptcy filings in the nation. There’s nothing in Mormonism that condones bankruptcy; in fact, its authorities explicitly condemn it. So there’s a discrepancy between doctrine and practice. It’s obviously insufficient to claim that bankruptcy is a perversion of Mormon doctrine because the correlation is real. Instead, we look at what factors in Mormonism contribute to the problem.

It’s the same with Christianity and the evils committed in its name. You cannot dismiss them by claiming some doctrinal perversion, particularly when the evils occurred through century after century. The honest inquirer will ask, what in Christianity leads to such crimes? I’ll grant that the Bible teaches some useful ethics, but it also preaches some shockingly bad ones as well, which have been used to justify a great deal of evil in humankind’s affairs, even up to the present day.

The very sad thing is how little this is acknowledged among Christians. A collective amnesia appears to have settled on them, abetted by countless apologists. Sincere expressions of regret and requests for forgiveness for past evil sometimes emerge, but honestly examining its causes remains an unfulfilled task, rather like our Mormon friends and their problem with bankruptcy.

Singer also lives consistently with these beliefs and argues for us to embrace the implications of Darwinism (as I explained above)

When an alleged “naturalist/Darwinist” says or does something distasteful, according to you, it’s a natural expression of their philosophy. When a Christian says or does something distasteful, it’s a perversion of teaching. I find such reasoning tendentious.

ID is silent on the identity of the designer, absolutely. (As I've said many times before, science can't determine the identity of the designer.) But of course it has implications–just as Darwinism has implications. And of course, I am a full human being who has developed her worldview from more than just science, and it is evidence from many other areas (revelation, history, philosophy, experience, etc.) that led me to equate the designer with God.

If people “thinking consistently naturalistically” value life so little, then why aren't scientists responsible for most violent crimes?

Believing some people are worth less doesn't automatically make you commit violent crimes–especially if those crimes are illegal. But read on…

Most of them don't want to follow their beliefs to their logical conclusions–they can't live with the consequences (and I would argue that this is because their conclusions don't match reality). So they take a leap of faith and believe people have meaning and value, even though there's no way for them to ground that belief. Our society has been trained to value life (being rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs), but that will slip away as it loses its basis in the culture. I've already quoted Peter Singer in this discussion. He openly says that because he doesn't believe in God, he knows that humans don't have intrinsic value, and therefore parents ought to be able to kill their very young children if they have Down's Syndrome or hemophilia. I think that killing these children would be a violent crime, but Singer doesn't think so. In other words, people will be defined out of being human such that violent crimes against them will be legal because those actions will no longer be considered “violent crimes,” if naturalists like Peter Singer have their way.

Before you respond that examples of religiously-motivated violence and death are perversions of Judeo-Christian faith, be aware that I could similarly argue the same for naturalism.

But see, you can't argue that. Can you give me one reason in a naturalistic world with no God why human beings would have any real value other than what other humans decide to place on them according to their own arbitrary criteria? Or how there could even be such a thing as “value” in the first place?

Leaving aside the fact that I find your number of 1,000,000 very hard to believe (see here), here's the bottom line: The logical conclusion of Christianity is that every human being has value. The logical conclusion of naturalism (human beings are only a product of time plus chance) is that human beings do not have inherent value. Living those beliefs out consistently leads to different conclusions. Christians who don't value human life are not living consistently with their beliefs. Atheists who don't value human life are living consistently with their beliefs. There have been people on both sides who have not lived consistently with their beliefs (i.e., there are atheists who value people without any real reason). However, the atheist communists (who killed many millions of people in the last century) were living consistently with their Darwinist beliefs. Singer also lives consistently with these beliefs and argues for us to embrace the implications of Darwinism (as I explained above). He's not likely to go out and do something currently illegal like kill the babies himself. What he will do is continue to try to convince us to follow naturalism/Darwinism where it leads and make this legal so anyone can kill the babies as they choose.

But I thought ID was silent on the question of God. As an ID proponent, how did you come to equate the designer with God?

In other words, the deaths of the millions were not aberrations, but were the logical conclusions come to by people who were thinking consistently naturalistically (in this case, Stalin) without smuggling in some idea of “value” that's nonsensical in a naturalistic world.

Having a Masters in Russian studies, I dispute the notion that Stalin was “thinking consistently naturalistically” in causing the deaths of millions. Nonetheless, the problem here is that the motivation for mass murder has originated from a number of factors, including theism. Consider, for example, the Albegensian Inquisition conducted by the Catholic church, in which an estimated 1 million people died.

There are examples of mass murder in the Bible.

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Samuel 15:3: And he [Saul] took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

If people “thinking consistently naturalistically” value life so little, then why aren't scientists responsible for most violent crimes?

Before you respond that examples of religiously-motivated violence and death are perversions of Judeo-Christian faith, be aware that I could similarly argue the same for naturalism.

Here's a recent example from an article about Peter Singer: “Professor Singer believes that what defines and gives value to a person is not his or her intrinsic nature or having been made in the image of God, but the possession of certain specific qualities. Singer says newborns are not yet rational or self-conscious enough to qualify as persons; therefore, if the parents agree, in cases of severe disability, they can be killed.” (He defines “severe disability” as “spina bifida, Down's syndrome, and hemophilia.”)

Why does he believe we can decide to kill weak babies? Because: “One reason Singer has reached these conclusions is that he does not accept the sanctity of human life….A human being doesn't have value simply in virtue of being a human; that is, just belonging to the species “Homo sapiens” isn't enough….I don't believe in the existence of God, so it makes no sense to me to say that a human being is a creature of God.”

I don't believe that the naturalistic view of the world reflects reality. I think there is a God, and I think we do have value. Because of that, there's enough at stake to make this a subject worth talking about–important enough that all sides should be heard and considered.

Diran, sometimes I read your comments. I am intrigued by how much energy is spent making accusations of “preoccupation” and “obsession.” Perhaps you can tell me why you are obsessed with pointing out our “preoccupation” and “obsession,” which I admit makes the discussion turn to the personal and psychological, but for good reason. I feel your time would be better served by any activity other than preemptively accusing us of “rationalizations.”

However, as I peer at things, I’ve always felt that a Designer unfortunately does nothing to dispute the enormity of the fossil archive [a more important issue], whereby homo erectus, etc, underwent a thoroughgoing transmutation to the current form of human being. Whereby several species over several millennia and epochs have come and gone prior to homo erectus. What naturalism and evolutionary theory coupled with modern technologies have done, amongst other things, [but perhaps its most important finding], is ascertain an archive of fossil evidence and the corresponding data concerning certain species’ change over time…a quite large amount of time one must note, such that the account in Genesis is allegorized by it. The beginning of Genesis focuses on the cosmic importance of humanity and humanity’s choice to betray God, emphasizing that the human being was responsible for the suffering of the world and pain’s existence in general. Before sin animals were peaceful, frolicked with Adam and were named by him, and did not prey on one another. But after Eve and Adam’s succumbing the current state of affairs went into operation. We now know that we did not precede other beings in the animal world. That spiders for millennia preyed upon other species through capturing these and sucking their blood, stabbing and paralyzing them with sharp fangs all while still alive, was nothing to our credit…rather, it was designed[?]. [Does design take the good with the bad?]

With that, ID theorists have unfortunately allowed themselves to be distracted from the more pertinent and pressing theological issues which arise from the fossil record, from the book the earth left us. One of which being: how does the notion of design factor sin into its calculus considering there was no moment of a human “fall” from grace that would establish and instigate all subsequent suffering? There was no moment where human beings were sovereign and without sin, uninfluenced by dangerous and superior exterior factors [earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tigers, shark attacks, etc, that pose a threat and cause immense suffering. In other words, and to repeat, physical suffering is not the result of human sin, but precedes it]. We may posit a Designer, Deity, etc, behind existence and Who is very well working within it, but how do we conceptually deal with the likelihood that the atrocities, pain, and suffering – much of which results from natural law and physics – that preceded humanity and still exist today did not result from any of our doing? Further, is sinful human nature readymade and designed? Does the answer reside in the line of reasoning that tragedy comes about by the demonic / a fallen angel race, a notion Plantinga has defended? But how does this argumentation fix anything, for how do we establish it as our responsibility to acquire the debts of other free agent beings far earlier created than we? The true area of contemplation for contemporary Christianity is the metaphysical, and not physical, not the sciences…at least not for what it hopes to achieve: that of the establishment of a Designer behind the form of evolution, irreducibly complex systems, IE the readymade that points to God’s hand. For if ID hopes merely to achieve [if it has not already attained] a final victory over strict unguided naturalism, such is to set the bar very low. It is not a fantastic scholastic feat, greater than furthering and unraveling the above questions. Such an ID victory is one analogous to the Battle of Bull Run [1st Manassas], not Gettysburg, coffee shop art shows, and not a career retrospective at the Guggenheim.

TDLIII

If you want to see a great explanation of the covenant God made with the nation of Israel (the verses you're quoting) and Christians under the New Covenant, see if you can find a copy of From Creation to the Cross, and read the chapter on the Old Testament Law. (And this is only one view of the relationship between OT Law and NT Christians.)

The only reason I can't go off on a tangent is because I also have to work at my job!

The best thing for you to do, Robert, if you want to discuss these things (and I hope you will continue to want to!) is to stick around here for a while and take them on as they come up so we can deal with one thing at a time. And you're welcome to email suggested topics or suggest them here. These are definitely whole discussions in themselves. We bring up all sorts of things here, and we encourage people who disagree to discuss these things with us, so if you spend a little time here, we'll cover a lot of territory.

I guess I misinterpreted your post. It seemed to me you were implying that belief in Darwinism (evolution) leads to a disbelief in God, which could lead one to ask, If I affirm God’s existence, then how should I understand the creation of life and its development (since Darwinism/evolution would be ruled out)? Should Genesis be my guide?

As for the relationship of Christians to Old Testament Law, that would require an extensive explanation based on the theology presented in the New Testament, but you should know that things aren’t dropped simply because they’ve been “superseded by modern understanding.”

Clearly, some scripture seems superseded. Take Exodus 35:2

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

But I will take your word that it’s a matter of “extensive explanation” to understand.