Evolutionism and Creationism often butt heads in the same way that religion and science do. Ironically the disciplines themselves are lifeless. Only dogmatic humans breathe conflict into the dry words of gospels. Even worse, they each do it for their own unclear purposes. Very simply, one must ask “why” one discipline or the other wishes to crush the other so strongly.
Ironically both extremes hold a shocking similarity at their cores. Scientists claim that the entire universe is a collection of random events governed by physical laws. While Creationists on the other hand posit that the universe is a series of random physical events constrained by spiritual laws. On the face of these statements the two sides seem impossibly contradictory. Yet upon examination, another truth emerges.
Each side claims to have no responsibility as it is all the will of some outside larger force.
The Scientist:“It is all Random.”
The Creationist“It is all God’s will.”
They wish to surrender any responsibility for their lives whatsoever. In reality, some kind of bridge must be built between the two perspectives. As I say elsewhere, science explains a form of “how,” while spirituality offers a type of “why.” Hence why there are so many confusing accounts of creation. Each needs to satisfy a different query.
Yet science is the same way. Ask how something occurred to a chemist and you get a completely different answer than from a physicist. Is one more right than the other? That depends. As in all meaningful discussion, “that depends,” is the only answer one can definitively give. Or, more fully, “that depends upon what your goal is.”
If you are trying to manage the lime growth rate in your pipes, the chemist’s answer may be more appropriate. When you are managing the outflow of waste water and sewage from your home, you better ask the physicist, unless you want the you-know-what piling up!
COMING NEXT, THE GRAND CANYON GLACIAL MELT AND HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF.
I think your evaluation of the situation is off. Science is mostly plugging along as always: figuring things out, hotly debating evidence, testing, looking for more evidence, and so on. None of this has anything to do with wanting more or less responsibility for anything: it’s about trying to figure useful and interesting things out.
Creationists are largely noise on the fringes of this process: they attack science in front of the public, but have little real impact on science. No one in science would much care about creationism if it didn’t go spouting off nonsensical arguments or paint science as if it were the devil. But given that these attacks do happen, some scientists shrug and defend themselves.
I guess we are looking at two different groups and two different questions. This leaves at least four ways for us to miss each other’s communications.
What is our only true evidence? This is the ultimate evidentiary question.
The only evidence that is incontravertible, is that you exist. Everything else after that can only be proven to be a function of your existence.
In other words, the whole world as you see it and call it empirical evidence, comes from our own awareness or consciousness.
So, if we compare the idiot creationists to idiot scientists we have extremely poor arguments. Junk science, and creationism are pretty much partners.
What I am saying is that the true query asks and answers two different questions. The ultimate in philosophers try to find the bridge between empirical evidence and internal reality.
So if we talk about cutting edge scientists we must consider cutting edge spiritualists. They are actually partners applying their awareness to two sides of the same coin.
One applies the scientific method to the “subject,” the other to the “object.” Or, the self, and the perceived.
Thanks for the insightful comment.
G
Well, sure, but this is ultimately not a very interesting point. All of this is already openly granted by empiricism, so it’s not exactly a new revelation. And regardless, it’s not like we have much choice to accede to it: the alternative is simply denying the physical reality around us, which you are obviously not doing if you are even sitting down to type a response on a computer.
On the other hand, spiritualism doesn’t seem to have anything similar to physical reality to offer in the way of a testable framework against which to compare things.
Thank you for your observation, this is exactly the bridge. Most ancient mystical schools have frameworks for the evaluation of internal subjective experience. However by their very nature, these are internal quests with comparisons to others being difficult and often tenuous. As you will read here and in other places, renunciation and reclusion are staples of these systems. Naturally they are not the most popular in our stimuli crazed world.
G
I’m not sure what you mean by “evolutionism.” That’s separate from science, I gather.
Evolution, on the other hand, is a solid scientific theory. Evolution is not random — the name of the theory is more formally “evolution by natural and sexual selection.” “Selection” is the opposite of “random.”
One of the things that makes creationism obnoxious is the continuous and continual misstating of evolution theory.
Very little in the universe is random, in fact, according to scientists. Things happen according to rather strict rules of physics and chemistry.
But then, creationists generally are not very good at either physics or chemistry.
No argument here, thank you.
Gouthum