tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post4076099679773015920..comments2024-03-21T21:53:01.837-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: Creationist Tries to Claim Thomas Jefferson as AllyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-41762252645716826482012-08-29T14:12:33.026-05:002012-08-29T14:12:33.026-05:00That last comment is close-minded, arrogant, and m...That last comment is close-minded, arrogant, and mistaken in important facts.<br /><br />Max Planck’s religious ideas were much more nuanced than that comment claims; see <a href="http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Max_Planck.html" rel="nofollow">the Adherents site</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck#Religious_view" rel="nofollow">even Wikipedia</a> for a more accurate description. <br /><br />Second, to equate creationism with literal belief in Genesis is far too narrow. Many people from faiths that don't consider that book to be "the Word of God" have believed that a god or gods created the universe. <br /><br />Both those errors fit a common pattern: deciding that other people must share the writer's own religious beliefs. Hardly a valid approach to learning about the world through any discipline. <br /><br />Finally, someone who makes the tautological proclamation, "I use the Genesis account to support my Genesis hypotheses" has no standing to say anyone else is "foolish" or "blinded by their own ignorance." J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-82817432011759386122012-08-29T11:43:48.285-05:002012-08-29T11:43:48.285-05:00There are a number of historical figures, includin...There are a number of historical figures, including scientists, such as Max Planck That believed in the Genesis account of creation. Why defend being a creationist? Labeling a creationist as anything other than a believer in the Word of God is foolish. I use the Genesis account of creation to support my Genesis hypotheses concerning living creatures. What do you call me? My PhD in chemistry does not make me an atheist; it gives me the background I need to do some real science. Atheists are blinded by their own ignorance.MajorRayhttp://gridwork.usnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-11730418034139386972009-10-13T23:01:28.106-05:002009-10-13T23:01:28.106-05:00We may indeed be confused on definitions. I’m havi...We may indeed be confused on definitions. I’m having a hard time reconciling these statements from your different comments:<br />• “Most [creationists] subscribe to the Big Bang Theory.”<br />• “I see creationists as those who believe the universe was created as is either a short time ago or a long time ago.” <br /><br />My understanding of the Big Bang Theory and its picture of what follows involves a universe that underwent great changes before it reached a state we can recognize “as is.” <br /><br />Be that as it may, the fact that the universe and the little part we know well are indeed complex doesn’t strike me as necessary evidence for design. Given how little we still know, how much time has elapsed, and how many other situations might have been randomly created, it seems more like evidence of the need for more scientific investigation rather than the assumption of a design.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-61480041525290986902009-10-13T17:56:19.004-05:002009-10-13T17:56:19.004-05:00I believe we are in disagreement mostly about defi...I believe we are in disagreement mostly about definitions. I see creationists as those who believe the universe was created as is either a short time ago or a long time ago. If one still sees design in the universe but does not think it was created as is no matter how long ago then I don't catagorize them as creationists.<br /><br />I do believe you are right that it is more likely for Jefferson to have branched off from that thread of thinking as a well educated individual if he were alive today. But that depends on how strong his convictions were to begin with.<br /><br />As for me, I see design without a literal interpretation because of the shear improbability of anything being here in the first place. The odds of such complexity arising out of nothing and by chance are slim to none. But I'd be open to evidence that suggested otherwise. <br /><br />The problem with people like Meyer trying to claim deceased figures of stature as advocates for design is that it is impossible not to take them out of context. Which is why I don't take ancient writings litterally and try to fit them in our modern day box, i.e. scripture. Like I said before, we are disagreeing over definitions. And a couple other things as well. But I, like Larry C, think it was a necessary article.Josiah Coffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16430300955233472895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-39276055159331887322009-10-13T12:46:38.939-05:002009-10-13T12:46:38.939-05:00Jefferson saw design because, like everyone else i...Jefferson saw design because, like everyone else in his lifetime, he hadn’t been exposed to any other explanations for the biology he saw around him. Meyer sees design because he’s a devout Christian; he started from that position before going to graduate school, and he’s stuck with it. <br /><br />I don’t know enough about how you’ve come to see design to agree that it wasn’t the equivalent of “starting with a literal reading of their faith’s scripture and adjusting as little as they can.” <br /><br />However, I stand by my statement that that applies to “most creationists,” and wish that you hadn’t distorted that statement into an attempt to “lump them <i>all</i> in that box” [my emphasis].J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-8502999854956070682009-10-13T11:28:43.739-05:002009-10-13T11:28:43.739-05:00I think, J.L., that while it is impossible to put ...I think, J.L., that while it is impossible to put anyone who died before the 20th century into a line of thinking that mirrors your own it is also necessary not to put those we deem "creationists" into a box. For example, pretty much ALL those who see some element of design in the universe are labled as creationists. Even those who subscribe to Darwinism. There are scientists who hold to every teaching of modern day science, without the assumptions which border philosophy and not science, but still hold that it was designed that way. It is important to note that what we see in the news is that of those way to one side or the other. Almost never do we see the middle. And "most creationists", if you chose to lump them all in that box, do not start with a literal interpretation of the scriptures. Most subscribe to the Big Bang Theory. I myself see design in the universe and also hold to the Big Bang Theory. Show me evidence of the Big Crunch Theory and I'll belive that too. Shoe me evidence of punk eek and I'll change my view of evolution. But, like Jefferson and Meyer, I would still see design too.Josiah Coffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16430300955233472895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-27371598869874529642009-08-11T18:03:27.938-05:002009-08-11T18:03:27.938-05:00Yes, Meyer didn’t try to get away without mentioni...Yes, Meyer didn’t try to get away without mentioning Darwin at all. But he claimed that Jefferson, faced with all the information and ideas we have available to us now, would have stuck to late-Enlightenment thinking about biology. That’s so unlikely as to be ludicrous. <br /><br />First of all, most intelligent, educated people in the world today—i.e., Jefferson’s equivalents—are not creationists. Meyer is part of a very small minority, as he knows well. <br /><br />And second, Meyer and most creationists build their picture of the world by starting with a literal reading of their faith’s scripture and adjusting as little as they can. In contrast, for his time Jefferson was unusually cavalier about the literature of his religion, cutting up Bibles to distill what he felt were the most valuable lessons inside. <br /><br />Jefferson was therefore even less likely than an average educated, intelligent person to end up sharing Meyer’s ideas.<br /><br />And most educated Christians in the West have followed a path more like Jefferson’s than like Meyer’s. They accept the moral teachings of their religion but not the Bible’s literal statements about the age of the Earth, &c. They accept new scientific information instead of trying to bend it to fit inside three-thousand-year-old legends.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-24908055340647826982009-08-11T16:14:28.721-05:002009-08-11T16:14:28.721-05:00I like your post, but wanted to point out a factua...I like your post, but wanted to point out a factual error in your characterization of Meyer's argument. Meyer did in fact acknowledge that Jefferson pre-dated Darwin's ideas:<br /><br />"Of course, many people assume that Jefferson’s views, having been written before Darwin’s “Origin of Species,’’ are now scientifically obsolete. But Jefferson has been vindicated by modern scientific discoveries that Darwin could not have anticipated."Works2latehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14213606397643335453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-38048271898966294072009-07-21T19:36:54.445-05:002009-07-21T19:36:54.445-05:00That quote is from the same letter to Adams that M...That quote is from the same letter to Adams that Meyer quoted above. Jefferson had come to accept the fact of limited extinctions, but still resisted the wholesale turnover of species that we grow up learning today.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-34034942676291442142009-07-21T18:46:00.970-05:002009-07-21T18:46:00.970-05:00My favorite Jefferson quote on this subject is fro...My favorite Jefferson quote on this subject is from one of his letters to Adams:<br /><br />"We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order . . . certain races of animals are become extinct; and were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos." (Jefferson to Adams, 11 April 1823)<br /><br />*Because* of his belief in a creator, he felt that there must be a mechanism whereby new species arise and others become exinct. If he had lived to read "Origin of Species," I'm sure that he would have considered Darwin's theory to be part of the Creator's plan, just like Newton's laws of motion.Peter Ansoffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-23581931917968384762009-07-21T12:12:44.171-05:002009-07-21T12:12:44.171-05:00A fine and necessary post, John. This "Jeffer...A fine and necessary post, John. This "Jefferson-was-a-creationist" meme will quickly go viral in the creationist world, and it is important to get the truth out there as expeditiously as possible. <br /><br />And I see that this post is already the first Google hit for Jefferson+creationist. Well done.Larry Cebulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16798046652983001155noreply@blogger.com