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From: scott@normac.UUCP (Scott Bryan)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution AND Creationism
Message-ID: <111@normac.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Nov-84 03:49:15 EST
Article-I.D.: normac.111
Posted: Thu Nov 15 03:49:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Nov-84 07:54:08 EST
Reply-To: scott@unix.UUCP (Scott Bryan)
Organization: Normac, Lafayette, Ca.
Lines: 94

In article Janet Walker writes:
>I have  seen  a  great  deal  of  discussion  on  the  relative  merits  of
>creationism  vs.  evolution.   It  seems  to  be that, in spite of what you
>think, you're really not as diametrically opposed as you might suppose,  if
>each side will consider what realm it is actually dealing with.
>
>Science deals with definitions of the physical world, religion  with  those
>of  the spiritual world.

The point is that we don't *KNOW* "the spiritual world" exists and we are
trying to find evidence to support it.  There is no need to look for evidence
to refute it as no concrete evidence has been offered to support it.

>...   If you believe at all in a God, as I do, then you
>believe that He created this earth - which is defined as best  as  possible
>at  any given moment  by science.   I also believe that He created religion
>(all of the major ones for sure, for you can see when you look at the  pure
>essence  of  each  that  they  really teach the same spiritual truths - but
>that's another question) to help man understand his higher nature  and  the
>spiritual realm (not just pie-in-the sky either, language is one example of
>our 'spiritual' ability which distinguishes us from other life).  If He did
>create both, then He will certainly not be in disagreement with Himself.

Isn't it possible that the desire we all have to find order in the world
around us is simply that ... a strong desire to develop a grammar or model
that expresses the underlying structure of the world around us.
Certainly if there were an underlying struture to the world (as science has
believed to have discovered) then there would be tremendous selective
advantages in a brain that was uncomfortable with any but the elegant, simple,
gramatical-type solutions.  Beings with minds that needed a simple and
elegant explaination for things would keep searching till they found one
while their counterparts clung to instincts and ritual.
If the world really is ordered in a simple and elegant way
then it is obvious which strategy will pay off in the long run.

The remarkable fact, to me, is that precisely the people with
the most highly developed sense of "order", or as I put it above, "desire
to find a simple explaination for the world around them", are the same
ones to believe in religion.  It's the Uncertainty Principle in another
guise.  Nature protects is secrets by ensuring that the tools needed to
unlock them are the same ones that obscure them.

>If you also believe that it is the soul which distinguishes man from  other
>life,  that  the soul is eternal, and the body is only temporal, then there
>really is no problem.  The body, which 'houses' the soul  in  the  physical
>world,  is  not  MAN.  There  is much scientific evidence that the body did
>indeed evolve, but that which makes us unique creatures of God,  the  soul,
>was  given  us.  That  fish  or  ape,  or whatever form it was in,which was
>destined to become man may  have  appeared,  outwardly,  to  resemble  that
>animal, but was, because of its latent destiny, actually different from the
>other creatures.  Therefore man has always been MAN, though the body passed
>through stages of evolution.  The soul is MAN.

The paragraph above is proof of your desire to find a simple and logical
explaination for mankind.  You are confronting a large body of observations
that indicate a relationship between all the biomass on the planet yet you
*KNOW* we must be special therefore you resolve it by finding a way to
accept both ideas simultainiously,  you have updated your world model from
one in which GOD makes things more or less as they are to one in which
GOD (more ingeniously) creates a world which will evolve into the present one.
This is testimony to YOUR superior powers of "model building".

>P.S
>I believe that the soul evolves also, ...  that  mankind  as a whole
>evolves spiritually, ...   This is, in my belief, why some religious
>'answers' SEEM incomplete to scientists.  Perhaps  we  have  reached
>a  higher  stage  of spiritual  evolution.  One which requires more
>answers than we formerly had the capacity to comprehend.
>This does NOT make former answers wrong.  It's somewhat like going to
>1st grade, then 2nd, etc.

Sounds like you are apologizing, begging the reader to ignore any
inconsistancy, to have faith...  I wonder why?  Will GOD punish me for
not thinking about him, for assuming that the world simply IS and trying
to comfort myself by looking for the internal structure?

Do I need religion to do good things?  To live my life *Right*?
Gosh I hope not.  Most everything (except things like the sabbath) that
religion is preaching makes sense to me for good *selfish* reasons.
Even the less fashionable "commandments", like the one about sex,
are obviously good heuristics for everyday living.  I think understanding
them for the practical benefits is better than for spiritual ones.

>... We need to keep open (and loving) minds.  It also means that
>we must recognize the basic harmony  of  science  and  religion.
>If  there appear  to  be  differences  then  they  are probably due
>to our incomplete understanding of either science or religion, or both.

Wouldn't an open mind would be one in which even the idea of religion
is open to question?

This letter is not intended to anger or offend anyone, Please -- No Flames.

Scott Bryan