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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (A Ray Miller)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: belief systems
Message-ID: <1128@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 16:37:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1128
Posted: Wed May 22 16:37:39 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 21:09:06 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 51


/* Written 10:23 pm  May 19, 1985 by miller@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA in uiucdcsb:net.origins */
/* ---------- "belief systems" ---------- */
Mike Ward wrote:
> Can it be possible?  Do creationists believe what they do just
> because it's easier to understand?

To which Mike Huybensz responded:
> Of course it's possible.  But there are other explanations also.
> For example, I might explain some cases as a simple cost/benefit
> rationale.  Someone who has invested alot of capital (emotional or
> other) in belief that includes creationism has very little to
> gain by rejecting creationism for evolution (unless he/she/it is
> a scientist) but will lose consistency of doctrines or agreement
> with other believers (which can cost much anguish and even money.)

To which Keith Doyle responded:
> Or because they're victims of years of indoctrination.

     You've all got to be kidding!  The indoctrination is from the other side.
In all of my 12 years of public schools, and then on into college, I *never
once* heard anything except evolution.  Additionally, all movies and the media
only present one side. The implication was clear: we, the Keepers of the Truth,
have determined that evolution is a fact beyond reasonable dispute.  And I
believed it!  It was not until I was a *graduate student* that I heard the
other side of the story, one which had effectively been censored in the educa-
tional establishment.
     Furthermore, making the switch to creationism can cost a great deal.
Professors have been fired, research funding has been cut, papers have been
rejected without even being read, and students have been expelled.  (See
"Creation Magazine," Creation Science Legal Defense Fund, July 1984, pp. 10-11,
and also August 1984, p. 9.)  Unless you are willing to consider nonmaterialis-
tic things in the cost/benefit test, it is clearly better to not rock the boat
and remain an evolutionist.
     Finally, does Mike really have such a high opinion of himself that he
thinks his capacity for understanding exceeds that of creationists?  Besides
the great creationists of the past, who founded most branches of the sciences
(some of whom have been listed in previous postings), and besides the thousands
of creation scientists today who hold Ph.D.s, what would Mike do with a man
like Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith?  He has earned not one, not two, but three
doctoral degrees in the sciences.  Can Mike make such a claim?  Is his ego
really that inflated?  I trust he simply did not state his question clearly;
he now has an opportunity to correct that misunderstanding.

A. Ray Miller
Univ Illinois
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Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
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