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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Evidences for Anthropocentricism
Message-ID: <676@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Aug-85 21:05:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.676
Posted: Sun Aug 25 21:05:36 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 09:26:33 EDT
References: <855@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1226@pyuxd.UUCP> <942@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
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In article <1475@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>> 	Alright, the let's use the old classic of two men in a
>> lifeboat with little food. If they do nothing they will *both*
>> starve, if one kills the other he will have a *much* better chance
>> of survival. Now we have twom people whose survival is in *direct*
>> conflict, at *least* one of them will die!  Now, who lives, and who
>> dies, and above all, HOW do you decide!
>
>I mean, seriously, this particular example is all well and good.  How
>does Christian morality deal with it?  What I'm saying is that 1) the
>men are going to have to come to an agreement of some sort of their own
>doing regardless of ANY societal morality, and 2) that is THEIR agreement
>alone and no existing system of morality answers this question any better
>than what I've described.
>
	Well, I think Christian morality *does* have an answer for
this.  It is not an easy answer, and you may not like it, but it is
there.  The basis for the Christian answer is two-fold, first there is
the belief that death is not the end, nor even the ultimate evil,
second there is the idea that to be responsible for anothers death
will harm me.  So this leaves two possibilities, sacrifice myself for
the other person(especially if that person is not a Christian) or
leave the outcome to "fate" or "the hand of God" or whatever you wish
to call it.

>
>> 	Oh, but all Genesis says is that we have dominion(i.e. control)
>> over the Earth, which is obviously true even if you are not a Christian.
>
>Whoa, slow down!  "Obviously true"?  I don't recall if you were one of the
>voices of anti-science that have been barking about recently, but they
>would be the first to tell you that one of the biggest failings of scientific
>"progress" is in the fact that we have ASSUMED that we did have dominion over
>the earth and could do with it as we liked.  But thanks for pointing out
>where that assumption comes from:  not from those who study science, but
>from those who study the Bible!
>
>I would never use Los Angeles as an example of humanity's "control" by any
>stretch of the imagination.  :-)  PERCEIVED control, perhaps, but again,
>it's nice to hear the place where this notion comes from pointed out.
>
	I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say.  What
I meant was that we have the *ability* to alter our environment to
meet our percieved needs or desires.  That we indeed *can* do so is
amply attested to by history, humans in all eras and in most cultures
have deliberately modified thier environment.  The LA example is in
fact a perfect example of what I was talking about, since it is a case
where we have heavily modified the world for our own benifit.  Other
examples, think of all the millions of acres of land in cultivation
instead of its original wild state, how did we do this if we do not
have the ability to control our world? And in many parts of the world
the conversion of large tracts of land long predated Christianity.
Much of China has been rice paddies for uncountable years.  Or here
are the Roman aquaducts, which were a way of saying, we want that
water over *here* not over there.
	I would not say that we can do anything we please without
consequence, indeed all actions have consequences.  As someone with a
background in ecology I am very aware of the temendous dangers
ingerent in unrestrained use of our power to manipulate the world, but
the fact that there are consequences doesn't alter the fact that we
*do* have that power.  In fact Christian morality provides an
aexcellent basis for tempering our tendency to misuse the Earth, we
are in domnion yes, but it is the dominion of a steward or caretaker,
not the dominion of an owner or ruler. We are *responsible* for what
we do with our world.  It is a sad fact that many people take a might
makes right approach to life and feel that if we *can* do it ther is
no reason not to.

>No, what I'm trying to do is to debunk the notion that the Bible can be used
>as a basis for impositional morality.  Those who want to do so feel that they
>can and should because it's the so-called word of god.  Thus, to eradicate
>and squelch their notions it is necessary to show the Bible for what it is:
>a nice set of stories, nothing more.
>
	But you are not demonstrating that unless you use valid
argumentation, based on the actual content of the book, not someone's
interpretation of what the book says.  Or areyou trying to say that
impositional morality is so bad that you are justified in using
improper reasoning to eliminatre it?  Also, I do not think that
debunking the Bible is necessary to squelch these people, All you
need do is show the absurdity of thier position.

>Of course there are invalid applications and conclusions drawn by bad
>so-called scientists.  The point of real science (no, that's not a movie
>in which high school kids build a woman and blow up New Jersey :-) is to
>ferret out the silly.  The question is:  Are there VALID applications and
>conclusion drawn by religious believers, and how do we ferret THEM out from
>the wishful thinking?

	Well, I would use many of the same tools as science.  I would
use archaeological evidence, textual criticism, careful study of the
whole Bible, with proper attention paid to the different sorts of
literature it contains.  In short a bit of old-fashioned study will do
wonders for weeding out absurdity in theology as well as in science.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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