Re: Biological (Medical) Creationism
Posted by Amaranth Rose on Apr 01, 2004 at 09:52
(65.172.150.7)Re: Biological (Medical) Creationism (Pangea)
I find myself in agreement with you. I wonder how different my life would have been if my parents had answered my questions with "Because that's how god made them" and diverted me with some other pastime.
Instead, they patiently explained to me where birds come from, how they hatched from eggs and migrated south for the winter and returned north in spring to mate and raise their young. It turns out that migration also serves to help keep down parasites and diseases, in a manner analogous to letting a field lie fallow.
Instead of laughing at my fear of the dark they showed me how the Earth rotates, how the shadow it cast upon itself caused the darkness of the night, and they took me outside to see the stars and moon and taught me to respect and appreciate the creatures of the night. What really clinched it was when they showed me how far the electrons had to travel from the electrical generating plant to our house to power the lamp in my room, and I felt sorry for them having to travel that far and told my mother to turn the light out so the electrons could rest.
The excuse of "intelligent design" never occurred to my parents. But it does to many, because they do not understand themselves how things work or why. Generations of such indoctrination lead to an unthinking acceptance of such non-explanations of the natural world, and this kind of lack of thinking is hard to budge. Slippery logic allows one to include and exclude organisms at will when offering explanations. Humans, being the creator's chosen and favored creature, follow one set of principles; obviously, because of their exceptional status, they were favored with more lavish attention to detail than flatworms and sponges and bacteria and yeasts which must have been spur of the moment afterthoughts or merely incidental playthings. It doesn't matter to the wholly credulous that they all use the same DNA and can indeed operate each other's genes, as we do when we make organisms that produce human products such as Insulin and growth hormone in abundant quantities.
Technology seems like Magic to those who do not understand it. To some, it is not safe to question or understand the magic; they'd rather worship the Mage.