(August 25, 2015 at 2:11 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: The idea of progress rests on the belief that the growth of knowledge and the advance of the species go together, if not now then in the long run.
I often hear this sentiment expressed by atheists on this forum. I find the naive hope that our species is getting morally better as it gets smarter highly suspect.
It is more accurate to say that here in the USofA at least we are most definitely Christian in our culture if not our laws. My reaction to that realization is to apply a little skepticism toward the Humanist project. I don't reject it outright but I reject the idea that we need objectivize morality. It is only for the sake of inculcating the next generation that one attempts to formalize rules of morality. But if we are successful, they will grow up able to appreciate that the complexity of human affairs resists rigid categories. When they are peers of the realm they will need to balance the messy stew of contravening claims at play in all human interaction and achieve their own resolution.
(August 25, 2015 at 2:11 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: However, the biblical myth of the fall of man contains the forbidden truth, that knowledge does not make us free, it leaves as we have always been, prey to every kind of folly. To believe in progress is to believe that by using the new powers given to us by growing scientific knowledge, humans can free themselves from the limits that frame the lives of other animals. However, Darwin shows us that humans are like other animals. Humanists claim they are not. Humanists insist that by using our knowledge we control our environment and flourish like never before. In affirming this, they renew one of Christianity's most dubious promises, that salvation is open to all. The humanists belief in progress is a secular version of this Christian faith. In the world shown to us by Darwin, there is nothing that can be called progress. The idea that humanity takes charge of its destiny makes sense only if we ascribe consciousness and purpose and meaning to the human race, but Darwin's discovery was that species are only currents in the drift of genes. The idea that humanity can shape its future assumes that it is exempt from this truth."
All good points. However it is foolish to think that without objective morality we will degenerate into renegades against social norms. The current of gene drift in humans is strongly in the direction of cooperation and empathy for kin and tribe, and the effect of media has been to shrink the planet and extend the range of who is included as tribe.
Only Christians profess a strong to desire to rape, steal and kill without the shackles of a divine law.
