From today’s New York Times Washington Post:
Huckabee’s literal reading of the Book of Genesis came up yet again the other night on Bill O’Reilly’s show. O’Reilly pressed him to explain why he has said, in various forums, that he doesn’t believe in evolution as taught by modern science (for example, after evolution came up in a debate earlier this year, Huckabee said in a conference call with reporters, “If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, that’s fine. I’ll accept that. I just don’t happen to think that I did”).
O’REILLY: Do you believe in Adam and Eve? Do you think Adam and Eve were around?
HUCKABEE: Yes. I think they were a real person, Adam and Eve. I have no reason to doubt that.
O’REILLY: But so you believe that God just said, OK, here is the man, I’m going to take his rib, and there is Eve. And then everybody evolved from there.
HUCKABEE: As I said that night with Wolf Blitzer, I do not know how he did it. Honestly don’t know how long it took. Wasn’t there. I could not give you the details. But I just believe he did it. And so, you know, if it turns out that I am wrong, I have lost nothing. If it turns out I’m right, it is a good thing.
Huckabee left open the possibility that the six days of Creation were metaphorical, and might have represented six billion years. So he’s not literally a biblical literalist. In these theological discussions he often takes a step back and says he doesn’t know precisely what happened. His central argument is that evolutionary theory describes human beings as a random, accidental development, whereas he believes that God created humans. He has said that school kids should be taught “that there are views that are different than evolution.”
Sorry if I offend anyone here, but do we really want someone who thinks that centuries of scientific research and evidence are just a “view” to be President of the United States ?
I know I don’t.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Doug, no offense taken. I just have a few questions. What do centuries of scientific research and evidence prove? Why not call the “Theory of Evolution” the “Hypothesis of Evolution?”
There is conjecture and “evidence,” but no one can reproduce the events that supposedly gave rise to man’s evolution. Because we cannot demonstrate the evolution of a creature, only about as many people believe in evolution(truly an act of faith)as believe the story told in Genesis (also an act of faith).
Huckabee says he does not know how God created us. He just believes what he reads in the Bible, a document that has most certainly withstood the test of time. Given that the story told in Genesis was written well before the scientific method, I think it safe to say that neither its human author nor his audience knew anything of the “Theory of Evolution.” So even if the “Hypothesis of Evolution” is true, human ignorance constrained God to present the events of our creation such that Genesis’ original audience could best understand.
Even today how He actually created the universe is unknown. Instead, we have a hypothesis that at best only provides a portion of the truth.
Aside – Achenbach makes the usual ignorant reference to the Founding Fathers being deists. Deism signifying what? That God does not care for our fate? That He has abandoned us?
Calling the men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence reeks of absurdity. We know much of what the Founding Fathers did, wrote, and said. Yet many of the same people who say the “Hypothesis of Evolution” is a scientific fact also want us to believe the Founding Fathers were deists.
BTW – You linked to the Washington Post, not the New York Times. Admittedly, the difference between the two papers does not amount to much.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Tom,
1. Evolution, unlike it’s proposed alternative, has been and continues to be subject to the rigors of the scientific method. Which has in fact, in both laboratory and field studies, produced evidence of natural selection and evolution that occur even today.
2. Huckabee can believe what he wants, but when he says that unproven, and unprovable, faith should be taken as seriously as science and reason, he’s written himself out of the picture in my book.
3. My mistake on the paper, thanks for catching it.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Tom,
Also, to a large degree the Founders were Deists. This is certainly true of Jefferson and Franklin. And High Church Anglicanism, which predominated in late 18th Century American was nowhere near the literal truth school of Huckabee and the Baptists.
And Huckabee is the one who started that debate because he claimed, falsely, that most of the Founders were ministers when in fact only one of them was.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Tom,
Evolution and natural selection can be disproved in two ways, and no one has done it. Creationism is not subject to to this rigor; it is not science.
1. Irreducible complexity. For example, for many years the eye was thought to be an example of a structure of such irreducible complexity that it had to be designed and could not be a product of natural selection.
2. Finding artifacts such as fossils and bones in the wrong geographic area/wrong strata of the Earth. While there may be gaps in the historical record, there have been no artifacts found in contradictory places.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Science explains the HOW of things. The scientific method involves making observations, modelling causes and events, and then testing the proposed model. The “Hypothesis of Evolution” is currently and untested model that purport to explain HOW complex lifeforms came to be. Even though the “Hypothesis of Evolution” has been derived under auspices of “Science”, belief in an untested model is thoroughly unscientific.
Religion explains the WHY of things. Creationism is part of a religious explanation for why we exist. When we get too caught up Genesis seems to explanation of HOW things came to be, we miss the real significance of the story — the explanation of WHY.
Intelligent Design purports to be science. Because this theory is inherently untestable, the claim that Intelligent Design is science is more than a bit dubious. However, since the “Hypothesis of Evolution” also seems to be quite difficult to test….
I am not a Huckabee partisan, and I do not care whether he started the debate. However, since the debate over evolution has been going on for quite a while, I do not see how it is possible that he started the debate.
The assertion Deism pretends to significance and import where there is none. The idea is to somehow suggest that the elites amongst the 17th Century, the Founding Fathers, were not “real” Christians. They only pretended to be.
The assertion Deism was common amongst the Founders is poppycock. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. Franklin insisted that each day the Constitutional Convention should begin with prayer.
Do you believe 18th Century Anglicans were not Christians, that they did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ? If the Founders believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ, if they could sign the Declaration of Independence and risk their lives and fortunes over God endowed rights, then how could they be deists? Look up the definition.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Tom,
You’d have to ask them that.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Tom,
Also, I don’t think it matters what the religious faith of the Founders was. The Constitution is explicitly neutral on the issue of religion, which is the way it should be.
America is neither a Christian nation, nor a Deist Nation. It’s a nation where people are free to believe, or not believe, whatever they want. Given that, appellations like “Christian Nation” are meaningless.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Meaningless? I hardly think so. Western civilization’s respect for civil rights and democracy is actually quite unique. Christianity is also unique amongst religious beliefs. The fact we have both a unique form of government and a unique religious belief is no coincidence. Our form of government is a direct outgrowth of our religious beliefs.
Our religious beliefs determine our values. Our values determine our societal objectives. Because Christian believe each soul must freely accept the gift of salvation, we have a government that respects civil rights.
Because 18th century colonials practiced the Christian faith, their had certain attitudes towards each other. The two prime tenets of Christianity are to love God and your neighbor. Jesus provide us an example of how we should love God and our neighbor. Christians believe that ultimate purpose of life is to freely accept Jesus Christ as our savior and follow His example. These beliefs provided the bedrock upon which a government of the People, by the People and for the People was formed.
Look at the nations of the 18th Century. Only in Christian nations will you find societies that respected individual rights. Only in America will you find a People that believed God, not the state, endowed each of them with inalienable rights.
You will also find in some Christian nations where democracy failed utterly. That occurred in Christian nations where the rebelling elites disowned their Christian heritage.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:40 am
Tom,
You have some good points.
I think it’s also fair established, though, that most of the major intellectual influences on the founders (principally John Locke, but there were others as well) derived their theory of natural rights and natural law completely independent of any dependence of religious belief.
I don’t think its coincidential that individual rights arose in the West, but I think the major historical reason for that can be traced back to the initial break between Church and State at the fall of the Roman Empire. Unlike any other civilization in history, the Church and the State were independent sources of power in Europe for centuries.
Additionally, don’t you agree that among the founding principles of the Republic is the idea that people have the right to believe, or not believe, what they want. That was a conscious break from the nations of Europe where adherence to one sect of Christianity or another was enforced by the state. In fact, up until the Revolutionary Period, religious oppression of minority faiths was quite common in some of the colonies.
Given all of that, what is the real value of pointing out that America is a Christian nation when our own founding principles make it clear that citizens have the right to be Christian, Buddhist, Athiest, or to worship trees if they want ?
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
“However, since the “Hypothesis of Evolution” also seems to be quite difficult to test….”
Bullshit. I just told you how evolution and natural selection can be disproved. No one has disproved it for a century. I’d say it is proven every day.
How can we disproved creationism/ID. We can’t, because it is not science. It’s made up by religious apologists.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
hoobie – There is a distinct difference between being able to prove something is true and not being able to prove that same thing is untrue. Just because I cannot prove something is untrue does not make it true. Fortunately, this little piece of logic is generally recognized by our court system. Otherwise, we would have people in jail for crimes that never even happened (something that has actually occurred in some parts of this sometimes sad little world).
Doug – I will deal with your question in a post of my own.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Tom,
There is a difference between the scientific method and the kind of proof you are talking about.
And that’s why I/D, while it may be an article of faith, is not a scientific theory.