@Ionus,
Blimey!!!!
Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why? What's all this lot got to do with those questions? It's worse than off topic. It's in the wrong direction. It's looking back and the questions look forward.
No idea can be considered dangerous, or beneficial, if the future consequences of it are of no importance.
The notion that the Dark Ages label has anything to do with sunlight or volcanic eruptions is as bad as covering the piano legs with curtains. It's pretending that the term has nothing to do with sex and gallantry and depravity whilst the Mongol hordes beat the gates down with no opposition.
Mr Obama is going around saying nuclear weapons are a dangerous idea. You might as well discuss that with self-flattering spiels about chain reactions or uranium ore mining. Letting fm anywhere near education is a dangerous idea imo. He just want to strut.
Is cloning a dangerous idea is a question that has nothing to do with the techniques of cloning and everything to do with consequences. It's the same with aspects of stem-cell research and subliminal advertising. The legalisation of divorce, of abortion, of birth control were all debated in the context of the potential consequences. As with bank bail-outs. As with who is elected.
Consequences are the only game in town. We can have brain implants in the new-born. We can have chemicals in the water supply. We can have all sorts of stuff. We choose what to have solely on the basis of consequences.
Is the unhindered hegemony of science a dangerous idea? What is there to prevent it if it isn't morality? Is morality natural? Or is it artificial? Does evolution theory undermine morality? It certainly seems to undermine intelligence if this thread is anything to go by.
The question is about whether religion is an instrument of social good? Is it useful in improving and ennobling the basic human nature? And if it is allowed that it is useful in these utilities, assuming they are utilities which a strict free marketeer might dispute, is it necessary for a supernatural agency to be called for to facilitate them.
It is possible to lose a conviction in the beliefs and yet to recognise that they might be useful or even indispensible. To do so requires that the disbelief is kept private and that the social conveniences of religious belief are worth the sublimating of the vanity of the disbelief. fm's vanity, and that of his claque, is such that this is seemingly impossible. They must be right even if they wreck the social system. Them being right is much more important than any itsy-bitsy social system. And that despite long years of Roman Emperors giving devout lip service to any and every religion they came across in their travels. Indeed, there was but one blasphemy to Roman elites and it was the showing of disrespect to anybody's religion.
But these guys are more important than Roman Emperors and Govenors.
All this is why discussions of these matters is characterised by obliqueness, shiftiness, evasiveness and blizzards of snow, (see above). Such ridiculous and disagreeable tactics in the better sort of disputants is due to an uncertainty in their minds whether it may not be the case that in the sphere of religion disclosure of the raw scientific truth might inflict damage on human nature as we have it in the west and on organised society.
The outcome of various revolutions in 1789, 1871 and 1917 has given many "freethinkers" (that's a laugh) pause for thought as to the proposition that "truth" (another belly laugh) is coincident with social welfare or that superstition might not have considerable utility in maintaining social stability.
There is a chicken and egg situation here. Is morality natural and the cause of religion or is it artificial and caused by religion? It is impoosible from a look at Darwin's Origins and from reading history to conclude that morality is natural. Hence, if religion causes morality can its supernatural sanctions now be dispensed with if the religiously caused morality is so entrenched as to be unassailable and can be maintained by secular authority, early education and public opinion?
If the answer to that question is in the affirmative then evolution is not a dangerous idea but if the answer is in the negative then evolution is a dangerous idea.
I firmly believe the answer is in the negative and therefore I think evolution is a dangerous idea. I think it will cause increasingly repressive secular authorities to control early education and public opinion, expand, and become corrupt in the exercise of unchallenged power and collapse of internal contradictions.
All other considerations are for non-entities and wimps who run away from discussing consequences faster than a chicken does when a blown up paper-bag is banged in its earhole. No matter how much they primp and posture their egos with snow machines.
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