lab rat wrote:
Why this belief is essential to creationism:
From the book of Genesis: God created man in His own image. Since God is spirit, not a physical being, "in His own image" implies some intangible quality given specifically (& only) to man. Conventionally (within the churches I've been to), that intangible quality is considered to be our "soul". As I'm sure you're aware, the soul is that part of us that Christians consider to be eternal, thus setting us apart from animals, veggies, etc. and encompasses our self-awareness, morality, to some extent our will, . . .
How are we different from animals re: creationism?
* this is ironic, I know, but humans appear unique in their tendency to believe in a higher power. Ancient human cultures that developed completely separately from each other nevertheless frequently shared some sort of belief in a god or gods. Christians believe that that is because God has left His print on our soul so that we can never be complete without Him--hence a natural longing of the human spirit for a relationship with a higher power.
* science: while animals may learn through experience and may even be creative at times, you'll never see even the most intelligent monkey or dolphin set up an experiment to further its academic ability. Humans appear unique in their desire to learn for the sake of learning. From the creationist standpoint that is because we were created to "rule over the earth and subdue it", hence a natural desire to understand nature.
So, you are basing your argument that mankind is different from animals on the premise that we have morality, self-awareness, and intelligence, and then submitting this as evidence of divine inspiration.
First of all, I'd point out that sentience is largely a construction - it's not like there's a big black line between us and apes, who are just as capable of self-identification etc etc etc as we are. I'd argue further that language, which has obvious evolutionary benefits, and a larger brain, which offers the same story, allows for more advanced consciousness in us than, say, squirrels. More likely still, the unusually long maturation rate for human young allows for a fairly fluid sense of identity largely instructed by outside influence, which in turn can lead to more questioning and divergence in self-definition. This breeds self-awareness in the sense I believe you use it. All of this is neatly tucked away in the confines of evolution, and in no way supports divine creation.
If you are implying that our above average intelligence and sentience is evidence of some fundamental divide - an attribute that we possess that separates us from all other animals, and in turn, is evidence that God wanted us to be different - I have to disagree. The problem is that I could just as easily rephrase the statement from the framework of a Lemur: "If Lemur-Rah didn't want us to be so awesome, why did he give us this bitchin' prehensile tail?" There is no catagorical separation between a Lemur's prehensile tail and our larger brains - they are both evolutionary adaptions that allow us to survive and thrive in our respective evolutionary niches.
I find the idea that morality is somehow evidence of divine inspiration to be particularly lacking. It seems abundantly obvious to me that morality is not restricted to humans - in fact, it is ubiquitous to every social animal, from a pod of whales to a troop of monkeys. It is a survival mechanism designed to keep the social order we depend on for survival intact.
