Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

blatham wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

Thomas has noted that it was those same Protestant Evangelicals who founded Harvard, Princeton, Yale and the largest fraction of our original University system.

Well, he might have noted it, but he's wrong. Those institutions were set up by the Puritans, a very different breed of early american christian community who brought with them a deep respect for education.

If you read Wikipedia's entry on Puritanism, you will find that "Puritans" is not the name they called themselves. Rather, it was a catch-all label used by outsiders to describe a set of protestant sects, whose attitudes and organizations overlap considerably with those of modern evangelicals. I admit it's risky to compare organizations that are centuries apart, but I still think your distinction here is stronger than reality will bear.

Not until the time of the Great Awakening of the 18th century did the entusiasts win general major victories outside the confines of a single colony. It was then that they set the precedent on American shores not only for the repeated waves of 19th century evangelicalism, but also for the tradition of anti-intellectualism itself, in so far as this tradition was carried within the matrix of religous belief. But to understand the Awakening, one must look at the state of the established clergy in the colonies, and here the position of the Puritan clergy is of special interest; for the Puritan clergy came as close to being an intellectual ruling class - or, more properly, a class of intellectuals intimately associated with a ruling power - as America has ever had.
...It is doubtful than any community ever had more faith in the value of learning and intellect than Massechusetts Bay...
...Among the first generation of American Puritans, men of learning were both numerous and honored. There was about one university-trained scholar, usually from Cambridge or Oxford, to every forty or fifty families. Puritans expected their clergy to be distinguished for scholarship, and during the entire colonial period all but five per cent of the clergymen of the New England Congregational churches had college degrees...

Just abolish the First Amendment and have America establish a religion. It would also be what David Hume recommended that countries do in his "History of England".

My friends Blatham and Setanta have rejected my entirely reasonable questions and arguments, each in their characteristic ways. Blatham has simply dismissed my points and evaded my questions with smug solipsisms that would make the editorial staff of the 'New Yorker' proud.
george...your thesis remains at best unclear. Why don't you rephrase it in a form that will allow some verification and then suggest how you (or anyone else) might go about finding evidence to support it. I'll do the same with a counter thesis if that seems appropriate (and it will).

At the core however, Blatham has again evaded the question of properly grounding science education in the appropriate philosophical context at the approipriate point in school curricula, claiming apparently that driver's education and the like are more important.
No, I definitely did not make that claim because I do not believe that claim. On the contrary, I think philosophical inquiry into knowledge claims should be taught beginning in grade school. I would place such a study far above mathematics in importance. What I did point to was the difficulty you or I would have in convincing all the many stake-holders of your local school that such a curriculum addition (with corollary lose of some other item) would be justifiable. The business community, for example, would definitely not share my valuation of mathematics. Community health folks would have their notions regarding other importances, the religious community even other ideas, etc etc etc.
A further evidence that I definitely did not suggest what you say above is precisely because I would place such study of truth claims and epistemological questions as early and rigorously as I propose in order to educate the citizenry to differentiate between the nature of faith and the nature of empirical study.

He also offers us a very interesting and fine distinction between "Puritans" and "Evangelicals - a clear triumph of semantical evasion over truth.
Get thee to Hofstadter. You need to learn more about your own country's history or risk continuing embarrassment.

Setanta has provided us with an engaging excursion into the 18th century history of eastern Canada, but completely ignored the fact that, unlike their counterparts in the thirteen colonies, the Canadians (Anglo and Habitant alike) chose not to revolt, and, each for his own reasons, to accept instead the benefits (to themselves) of the order the English provided - in both cases, at the cost of their freedom. My point stands.
You really must be joking, george. The following sentence, "the difference between americans and canadians was that the first group preferred freedom and the second group preferred order" is so simplistic and ahistorical that you really ought not to have written it and certainly not defended it. It is just as illuminating as "the difference between Spartans and Americans is that the first preferred to celebrate anal sex and the second preferred to suppress it."

Interesting -- if Hofstadter's description is accurate, this suggests a straightforward solution to the anti-intellectual fanatism among America's competing evangelical sects, which you find so deplorable: Just abolish the First Amendment and have America establish a religion. It would also be what David Hume recommended that countries do in his "History of England". The solution seems to have worked well for England and Sweden, both of which have established churches, and both of which are much more laicistic than the United States

Does your faith in Hofstader go far enough to draw this conclusion?

The Puritan community, settled in the Massechusetts area, was distinct in these matters

and if you turn now to another browser page and order up a copy of this book (which gained a Pulitzer for history) you'll find enough historical citations and evidences to support the proposition that you will not again, after the reading, bring up this question again in polite company.

Your word to Jerry Falwell's ear, spendius.

Does that mean that Mr Falwell is after abolishing the First.

One cannot build a theory on the bad apples.Not all the clergy are indolent.

george...your thesis remains at best unclear. Why don't you rephrase it in a form that will allow some verification and then suggest how you (or anyone else) might go about finding evidence to support it. I'll do the same with a counter thesis if that seems appropriate (and it will).

The thing that bothers me about David Hume is that if his philosophical system is true, there is no meaning in anything.

No, but in a free marketplace of ideas, the indolent clergy are at a competitive disadvantage to the zealous ones. With a government-established religious monopoly, they aren't, so long as they work for the monopolist. Removing this disadvantage is the bribe in Hume's picture.

I don't follow.If that is the case-ie you don't think so,why should I have a word in his ear?

But assuming it to be the case why would an established religion have any effect except maybe on externals.Was Hume talking about us "having" to believe by order.

Most of the arts and professions in a state are of such a nature, that, while they promote the interest of the society, they are also useful or agreeable to some individuals; and in that case, the constant rule of the magistrate, except, perhaps, on the first introduction of any art, is, to leave the profession to itself, and trust its encouragement to those who reap the benefit of it. The artizans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their customers, encrease, as much as possible, their skill and industry; and as matters are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the commodity is always sure to be at all times nearly proportioned to the demand.

But there are also some callings, which, though useful and even necessary in a state, bring no particular advantage or pleasure to any individual; and the supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the retainers of those professions. It must give them public encouragement in order to their subsistence; and it must provide against that negligence, to which they will naturally be subject, either by annexing peculiar honours to the profession, by establishing a long subordination of ranks and a strict dependance, or by some other expedient. The persons, employed in the finances, armies, fleets, and magistracy, are instances of this order of men.

It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics belong to the first class, and that their encouragement, as well as that of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit or consolation from their spiritual ministry and assistance. Their industry and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional motive; and their skill in the profession, as well as their address in governing the minds of the people, must receive daily encrease, from their encreasing practice, study, and attention.

But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find, that this interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will study to prevent; because in every religion, except the true, it is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually endeavour, by some novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency in the doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry and address in practising on the passions and credulity of the populace. And in the end, the civil magistrate will find, that he has dearly paid for his pretended frugality, in saving a fixed establishment for the priests; and that in reality the most decent and advantageous composition, which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe their indolence, by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to be farther active, than merely to prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pastures. And in this manner ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the end advantageous to the political interests of society.

But we may observe, that few ecclesiastical establishments have been fixed upon a worse foundation than that of the church of Rome, or have been attended with circumstances more hurtful to the peace and happiness of mankind. [Hume then describes how the establishment of the Catholic Church went bad in the 15th century, and how, in his view, this helped start the Reformation. The answer turns out to be "not much". T.]