Glenn Morton's Personal Message, Part 1 (From THEOLOGYWEB, 10-17-2012)
Everyone knows I have spent decades on the Creation/Evolution issue. Everyone knows about my transition from a young-earth creationist to an evolutionist of the theistic variety. At some times in the past decade, I had a small measure of fame or infamy depending upon one's point of view. People hated me or liked me depending upon what they thought I added to their own personal agenda. I truly never cared what others thought.
On the morning of Oct 15, 2012, I deleted all my files from my web page. I had thought long and hard about this decision for several years. I own the copyright on every single page and I want none of them on anyone else's page and I will defend it. This note is to explain why I have done what I have done. And explain why I have left the C/E debate.
When I started the C/E area back in the 1970s, my goal was to find a defendable position on C/E one that matched the science and the Bible. Yes, I was a YEC, but even as a YEC my articles were critiques of YEC problems along with suggestions how to fix the problem. When I finally accepted the reality of evolution, I still couldn't accept that the Bible is inspired by God and it is a factually false but theologically true record. That position holds zero appeal for me as it forces me to treat God's word differently than I treat finding oil, or than I deal with any other area of life.
As it became known that I had 'converted' to evolution, the atheists and agnostics were thrilled to 'use' me to further their cause. I remember right after I let my change in view be known publically, telling Jim Lippard and Genie Scott on Talk.Origins, that I felt like I was now fighting on the wrong side. Genie of course, said I wasn't, but I still felt uncomfortable.
For a long time, I thought I could actually influence Christian thought. That simply isn't the case. Those Christians who accept evolution are all comfortable with making the account factually false and those who want it factually true make it false by tying it to YEC. Thus, there is no real benefit in trying to change what are extremely well entrenched positions.
But that wasn't why I pulled my web pages down. It was for freedom. Freedom is important, extremely important. Freedom means you have the freedom to be wrong, do wrong and think wrong thoughts. If I can't think, believe and do wrong because someone is there to force me to hold a particular opinion, then I am not free. If I must think believe and do what someone else tells me, I am not free. When I lived in my father's house, he fed me, clothed me, and gave me an allowance. What I didn't have was the freedom to do what he didn't want me to do. "While you live under my roof and eat my food, you will follow my rules", was the view of my dad. I was a teenager and I wasn't free. When I became an adult and provided for myself, I gained the freedom to think for myself and do for myself and that means I have the freedom to be wrong in my dad's eyes. That is what freedom at its heart is, the freedom to believe and do what I want even if everyone else thinks I am wrong, idiotic or dangerous, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.
For years I was in private email lists where the issues of creation/evolution were discussed. I watched with growing alarm at the morphing of those lists into anti-religion lists, with an authoritarian tinge. Religiously bigotted jokes were often put on the list. One could see the disdain, sneering comments and arrogant dislike of religion and people who were religious. When I complained about the anti-religious bigotry, in the form of those jokes etc, I was told that it wasn't religious bigotry. I was told that I should be understanding of their feelings. But the comments were bigotry, biased and mocking.
By 2008, I withdrew from all those lists in disgust at the bigotry and conformance of thinking. Watching as an outsider then I became more alarmed at what I saw on the net from others who were on those lists. The religious bigotry of the anti-YEC movement and the growing power of those who insist that we all think alike, that we can't disagree on anything, that we all must walk, think and behave in utter boring conformity, became more and more obvious. I became concerned about this rush to suppress the YECs, the scheming to do harm to people I knew. I remember someone got a draft of a book by John Buell and they were scheming how to put an injunction on his book PRE-PUBLICATION.
I started donating to John's organization in reaction. I came to understand that they didn't want to convert YECs via persuasion, they wanted to enforce anti-religion/anti-freedom views via dictate. I watched as it became acceptable in their eyes to obtain their result via raw political power enforced by courts and carried out by threats of jail and merely shouting down those with whom they disagree by piling on. And then, over the last couple of years, I began to see the anti-YEC movement as a small part of a larger movement to suppress religion itself. It is all of this that caused me to move away from former associations and take my web pages down.
One of the things that I have increasingly become concerned with in modern society is the push for conformity by the intellectual 'elite' all of whom think they are independent thinkers but all of whom think the same thing, and few of whom can tolerate dissent. There seems to be no independent thought allowed. The view that YEC must be crushed goes along with another disturbing trend, that modern science is no longer about finding truth, it is about conformity rather than a spirit of enquiry and challenge--everyone MUST believe global warming and all its dire consequences. It doesn't matter that the earth stopped warming in 1997 as the UK Met Office reveals in the latest HADCRUT data, one MUST still believe that it is still occurring . Indeed if you don't believe in Global Warming, those who proclaim themselves among the intellectual elite will claim that science says you are mentally ill. From the UK Daily Mail:
DailyMailUK: An Oregon University professor has controversially compared skepticism of global warming to racism. Sociology and environmental studies professor Kari Norgaard wrote a paper criticising non-believers, suggesting that doubters need to be have a ‘sickness’.
The professor, who holds a B.S. in biology and a master’s and PhD in sociology, argued that ‘cultural resistance’ to accepting humans as being responsible for climate change ‘must be recognised and treated’ as an aberrant sociological behaviour. (Link cited)
Conform or be declared crazy. Resistance to conformity is now an 'aberrant sociological behavior.' Does a desire for freedom of thought count for anything anymore? This kind of treatment of dissenters extends to YECs and other groups disliked by the elites.
This paragraph will make everyone mad. The powers that be think that everyone MUST be forced to pay for contraception for the YES, slutty life style of Sandra Fluck who gave a speech at the Democratic convention bemoaning that we don't pay for her contraception. (Rush Limbaugh got in lots of trouble for saying she is a slut, yet it is Sandra who wants to live a life of s@x where everyone else pays to keep her from getting pregnant). Why must I as a Christian, who thinks such behavior abysmal, sinful and self destructive pay for her to have sexcapades without consequences? Why must my taxes be used to support what I view as her responsibility? Why does she have a right to pick the money in my pocket when she didn't earn it?
But, it seems, if you question this simple fact in today's world, everyone will cluck their tongues at you, making you out to be the evil one. Why is it that they think that everyone MUST be forced to believe that what Sandra does is OK AND PAY FOR HER TO HAVE PLEASURE WITHOUT WORRY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES???? She can do what she wants, but don't ask me to pay for it and don't force me to approve of her behavior. The modern political left, and make no doubt, most anti-YEC folk are from the political left, want to enforce their conformity upon us because we can not be allowed to actually have an independent view of Sandra Fluck's behavior or anything else, including anything they deem to be wrong. That is not to be allowed. Enforced conformity is what they want. I must smile while I give Sandra my money to pay for her sexcapades.
Consider what the political left is doing in forcing the Catholic Church to do to pay for abortions (an abhorrent thing to them) and pay for birth control (an abhorrent thing for conservative Catholics) in their hospitals and organizations they control. The Catholics can not be trusted to have the freedom to decide for themselves how to manage their hospitals. No, the Catholics aren't considered smart enough to make their own decisions. Only the religiously bigoted atheist is capable of telling the Catholics what they need to do. While I do not agree at all with Catholic doctrine, views on birth control or many other things Catholic, I will stand by them for their right to do what they want to do. It should be their freedom, but unfortunately a group of Christophobes think the Catholics don't deserve freedom.
Catholics should have the freedom to be 'wrong' ('wrong' defined as disagreeing with my personal views.) What right do I have to tell them they must behave as I might want them to? What right do you have to force them to your views via your politicians and threats of jail? Why is it that you won't allow them to have the freedom to do what they see fit in their own eyes. Is freedom so bad?
The President and owner of Chick-Fila is not to be allowed by these religious bigots to have a different view from what is the officially declared and approved thought lines. The bullied G*ys of yesterday have become the bullies of today. http://commonamerica...l.com/?p=48592. The president of Chic-Fil-A is not allowed to have freedom of speech or religon if that speech or religion offends the sensitivities of the elitists who think they have a right to hector everyone into their boring conformity.
These same elites will not grant the religious the courtesy and right to put up monuments in the public square. They are trying to force everyone to grant them and them alone the right to exercise their beliefs in the public square. These radical atheists are using the power of the public square to ensure the success of THEIR THEOLOGICAL VIEWS, and make no mistake, atheism is a theological view and they can no more prove there isn't a god than I can prove there is one. Both are theological views, but only theirs is allowed to be exercised in the public square.
Given how often atheists are suing to remove crosses, one would think they are all Vampires and can't stand the sight of a cross! Their delicate psyche's will shatter at the mere sight of two boards nailed at right angles. Atheists sue to remove War Memorial crosses because somehow, they can't countenance the freedom for others to put up crosses. These atheists are anti-democratic, anti-freedom, religiously bigoted and authoritarian
----(4 links cited)----
Christian groups are told that they must allow atheists to be their president, meaning Christian groups no longer have the freedom of association the constitution guarantees us. All the leftists will leave us in the end, is the right to hold differing views totally unexpressed and held tight inside our heads. We are not to be left with any of the universal human rights, they so hypocritically speak of. (Link cited)
No comments:
Post a Comment