Claim CH010:
Creationism, because it is based on the Bible, is moral. The denial of
creationism is a denial of the Bible and is therefore immoral.
Response:
- Many evils in the past have been justified by claiming biblical
support. Claiming a biblical basis has no bearing whatsoever on
whether something is good or not.
- Creationism is not based on the Bible. Most people who accept the
Bible do not accept creationism. Biblical creationism (we will not
deal here with creationism based on the Qur'an or Vedas) is based on one
particular interpretation of the Bible. It is a form of religious
bigotry; it declares that a particular religious interpretation applies
not just to people of that religion, but to everybody everywhere, and
that the religion of anyone who believes otherwise is wrong. This
bigotry is overt from many creationists (Tparents n.d.). In fact,
creationism claims to apply an individual's religious opinion to the
whole universe. That is not merely bigotry; it is also hubris. Since
bigotry and hubris are immoral, creationism is immoral at its very
foundation.
- Creationism is as much a political movement as a religious one.
For example, the "wedge" strategy of Phillip Johnson and the Discovery
Institute is funded by Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. and his wife Roberta.
(Johnson dedicated one of his books to them.) Ahmanson supports
Christian Reconstructionism, which seeks to replace American democracy
with a fundamentalist theocracy. In the society he favors, the death
penalty would be required for "offenders" such as witches, homosexuals,
incorrigible children, and people who disagree with the state religion
(Benen 2000; Forrest and Gross 2004, 22-23,265-267).
- Morals are properly judged on the basis of deeds, not claims. There
are several indications that creationist deeds are below average
morally:
The examples above are not indicative of all creationists.
Most creationists, like most people of any category, are good people on
the whole. But creationists, unlike evolutionists or most other
people, have a strong ideological commitment. Strong commitments such
as theirs can, and judging by the examples above probably do, lead
people into questionable morality if they think it will support what
they consider a higher cause. Objective study is still necessary to
determine definitively whether creationists are any less moral than
average, but theory and what evidence there is suggests that that is
the case.
- The Bible is not a consistent guide to morality; it describes several
actions that would generally be considered immoral if not downright
repugnant:
- In Numbers 31:17-18, Moses commands his troops to kill every woman
and child in Midian, except young virgins, who the troops may keep
for themselves.
- In Exodus 32:27, Moses commands his people to kill their brothers,
sons, and neighbors who worshipped improperly.
- According to 2 Kings 2:23-24, Elisha called down a curse on some
youths, resulting in forty-two of them being killed by a bear,
simply because they mocked his baldness.
- In 1 Chronicles 13:7-11, Uzza is killed for trying to keep the Ark
of the Covenant from harm.
See Robinson (2000) for more examples.
Links:
Vickers, Brett, 1998. Some questionable creationist credentials,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html
References:
Further Reading:
Drange, Theodore M. 1998. Why be moral?
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/whymoral.html
Carrier, Richard. 1998. Does the Christian theism advocated by J. P.
Moreland provide a better reason to be moral than secular humanism?
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/moreland.html
Grünbaum, Adolf. 1995. The poverty of theistic morality. In:
Science, Mind and Art, K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M. W. Wartofsky,
eds., Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 203-242.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/adolf_grunbaum/poverty.html
Sagi, Avi and Daniel Statman. 1995. Religion and Morality. Trans.
Batya
Stein, Atlanta: Rodopi, pp. 107-112.
created 2003-6-5, modified 2004-4-21