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Sunday, January 9, 2011

Evil and natural selection

It is interesting when a Christian does something terrible, the response is “they are not real Christians”. But of course, if someone does something wrong using natural selection as the basis for that decision, that simply means everyone who accepts the theory is evil and the theory itself is wrong. To paraphrase a Christian, perhaps they were not ‘real evolutionists”? Have some bad things been done in the name of evolution? Yes. But that does not mean the theory is wrong.
Atomic theory allowed for the creation of atomic bombs. Does that mean when one explodes that the theory is evil? If someone uses the theory to harm someone, how does that mean that the theory is actually incorrect? Or is it the people who use atomic bombs to hurt other the evil ones?
Mathematics provides the use of accounting. If someone used accounting to develop a process for deciding on rationing who gets health care, does that make mathematics evil or wrong? Or was the evil action simply the people who did the rationing?
People use many ideas in bad ways. People have used religion to justify witch burning and killing of infidels.
But here is the rub. When people use a scientific theory to harm people, that is the decision of those specific people. They are not doing it because of a belief in a higher power. When people use religion to harm people, they do so because they believe their god desires that action. And trying to convince people their religion is evil is very hard. Christians believe it was okay for god to drown the entire world. This included one day old infants, because they were “evil” in his eyes.
When you can stand up and say that was wrong; or when you can say that your one day old infant is evil and deserves to be drowned, and please make sure you tell them that when they are older, we will take your protests a little more seriously.

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