A challenge!

I do not believe that women are simply meatbags, any more than men are. I do not seek to sexually exploit every woman I lay eyes on, though I will readily admit that i have certain thoughts not suited to polite conversation. I think most men have these thoughts, whether they admit it or not. Just look at your own enthusiasm for Space Princesses, John. It was enough to try and start your own movement! If all you loved about space princesses was their sparkling wit and philosophical depth, why do you keep posting pictures of them, and of beautiful women in general? Why not write a story in which a dashing young space cadet’s only interaction with a space princess is to talk with her through a crack in the wall that seperates them into two prison cells, so that they never see or touch each other? Lets get rid of this popular image of space princesses running around with giant steel mixing bowls for shirts. If nothing else, they should at least get to wear something more comfortable.

My reply:

I will defend gladly and gallantly, the comment I made, but I cannot defend the comment you heard: because the two are not the same. I am saying something much narrower than what you heard. For the lack of clarity on my part, I apologize, because I can see how what I wrote could be misread.

One of the comments here on this blog, a fellow whose name I forget, claimed that Darwin “proved” that each man’s biological drives and make-up made it morally acceptable to fornicate, and to do anything else one’s appetites provoked, and morally reprehensible to pass laws enforcing a marriage custom or social discipline and organization.

Obviously Darwin said nothing of the kind. Darwin’s theory was that new species emerge due to decent through modification according to natural selection. Darwin made no moral value-judgments; nor can any scientist confirm or deny a value-judgment by means of the empirical method.

Darwin, nor any physical science, ever said anything about the nature of man’s morals and conscience and its relation to his molecular and electro-neural composition. Obviously no one can see, weigh, or measure an imponderable: so no empirical statement can have an imponderable as it subject matter. 

However, it is a commonplace among a group I like to call “the science barbarians” to claim that science has proven men have no free will, or to say that the white master-race is evolutionarily superior to the black slave-race, or to say that science proves we are morally obligated to sterilize the retarded, infirm, and unfit, to abort the unwanted and inflict euthanasia on the aged or useless, who are too weak to fight back. The forces of scientific barbarism make several claims about science, all of them false.

Socialists generally delight in these various false claims that science justifies race warfare or class warfare, genocide or mass-murder, eugenics or abortion. The gentler version of science barbarismmakes a smaller claim. Ever since the sexual revolution, the false claim is that fornication is a natural right and marriage is a monstrous evil, either because Darwin proves men have an innate mating instinct that it is unnatural to hinder or govern, or because of some argument equally weak and arbitrary.

My claim here is that no pagans, not real pagans who honor the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods, who see the mysteries of life as a thing of magic and wonder, with dryads in every tree and nymphs in every stream, would ever utter such a piece of crass science-barbarism.

If a pagan is eager for fornication, he might claim Aphrodite justifies his imprudence, but never Darwin.

As for the rest, lust is one of my besetting sins. All men have thoughts not suited to polite conversation: that is why it is so important to maintain standards of polite conversation. You and I are in total agreement on that point. You are making an accusation I would never dream of denying. I am a sinner, and below average in that regard.

My comment, if you reread it, is merely that pagans DO NOT make a particular false equation between Darwinism and scientific barbarism. It is not a statement that one must be a theist in order to avoid scientific barbarism. I would hope that it is sufficient to not be a barbarian to avoid scientific barbarism.

Put more logically, what I said was the set “Barbarians who justify their depravity, sexual or otherwise, using a fallacious argument from Darwinism” are all members of the set “People who believe Darwin’s theory provides a moral theory.” Those people are all members of the set “People who believe Darwin’s theory.”

Let us call the first set the Science-barbarians. Let us call the second set Science-worshipers. Let us call the third set Darwinists.

All science-worshiper are Darwinists, but not all Darwinists are science-worshipers. All science-barbarian are science-worshipers, but not all science-worshipers are science-barbarians.

No one who believes that all the natural world is governed by and caused by gods or by a God is in a position to believe (without an unjustified paradox) that Darwin’s theory is the source and fountainhead of moral theory. Hence, no pagan, if he is a real pagan and not merely an antichristian looking for an excuse, can be a science-worshiper. Since all science-barbarians are science-worshipers, no pagan can be a science-barbarian.

I hope I have met and satisfied your challenge?