Saturday, January 12, 2008

No quarrel over teaching Darwin's theory of Evolution in schools in India

[Bolton discusses this question of uniqueness in Keys of Gnosis, but I would use slightly different terminology. That is, I would say that each snowflake is an individual, but they are not individuated. Only a human being can individuate, which is to say, achieve a destiny which is unique to him. So yes, there is a kind of "predestination," but it's very different from the materialistic predestination of a snowflake. Human beings alone can become something they're not, and thus arrive at the wrong destination. No one has to tell a pig to be one, but you can never stop telling a liberal to be a Man. In fact, there can be a fine line between destiny and fate. Only destiny is within the realm of providence, whereas fate implies its opposite...
In a Christian context, predestination reduces you to a plaything of God, whereas in an Eastern context, you are just a plaything of maya. But the whole point of Christian metaphysics is that time is both real and irreversible, so that true and eternally valuable novelty occurs within it. "For this reason," as Bolton explains, "supposedly spiritual teachings for which the total system is the only real agent [i.e., monism] are only disguised expressions of Fate," and fate is not providence, let alone destiny. Predestination explains precisely nothing, but unexplains everything. -- Providence, Destiny, and Fate, Oh My! from One Cosmos by Gagdad Bob]
[It is no surprise when a dictator wins an election. With one name on the ballot the election is, of course, a landslide victory and no one is fooled by the self-congratulatory victory speech. The situation would be laughable except that the dictator holds all the power. Something like this occurred in the scientific world last week when the National Academy of Sciences published the latest version of its on-going assault against anything and anyone not aligned with evolution. According to the new 88 page booklet, entitled Science, Evolution, and Creationism, Darwin's theory is unquestionably true, required for scientific research and, in fact, the only choice to begin with. -- by ARN Staff 10:19:11 pm, Categories: Commentary - OpEd, Critique of NAS Report on Evolution - Part 1 Hail Darwin! by Cornelius Hunter]
It should be seen as a great civilisational advance that in India there is no quarrel over teaching Darwin's theory of Evolution in the schools. [TNM]

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