Do scientist who reject any discussion of a Creator also reject the Declaration of Independence?

Question

We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are CREATED equal and that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights...............

How can one intellectually accept the Declaration of Independence's assertion of our being CREATED and having rights given by our CREATOR and at the same time reject ANY DISCUSSION of a CREATOR?

I am not some nit wit leather lunged evangelist. I have considerable formal education and my IQ is higher than either Bill or Hillary's. So please don't dismis my question as that of a kook.

Answer 1

You know something, you are very uninformed. For you information:

Most scientists believe in some sort of creator or deity. There is a simple explanation for this, and that is science can incorporate the idea of the supernatural since there are places that science cannot go.

The creation of the universe is one of them. Science can explain all the way back to 10^-43 seconds, but before that there is no explanation, there is only the unknown that is just as well explained as God as any other theory. So God and science are not at odds here, as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking would agree

Speaking of my great, great, uncle, several times removed Albert Einstein, he is quoted as saying "God does not play dice with the universe." What he meant by this was a repudiation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, because to Albert the universe was a beautifully ordered and created place, created by God.

Some scientist see God in randomness (Heisenberg). Others see it in harmonies of patterns and chaos (Glick and Mandelbrot). Even Darwin still credited God for creating the universe, though he sought scientific explanations for the evolution of species.

These men were/are fervent men with fervent beliefs. The fact that they deal in science in no way impedes their beliefs in God.

Now, that being said, what you believe God did or does may not be the same thing that these men believe, maybe because they understand Gods universe better, maybe because they are more open minded than to narrow their vision to a few hundred pages of a book, a book that is interpreted many different ways so that who knows which version is right, if any. But when it comes down to it, they believe in God in one form or another, and maybe their views are more enlightened than most.

You can count me with them, by the way, as I take a more scientific view of the world. I am Deist, what that means is I believe in God as a first cause. I believe that God set the beautifully intricate stage, that we are still trying to understand, and let it be, to run the way it will, a universe of detail ever unfolding.

BTW I gave you a thumbs up on the question, because while it was indelicate, it was thought provoking and deserved an answer, even if it was mostly my opinion.

Answer 2

All this means is that the signatories may have believed in God.
Men who believed in the D.O.I. also owned slaves, didn't they? Does that mean that negroes were either not men, or not equal?

I too have a high IQ, several degrees, and probably rank higher up the intelligence scale than politicians.
I do not dismiss any discussion about creation, I listen carefully, and make my mind up slowly and thoughtfully.

Let me tell you what I have learned.

I can demonstrate evolution, natural selection, species diversity, survival of the fittest and adaptation to anyone, in a single afternoon. I can give solid evidence for its impact on the world, I can show you fossils of many diverse, extinct animals and fish millions of years old, and books and articles lining the walls of libraries of scientists' work on the subject of evolution.

When I ask for proof of creation, or it's latest incarnation "Intelligent Design (ID)", I am shown a photograph of the eye, and a bacterial flagella with its rotor design, and told that they are too complex to have come about by evolution. And that these are proof that all of evolution could not have occurred. And the other thing which is offerred as proof is the Bible. Why?

Where is the scientific evidence?
Also, and here is the big question - What procludes there being more than one Creator? If you want to push ID and creation as a science, show me proof that there is only one, and be prepared to test the hypothesis that there could be more than one, just like in real science, where theories are examined, tested, accepted and rejected if need be. And above all, be objective, you cannot use your beliefs as evidence.

Do all this, and I will listen, without being dismissive. Act like a scientist, and you'll be treated like one. I don't think you're a kook, you just are not a scientist.

Answer 3

Uhm ... no.

It's just that scientists don't look to the Declaration of Independence as a source of scientific evidence ... any more than they consider the Bible a source of scientific evidence.

That does not mean that scientists (as Americans or human beings) do not value the Declaration of Independence ... or even the Bible (many scientists are quite religious). These documents may have tremendous, PROFOUND truths. But they are not *scientific* truths ... they are not independently verifiable facts. So they are great as ideals for establishing a country, or deriving personal spiritual guidance ... but they are no more useful as pieces of evidence for or against a scientific theory than, say, the Magna Carta, the Yellow Pages, or the works of William Shakespeare.

Or to put it another way ... scientists reject discussion of a Creator, not because they have something against the concept, but because a discussion of the Creator (or opening up the Declaration of Independence) is no more relevant in a scientific discussion than it is in a discussion of Calculus, or Civil Engineering, or Auto Mechanics. Just because your doctor doesn't look in the Declaration of Independence to figure out how to cure your flu, doesn't mean he *rejects* the Declaration of Independence.

Is that so hard to understand?

Answer 4

first off, the D.O.I. is (like god) a creation of man. It is a concept that is applied to people to keep an order(as is god). But that is my asshole biased opinion. To be more factual, the "rights" that they speak of are not of a creator, but of a code of ethics. The specific philisophical perspective which it holds, is, Natural Law Ethics. This is the foundational ethical concept of the roman catholic church. Thus, the natural rights of a human being were derived before the particular view of god that is portrayed today. But the reason science does not bother with the concept of a creator is because it can neither be proved, or disproved. " no evidence is not evidence" which is why they dont abandoned the concept altogether. just as many scientists disagree with string theory as with the concept of some form of a creator. Take into consideration for that non-believing population, that the idea of a god seems as rediculous as a universe of planck length vibrating strings.

Answer 5

That's an interesting thought. First, I don't think that scientists reject outright the notion of a creator, there just isn't much scientific evidence for a creator, and thus, a creator is not much of a concern for scientists. Furthermore, I don't think that the main argument of the Declaration of Independence is that there is a divine Creator. Changing "created" with "born" doesn't really change the meaning of the document.

Answer 6

No credible scientist completely rules out the possibility of a creator but the evidence against one is substantial. But just as we can not disprove the existence of ghosts, UFOs, etc, they all lack that one little detail called "evidence," the same holds true for a creator.
The founders of the Declaration of Independence can be "forgiven", so to speak, for making a commonly-held declaration of a creator which was demonstrative of their time.

Answer 7

Christians ought bigger to be hired within the well information of our Creator ...getting into our very sneakers instead than developing a laboratory to end up Himself or draw evolutionary diagrams,.He honestly recognized with our truly issues and issues.Very few humans care approximately considering their navel, extra approximately their possess happiness , protection and fate. If He had instructed us we had been the manufactured from hazard and possibility I do not believe that could have replied our private demands , do you? Who attempts to disprove evolution? Certainly the bulk have got to receive a confirmed potential for mutation inside species ,in any other case they could come to be extinct below environmental difference. Even despite the fact that I and lots of extra smart humans adding nearly all of scientists aren't persuaded approximately "Genetic Evolution" that does not utterly reduction standard thought or opinion. Darwin and the neo Darwinists of in these days comfortably have had an not possible difficulty with the whole dearth of inter species evidence.So to challenge a fragment of human of experimentation onto a multi billion 12 months canvass in their possess invention turns out a large step of Faith of their possess instruments. Without trawling via the entire of your purple herrings (sic) I believe if we spent extra time studying approximately the first-rate correlation among Scriptural revelation and the direction of historical past you could have evidence sufficient that the whole thing ,adding the entire cosmos is relocating inexorably in keeping with a predetermined climax. Let us consequently pay attention to the one burning hindrance of the day:- Not the " Big Bang" of the beyond however the wonderful " Big Bang" now not up to now clear of us. Maybe black or white gap, what change?

Answer 8

I think there are people who can accept "the creator" as a metaphor for the unknown, universal spirit or man's sense of wonder etc. It's really a question of philosophy and language, not science. It's not as if Thomas Jefferson had conventional religious views. It's much the same as when Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe". I doubt he meant the conventional religious concept of God, just that God was an excellent metaphor for quantum physics.