Are we not men?
A couple of weeks ago, at a conference discussing the approach Christians ought to take towards the creation/evolution question, I struck up a conversation with a professor of philosophy and ethics from a local college. This professor turned out to be a Catholic who did not find any superficial problems reconciling evolution with the Genesis account of creation. For him, it was entirely possible, from a biological perspective, for the God of the Bible to have used evolution as a creative mechanism. But, as the conversation moved towards his areas of academia, he expressed great concern about the way evolution is taught in public schools.
I bring this up today, because the more I have thought about that conversation, the more it disturbs me. The professor was dismayed that many, if not most of the students enrolling in his classes had little training in ethics and morality from the schools they had come from. He was convinced this was due to the fact that public schools, by exclusively teaching evolution as a purposeless, mechanical process, were also teaching in essence that ethics and morality had no subjective or objective base. In other words, kids were learning that without something (or someone) to impart the ideas of right and wrong, these concepts were not constraining forces.
So, what’s the problem with that, you may ask? After all, morality and ethics have always been subject to the times in which we live. What was once considered taboo is now commonplace. To an extent this is true, but the problem the professor raised goes one step further than this.
The kids he is facing now are not simply saying what all kids (as I did in my college days) have and will continue to say: That our parents' standards were standards of another time; that standards of taoday have changed in the generations since our parents' “time.” Yes, things are different now than in days past. But what these kids are saying today is, “I am not even bound by the societal ethics and morals of my time.” To them, if we are indeed the result of an atheistic, purposeless process, then we are nothing but material, and if so, there is no standard by which the material that we are ought to behave.
This is a rather scary concept, because society itself is based on a common understanding of what is right and wrong, ethical and unethical, acceptable and unacceptable. Society does change, and ethics do change with it, but to eschew the ethics of your day is to live outside the concepts that bind society together.
I believe we are only seeing the beginnings of the results of this problem, and to be honest, I’m not sure where it takes us exactly. Are events like Columbine and the recent fatal stabbing of a seven-year old student a result of this trend? Wherever it does take us, I don’t see how the ultimate destination could be good.
And what is the answer? Can we teach ethics and morality to our children without teaching them there is some purpose to our lives, that there is some basis to what we learn is right and wrong? Can they understand the need for societal norms if we are nothing but atoms, with no existential being? Should we re-introduce God back into public school?
- The Red Oasis
I bring this up today, because the more I have thought about that conversation, the more it disturbs me. The professor was dismayed that many, if not most of the students enrolling in his classes had little training in ethics and morality from the schools they had come from. He was convinced this was due to the fact that public schools, by exclusively teaching evolution as a purposeless, mechanical process, were also teaching in essence that ethics and morality had no subjective or objective base. In other words, kids were learning that without something (or someone) to impart the ideas of right and wrong, these concepts were not constraining forces.
So, what’s the problem with that, you may ask? After all, morality and ethics have always been subject to the times in which we live. What was once considered taboo is now commonplace. To an extent this is true, but the problem the professor raised goes one step further than this.
The kids he is facing now are not simply saying what all kids (as I did in my college days) have and will continue to say: That our parents' standards were standards of another time; that standards of taoday have changed in the generations since our parents' “time.” Yes, things are different now than in days past. But what these kids are saying today is, “I am not even bound by the societal ethics and morals of my time.” To them, if we are indeed the result of an atheistic, purposeless process, then we are nothing but material, and if so, there is no standard by which the material that we are ought to behave.
This is a rather scary concept, because society itself is based on a common understanding of what is right and wrong, ethical and unethical, acceptable and unacceptable. Society does change, and ethics do change with it, but to eschew the ethics of your day is to live outside the concepts that bind society together.
I believe we are only seeing the beginnings of the results of this problem, and to be honest, I’m not sure where it takes us exactly. Are events like Columbine and the recent fatal stabbing of a seven-year old student a result of this trend? Wherever it does take us, I don’t see how the ultimate destination could be good.
And what is the answer? Can we teach ethics and morality to our children without teaching them there is some purpose to our lives, that there is some basis to what we learn is right and wrong? Can they understand the need for societal norms if we are nothing but atoms, with no existential being? Should we re-introduce God back into public school?
- The Red Oasis
posted by Red Oasis at 9:59 AM
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