The ID Report

Post details: Henry Morris: Some Personal Reflections

03/01/06

by Mark Hartwig 05:58:51 pm, Categories: Commentary - Announcements, 423 words

Henry Morris: Some Personal Reflections

On one of my many bookshelves rests a copy of The Genesis Flood, by Henry Morris. It's the original edition, which my wife read in college. I've never read the book myself, having entered the origins debate a couple of decades after its publication. And I've always been more interested in biology than geology. Nonetheless, his book changed the course of my life.

Thanks to that book, and Morris' many other efforts, the question of origins entered once again into public awareness, sparking a resurgence of creationism in North America. The growing movement drew thinkers of many persuasions into the arena, which brought a richness and vitality to the debate. It was a mix that I found irresistible when I was first exposed to the debate in late 1984. I was soon devouring whatever I could get my hands on, and what began as an avocation eventually became my vocation.

I didn't share many of Morris' views, but I do owe him a debt of gratitude for his work. If it weren't for his work, I wouldn't have had mine.

I think something similar goes for many of Darwin's most prominent defenders. Thanks to Morris, many Darwinists have attained professional acclaim who would otherwise have spent their entire careers in obscurity. Of course, that's not exactly something any of them would care to acknowledge. Who'd want to admit that they owe their paycheck and visibility to the very "rabble" they're fighting.

Still, the Darwinists could show a modicum of decency in the wake of Morris' passing. Following the passing of Stephen Jay Gould, I wrote a largely sympathetic obit. But I was roundly chastised by Darwinists for a remark, made in passing, that his sometimes contradictory comments occasionally exasperated friends and foes alike: How dare I speak so disrespectfully of the dead!

Yet apparently, the same standard does not apply to creationists. When I visited talk.origins today I was appalled at the thread discussing Morris' death. I won't repeat the disgraceful things that were said. But the words and the celebratory tone spoke volumes about the writers' lack of character and humanity.

What have we come to when people can't put aside their arguments in the face of a human being's suffering and death? When they, in fact, vindictively celebrate that suffering? When their own petty grievances triumph over matters of life and death?

To put it another way, where's the profit in winning the debate if, in the process, you lose your very soul? That is indeed a loss to be mourned.

Comments, Pingbacks:

No Comments/Pingbacks for this post yet...

Comments are closed for this post.

The ID Report

Recently (cached)
Recently (no cache)

January 2012
Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
<< <		> >>
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Last comments

Search

Linkblog

Links - Groups and Organizations

Access Research Network
Discovery Institute
Evolution News Blog
Evolution has become a favorite topic of the news media recently, but for some reason, they never seem to get the story straight. The staff at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture started this Blog to set the record straight and make sure you knew "the rest of the story".
Intelligent Design Network (IDNet)
Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center
Intelligent Reasoning
A blogger from New England offers his intelligent reasoning.
International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID)
Telic Thoughts
We are a group of individuals, coming from diverse backgrounds and not speaking for any organization, who have found common ground around teleological concepts, including intelligent design. We think these concepts have real potential to generate insights about our reality that are being drowned out by political advocacy from both sides. We hope this blog will provide a small voice that helps rectify this situation.
The Design Inference - The Writings of William A. Dembski
The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center (IDEA)
www.themonkeytrial.com
Website dedicated to comparing scenes from the "Inherit the Wind" movie with factual information from actual Scopes Trial. View 37 clips from the movie and decide for yourself if this movie is more fact or fiction.

Links - Of General Interest

A Brief View of Time and Those That Live There
Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio
A Quick Guide to Sequenced Genomes
ARN Related Web Links
Creation/Evolution Quotes
Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.
CreationEvolutionDesign
Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.
Darwinian Fairytales by David Stove
Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"
ID The Future
Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.
John Mark Reynolds Blog
A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at
Biola University.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day