It seems like we (at least in the U.S.) often settle for either A or B in questions that are important to us; Evolution OR Creation; Pro-Life OR Pro-Choice; Liberal OR Conservative, and so on.
Why are there so few strong third choices? I realize there are independent voters, but we hear very little from people who believe God made the world by using the process of evolution; we hear very little from parties who believe that maybe each case of potential abortion should be decided not by a strict either-or rule, but by lovingly helping each person involved to understand all of the options before making a decision either way; and so on.
While I understand that the media plays a strong role here – polarizing issues make big news – that should not stop determined people from working out intelligent, caring alternatives to the system of A or B.
In the case of evolution versus creationism, there is no third way - or even two ways. Evolution is a fact, period. As for “pro-life”, they are no such thing; they are anti-choice, and anti-choice and pro-choice are a natural binary option.
As for liberal versus conservative, much of that is because conservatives are so narrow, so extreme that in reality the division is between conservatives and everyone else. American conservatives define the world that way; you are either exactly like them or a liberal - evil incarnate - part of an undifferentiated mass of willfully evil monsters. Most of the world are “liberals” to them; an evil horde that is simultaneously communist, atheist, homosexuals & pro-homosexuals, satanists, child molesters, treasonous, lazy, dishonest, brutal yet weak; a mutually contradictory mass of everything they consider evil, disgusting or worthless. “Liberal” is basically just a replacement for “sinner” or “unbeliever” and has little to do with any actual political position anymore.
Much of American politics is like that at this point; there’s the conservative side aka the insane, delusional side; and then there’s everyone else.
But unless God’s unexistence is also a known fact, the way of God creating the world via evolution does exist as an alternative.
See, I get that the ways you two (above) are talking about is the way things are seen; what I’m asking is: since an alternate way does exist, I wonder why more people don’t get that.
The “excluded middle” is usually just rhetorical bullying. People of good intention fall prey to it sometimes, especially when it comes to religion, but most of the time we know the guy who insists on black or white is color blind.
This does not apply to facts. Reality is what continues to exist when you stop believing in it.
What I mean is that it gets a lot of support because it comprises a mechanism to rally support - that’s what Creationism is - a big organisation that exists for the primary purpose of generating support.
I think the OP has picked poor examples
e.g. On the abortion thing, many people in the “pro-choice” camp do have caveats and believe women should have counseling, or that not every reason is valid, or whatever. And, indeed, many on the “pro-life” camp believe there should be some exceptions.
And it’s wrong to imagine a “compromise” position between creationism and evolution.
But, as the OP suggested, I do think there is a black-and-white aspect to US culture. You see it a lot in questions of morality – everything is 100% bad or good, and I think it may be because the US is still such a religious country (among developed countries).
No; it’s just pretending there’s a third way. It’s yet another example where the believers have been pushed back by the facts into clinging to a “God” that looks exactly like the nonexistence of a God.
This. Adding gods to the evolution side of the equation is like taping a dead frog to a bicycle seat-adding it doesn’t make it work any better, and it just gets in the way.
The trouble with your “third way” for the abortion issue is that it is de facto pro choice. All “pro choice” means is that, for whatever reason, you don’t want to make abortion illegal. You might be opposed to abortion, you might counsel people not to have an abortion, you might help them adopt, you might help them get birth control, and on and on, but if a woman decides to get an abortion you don’t advocate charging her with a crime, and you don’t advocate charging the doctor with a crime.
The name for this position is “pro choice”. If you do a little searching you can find some people on the internet who think abortion is awesome. But the vast majority of people who are pro choice don’t think abortion is awesome, they just think criminalizing abortion is a bad idea.
And so on down the line. Believing that evolution should be taught in biology class doesn’t mean that you believe atheism should be taught in biology class. It just means you believe that evolution should be taught in biology class. And so on.
I think a more direct answer to the OP’s question is that people want things to be simple.
Reality is pretty complicated, whether we like it or not. Most issues are more complex than black and white viewpoints allow for, but it takes a lot of effort and consideration to properly understand them. Humans just can’t expend enough energy, time and effort to grasp everything you’ve mentioned while also raising kids and working jobs and meeting friends and all the other nonsense we engage in. Some people can do it, and they’re called smart, but most of us just can’t. That’s why the media presents things the way they do, because they know their audience and they play to it.
We do the third way all the time. Instead of making abortion legal or illegal we take the third way and permit abortions now while there is an ongoing fight to ban it again, universally, or through the slow torture of regulation that permits none, all while re-arguing these cases in the courts one state at a time instead of all at a national level. Instead of deciding that evolution is correct and creationism is wrong we take the third way and teach evolution in science classes and don’t allow creationsim as science, but we allow an ongoing public discourse on the subject as if both sides had claims of equivalent strength, and endlessly argue the individual cases of people trying to backdoor creationism in as science. Everything we do is some sort of third way in a system that only operates through cooperation. Well everything except finances, we take the fourth way and increase spending and decrease taxes as our debts increase.
some people are determined not to give in on their own opinions,
laziness and lack of effort prevents a third way from becoming more visible,
recategorizing a third way into one of the original two ways is a way of avoiding highlighting the third way, and
people prefer simplicity (tied to number 2 above).
Back to number 1, Der Trihs and Czarcasm, while obviously intelligent, are so set in their ways that any objectivity is lost in the effort to one-up or trump someone else.
Objectivity in the sense of being able to see more than one side of an issue, even if you disagree with it – as opposed to just slamming it.
One of the things I suspect atheists admire is the love of truth and science (in all seriousness, very admirable traits). Yet when such people shun objectivity – a hallmark of science – in favor of their own already-decided viewpoints – well, that is just as hypocritcal as a religious person who acts in ways that oppose what their faith teaches.
Scientific hypocrisy.
You really cannot fathom a working way of a God who created the world via evolution without resorting to labeling it with hints of superior information (without back-up) or humorous images?
You really have to trump an idea you disagree with, without being able to step back objectively and saying,
“You know what, I really don’t believe gods exist at all. And yet, if one did, and one made the world via evolution, well – crazy as that sounds to me – I could see that might be one option out there, sure, even if I highly doubt it.” – ?
I think I do understand what the OP means. It is possible to be a person of faith who does not reject the evidence demonstrating that life evolved; it is possible to believe that the law should not permit abortion on demand and not be a hater of women or believe that abortion should never be allowed.
I actually believe there are lots of people who fall into those categories, but media portrayals (and arguments on the internet, should one be so foolish as to partake) suggest that these alternate views are not possible.
It’s nothing new, but there does seem to be an incresing tendency to see certain issues as only “us vs. them,” with each side claiming to be absolutely right, everyone who disagrees as not only absolutely wrong but wrong-headed and wrong-hearted. If one is detrmined to villify the other side in a debate, it’s more convenient to aim at the most unattractive and easily dismissed views, and ignore the ones that are more reasonable.
Belief in gods is simply stupid and baseless. There’s no more reason to believe that a god - much less a particular god - is manipulating evolution than there is to believe that Santa Claus is doing so. Belief in gods (and especially the extra-implausible Christian God) should always be held in contempt for what it is; an incredibly stupid and blatantly false idea, an idea that even a child should be able to see through - if they want to do so.
There is no reason to take claims that “God” is behind evolution or anything else seriously; there’s no evidence such a being is even possible, much less that it’s done anything like that. All the evidence is against it. And the fact that you keep going on about “God” demonstrates that the entire argument is just an attempt to push Christianity anyway. Why else the assumption that it has to be “God” and not Zeus or Baal or Great Cthulhu behind evolution?
No; there IS no “other way”. The existence of evolution is as settled a fact as you will ever find, and “theistic evolution” is a joke. You simply picked one of the worst possible examples for postulating a “third way”.