> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Burgeson [mailto:burgy@compuserve.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 7:05 PM
> Glenn -- let me deconstruct the above. The two sentences of interest are
> the last two:
>
> "To me, the danger of not using the either/or concept is that we must then
> agree that any sort of nonsense is within the realm of possibility. "
>
> I'm not sure why this is a danger. I hold all knowledge to be provisional.
> If a scientist wants me to accept the N-ray concept, provisionally, I say,
> "OK. Let me see your evidence." He does; I am unpersuaded and we go from
> there. He still may be right, but he has not established his case and I am
> justified, at least for the present, to ignore it.
Your deconstruction doesn't work, Burgy. In the case of N rays, one should
expect physical evidence. In the case of saying that certain parts of the
Bible are not supposed to have evidence, or in the case where someone says
leprechauns are real but I can't show you evidence because they are real in
a different sense of reality, what can I do? THere is no evidence to
inspect. To me, to say the Bible is true, regardless of what the evidence
says, which appears to me to be an ad hoc assumption to save one's faith,
seems, well irrational. And that is what I see being done. Everyone
acknowledges that the historicity is false, but then to avoid having to say
that the Bible is a piece of crock, they say it is true in a different sort
of way---an unverifiable sort of way.
Your example simply isn't the same thing.
>
> "What is to stop us from being forced into accepting all sorts of
> nonsense?"
>
> Precisely the above. I don't HAVE to accept N-rays. Nor little blue
> invisible fairies. Nor many many other weird ideas that come across my
> path. I don't EVER have to accept -- or reject them. I am free to ignore
> them.
>
> Glenn -- too often you pose questions as having only two possibilities of
> resolution, when there are three -- or more.
Yes, there are three ways of dealing with the Bible.
1. Ignore the scientific data and accept the Bible regardless of what the
scientific data says.
2. Say that the Bible is true even if it has no scientific or obseervational
connection with reality.
3. Say the Bible is false.
4. Come up with a new interpretation of the Scripture which unites both the
Scripture and science into one unified reality.
I have always recognized these 4 options, Burgy. I reject categorically the
first two as being entirely irrational. One leads to YEC, the other leads to
calling observationally false things true!
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
>
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