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NOTE: The original post to which this thread refers may be
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http://people.ne.mediaone.net/ghammond/15BILLION6000.html
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John W Burgeson wrote:
>
> Sorry for last transmission. Hit the wrong key again and Billy Gates got
> me.
>
> Try again.
>
> Hammond wrote: " BTW, thanks for finding yourself able to say something
> to me without being unnecessarily critical. Whether that is brilliance
> or tact I'm uncertain, but it certainly is rare."
>
> You must be referring to my exchanges with Vernon. I was cahstized
> privately by another on this list for poking fun at Vernon; I responded
> that my posts meant to poke fun at Vernon's claims and not Vernon's
> person, and that I apologized if I had been unclear in this.
[Hammond]
No, no, no ,no... quite the opposite.. after so much abuse from other
quarters I was merely remarking how refreshing and enlightening it was
to have someone actually address me politely. I'd quite forgotten
how it sounds.
>
> You had written: " Well, it means that the first people awoke after they
> had biologically appeared 6,000 years ago and discovered that a
> "15-billion year old world" had been instantly (on an Evolutionary time
> scale) been "Created by God".. fossils, and all." and I asked
> >
> > Interesting. Does this mean you are in substantial agreement with
> Gosse's > claims in OMPHALOS?
>
> Your response is puzzling. You wrote : " Well, you and I and Steven J.
> Gould and a lot of other enlightened people can appreciate a spellbinding
> preacher like Gosse who could spin a yarn that would entertain the
> hardest bitten heretic and yet preach the word of God. Certainly
> something a cloistered academic like myself could never do, but something
> you and SJG can approach. No, I'm afraid Gosse was more of a masterful
> preacher while I'm simply a physicist (after all he could get their
> attention and dazzle, entertain and confound them, I can't)."
>
> The historical record does show that Gosse was a leader in his church,
> the Plymouth Brethern, but how good a preacher he was I have no idea; his
> son'e biography of him, FATHER & SON, published about 1910, does not
> bring out that attribute to any extent. His book, OMPHALOS, which I
> reviewed in the most recent PERSPECTIVES, sets forth his claims, which
> sound a lot like yours. BTW, a copy of that review is on my website,
> along with other notes on Gosse. A most interesting character.
[Hammond]
Well, I was just pointing out that stating that "God put fossils in
rocks to confuse biologists" certainly is a masterful religious
parable destined to be forever remembered by the religiously unaware.
>
> Thank you for linking me with Gould (above). he is a great writer; of
> course he is not a preacher, since he is a non-theist. I am also not a
> preacher, although I have taken the pulpit as a guest in various churches
> on occasion, and I am certainly not in the same class as Gould as far as
> writing ability (or speaking ability) is concerned.
[Hammond]
I gave one 30 minute professional address in my life, to 150
Psychology and Neuropsychology researchers in Montreal.
Hans Eysenck was the moderator.
1/3 of the audience apparently fell asleep, 1/3 left for
refreshments and the other third busied themselves with homework.
In fact, Hans was the only one who listened to me. I'll
never do it again.
>
> You wrote: " I talked to Julian Jaynes on the telephone a number of times
> in the early 1980's and certainly regret his passing a few years ago. He
> was a very enlightened and alert man, and made a significant contribution
> by developing public awareness of Sperrian Brain Lateralization with his
> book. In fact, my Psychometry theory has now confirmed that Sperry is
> one axis of the brain in Psychometry and does account for one axis of the
> BI/2P System. Again, experimental proof was not Jaynes' department..
> guessing the right answer and getting the public's attention was more his
> line of work. He had a sense of humor too... in fact told me that he
> was having the book translated but had discovered that there was no word
> for "Bicameral" in German."
>
> That is fascinating. I had not heard of his passing. His book is a
> "keeper" on my own library shelf. He made me think in different
> directions, and that always makes me glad. I am surprised by your last
> sentence; German is so flexible in making up new terminology. But my own
> German was never very good and is now almost 45 years in the past since I
> last used it to any extent.
[Hammond]
I took German for two years in college and between that and ROTC I
nearly flunked out of college... I couldn't understand what a
"case" is... I mean declaring that all statements must be
either nominative, dative, subjunctive etc. sounded like an abridgment
of the freedom of speech to me, and I concluded it was something
peculiar to ancient or foreign languages. I had similar problems
with the military trying to understand what the Red Menace at home
and a broad was. I shudder to think about how innocent I was when
I was a kid.
>
> Again -- sorry for the incomplete version of this which got sent.
>
> John Burgeson (Burgy)
>
> www.burgy.50megs.com
> (science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
> humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
-- Be sure to visit my website below, and please ask your news service provider to add alt.sci.proof-of-god ----------------------------------------------------------- George Hammond, M.S. Physics Email: ghammond@mediaone.net Website: http://people.ne.mediaone.net/ghammond/index.html -----------------------------------------------------------
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