Glenn Morton wrote:
> To me, one of the interesting things is that faith in other religions does
> the very same thing. Look at the faith of the Islamic world which seems to
> firmly believe that the videos of Osama taking responsibility for 911 aren't
> real, were doctored, or they believe that he isn't really saying what he is
> clearly saying. It makes people believe the authors of books who tell
> incredible stories of how golden plates with Egyptian Reformed hieroglyphics
> were found in North America. It makes people believe that vials filled with
> pig's blood are really filled with 'the blood of a saint'. It makes people
> think that dark spots on the ground is the newly liquified blood of a saint
> instead of bat urine (Simon Winchester,The Map that Changed the World,
> (London: Viking, 2001), p.284)
> It makes people believe guys like Jim Jones, of whom observational data
> should have informed his followers that he was going to kill them. Somehow
> faith must be tempered by observational data.
>
Probably one of the hardest things about being a scientist
(or maybe more so a philosopher) is that one is forced to
ask the hard questions even when it means it can cost something.
We have been asked to simply have faith and it would seem that
(given true), God rewards the faithful somehow. It seems to me
the problem is where (or perhaps even how) to draw the line. It's
like the difference between being persistent and being stubborn.
In many ways they are the same, but the context makes all the
difference. Likewise faith and delusion.
So I guess then a factor to weigh is if my faith is mere
delusion, then what is the best way to make the best fruit
out of my own delusion. I guess I have in a sense made up
my mind that "I'm going on in Jesus' name" even if it means
"going through the storm of blinding rain", but I certainly
would not insist that words on a page can only be read one
way. It also makes me less likely to say that 99% of the
Japanese I see will go to hell and maybe it will be me who
comes back as a slug, king roach, or whatever.
I wonder, _does_ it weaken a man's character to admit that he
could be wrong and live accordingly and is living accordingly
being out of faith? Assumed absolutes are much easier to
latch onto than savvy speculations, and I sense that this
is at the heart of why the YEC position so easily persists.
by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
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