In a message dated Wed, 8 May 2002 11:43:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
"Adrian Teo" <ateo@whitworth.edu> writes:
>I am probably guilty of not reading the listserv description
>carefully enough before signing on, but I honestly thought this was a
>science AND faith forum. But in the light of Allan's comments, it
>appears that zero-science content messages are inappropriate but NOT
>zero-religion content messages. This has been a frustration of mine
>that in so many of my discussions with science-religion folks, it
>appears that science is given greater weight than religion. So on
>this list, you gotta have science in your posts to be acceptable, but
>you don't have to have religion. I have seen people complain about
>discussions on theological issues, but have yet to see anyone
>complain about discussions on genetics, or information theory and
>such. So, is this supposed to be a forum that allows for some
>religion, and never just religion alone although science alone is
>fine ?
First, I should say that I was just stating my opinion; I certainly
do not set policy for the list.
Second, I did not intend to advocate the asymmetry Adrian seems to
see. In my opinion, "science only" threads are as out of place as
"religion only" threads on this list.
But both of those have to be qualified. As I mentioned, it seems
perfectly appropriate to have some "religion only" discussion of
issues like approaches to Scripture or process theology, since those
are very relevant to science/faith discussions. Similarly, it seems
appropriate to have "science only" discussions that are relevant to
science/faith issues, such as discussions of genetics (in relation to
evolution and/or to Christian ethics) or even Bill Payne's coal seams
(which relate to "flood geology"). Adrian mentioned information
theory -- unfortunately, as long as there are Christians wanting to
find "gaps" in which to place God's creative work, I think that will
be a relevant topic in some contexts.
I think we agree that discussions on this forum should relate to
science AND faith, and that if the *whole* discussion has zero
science content or zero religion content, it is not appropriate. I
used examples (like Daniel's 40 weeks) with zero science content
because that is what has been the most blatant in my view recently.
I can't think of any "science-only" threads recently that were
totally irrelevant to science/faith issues (maybe some discussion of
nuclear power a while back was in that category, though it is
potentially relevant to stewardship of God's creation). But if there
are such threads, I would hope for their death on this forum as well.
Of course one can argue that there is no such thing as a
"science-only" thread, because our Christian faith should inform
everything we do, including science, and we should always consider
how any scientific topic fits into God's call on our lives. But if
the discussion on such a thread becomes only science and there is no
connection apparent to faith issues, ethics, our stewardship
responsibility, etc., then it is probably out of bounds.
Allan Harvey, steamdoc@aol.com
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