From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 13:25:26 EDT
Josh,
Let me second Ted's comment about Ham's skillfulness in making his
presentations. He's a practiced speaker and has all the come-backs to
questions from the floor down pat. What I did when his associate Gary
Parker gave a presentation at Berea College is not challenge him directly--I
saw how he ran people around in circles--but take notes, and then critique
his presentations in the days following, with students directly and through
College publications and its in-house listserv.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; <jbembe@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: YEC Invasion
> Josh,
>
> So Ken Ham is coming. A good time will not be had by all, I'm afraid.
>
> You write: The only familiarity I have with Ken Ham is when I glanced
> through one of his books and saw a cartoon illustration. It depicted two
> fortresses in warfare against one another, the first labelled Christianity
>
> and the second Evolution. On the side of Christianity was truth, honour,
> God, etc. On the side of Evolution was racism, genocide, euthanasia, etc.
>
> I found it to be the perfectly wrong frame for a productive dialogue about
>
> science and faith issues. This is my only impression of his arguments and
>
> approach, so I need to know more.
>
> Ted: The cartoon you mention is very well know, widely used in creationist
> presentations, even available as a wall-mounted picture that at least one
or
> two of my students' families have in their homes. It (and several others)
> can be found in Ham's book, The lie : evolution : Genesis - the key to
> defending your faith. (Incidentally, some of the cartoons in that book
have
> a striking similarity to cartoons widely used in the 1920s on both sides
of
> the Atlantic. The cartoonist for the Sunday School Times, E.J. Pace, was
> highly effective at ridiculing evolution. His visual motives reappear
often
> in antievolutionist literature. The particular one about a castle I have
> not seen in Pace, but half a dozen other cartoons in that book are very
> close to Pace cartoons.)
>
> As for responding to Ham, your goals sound appropriate. Many will find
Ham
> more convicing than you, I am guessing, b/c Ham is slick and has had lots
of
> practice. Also, he keeps it as simple as he can, whereas modern science
is
> rarely that simple. Ridicule is part of his toolbox too--Rimmer used it
> very well in the 1930s to win the audience, if not necessarily the
> argument.
>
> If I were in your position, I would push the Galileo issue. What I mean
> is, raise the question whether we should *always* in *all circumstances*
> insist on the "literal" meaning of a given text, esp when it seems to
> contradict other information that we think we know. Use the example of
the
> earth's motion and the roughly one dozen scriptures that seem to
contradict
> that. It's a safe example--I doubt your pastor has ever preached against
> Copernicus, though a few geocentrists are found among the creationists.
>
> Then, examine the two Genesis creation stories carefully--and do emphasize
> that there appear to be two such stories, whose details are not fully
> consistent. (such as the order of events--animals then humans or vice
> versa) Also look at the fourth day of creation, where the sun and moon
are
> created expressly to mark out time and to give day and night, yet we've
had
> time and evening/morning since day one. (This passage has been a source
of
> speculation since the earliest years of the church, long before "modern
> science". It has long been questioned, for example, whether the first
three
> "days" are "days" at all, since the sun and moon aren't there.)
>
> In other words, raise some fair questions about *what* a *literal*
> interpretation of the text actually gives us.
>
> That leaves you latitude to question whether Ham's "biblical" science is
> really the only "biblical" view.
>
> ted
>
>
>
>
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