From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Sep 20 2003 - 15:58:48 EDT
John W Burgeson wrote:
> Well, I've just come from a presentation at a local Durango church on why
> YEC is the only "right" position to take. I.
snip
>
>
> Joe had emailed me privately that he personally thought a person such as
> myself, distinctly scornful of YECism, might still be a Christian. I had
> asked him to make that point, as appropriate, in his talk. In that talk,
> he specifically said that non-YEC people were calling Jesus a liar. That
> all other interpretations than YEC "do great harm to the cause of
> Christ." That so-called "Christian" scientists doing radiometric dating
> deliberately falsify their findings. That TEs do not worship "the God of
> the Bible." At each of these places I listened carefully to see if he
> would give the slightest caveat; he did not.
That is rather sad. The Sebeny I knew was not so judgmental. It certainly
tends to turn me against having a tolerant attitude towards YEC if this is
the way it changes a person.
I think that the problem is one wherein they paint themselves into a corner
by trying to use science to prove what is intrinsically unprovable instead of
adopting the attitude that history could be "built in" and still be valid in
the pursuit of geological exploration of oil and the like -- as it clearly
is.
The Sebeny who considered me "to be a brother in Christ" seems to have
disappeared.
>
>
> To his credit, he did say, in an unrelated discussion of evidences, that
> TEs and PCs "might" be Christians, "although in so doing they cannot be
> consistent with either science or scripture." But this came 10 minutes or
> so after he had said the things in the paragraph above.
>
> The book table, which was impressive, had copies of a children's book on
> "Bombey," even though that argument was demolished 20 years ago. The
> propaganda machine was rolling.
>
> There was some new stuff, apparently. But I'll wait to tomorrow to give a
> full report.
>
> Joe, Roger, and Mike. This post is to an Internet LISTSERV. It will be
> "public" for some years, and will be accessed within a few days by
> perhaps 200 people, almost all of whom are both Christians and trained in
> the sciences. Most of these guys are a lot more conservative than I am,
> BTW. There are even two or three brave YECers among them, one of whom
> knows more about coal than Stephen J. Gold knew about beetles. You are
> welcome to join in the discussion, and to correct any place I have
> unfairly reported your remarks. Just hit the reply key. Or direct your
> mail to ASA@calvin.edu. Better still, join the discussions directly; info
> on how to do this is on the ASA web site at www.asa3.org.
Along these lines, I got Joe to submit a post to the old "Science and
Christianity" list hosted by Steve Schimmrich. The response to his one post
was despicably rude that it would be no surprise to see a bad reaction to
"Scientific Christians"
>
>
> This much more I will say, Joe. If I really believed the Bible taught
> what you think it teaches, I could not in any way take it seriously.
> Whether I would not then be a Christian, I don't know. Maybe. Might as
> well believe in Mother Goose.
Or you could just accept Christ and not accept the first few sections of the
Bible.
A sad thing indeed when ones scientific beliefs can cause people to loose
faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ -- as if this other stuff was more
important.
Sigh!
Walt
===================================
Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
In any consistent theory, there must
exist true but not provable statements.
(Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic
If you have already found the truth
without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
===================================
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