From: Terry M. Gray (grayt@lamar.colostate.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 07 2003 - 01:21:31 EST
Hi everyone,
In the interest of the health of the list, may I suggest that all
sides on the issue of Bible numbers and related topics STOP the
unhelpful name calling. If it is your opinion that those who promote
such views are pompous fools, either keep it to yourself or engage in
such criticism in private messages. If it is your opinion that those
who reject such views are unregenerates, blind to the clear message
of God, either keep it to yourself or engage in such criticism in
private messages. I don't think it's particularly becoming to this
forum to have the kind of disrespectful dialog that has been taking
place.
I will suggest again to Vernon and Richard that we know your ideas
and we know where they are on the web. The general silent (and
sometimes disrespectful) response that you often receive means that
as a whole this list is not interested in discussing these matters. I
will also suggest that they are only marginally related to the
faith-science focus of this list. (Ask yourself, "How many papers
have been published in recent faith-science journals on this topic?")
I suggest that you engage in private discussion with those interested
in these topics OR start a discussion group of your own at
yahoogroups.com. You are welcome to use the ASA list to invite folks
to that discussion from time to time. You are also welcome to notify
us of any new information available at your web sites.
I would suggest to the rest of the group that it is best just to
ignore these posts if the only response you can have is one of ire or
ridicule. There do seem to be folks genuinely interested in pursuing
these discussions, although my observation is that they seem to be
few in number on the ASA list. As a general rule, if the number of
participants in any discussion is very small (say 2), then it may be
best to take that discussion off-line and report back with a summary
if any resolution comes about.
Our goal on the ASA list is to have reasonably high level scholarly
discussion. Recently, I've been reminded of playground shouting
matches. Let's get back on track--we want faith-science discussions.
Ideally, this isn't an "anything goes" discussion. We don't want just
science and we don't want just theology. We want discussion that
relates the two. Ask yourself before posting, "Is this on topic?" or
"Am I throwing out something that I think is interesting that I'd
like to see us talk about that has little to do with the
faith-science discussion?"
As you know, I don't really relish the job of squashing conversation
on this list, but it does seem to become necessary from time to time.
Terry M. Gray
List Manager
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
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