Re: [asa] Former YEC's on ASA and Henry Morris - WAS Denver RATE Conference

Michael,

It seems significant to me that your ASA person said you should not include
what Morris said in the entry. I agree. If we had it down in a documented
quote, and it was absolutlely unambiguous that he said that, and meant it
literally, then there would be a case for challenging YEC's with this
information.

If it's just an overheard conversation at an approximately given time, then
I'm afraid that isn't good enough as far as I'm concerned. When I was
looking into the "Dinosaur blood" claims of the YEC's (a YEC friend had
shoved that one under my nose), I found on Talk Origins that the way the
YEC's had misrepresented the data was by assembling a mish-mash of newspaper
and popular science articles (you rarely get the truth from newspapers),
rather than going back to the original research papers that appeared in
peer-reviewed journals. If one is going to use information for making a
rhetorical point, then one's source has to be impeccable or else what you
are doing is just as bad as the other side.

I don't see it as deliberate lying. Yes, being wilfullly ignorant. Yes,
self-deception. Yes, wishful thinking. These are all aspects of
dishonesty. But the way I see it is that the habit becomes so ingrained
that people don't see it as deliberate dishonesty. Being in the grip of a
delusion could be seen as a form of psychosis.

I think it makes sense to try and understand where these folk are coming
from. On a different TE discussion list I'm on (on facebook) a YEC started
posting and came up with the point that he saw the authority of the bible
being undermined. You have to take it in the context that he genuinely
wants to defend the authority of scripture, not that he's some heinous liar.

People of a YEC persuasion have swallowed the myth that if evolution is true
then the Bible is a pack of lies. If your faith position is that the Bible
is true AND you believe evolution is incompatible with a true Bible, it's
seriously going to affect the way you treat science. Your only logical
position - having ideologically committed to literal truth of the bible, is
to say that science is a pack of lies.

Sure, it's not honest - one always runs into trouble by committing to a
pre-ordained set of conclusions. In fact H. Allen Orr makes precisely this
criticism of Dawkins in The God Delusion. I would level the same criticism
at atheists who hold to the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
to provide a universal explanatory mechanism that excludes the need for a
Creator. None of these are really honest - but neither is it necessarily
evidence of deliberate lying. It's more a case of "seeing what you want to
see", something that scientists are often as guilty of as Christians.

The task we have is to show YEC's that it's not an either/or situation. But
I think it's wise to remember that these people feel their faith threatened
by science. That's why I don't think it's a good idea to say "how long are
you going to listen to these liars and fools?". Does that make me a holy
joe? Well, no I don't think so - you just have to live with the fact that
the sort of person I am is one who tries to empathise with the other person,
and understand where they are coming from. Michael, if you don't like that
and think it makes me a sanctimonious prig, then all I can say is that is
your problem, not mine.

Maybe this approach won't de-program any YECs - but perhaps it can lead to a
better mutual understanding - better fellowship with other Christians, and
perhaps less distrust and fear.

Iain

On 9/30/07, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I was given this info on ol' Henry when I was writing the entry on him
> for the IVP dictionary of evangelicals. I wrote back to the person -
> well-respected in the ASA- and he said I should not include it in my entry!
> He named the person and the place where it was said with an approx date.
> However I can say no more.
>
> If we just consider Morris from 1961 after the publication of TGF he
> received much criticism for over 40 years both fro his gross
> misrepresentations in that book and elsewhere. In my copies of Morris's
> books I often mark his geological inexactitudes (my other sciences are too
> weak to go public on my criticisms). These have been repeated in book after
> book despite constant correction by Christian and non-Christian alike. This
> refusal to be corrected is clearly wilful and supports the view he expressed
> to the fellow from the ASA that he lied for the Kingdom.
>
> John's story is confirmatory.
>
> Sadly when you read most YEC books you find the same thing, eg Parker,
> Snelling, Gish, and many Brit and OZ YECs. Any correction is ignored or
> put down to not having the Spirit or some other holy-sounding objection.
> And if the critic is not a Christian or only a liberal Christian then they
> are also wrong.
>
> Of course, everyone of us makes mistakes, big or little in what we say or
> write. When a supposed error is brought to light how we deal with it is very
> important. That is where friendly critics are so valuable and these do not
> have to be of the same faith perspective as ourselves. If I need to check
> something on the history of radiometric age dating I will ask an atheist
> and more recent stuff an agnostic FRS(and Wiens!) On the history of geology
> I get much help from the History of Geology Group of the Geol Soc of London,
> which may be pungent. Many will do the same in their own field but the
> contrast of this and how YEC and ID operate is that it is public debate,
> which includes rough and tumble, but is a public concern for truth -
> something which we can share with atheists and agnostics. Much of YEC and ID
> avoid the public sharing of ideas preferring only to declaim in public.
>
> Lastly on the comparative success of a combatative or softly-softly
> approach on YEC and ID, it has to be said that neither have worked as we are
> dealing with ideology rather than intellectual exploration from faith.
>
> Michael
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com>
> *To:* 'Iain Strachan' <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
> *Cc:* 'PvM' <pvm.pandas@gmail.com> ; 'Michael Roberts'<michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; 'George
> Murphy' <gmurphy@raex.com> ; asa@calvin.edu ; 'Steven M Smith'<smsmith@usgs.gov>
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 30, 2007 2:50 PM
> *Subject:* RE: [asa] Former YEC's on ASA and Henry Morris - WAS Denver
> RATE Conference
>
> I actually have the email as my friend has saved it all these years and
> forwarded me a copy. I will see if I can dig it out and get his permission
> to forward it to the list.
>
>
>
> My point was though I agree that many people in this debate on both sides
> are dishonest and even deceitful, but I choose instead to focus on finding
> the truth rather than reading into people's motives about what they say and
> do. I think we need to be aware of it but it doesn't seem productive to me
> to take it any further than that.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* Iain Strachan [mailto:igd.strachan@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 30, 2007 9:37 AM
> *To:* John Walley
> *Cc:* PvM; Michael Roberts; George Murphy; asa@calvin.edu; Steven M Smith
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] Former YEC's on ASA and Henry Morris - WAS Denver
> RATE Conference
>
>
>
> Hi, John,
>
> You wrote:
>
> On Henry Morris, I have a friend with a PhD in Nuclear Physics that got
> into an email exchange with Morris a long time ago on some topic where
> Morris was way over his head and which my friend cornered him and got him to
> admit in an email something to the effect alleged below, that the details
> don't matter if you are defending God.
>
>
> That is certainly pretty dishonest, but I think that "brush details under
> the carpet" is a different spin from "it's OK to lie for the Kingdom". It's
> a response, certainly of willful ignorance - rather like Lisa Simpson going
> "La la la I can't hear you!". The question is, what is the best way to
> approach a la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you type response? Is it right to accuse
> them of listening to liars straight off, or would a more softly-softly
> approach be more likely to be fruitful? Along the lines of - "let's reason
> about this. The detail you want to brush aside is rather important - it
> overturns the whole argument. The onus is on you to show why this detail is
> unimportant". Is that not likely to be more fruitful than "How much longer
> are you going to listen to liars and fools?".
>
> It's a pity that the Morris quote you mention is only available as a
> recollection of a private email - if I were to report that third hand to a
> Creationist, as coming from a list of Christians who were mostly TE, then
> I'm sure I'd get the response "well he would say that, wouldn't he?". If it
> were on the web somewhere, as a reputable, referenced source, it would be a
> good thing to challenge YECs concerning honesty. In a recent post to Peter
> Loose on this list, I spent some time, as you know pointing out areas where
> I felt Creation Scientists were less than honest.
>
> As regards to atheists indulging in wishful thinking, I couldn't agree
> more! It seems to me that there is a philosophical commitment to
> "many-worlds interpretations" in many atheist scientists that goes beyond
> science. How convenient to be able to appeal to a stupid creator (the
> multiverse giving rise to "anthropic coincidences"), rather than
> acknowledging the possibility of an omnipotent God. The true scientist will
> appeal to neither as an explanatory mechanism, and continue to search for
> better theories to explain things.
>
>
> Iain
>
>
>
>
>

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