On Mon, 22 Apr 1996 12:13:17 -0500 (EST) you wrote to Chuck Warman:
CW>Where I find many TE's culpable is that you don't hold these guys'
>feet to the fire, in the popular literature, for making unwarranted
>metaphysical claims.
LH>You are in good company. I am painfully aware that this is a very
>common perception amongst PC's.
>
>But I don't understand where it comes from. You see, to the best of my
>memory, _every_ _single_ "popular" origins-related book or article
>written by a TE, that _I_ have read, has taken time to criticize the
>unwarranted metaphysical claims of Monod, Dawkins, Gould, Sagan, etc.
>Is there a vast quantity of "popular" TE literature of which I am unaware?
I concede that TEs may try to "criticize the unwarranted metaphysical
claims of Monod, Dawkins, Gould, Sagan, etc", but evidently their own
espousal of evolution and methodological naturalism (aka
methodological atheism) weakens such criticism.
LH>To the best of my knowledge, the glowing reviews of Dawkin's etc.
>books in trade journals have almost invariably provoked one or more
>letters to the editor addressing those unwarranted metaphysical
>claims.
This does not prove it is "TEs" writing those "letters". They might
be YECs, PCs, or even non-theists.
LH>Perhaps the perception is that TE's are not writing ENOUGH books,
>articles, and letters, or that those books don't make the best-seller
>lists? I am genuinely curious, why is this perception of TE's so
>wide-spread?
Part of it might be because TEs don't write "enough books", and/or
their books do not sell well. TEs, for all their dominance on this
Reflector, are a minority among Christians, and therefore Christian
bookstores do not their books. But IMHO the main reason is what I
said above about TEs being too close to NEs, to mount a successful
challenge to the metaphysical atheism of NE.
God bless.
Steve
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