>Yet more "examples" of *you* "denigrating" "Apologists"! You seem
>not to realise that these are God's *servants* you are attacking. You
>better be 100% right that they are all 100% wrong, otherwise you will
>be called to account for all that you have publicly written against
>these fine Christian leaders. I would *tremble* if I were in your shoes!
Calm down Stepen. Unless you think it is OK to teach falsehoods, you should
thank me for taking the trouble to try to correct things. I hold truth to be
the ultimate goal for a Christian. When apologists or anyone else gets an
observable fact wrong, someone needs to point it out. Remember James 3:1.
Those who teach influence people and if the facts they teach are erroneous,
they then open the door for those listening to leave the faith.
Let me cite the case of Jim Lippard who was a high school student who
believed in young-earth creationism. He writes:
"Around 1984 I began using a Phoenix computer bulletin board system called
Apollo (...), which had a number of active atheists on it. At first I did
not contribute a lot to the ongoing discussions, but eventually I became one
of the most outspoken people on the BBs. Watching some of the
Christian=versus-atheist arguments moved me further away from Christianity.
Although I initially defended Christianity, I found that its opponents
generally had the better arguments." ~Jim Lippard, "Jim Lippard: From
Fundamentalism to Open-ended Atheism," in Edward T. Babinski, Leaving the
Fold, (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1995), p. 321
He expands on his transition
"Around my junior or senior year of high school I began to encounter some
difficulties with the Bible--in the multiple creation accounts, for example.
I began to have some doubts, and to actively seek out flaws in my religious
beliefs. I began asking questions in Sunday school to which the teachers did
not have satisfactory answers. (At one point, this led to the high school
pastor meeting with me for breakfast several times to discuss things with
me, trying to make sure I kept the faith.)." IBID. p. 323-324
So, Stephen, would you rather have students, like Jim, continue to leave the
faith or would you rather provide them with answers that can actually be
defended?
In private e-mail with Jim, he has told me that YEC played a big role in his
leaving Christianity. What he was told was not what he found out and because
of this, he lost his trust in Christians.
Another question. Do Christians have the right to teach erroneous data with
no fear of correction?
>Obviously a group of children did not include any "trained
>scientist"! Who claimed that it did?
Phillip Johnson claimed that the story illustrated how scientists worked.
They had to go along to get along. But if it illustrated how scientists
worked, I would like to point out that the story contains NO trained scientists.
>
>But again you miss the point. As you yourself say in the above
>quote, it was "The German BIOCHEMIST Bruno Muller-Hill" who "tells a
>memorable story to ILLUSTRATE his thesis that 'self-deception plays
>an astonishing role in science in spite of all the scientists'
>worship of truth". (my emphasis)
>
>The point is that it wasn't an "apologist" who told the original
>story. It was a *scientist*, speaking from his own experiences.
>All the "apologist" Johnson did was take up this *scientist's*
>"illustration" and use it. Are you claiming that evolution is a
>sacred cow that is off-limits to Christian apologists?
So, the scientist was wrong also. There was no evidence in that story of
how science works. period.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm