"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 was welcome to change his beliefs, wasn't he. No one forced him or
coerced him or belittled him .
Now let me state the story of Danny Phillips -
Danny Phillips was a 15 year-old high-school junior in the Denver area who
thought for himself. His class was assigned to watch a NOVA programs,
produced with government funds for National Public Television, which stated
the usual evolutionary story as fact. Its story went something like this:
"the first organized form of primitive life was a tiny protozoan....from
these one-celled organisms evolved all life on earth."......Danny knew that
this claim of moleculel-to-man evolution goes far beyond the scientific
evidence. So he wrote a lengthy paper criticizing the NOVA program as
propaganda. School administrators at first agreed that Danny had a point,
and they tentatively decided to withdraw the NOVA program from the
curriculum. That set off a media firestorm......The fact that
administrators seriously considered any dissent from evolutionary
naturalism infuriated the Darwinists, who flooded the DENVER POST newspaper
with their letters. Some of the letters were so venomous that the
editorial page editor of the paper admitted that her liberal faith had been
shaken. She wrote that "these defenders of intellectual freedom behaved,
in fact, just like a bunch of conservative Christians. Their's was a
different kind of fundamentalism, but no less dogmatic and no less
intolerant." I had editorialized the story in the interests of space,
found in DEFEATING DARWINISM BY OPENING MINDS by Phillip Johnson, pp 34.
Is that fair or not?
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.. Pr. 3:5
Ron Chitwood
chitw@flash.net
----------
> From: Glenn Morton <grmorton@waymark.net>
> To: Stephen Jones <sejones@ibm.net>; Evolution Reflector
<evolution@calvin.edu>
> Subject: Re: Yet more denigrating of Apologists (was Why?)
> Date: Sunday, April 19, 1998 8:40 PM
>
> At 10:51 AM 4/18/98 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
>
> >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
>