Re: Yet more denigrating of Apologists (was Why?)

Ed Brayton (cynic@net-link.net)
Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:53:53 -0400

Ron, I think you missed the point of Glenn's post completely. Your
"counter story" had nothing to do with the point he was making by
telling the Jim Lippard story. His point was that by pushing young earth
creationism, some Christians are pushing scientifically literate people
away from Christianity. Now I'm not a Christian and I don't have much of
a stake in this one way or the other, but I don't think there is any
doubt that Glenn is right about this. When a YEC claims that the earth
was created 6000 years ago and there was a global flood 4500 years ago
that killed off everyone, most people with a hint of a science education
begin to snicker. When those claims are then backed up by absurd
arguments like the lunar dust story and "hydrodynamic sorting", the
snicker becomes a full-blown guffaw. From that point on, the chances of
that person taking Christianity seriously decrease dramatically. Glenn
managed to get a good education in geology and maintain his faith as a
Christian, but most do not. I can tell you from my own experience that
he is right about this. As a Christian teenager, I swallowed the YEC
line completely. Then I began asking questions and not getting good
answers. A youth pastor encouraged me to research the answers for
myself. I was shocked to find out that most of what was written in all
of those ICR pamphlets I had been reading was nonsense. My faith never
recovered. Unlike Glenn, I could not reconcile the clear meaning of the
biblical text with what I knew of science. I don't accept his attempts
at reconciling the two things at this point, but I respect him for
trying, and for being intellectually honest enough to not just bury his
head in the sand and say, "Evidence be damned, the bible says it and
that's all that matters", or "Science is just a lie of the devil, so I
don't need to understand it to know it is wrong". His faith, even if I
do not share it, is at least considered and not blind.

Ed Brayton