Stephen, I will admit to being very discouraged at this moment. The
discouragment comes from my general observation that we believers would
rather postulate that the entire body of observational evidence is wrong
than question our interpretation of the Bible. And the more liberal branch
of Christianity would rather believe that the Scripture is unhistorical or
untrue whenever the observational data goes against an interpretation of
scripture. Both approaches to this issue makes the Bible questionable as
far as its ability to relate truth. I will only applaud when conservative
Christians cease running from observation, and liberal christians cease
surrendering historicity in what should be the word of God.
>
>Well how about it Glenn? "Do you go regularly to church? Do you read the
>Bible and pray regularly? Do you pray for your `enemies' like Morris, Gish,
>Ross and Johnson?"
>
Yes actually I do pray for them and for the day that Christians will cease
running from observational facts like chickens run from foxes. I don't want
dishonour brought upon Christianity in any form. But until we christians
are will to TRUST GOD that He is able to handle any observational data AND
to TRUST GOD that His word is true in more than an allegorical or
metaphyscial sense, Christian apologists, in my opinion, will continue to
bring dishonour upon the Bible by either making the bible say things that
can't possibly be true or by starting with the assumption that the Bible is
untrue historically and thus has little connection with the real world. If
what we teach makes the Bible false, or if we teach that the Bible IS
false, then we have done great damage to the foundations of Christianity.
And for me to say that Johnson has done a good job with science, when he
hasn't would not be true.
Ross does an excellent job with astronomy. Ross does an excellent job with
the age of the universe. Did you notice Stephen, I said something nice
about Ross. He does an abysmal job when it comes to anthropology though.
Absolutely absysmal.
>If you keep evading this then I will conclude that while you may be a
"believer",
>you are not one who is living what mainstream evangelical Christianity would
>regard as a normal Christian life. I will then have no alternative but to
regard
>your attacks on godly Christian leaders like Phil Johnson and Hugh Ross as
>manifestations of this lack, and I will discount them accordingly.
I will give you this right now, Stephen. I obviously am not in the
mainstream of Christian thought. I want a concordistic scenario that
actually allows the Bible to be true AND explains the data of Science.
Johnson offers NO scenario whatsoever to relate geology or paleontology to
the Bible and Ross offers a flawed scenario. If they are mainstream, then I
am not and am glad not to be there. They really offer no successful
explanations for the data of this world within a Christian perspective.
>
>GM>I also believe that above all, Christians, who are under the Lordship of
>>Christ, should NOT engage in sloppy scholarship, sloppy research, sloppy
>>logic and they should not be unwilling to correct what they say when they
>>are shown to be wrong.
>
>If you don't go to church, read your Bible and pray, then you are "wrong"
>in a far more important sense than these "Christians" you attack are.
>
I go to church, was there last week.The sermon touched upon life's
failures. It meant a lot to me in light of my failure to get my fellow
believers to understand what they are doing to Christianity. And yes, I
read my Bible. It is quite marked up even dirty on the edges where the oil
from my hands have stained the pages. But Stephen, none of this proves
anything. Truth can be expounded even by an atheist.
>But that is not what *really* "bothers" you. Jim Bell once said you were
>fighting an "inner war with the ICR", and I agree, except I would make it
>wider than that. Your "inner war" seems to be with *all* "Christian
apologists"!
>
Yes it is. I sincerely want Christians to cease making factually false
statements. As I noted, when Johnson says that rodents gave rise to whales
and bats he displays a lack of knowledge about paleontology that makes a
paleontologist dismiss him as another ignorant Christian. When Ross says
that art and spirituality are no older than 60 kyr(because the Bible would
be wrong if spirituallity is older than this) and I can point to at least 3
religious objects and altars manufactured prior to this time, are we to
conclude that the Bible is wrong? or should we conclude that the data
doesn't exist?
>GM>That is why Philip Johnson saying that rodents gave rise to whales
bothers
>>me (Phillip E. Johnson, "A Reply to My Critics: The Evolution Debate
Continued,"
>>First Things, November, 1990, p. 52). That is why it bothers me when
Johnson says
>>that rodents gave rise to bats
>>
>>("A Darwinist can imagine that a mutant rodent might appear with a
>>web between its toes, and thereby gain some advantage in the
>>struggle for survival, with the result that the new
>>characteristic could spread through the population to await the
>>arrival of further mutations leading eventually to winged
>>flight."~Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 2nd ed. (Downer's
>>Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 104)
>
>Why should this "bother" you? In the context, Johnson had already
>quoted Steven Stanley using the word "rodent" in respect of bat's
>common ancestor:
>
>"Stanley uses the example of the bat and the whale, which are
>supposed to have evolved from a common mammalian ancestor in
>little more than ten million years, to illustrate the insuperable problem
>that fossil stasis poses for Darwinian gradualism: `Let us suppose that
>we wish, hypothetically, to form a bat or a whale...[by a] process of
>gradual transformation of established species. If an average
>chronospecies lasts nearly a million years, or even longer, and we
>have at our disposal only ten million years, then we have only ten or
>fifteen chronospecies1 to align, end-to-end, to form a continuous
>lineage connecting our primitive little mammal with a bat or a whale.
>This is clearly preposterous. Chronospecies, by definition, grade into
>each other, and each one encompasses very little change. A chain of
>ten or fifteen of these might move us from one small RODENT like
>form to a slightly different one, perhaps representing a new genus,
>but not to a bat or a whale!' (Stanley S.M, "The New Evolutionary
>Timetable". 1981, Basic Books, NY, p. 71) (Johnson P.E., "Darwin
>on Trial," 1993, p51. My emphasis)
>
But Stephen, the use of the word 'rodent' is NOT consistent with your
thesis that rodents gave rise to bats. In fact Stanley says just the
opposite. I fail to understand how you mis-read this statement! Stanley
said a rodent COULDN"T be the ancestor of bats or whales. You need to
re-read this. I stand by what I said. Bats came from the insectivores NOT
the rodents. Whale came from mesonychids, not rodents.
>I fail to see why this should "bother" you (apart from your need
>to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find something to attack
>Christian apologists).
Clearly your standard of truth is different from mine.
>So what exactly is your point Glenn (apart from trying to denigrate
>Christian apologists like Johnson at every opportunity)?
>
Let me ask something. Does Johnson, in your opinion, speak ex cathedra
(that is infallibly)?
>GM>Pseudogenes were around for over 10 years but were not
>>discussed in antievolutionary literature until the past couple of years.
>
>So what? All discilines are affected by what Denton (Kuhn?) called
>"the priority of the paradigm". Christian apologists are slowly coming
>to grips with scientific issues.
This is my point Stephen, they are SLOWLY coming to grips. Why should
Christians be slower than non-Christians to come to grip with new data?
Why are we the ones who wait 10-20 years before telling the laity about
some new discovery? The atheists are eager to tell our children
yesterday's discovery that contradicts their interpretation of the Bible.
It seems to me that we are slow for two reasons: we don't have answers and
so don't want people to know this and we fail to read the latest scientific
material. The book Johnson used as his main paleo reference was a 1985
reprint of a 1974 vertebrate paleo book. Johnson was using material 20
years out of date as his primary source. Surely Christians can do better
than that. In 1991 when Johnson published Carroll's 1988 Vertebrate
paleontology was on the library shelves waiting to be read. But he didn't.
No wonder he didn't know the latest although I will tell you that as far
back as my paleo books go, (back to the 40's) bats have been suggested to
come from the insectivores and whales from the mesonychids.
>Part of the reason is that it is
>often hard to work out what exactly *is* the current scientific view
>of anything, so rapidly do scientific theories change.
We could do that better if we depended upon 1988 books rather than reading
reprints of a 1974 textbook. One obviously can not learn the latest
science by reading OLD science books. Surely you understand that.
>I said before, that the *real* problem is your lack of *love*
>for "apologists":
I have love for the apologist, but no love for what they are doing to
christianity.
>GM>Stephen, it is no crime to ask Christians to get their facts correct. To
>>make the kinds of mistakes that we do makes our Lord, our religion and us,
>>look foolish.
>
>This your usual line by which you justify your vendetta against all
>Christian apologists. But I believe it is only a pretext. Otherwise
>you would also say *positive* things about them too.
>
So are you saying that it is OK to teach incorrect facts? James 3:1 says
that teachers are held to a stricter standard. I would presume that this
means a higher standard of truth.
>In any event, your constant denigration of those Christian apologists like
>Johnson and Ross who could help them (as they have helped thousands) makes
>the situation worse, not better. None of the atheists on this Reflector
>over the last 2-3 have been impressed in the slightest by *your* half-
>baked solutions, like your 5.5 mya Adam/Noah theory, which does not even
>agree with science, let alone Christianity.
I am not trying to impress atheists. I am trying to prevent the
manufacture of more of them by Christians leaving the fold because they
were not taught observatioanly correct facts.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm