Re: descendans bovine etc.

Glenn R. Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Wed, 18 Nov 1998 06:16:30 -0800

At 10:32 PM 11/17/98 -0600, Robin Mandell wrote:
>What is one to do when the metaphysical truth rings so deep that he knows
>it is the answer and the relationship formed with the living Word is so
>real and vital but the various attempts at literal concordance with the
>books introduction seem to be rationally hard to buy?
>What if this particular lease was quite different from the others?

Check your feelings at the door. When we were YECs, we both felt the ring
of YEC metaphysical truth so deep that we were willing to ignore
observational evidence in favor of the YEC position. I see no difference
in the pattern carried out by the more liberal branch of christianity when
they refuse to allow the possibility that the Bible might be false. That
too is ignoring observational evidence. If religion means ignoring what we
see, we should find another religion.

And as I said, I believe the Scripture, but I don't believe it in a manner
in which it can never be falsified under any circumstances. I want to quote
the Mad Hatter. I suspect that he is correct here:

"Of course, the real reason modern theologians want to keep science
divorced from religion is to retain some intellectual territory forever
protected from the advance of science. This can only be done if the
possibility of scientific investigation of the subject matter is ruled out
a priori. Theologians were badly burned in the Copernican and Darwinian
revolutions. Such a strategy seriously underestimates the power of
science, which is continually solving problems philosophers and theologians
have decreed forever beyond the ability of science to solve." ~ Frank J.
Tipler, The Physics of Immortality, (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 7

Making the Bible true regardless of what it says effectively divorces
religion from observation and science.
glenn

Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm