Bob Dehaan wrote:
<< In my opinion purposelessness is deeply
embedded in evolutionary theory. I
doubt if you would find any mainline
evolutionists who would deny this.
>>
Agreed, but scientist also think that because they are
good in one area (insert your name), therefore they are
good in all other areas. Like any academic discipline,
you must have command of the literature or what you say
is little more than opinion.
"Too few students have read Josephus, and fewer still have studied Philo,the
Dead Sea Scrolls, or the rabbinical writings. Such neglect results in
interpretations that are anachronistic and misleading. It is my
recommendation that every seminary student, before graduation, should read
the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Manual of Discipline (the Dead Sea Scrolls),
Josephus's Jewish War, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Sibylline Oracles, the Odes and
Psalms of Solomon, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Babylonian
Talmud (at least five Mishnah tractates [including Aboth] with commentary),
the Gospel of Thomas, and portions of the GraecoRoman literature (Plato's
Republic, Aristotle's Ethics, Suetonius's Augustus, Tacitus's Annals, as well
as some papyrii and inscriptions). At the very minimum, the student should
read C.K. Barrett's "The New Testament Background: Selected Documents".
Someone who possesses both ability and opportunity and who has not read this
minimal amount of material is frankly unprepared for interpretation and
insensitive to the task of New Testament exegesis." [Scot McKnight.
Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels. Grand Rapids, Baker Book House. p29-30].
I think _perhaps_ with the exception of perhaps George Murphy and a handfull
of others
on this list, it puts majority of us scientist (me included) in our place.
As the above applied to theology, the same goes for philosophy. Scientist
who have never read ONE philosophy book from cover to cover sometimes
have the gall to say what they think of philosophy, and to put their own spin
on matters related to meaning. (Dawkins is probably a good candidate in this
class.) It's Ayn Rand on genesis.
The point is that although the assertions of individual scientists
may claim that "evolution is a purposeless process" & co.(TM,R,C),
few of them really have the basis to make that claim. They are
scholars of a narrow scientific discipline, but that does not automatically
grant them scholarship of other disciplines they have earned no credentials
in.
This is exactly why a certain coinventer of the transistor got himself
into some serious trouble when he began to dabble in anthropology and
sociology.
Unfortunately, what I have learned over the years is that I can never
fully appreciate the depth of my ignorance. Wisdom is always one of
setting out, not one of arriving.
by Grace alone we do proceed,
Wayne
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