Though I do agree that calling names does not get you anywhere, but neither
does accusing others who read the Bible as God's infallible Word, that they
do not believe Gen.1. Time and again it has been pointed out here that the
first chapters of Gen.1 are not history in our modern sense of the
words. Reports have been written on it by people who believe that the
Bible is God's Word. Still we, who tried to discuss these things
intelligently on this forum often did not receive answers, or only answers
which did not make sense as replies to what we wrote. We all believe that
the Bible is the Word of God. Talking as if we don't, because we are what
is called here NATURALISTs, does not bring any discussion forward. No
wonder that many of us give up after trying a few times.
As elder in my church it was my habit when this type of discussion came up
to try once or twice, but when accusations etc. came I gave up. Stories
about losing "faith" either way abound, but do not help different people in
discussions. When using these words, I find out, that they do use the
words in a different meaning in discussions than I do. If people are not
willing to discuss the backgrounds of the Bible, God's Word spoken in
definite times during the history of God's people, discussing becomes
impossible, and only alienates brothers and sisters in Christ like the last
lines of your message indicate in the opposite direction.
The subject, "the first 11 chapters of Genesis", is not a subject that can
be talked about in a few messages back and forth, it takes years of
study. That means, that it is necessary to listen to backgrounds, basics
of bible-study, biblical history, Christian philosophy (and there are
several philosophies which want to be true to the Bible) history of
dogmatics, church history in Europe and here, etc. Whenever I tried to
talk about these things in "just" discussions, either around the
coffee-table or on forums like this, I gave up after a while, because it
seemed to me that people did not want to understand, or that I was not
clear enough, or that people did not want to give the necessary time to
study etc..
Actually, the subject is much wider than these few points I mentioned, as
one should start with realizing that the Bible was given by God firstly to
people who had no reading skills, who had a totally different view on life
than people who use the Internet, read books, check out materials etc. etc,
Furthermore, the meaning of words changes over time. When the King James
translation came "truth", "troth" had in the first place the meaning
"faithfulness". Conforming to facts in the modern sense of the word was
hardly involved. It is a bad sign when people refer to the "King James"
version in preference to more modern translations.
As indicated above, a discussion on the subject of Bible reading, even the
reading of Genesis is very welcome, but only when we start with the
preliminaries: "How do we read God's Word?'' "How do we understand God's
History with this world?". All these things should be prefaced with a
discussion on history and philosophy, since I discovered that many on this
list understand "objectivity" and "subjectivity" different than I do. Then
when I try to figure out what different people in discussions mean when
using these words, I find out, that they do use the words in meanings which
are different from mine, but that they don't agree on the meaning
either. All of this make the discussions on these subjects very
frustrating, even when one is willing to discuss.
Then, of course, when name calling starts I give up. I believe, that God
created the universe, that because of our human sin Jesus died for us, that
the Bible tells us the story of Creation, Fall in sin, and
Redemption. But, when in a discussion my values as stated are questioned
and doubted, I give up, because I realize, that in order to get a valuable
discussion many backgrounds must be discussed willingly.
Jan
At 02:47 PM 11/03/02 -0500, Walter Hicks wrote:
>Jim Eisele wrote:
> >
> > In response to
> >
> > > At what point does YEC become partial insanity?
> >
> > Michael Roberts replies.
> >
> > >Only partial?
> >
> > Michael, OK, you win. YEC is an insane cult.
> > But, if you don't have all of the facts, it actually
> > makes sense. The Bible does sound at first like a 7 day
> > creation. And it's highly dangerous to stake out ground
> > away from the Bible/Jesus.
> >
> > Jim
>
>It is dangerous ground is to call anyone insane when they appear to be
>as normal as everyone else but have different ideas. To be fair to
>everyone involved, the issue is quite simply -- what do you believe most
>strongly?
>
>If you believe that our current NATURALIST science tells the complete
>truth then you must absolutely reject the first chapter of Genesis as
>being partially flawed at best.
>
>If, on the other hand, you believe that the Bible is infallible, then
>you have reject the claims of science.
>
>Those are the basis of dicussion -- not endless harranges about fossil
>records and the like(IMO).
>
>Thinking that the other person is crazy is as incorrect as YEC can ever
>be.
>
>Yeah, I know, you can't have an intelligent discussion with a YEC; we
>tried; yadda, yadda, yadda.
>
>We recently had a young man who attempted to discuss ID with this group.
>He told me privately that he got the most denigrating responses ever
>from this group and he now struggled with Christian love for such
>people. That really is a shame! :(
>
>A little less science and a lot more Christian love and reaching out
>might be a better choice -- even if it is met with a slap.
>
>IMHO
>
>Walt
>
>
>--
>===================================
>Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
>
>In any consistent theory, there must
>exist true but not provable statements.
>(Godel's Theorem)
>
>You can only find the truth with logic
>If you have already found the truth
>without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
>===================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Mar 11 2002 - 17:13:35 EST