Welcome Marque, I hope you find this list as helpful as I have. I would agree
in essence with what you say, but would also add that I believe that creation
and evolution are complementary explanations. Creation is a statement about
relationship, evolution about mechanism. A child might ask its
parents "How did
I get here?", and the answers "Your mother and father wanted to have children"
and "your parents had sex" would be equally true, but in a
complementary matter,
rather than conflicting.
GB
Victorian Wife wrote:
> Hi Everyone!
>
> I am new to the list and a new believer as well (3 months). However, I am
> not new to science having degrees and expertise in veterinary medicine,
> toxicology, molecular biology and immunology. My enthusiasm right now is
> bounding but my absolute knowledge base of scripture and theology is limited
> (having grown up as agnostic as they come), although I attack it every day
> with gusto. So in advance, please excuse me if I am somewhat overzealous
> and a bit off the mark at times. I am here to learn and will take all
> educational comments with grace.
>
> >First let me concede Michael point that poor science among many YEC has
> >done the Gospel damage. But in this country (less so in Britain), the
> >lack of effective challenge of the secular roots of our science has I
> >think been a serious weakness of mainstream evangelical scientists. In
> >my view it has resulted in a perception among mainstream Christian laity
> >the evangelical scientists have really compromised the Gospel and
> >encouraged their looking to alternatives like YEC.
> )
>
> I would like to also jump in on this one. To state that some of the
> speculations on science by armchair scientists has done the Gospel damage is
> a gross understatement. I am a personal witness to this one. When I would
> hear over and over about creationism and global floods and the like, I would
> think to myself "Christians seem a little wacko to me," and thus I never
> thought to look at Christianity carefully myself.
>
> I think a lot of other scientists or smart lay people feel the same way.
> They turn off their receptivity when they hear some of poor science
> (non-science might even be a better way to state it). It is hard to sort
> out what are fringe Christian beliefs and what are mainstream beliefs when
> you aren't steeped in Christian theology. It is also not understood in the
> agnostic world that many of these theories under debate and there is not
> enough hard evidence to fully support any one theory - there are a lot of
> holes in theory of evolution and the theory of how life started, for
> example, but most of the public doesn't perceive this and when it is debated
> between Christians and non-Christians those perceptions become even more
> polarized.
>
> But the fact is, creationism and evolution are both just theories. Neither
> should be taken as dogma nor as a proof. Both revolve around the very soft
> science of biology - a science that eludes hardness just as our
> understanding of the meaning of some scripture sometimes eludes us. We just
> don't know enough yet to state anything categorically.
>
> There will always be scientists that hold onto their hypothesis tenaciously
> as they try to make the puzzle pieces fit their puzzle. And that's another
> really good thing to remember - a hypothesis is like a puzzle with just a
> frame and no insides. You have a pile of pieces and some of them you can
> link together but some don't seem to fit anywhere. You keep trying and keep
> researching to collect more pieces. Your collegue sits right beside you with
> the same puzzle pieces and tries to fit them into his frame at the same
> time. He might get more of them to fit than you but that doesn't mean in
> the end that he will complete the puzzle first. Science and theories have
> been turned on their heads more often than not.
>
> But what absolutely can't happen is we can't have people taking out the
> scissors to trim down some pieces in an attempt to make them fit better into
> their puzzle. We also can't just discard some of the pieces because they
> don't seem to fit our puzzle. Sadly, this seems to be the case with alot of
> the YEC crowd. They say carbon dating is bunk or that just because the
> geological strata or fossil record does not fit their hypothesis that it
> must be bad techniques. When these sorts of things happen, practical,
> objective scientists run like the wind and won't give that hypothesis (or
> Christianisty) a second look.
>
> Luckily, I have a fiance that challenged me to look at the facts and not
> just what the media was spewing out. I took him up on his challenge and
> fully intended to debunk the Christian "myths" with logic and objectivity.
> Well....you see where that got me! I can see the intelligent design in the
> natural world and I can't refute it for one moment. I hope to evangelize to
> my fellow scientists after I build my knowledge base a bit further. One
> thing to keep in mind, the most effective evangelism may not come from
> someone writing a book for the mass audience but from what each of us does
> personally with non-believing individuals on a daily basis.
>
> Great list and I look forward to good reading.
>
> Marque (female, BTW)
>
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-- "It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the earth as a pale crescent dwindling against the stars, until at last they look for it in vain".Arthur C. Clarke
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