--- John W Burgeson <jwburgeson@juno.com> wrote:
> Michael wrote: "About what I said of atheists I will
> be clear. If I am to
> be given the choice of being a YEC with their
> character assassination and
> distortions or an atheist with ethics I should
> choose the later. "
>
> Of course, we don't face that binary choice. Which
> is a GOOD thing. But
> if it were the only options, I'd have to be a YEC.
Indeed, to the extent that character assassination
occurs at all, by anyone, it is not in concert with
christian teaching or our Lord's admonitions on the
subject.
Michael perhaps is too quick with the witticism. At
least two premises inhere in his binary choice 1) that
atheists can be at least as ethical to the extent that
ideally christians can be through the transformation
of the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus (a subject I
will not touch with a proverbial ten foot pole); and
2) that YEC and character assassination (i.e.,
departing from Jesus' and church teachings on the
subject) go hand-in-hand. As Burgy points out, they
do not.
Moreoever, as I am sure everyone can agree, being
simply mistaken about creation makes no difference as
to whether one tries to be a (nonetheless unworthy)
servant of God. Lots of pious saints have been at
least partially mistaken about the how of creation.
Moreover, I have no doubt that we all are at least
*partially* mistaken about the how of creation. That
fact affects the extent to which we are, inter alia,
transformed by the Holy Spirit, "saved", or bear
fruit of the Spirit not one jot, iota, or tittle.
Thankfully, we don't have to think in overly
simplistic binary categories which mask other *real*
differences between worldviews and praxis that cannot
be blithely dismissed.
>
> Not all YECs are abrasive. My interchanges with
> Duane Gish have always
> been civil. But AIG in their latest mailing is
> setting forth this year
> with a deliberately confrontatonal program. AOSA's
> Joe Sebeny I have
> already documented as marching in that formation.
> The Mid-America group,
> my ex-IBM colleague Tom Willis, of course seems to
> be leading the parade.
> But the Minnesota group (http://www.tccsa.tc/) seems
> to be much more
> civil.
We Minnesotans are nothing if not civil. ;) I never
knew that group existed, but then again, I don't think
I knew of the YEC acronym before I joined this list,
although I had previously heard people whom struck me
as very sectarian (rightly or wrongly, I couldn't now
say) at the time advocate such positions.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
Received on Thu Feb 5 12:40:25 2004
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Feb 05 2004 - 12:40:25 EST