One more thought occurred to me last night when I was asleep.
At 01:08 PM 2/4/97 -0500, Brian D. Harper wrote (concerning the humanity of
the hominids):
>What about your average everyday layman? I don't see any bad consequences
>at all from being wrong or even from refusing to decide.
Let's look at other issues that Christianity has had to face over the past
few centuries. What is the difference between the above and the following?
**
I don't see any bad consequences at all from being wrong or even from
refusing to decide about heliocentricity.
I don't see any bad consequences at all from being wrong or even from
refusing to decide about vaccination.
(some Christians felt that vaccination interferred with God's ability to
bring judgment upon man in the form of plagues)
I don't see any bad consequences at all from being wrong or even from
refusing to decide that planets move according to Newton's Laws.
(Some felt that God himself must move the planets rather than natural law)
I don't see any bad consequences at all from being wrong or even from
refusing to decide that evolution is true.
I don't see any bad consequences at all from being wrong or even from
refusing to decide the age of the earth.
**
In what other field of human endeavor would we accept this refusal? Can we
refuse to decide that Classical Mechanics is a worthwhile subject to teach
to our college students? Can we refuse to decide that levers are
worthwhile? Why do we apply such a standard to Christianity?
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm