At 11:54 AM 12/13/97, Lloyd Eby wrote:
>Yes, you make good points here, but I think the problem is more serious
>than you seem to admit. The denial of points 1 thorugh 5 by Christians is
>intellectually shoddy and ethically reprehensible, just as evangelical
>Christians would find it intellectually shoddy and ethically
>reprehensible if someone were to try to claim that the New Testament does
>not say that Jesus was the Son of God or that the resurrection did not
>occur. Useful debate requires honesty and intellectual integrity. Whoever
>does not have those does deserve contempt and dismissal, at least within
>the realm of that debate, it seems to me.
I am very aware of how difficult the problem is about Christians not facing
up to factual data. When I was a YEC I didn't want to face up to the
factual data either because it threatened my theology, my view of
christianity and my relationship with God. At least that is what I thought
then. but I do find it difficult to say that those who deny the facts,
under some circumstances, are 'unethical' If one holds to a view that God
told us X and observational data implies Y, then one could ethically believe
God rather than observation. This is what Abraham did--he believed God that
he would have an heir even though observation was saying that his most
important organ was getting so old it was about to fall off. Observation
would also have said that it was impossible for Sarah to have had a child.
Abraham was not unethical to believe God.
The place though where ignoring observational data becomes unethical is when
one is holding to something that God did not directly reveal extremely
clearly. Phillip Johnson saying that rodents gave rise to whales (DOT 1993,
p. 87) is ignoring such data because observationally it is not the case and
God did not say in the Bible that whales came from rodents. Hugh Ross
ignoring the vast anthropological data for the spirituality and humanity of
pre-60,000 year BC men because it violates his view that Adam couldn't be
older than 60 kyr. Nowhere does God say "Adam was created no earlier than 60
kyr ago'. If the Bible said such things I would have to agree with them and
believe God. But it simply doesn't say that. YEC's defending the concept
that the entire geologic column came from the flood when the Bible does not
say anything like that at all, is ignoring data that should not be ignored.
There is no statement by God that the entire geologic column is deposited by
Noah's flood. There is also no statement by God that the Earth was created
in 4004 BC. Observation of Biblical data would show that the genealogies
are incomplete and thus the world can't be dated from the Bible.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm