On Wednesday, January 21, 1998 9:16 AM, Stephen Jones
[SMTP:sejones@ibm.net] wrote a very good reply to my question regarding a
multiple bang universe. I have two questions of a general nature.
1. Authorities' Bias:
I see quite a few posts telling the reader to see the evidence for himself.
However, concerning the multiple bang theories, with the high-level physics
involved, I suppose most of us must just trust the authorities. Here is
where I reveal the depth of my ignorance. I keep reading names like Dicke
R.H, and Ross H. I've heard of Guth and other's through Fred Heeren's book,
_Show Me God_, but who are Dicke and Ross? Are they reliable? Are they from
the "upper tier?" I suppose I am still pretty gun-shy about trusting an
"authority." Here is an instance where I must be carefully skeptical, yet
not reject all theistic authorities just because of my being misled in the
past. I would appreciate your judgment (and that of anyone else who reads
this) regarding their agenda and therefore their bias.
2. How Do the Authorities Respond to This New Evidence?
We quote authoritative scientists and come to cosmological conclusions
based on the evidence they supply. Yet I wonder what keeps them from
changing their minds and admitting what appears obvious to most here - God
created the universe, and created it once. So, *now* what does Guth say?
According to Ross, Guth has ruled out multiple bangs. How about Penzias,
Wilson, Jastrow, etc? Anybody know? If they believed their own
calculations, it would seem a paradigm shift is on the way for them, too!
Wouldn't that be neat!!!! It would be quite a coup for the Church,
evangelically and apologetically speaking, if all these Nobel prize winners
became Christians because the scientific evidence favored a willful God who
*wanted* creation to exist. Of course, a God who wanted creation to exist,
may want other things, too, and may have given us a way to find out what
these things are that He wants. Ya think?
Personal note: I can't thank enough everyone who responded to my posts. At
the risk (or certainty) of sounding corny, if things continue, you will be
directly responsible for my "returning to the fold." You will have given me
"an answer for the hope that is in [me]." Thank you!
SR> >I still hold some anger because I
> >believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me
for
> >the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks,
and
> >sent me out. I was creamed.
>
> But in your
> "anger" maybe you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater? Even
> if the version of creation taught by the ICR is false, that does not
> mean that the other extreme of fully naturalistic "evolution" is true.
Yes, yes, yes!!! I must constantly be on guard. C. S. Lewis said Martin
Luther likened Christianity to a drunk on a horse. First he falls off one
side, then he gets on and falls off the other. Lately, I have been falling
off the angry anti-creation side of the horse. I honestly appreciate being
told when I am coming across mean-spirited or unfairly biased. Thanks for
helping me out.
> That the evangelical Christian community did not properly
> prepare you for the creation/evolution debate, is not totally its fault.
> [...]
> The Christian church has been struggling with this for over a century,
> and is only now coming to grips with it. It has not been helped by
> many of its best and brightest Christian scientists aligning themselves
> with evolution over against creation. This has had the effect of
> abandoning ordinary Christians to the ICR. However, there is now
> what Christian philosopher Del Ratzsch calls an emerging "upper tier"
> of creationists who are mounting an increasingly effective campaign
> against Darwinism:
>
> "But there is barely beginning to emerge a new generation of
> creationists with legitimate and relevant credentials who are
> undertaking to actually do some of the painstaking, detailed drudgery
> that underlies any genuinely live scientific program. This emergence
> has begun to produce a separation in the creationist movement-an
> upper and lower tier, so to speak. I think that what ultimately
> separates the two tiers is different levels of respect for accuracy and
> completeness of detail, and different levels of awareness that a
> theory's looking good in vague and general form is an enormously
> unreliable predictor of whether in the long run the theory will be
> disemboweled by recalcitrant technical details." (Ratzsch D.L., "The
> Battle of Beginnings, 1996, p82)
It's funny you should mention this book. This is the book that caused me to
rage. The book is great. I became enraged when I found out what the
conservative creationists were teaching. My guess is that we laity do not
hear what the conservative creationists teach because it is embarrassing.
The truth devastated me.
> Scott, no matter how bad we may feel at times we have been treated by
> the Church, it is still *our* responsibility to be part of the solution,
> not part of the problem.
Yes! And these ICR guys are our brothers.
> Darwinism is on the ropes, with many evolutionists
> becoming skeptical about it and two its leading proponents Gould and
> Dennett fighting openly in public. (See Gould S.J., "Darwinian
> Fundamentalism", New York Review of Books, June 12, 1997.
> http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?1997061234F).
> If you join it now, you may be boarding a sinking ship!
I think Gould would say that Darwin was not a strict Darwinist. Strict
Darwinism, as not taught by Darwin, i.e., natural selection as the only
mechanism at work, may be untenable, but evolution is not dead. I can't
help but think attacking strict Darwinism is attacking a straw man
(although I now see that there are some strict Darwinists out there), and
not worth it.
I guess I should ask what exactly is the "sinking ship?"
> Better to be critical of *both* sides, than uncritically accept
> one side. Remember what the Apostle Paul said, "Test *everything*..."
> (1Th 5:21. my emphasis), and this "everything" includes evolution.
Yes. We cannot be afraid of the truth! Nothing that is true is the enemy.
Scott Rauch (jdavita@netrax.net, www.netrax.net/~jdavita)
One should not attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, AND
one should not attribute to stupidity what can be explained by ignorance.
(Wesley R. Elsberry in Talk.Origins Jargon,
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/jargon/jargon.html)