I must say that I do not have that much interaction with people with YEC
ideas. However, if such people look at people with your views as "enemies"
then there is something wrong somewhere. I would expect that if there is
indeed true Christian love and trust between believers, then those who are
in science ought to be humble enough to realize that no matter how sure they
feel about their views, such views can be wrong. We truly do not know what
really happened in the past. There is much speculation and no knowledge of
the totality of past event that is solid enough to be so dogmatic about it.
One must view the whole tapestry of life--the totality of all human
experiences and not merely the scientific aspect of it--and not bury one's
nose in one small segment of it and claim infallible knowledge of the whole
message depicted on it.
Take care,
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: gordon brown <gbrown@euclid.Colorado.EDU>
To: PHSEELY@aol.com <PHSEELY@aol.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Sunday, February 28, 1999 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: An approach to Creation Science
>Paul,
>
>I very much agree with your thesis that we should expose creation science
>on its own grounds. Scientific arguments are unlikely to get very far with
>people who view science and scientists as the enemy. Many of us in
>`Bible-believing' churches are not prone to search the scriptures as the
>Bereans did to see whether or not what we have been taught is true, but
>rather tend to assume that what we have heard from a pulpit or in a class
>or have seen in a picture in a Bible story book is biblical. Most
>evangelicals had never heard of some of the major claims of creation
>science before 1961, when Whitcomb and Morris published their book, and
>now it seems that in many circles adherence to these assertions is viewed
>as a test of orthodoxy. That would imply a low view of the doctrinal
>soundness of just about every believer before that date.
>
>
>Gordon Brown
>Department of Mathematics
>University of Colorado
>Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
>
>On Sat, 27 Feb 1999 PHSEELY@aol.com wrote:
>
>> I have been thinking about Blaine's experience with the "conservatives"
and
>> their YEC ideas; and thought I should share my own approach to them, an
>> approach which usually does not change their minds, but makes them less
>> willing to be vocal.
>>
>> My approach is to expose creation science on its own grounds. That is,
the
>> YEC's claim to be following a straight forward interpretation of the
Bible;
>> but, in fact, at crucial points they take the Bible out of context. My
past
>> papers in the Westminster Journal show that they are reading a global
earth
>> into Gen 1-11, are rejecting the historical-grammatical meaning of
"firmament"
>> as a rock-solid sky, and are reversing the Bible's description of water
above
>> the firmament into a canopy of water below the firmament.
>