Dave,
Why must "reactors" and "bombs" always be used in the same sentence? As a
proponent of non-greenhouse gas producing nuclear power, I face about the
same "uphill battle" as you mention! ;-)
To me, the most convincing evidence of an old earth is the Oklo natural
nuclear reactors that operated about 1980 Ma ago. The chain reaction could
only have occurred with a higher than current U235/U238 ratio (the half life
of U235 is shorter than that of U238) and the radioactive fission products
have decayed to stable daughters. I have elaborated on this topic some
years ago in the forum.
Of course, God could have created these deposits 10,000 years ago, but
that's not an elegant solution.
Chuck Vandergraaf
-----Original Message-----
From: David F Siemens [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
Sent: Thursday January 04, 2001 12:55 PM
To: haasJ@mediaone.net
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Lay Education Project
The project, in my mind, is an uphill battle. I have read the articles in
the Evangelical Theological Society journal that deal with the
interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. They do not support YEC. I
find the same claim in the publications of IBRI and Hugh Ross. If their
message has not reached the lay audience in evangelical churches, it is hard
to envision an approach that will make the message accepted widely.
Years ago Gish addressed the Western Section of the AAAS meeting in Santa
Barbara. He was asked what evidence could possibly change his mind. His
immediate response, "There is none." We are dealing with "true believers"
who are immune to all evidence that does not support their position. As
someone remarked, the greatest hindrance to learning something is to know it
all already. YECers "know" everything about creation. This is why so many
young people in college, faced with the contradiction between "what the
Bible [necessarily] teaches" and the scientific evidence chuck their faith.
The only way around this barrier that I see is the kind of one-on-one
psychologists and counsellors use to get through the defenses of their
clients. But this takes a lot of time and great skill, but is not always
successful. Can quantum physics, which obviously works for reactors and
bombs, and also justifies the timing of radioactive decay, be a backdoor
approach to the age of the earth? How many could follow the evidence? Is
there another approach? Exegesis and traditional interpretations have not
seemed to get through.
Dave
On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 17:17:10 -0500 "Jack Haas" <haasJ@mediaone.net> writes:
Greetings:
I am writing to ask list members to help with a challenging project.
An ASA member has offered a five figure sum to the organization to support a
project that seeks to educate the lay Christian community (adults/youth) on
issues related to the 'young earth' movement.
His letter notes: "...The young-earth message has bitten very deeply into
the evangelical culture, and people trust this message. What will it take to
show people believably that the young-earth view is
not the only possible one, without undermining the Christianity or sincerity
of those that hold that position? [This grant is offered] to ASA, to promote
serious discussion of the feasibility of working on publications that show
the range of views that Christians have,and/or the necessity of believing
the evidence for an ancient universe and the possibility of finding
compatibility with Scripture."
He is rightly concerned with the tensions that can emerge in any evangelical
church or denomination over age and related origins questions. PSCF and
this list reflect this tension. In spite of the diversity of views about
details there is a broad consensus upon which to base a Christian view of
science - including (I think) age and origins. The question before us is
how to communicate this consensus to the Christian public.
I am representing the ASA Council in asking for your input. What do you
think about the project? What kind of approach should we use? What kind of
materials should we use? What types of media? Are your aware of things in
print that may be useful? Writers? My role is to collect ideas. The next
step will be to present them to a committee which will set the course of the
project.
We are open to any and all ideas!
Jack Haas
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