From: Darryl Maddox (dpmaddox@arn.net)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 16:55:04 EDT
Glenn you know I agree with you most of the time and I don't disagree with you here, but I do have a question and an opinion.
Q: If we through out a 6 day creation and a universal flood, by what criteria do we stop throwing out stuff?
I've been trying to answer this one objectively for most of my life and have yet to even get close to an answer but that doesn't mean it hasn't been done or won't be done. But if it has I am not aware of it and that leads to my opinion -
Opinion: My opinion is that it is the fear that the lack of such a hard-and-fast, publishable, debated and agreed upon by all, criteria for separating analogy from fact that causes most YECs to stay that way inspite of everything. Once they start throwing out stuff they are afraid they won't know how or where to stop and that could leave them with consequences they would rather not face. The fact that they compromise, select for acceptance, and ignore as irrelevant passages on other issues is a small and seldom thought of contradiction to their stance on the age of the earth and the nature of the flood so they try to stand pat on the big ones and hope the small ones will take care of themselves eventually.
Darryl
----- Original Message -----
From: Glenn Morton
To: Dawsonzhu@aol.com ; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 10:03 AM
Subject: RE: RATE
Hi Wayne, you wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 8:20 AM
Wayne: What I don't quite understand about YEC folk is that even at that time,
with all the raging hormonal processes and rebel-without-a-cause matters
of adolescence, I knew deep in my heart-of-hearts that God actually
could have equally created through evolution. I sometimes used it to
shut Christians out with "the buzzword", but I could not run away from
that thought in the back of my mind.
GRM: I too had that same feeling when I was a YEC. I knew deep down that the position I was publishing on was in deep trouble. Yet I continued because I believed! I suspect lots of YECs are just like that. And I didn't want to beleive that my fellow christians would fill my head with mush. Christians are supposed to be honest in all their dealings.
Wayne: Is it that some people just simply don't even want to consider
examining any other possibilities than a 6000 year old earth? Is it that they
just want to be left alone and don't want to be challenged to think? Is it fear
of facing oneself and doubt? I can understand doubt, but this level of
denial is hard for me to understand.
GRM: The fear is that if one accepts evolution you have to accept that the Bible is false! That last statement will get the hackles of the old-earthers up! But before the complaints and defenses come in, hear me out. YEC leaders constantly tell these people that if evolution is true, then the Bible is false. They are programmed to follow that line of reasoning and thus when faced with obvious data that doesn't fit or flatly contradicts their viewpoint, they look into the precipice and see atheism. And they recoil. That programming is why I have struggled with these issues for years.
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