Re: Spellbound? (was Re: Cobb County)

Hi Vernon, you wrote:

> Hi Christopher,
>
> We appear to be talking past one another. In my last email I invited you to
> offer a reasonable naturalistic explanation for the empirical evidences of
> intelligent design in the numero-geometrical structure of the Bible's opening
> Hebrew words - this significant fact forming the cornerstone of my thesis.
> Surely you must see that until such explanation is forthcoming the observed
> phenomena must be attributed to a supernatural hand - this, in itself, revealing
> the inadequacy of MN.

As I don't know Hebrew and I am not a scholar on ancient Hebrew writings
and traditions, I am not in a position to pass any judgment on the
intelligent design in the numero-geometrical structure of the Bible's opening
Hebrew words, as you put it. To the best of my fallible interpretations,
Genesis was written within the cultural and scientific knowledge of the day,
and as I have said before, it is the theology, not the science, which is
important in Genesis. It totally puzzles me why you keep trying to use the
Bible as a scientific explanation of observed phenomena. Also, as you say
that MN is inadequate, then it behooves you to provide a superior model
based on testable supernaturalism.
 
>
> You point out that "Genesis 1:1 is a theological statement that God created
> the universe." Of course. But that is only _half_ the story, and rather than
> my providing "...a testable and falsifiable model for methodological
> supernaturalism that can explain what we observe in the universe rather than
> methodological naturalism, and can make predictions that can be tested...", I suggest
> the onus is on you, as a scientist and truth-seeker, to grapple with the
> _entire_ implications of this first verse - remembering, as a Christian, the
> supernatural basis of our faith and the scriptural warnings to which I have
> previously drawn attention.

As I have said before, science is about seeking scientific truth, and through
science I try and get the picture of the scientific truth as to how the
universe
came into existence. But as a Christians I also like to get the Christian
truth
through my faith that God created the universe, so yes, I am striving to get
the
whole picture through these separate truths.

As to the scriptural warnings which you have previously mentioned, I really
don't understand what context they have here. If you are implying that Satan
wants to deceive, that is certainly true at least as far as our faith in God
is
concerned, but to claim that Satan is somehow creating a fake universe,
with, for example, starlight created in transit to fool astronomers that the
universe is billions of years old when it is really only a few thousand, is
total
and complete nonsense. And, as I have shown in my previous message,
the leaders of the young earth creationist movement like Henry and John
Morris lie, and lying for God is still lying. Thanks to them, they are doing
an excellent job in pushing Christianity into the ghetto of deliberate
ignorance and anti-knowledge. They are responsible in part for the negative
image Christianity has, and I know of several people, at least one in
person, who left Christianity because of creationism.

If Satan is deceiving anybody, he is doing an excellent job with creationism.
What better way to undermine Christianity than to attack it from within
using the Bible.
>
> May I encourage you, therefore, to address this central issue with some
> urgency, for only when it is settled to our mutual satisfaction will we be able
> to proceed in a meaningful way to consider other matters of pressing interest.
>
> Vernon
> www.otherbiblecode.com
>

Christopher Sharp
http://csharp.com/creationism.html
Received on Fri Feb 4 20:32:53 2005