> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Jan de Koning
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 2:10 PM
>
> Glenn, you move apparently in other circles than I do.
Of that I have no doubt. But it is in the polls and on the internet. All
one has to do is look it up in a Yahoo or google search.
This from a 2004 Gallup survey:
" November 19, 2004
Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin's Evolution Theory
Almost half of Americans believe God created humans 10,000 years ago
by Frank Newport
Only about a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by the
evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories
and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don't know
enough to say. Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God
created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000
years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe
that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally,
word for word." http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/login.aspx?ci=14107
If only a third of US citizens believe evolution, I would clearly wonder
if the crowd you run with is a self-isolated crowd. (Maybe Canadians are
different). 2/3 of the people in the US don't accept evolution. As I
said in another post, WE ARE IGNORED and there is nothing worse than
being ignored. It means we are impotent. Maybe, Jan, you should get out
more.
See also
http://www.christwatch.com/survey/godcreated_result.htm
http://www.baptist.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=457
Some here may
> accept a "literal" reading of Gen.1 - 11, but most do not read the
> beginning of Genesis that way.
So? This is not a representative group for the US. Such a statement is
one made by someone in an ivory tower who doesn't look outside to see
what the peasants are doing.
Many see in Gen. 1 for
> example a song from
> the oldest people who could read and write. Some chapters in
> Gen. are seen
> as the way the early people talked with God, etc. But very
> few see it as
> history in the modern sense of the word. Add to that difficulties in
> translation: (Gen. 1 "nephesh' translated as life; Gen.2 "nephesh"
> translated as "soul" (and that not even in every translation.) My
> denomination had a study committee about these issues. I was
> a member of
> that committee. All of us accept that Jesus died for our
> sins and in that
> way prepared "place" for us on the new earth to come.
Once again, I ask: So what? You all go off on lots of tangents and
ignore the main point. YOU ARE IRRELEVANT to at least 2/3 of the US who
don't accept evolution. But nice statements like that above feel good
and make you think that everyone around you believes like you do. Maybe
this is why you don't see what I see. Get out more.
>
> The early chapters of Genesis are not history in our sense of
> the word, and
> cannot be. Also, God is all powerful, but before the Tower
> of Babel there
> may have been one language, after that certainly not. I am
> convinced that
> God did not speak to the early people in a language which was vaguely
> familiar to English. Many, very many, even learned people
> cannot read a
> word of the Bible in the original.
So What? I am reminded of a US general who finally met his North
Vietnamese counterpart. These two old soldiers had fought each other for
several years. The US general said, "We beat you in every battle!" To
which the old Vietnamese general said, "So what? We won the war!" Your
self isolation is why we are losing. If you can't reach those people,
those 2/3 of the people who reject evolution, you will never win. You
won't win by offering them (the majority) total surrender to your
viewpoint (which is exactly what I see people on this list offer them).
They wonder why we are so crazy to offer them total unconditional
surrender when they are the ones who are winning. (Having been a YEC,
arguments like yours at that time, always struck me as extremely odd
because you were offering me a chance to give up my entire world view,
which I believed was God's world view. Keep up this successful campaign
to reach the YECs. It is working SOOOOOOO well).
> Even the translations in different languages differ according to the
> language into the Word is translated. English speaking
> nations have the
> disadvantage that they seldom speak any foreign language, and
> thus often
> they do not realize, that in different nations the Bible is read in a
> different way, causing different theologies.
Great elitist point of view. Even if you are right, what have you
accomplished? How many YECs have changed because of this sudden epiphany
when you tell them about it?
> My main reason for writing this is that I and many others
> should not be
> accused of what I read in Glenn's note. I find that he is
> not accusing us,
> though we are sinners as well, but that he is accusing God for making
> nature contradicting His Word. He did not, but we may not
> always be able
> to read properly.
Well wouldn't it be easier if God had said, I created fish from worms, I
created frogs from fish, I created snakes from frogs and I created man
from snakes? At least then it would have some what a similar appearance
to evolution. God could have inspired the writer to say that but he
didn't. I don't know why. If God didn't inspire a clear story. It wasn't
as if the ancients were idiots. They could have understood it, after all
the Greeks did.
As to what you read as accusing in my note, it isn't an accusation.
Y'all are irrelevant. I didn't make that happen, it is just an
observation. I can't help it that you don't like it, but then most
people in ivory towers like to be told they are right.
Received on Thu Mar 31 20:06:47 2005
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Mar 31 2005 - 20:06:50 EST