RE: Today's blogs at the Post-Darwinist 2005 05 22

>>> "Denyse O'Leary" <oleary@sympatico.ca> 05/22/05 8:31 AM >>>writes:

You will be classed on the ID side even if you cash in your career to spend
all your time attacking Dembski. (Please don't interpret me as suggesting
that anyone would waste their time like that; I am saying that if you did,
it wouldn't change anything.)
 
Ted replies:
Denyse, I'm interested in being classed as on the side of truth, not on the
side of ID or TE or scientific atheism. Politics obscures the truth, time
and time again, and it is surely obscuring the truth in this issue as well.

To some extent, I am concerned about whether or not anyone finds my own
thoughts on this helpful or even persuasive--I am a specialist in
Christianity and science, and I do appreciate it when other people respond
favorably to my work. However, frankly (as I told a friend in a completely
different field this past winter, in a conversation unrelated to ID), I do
not write for other people. I write for God.

That could sound utterly and completely egotistical, without further
context. When Kepler discovered the celestial harmonies, he said that God
had waited 6000 years for someone to discover them; he (Kepler) could wait a
hundred years to have any readers. He knew he spoke the truth (as he
understood it), it didn't matter whether or not anyone even read his
thoughts for another century. God was his audience (an attitutde Kepler
brought to all of his work), God cared, and Kepler really didn't care
whether anyone else cared.

My attitude in this business is similar. I'll write the truth as I see it,
whether or not Bill Dembski or Richard Dawkins or anyone else thinks I'm for
or against ID. A discerning historian in 2105 will discern that I am not a
strong ID supporter, and that I far more strongly reject Dawkins and
company. God already knows that, and so do some of his creatures.

Finally, Denyse, let me add this. At the end of my article in the current
issue of American scientist, I point out that religious scientists and
science journalists are the ones who may prove most important in helping
people understand/see how science can be interpreted religiously. We in the
ASA (including Bill Dembski, Steve Meyer, Mike Keas, and others in the ID
movement) are in this category, and so are you. My plea to you directly, is
that you not allow the politics of the movement to obscure the truth. You
do not have to agree with those of us in ASA who have not been persuaded by
the ID argument, but surely you discern how strongly we differ with Dawkins
and company, and how many of us are not ashamed of public roles that give
witness to Christian truth in our lives and work. Does that not count for
something signficant? Would it not be helpful to the larger cause of Christ
to help people see those stories and to tell the larger narrative to which
we give voice? Are you able and willing to show some discernment yourself,
in writing about these important issues?

Blessings,

Ted
Received on Sun May 22 11:47:02 2005