Re: agreeing about a mere creation?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Rusbult" <craig@chem.wisc.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: agreeing about a mere creation?

> Ted says,
>
>>Answers in Genesis, however, won't like it much.
>
> Yes, they do emphasize the necessity of young-earth views.
>
> But I wonder if there is a difference, in terms of cognitive dissonance
> -- Ham, Sarfati, Morris & Morris,... are intelligent and scientifically
> trained, and they have seen the data -- between what they think and feel
> in
> private (in the middle of the night, do they ever wonder if they might be
> wrong?) and in public?
>
> And logically, would they pay attention to the IF nature of a "mere
> creation" belief? For example, do they think about meeting God
> face-to-face someday, about what they would say?
> For example, in his page about "appearance of age" John Morris says:
> "if fallen scientists extrapolating present process are right and the
> universe is old, then God has lied to us." WOW.
> http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1088

    I appreciate the desire to be irenic but "Woe to those prophets who cry
'Peace, Peace' when there is no peace." As I've said before, we need to
make a distinction between hard-line YEC activists like those you've named &
the average conservative Christian who holds YEC views primarily because she
or he has been told that that's what Christians are supposed to believe.
There is a possibility of reaching people in the latter group and convincing
them that other views about creation are legitimate if they are approached
in the right way. OTOH the likelihood of doing that with Ham, Sarfati or
the Morrises is smaller than any epsilon you can name. Furthermore, any
attempt to craft a statement that would compromise with them will simply be
seen as a sign of "liberal" fuzziness. The best thing to do with such YEC
cadres is to publicize and refute their demostrably false statements (both
scientific and theological), not in an attempt to change their minds but to
destroy their influence among the innocent.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
 
Received on Thu Jul 28 14:15:34 2005