RE: Stereotypes and reputations

It seems that those who are irreligious use science, say, Darwinism to substantiate their assumptions, which deny the legitimacy of the spiritual aspect of man.

 
Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of mahaffy@mtcnet.net
Sent: Thu 7/28/2005 6:50 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Stereotypes and reputations

Folks,

I was a bit saddened by the responses when I was asking for historical
help on judging the authenticity of an incident that was cited by Nancy
about the cause of Stalin's turning from Christianity. Without knowing the
book or the context in which it appeared, folks assumed that she was
making a case for Darwin causing him to become the mass murder that he
was. Nancy likes to write using examples and this was only one example of
someone whom she thought turned away from Christianity. Nancy properly
cited a biographer, Yaroslavsy, said who knew Stalin. When Don finally
dug into some other biographers and answered the question for me, it looks
like Yaroslavsy is not the mot trustworthy source. But this does not mean
that she is sloppy at citing. Meanwhile the name of a good Christian
sister has been I think unfairly tarnished and I feel somewhat
responsible. I guess next time I will have to ask if anyone knows a bit
about the history of Russian or ask about the incident without saying
where I got it from.

By the way, most of Nancy's book is about world view and the fact that
science is and can not be neutral. In that regard, I think Nancy does a
good job. I see some strong weaknesses too but I don't feel right in
sharing them.

I wonder why YEC or ID brings such an automatic negative response from
this group. Actually ID's fight to allow more than the one secular story
of creation [secular neo-Darwinism] into the public High School is a
battle more of us should be in or respecting. I would like the public High
School teacher be able to use the word Creation instead of Nature and even
explain Creation from a TE position. I know the current idea that science
has nothing to do with Creation keeps other stories that I do not like
out, but in its place the student is being taught that God and religion
have had nothing to do with Creation.

I guess this is a plea to not be too quick with stereotypes. As a
conservative Presbyterian I once made a bunch of assumptions about TE
positions. Then I ran into Terry Grey on this and other lists and while
not convinced of a TE position, I gained respect for way he handled his
position. And I am not ID though I respect some of their fights and what
some of them write.

I would not like to continue on Nancy's book on total truth on this list.
May I even suggest that you send reactions to me off list. Or you can chat
with me at the ASA meetings. I will even talk about cougar in NW Iowa.

I probably will share this with Nancy since I think I am partly the reason
for some of the reactions.

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Received on Thu Jul 28 19:28:48 2005