Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

In a message dated 5/29/2006 9:11:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
There is a widespread view here that if there is a conflict between
observation and the scripture, we can avoid the conflict by having God accommodate his
message to the lousy scientific knowledge of his listeners.
Glenn,

I know you are traveling soon, so I will be patient for your response. I
want to try contributing an answer to your specific questions. I think that I
can make some small contribution. I have struggled with doubts about all these
same things, so I can at least state how I got peace in regard to them. But
before I do, help me understand the scope of the above quote. What in
**particular** are **all** the areas where you see an apparent conflict between
observation and scripture and where some Christians have appealed to pre-scientific
accomodation of the world-view of the original audience. I'll start the list:

1. the sequence of events in the days of Genesis 1
2. mankind beginning from a recent single pair of humans
3. the geographical scope of the Noachian flood
4. the lifespans of the Patriarchs
5. the tower of Babel story vs. DNA and linguistic evidence for mankind's
spread over the earth

Did I miss any of the "biggies"? (I know there are lots of "minor" ones,
too, but I don't want to attempt a comprehensive list to that scale.) Please add
or subtract from this list of biggies.

If I understand you, you are asking how we can claim consistency with
observational data for the above items, in a way that is qualitatively different than
the concordism of other religions and that is not epistemically ad hoc. Is
that a correct summary?

Also, did you ask for positive observational "proof" for Christianity that
stands on its own merits, or are you more concerned with removing the ad hoc
approaches to the apparently negative observational data?

God bless,
Phil Metzger
Received on Mon May 29 22:09:03 2006