This is for David Opderbeck, Michael Roberts, Don Winterstein
>>>>On Wed May 31 21:14 , "David Opderbeck"
I see several problems with the Great Green Slug hypo.
First, the hypo seems to bear no relationship to any real-world situation. I doubt it's possible to claim that any religion has "no support whatsoever scientifically or observationally." Certainly all the major world religions say some things about life and human nature that in some ways ring true. And Christianity in particular in many ways is grounded in good history (at least from the time of the later history of
GRM: Actually it does represent a real life situation. I didn’t say that the GGS religion didn’t teach anything true. I have over the months of asking this noted that the GGS creation story is wrong, just as the face-value-yec-reading of the Genesis account is wrong and in the same way that the Old-earther Mesopotamian reading of Genesis 6-9 is wrong. It is those stories which are proclaimed to be theologically true when they have been found lacking in physical verification of the stories. (I will post something on Reformed presuppositional apologetics, which you seem to like.
>>>>Second, the hypo provides no context about the Slug religion. We don't know precisely what aspects of the religion are in conflict with the observational and scientific data the student is learning at Harvard or how important those aspects of the religion are to the coherence of Slug theology as a whole. For example, we don't know precisely why the notion that the Slug created the universe conflicts with any scientific or observational data -- it may be that the Slug is an eternal spiritual being who established the laws that guided evolution, removing any apparent conflict. <<<
You don’t need a context about the slug religion (fill in any religion you want to—why this is so difficult for some people I don’t know—it is easy to find examples. Take the Mormons and their archaeological claims which are totally false if you want to). Can a mormon do what we do and proclaim the Book of Mormon theologically true even if it is historically false?
>>>Finally, the hypo begs critical questions about epistemology. What does it mean for a religious claim to lack, or have, "support" "scientifically" or "observationally?" <<<
David, I have come to realize that you do not know what the word epistemology means. You mean apologetics. In an earlier post you said you believed in Reformed Presuppositional Epistemology. I said then that there was no such thing. Jack Haas sent me a reformed presupp article and I will post on that rather amusing view of the world in a day or so. But I want you to know that epistemology is the philosophical area of study of how we know what we know. This is not apologetics, which is why our views are defendable.
So, David, here is a fully contextualized question. Can a mormon, who grows up and finds out that his religion’s statements about North American Prehistory is false, proclaim the Book of Mormon true theologically and claim that it teaches the true theology?
Michael Roberts:
>>> Well, a great Green Slug is a nonsense view and no amount of accommodation/concordism or even reckoning it to be a myth of great worth would mitigate its nonsense.<<<<
So, believing in a Mesopotamian flood for which there is zero geological evidence of a widespread flood isn’t equal nonsense?
>>>There is simply no picture of what God is like in Genesis or the rest of the bible so there is no problem here. <<<
OK, but you have also avoided answering the question when applied to the Mormons. Is it OK for a Mormon, when he finds out how false the accounts of North American archaeology are, to proclaim his book theologically true while at the same time it is historically false? This is a real life example, Michael, and you have avoided so far answering this one. You can play yec and hide your head in the sand from questions like this but that doesn’t mean the question is nonsense.
>>>The accommodation is over the perception of the univesre and the ANE cosmology was a reasonable one for its day.
I will try your GGS on some Harvard students this august - assuming they have IQs in double figures!!
From a fellow accommodationalist<<<
You say you are a fellow accomodationalist, but you are delusional. Since I don’t believe that the ANE cosomology was a reasonable thing for a truthful god to allow into his supposed communication to man at any time in history, I am NOT a accommodationalist. I think if God communicated to mankind such a view of cosmology, then God is a liar. And therein lies the conundrum I am faced with. I won’t say it is theologically true as you are want to do.
In short, I have become amazed, and extremely disappointed in the way you handle yourself on this issue and with these questions. You are not forthright, you are evasive as a YEC, you are saying things that are not true (like asserting that I am an accommodationalist). You are quite disappointing in this to me, Michael.
Don Winterstein wrote:
>>>>Now that my memory is getting into gear, let me modify my second paragraph (below): In previous investigations I did indeed find one instance where "word of the LORD (YHWH)" referred to contents of scriptures. This was in the Chronicles account of King Josiah's discovery of the Book of the Law (2 Chron. 34). Josiah says with reference to the contents of that book, "...Our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD...." (The parallel account in 2 Kings 22 quotes him as saying, "...Our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book....") <<<<
Maybe I missed your response to me when I noted that the prophets often say, ‘The word of the Lord came to [name of prophet], Here is an example. Whose words are in quotes?
Genesis 15:4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir."
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