Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

On Wed Jun 7 8:36 , "jack syme" sent:

>I have a book called "The Analytical Theist, an
>Alvin Plantiga reader."
> 
>Section II is titled Reformed Epistemology, and the
>titles of the essays in that section are Reason and Belief in God, Justification
>and Theism, and A defense of Religious Exclusivism
> 
>This third essay directly addresses the question
>that Glenn brings up here.    "There are theistic religions but
>also at least some nontheistic religions (or perhaps notheistic strands) among
>the enormous variety of religions going under the names Hinduism and Buddhism;
>among the theistic religions, there are strands of Hinduism and Buddhism and
>American Indian religion as well as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; and all
>differ significantly from each other.  Isn't it somehow arbitrary, or
>irrational, or unjustified, or unwarranted, or even oppressive and imperialistic
>to endorse one of these as opposed to all the others?  According to Jean
>Bodin, "Each is refuted by all"  must we not agree?"
> 
>He later defines the term exclusivism as accepting
>the basic beliefs of one's religion as true, and consequently taking to be false
>any beliefs that are incompatible with these basic beliefs.  The rest of
>the essay is in defense of exclusivism, that is, the intellectual and moral
>justification of exclusivism, irrespective of the truth of the basic beliefs
>that this exclusivism is based on.

That is what utterly disappoints me in modern old earth views. The epistemology is basically post-modern, your
truth is your truth and my different truth is my truth. We don't care if the story is true so long as it is our
religion. But then we in our religion get to hypocritically forguve our documents for their factual errors,
while denying that other religions can do the same.

I frankly, am utterly disappointed in the unwillingness of people to answer certain questions I keep raising. To
me, intellectual honesty demands that we try to answer all the questions to the best of our ability. Back in
the Believe-it-even-if-it-isn't-true Theology thread, I raised the question of the Great Green Slug religion and
asked if a believef in the great green slug who learned science could proclaim his story metaphorical and thus
have it still teach true theology. http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200602/0274.html
  Only David Opderbeck and Iain Strachan bothered to actually try to answer the question. All others ignored it.
To me, that is not very intellectually honest. This seems to be the YEC-like-aspect of the Old Earth
accommodationalists. YECs are wonderful at ignoring questions and we rightly criticize them for this, but then
we seem to ignore questions we don't like either.

In this thread, absolutely no one has tried to answer this question.

I am betting that Paul Seeley has the you know what's to answer the question. While Paul's book threw me into a
crisis of faith, it was because his arguments were so good and I have a deep respect for that.

Paul, consider a primitive tribesman who grows up belieiving that the Great Green Slug created the earth. He
goes to college, learns science and finds out that his creation story is factually false. Can he claim that his
God accommodated the message to the scientific views of his primitive ancestors but that his religion still
teaches true theology?

Can a Mormon do that? An animist?

I am betting you will answer the question cause you have guts.
Received on Wed Jun 7 22:12:16 2006