Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

Well the point of this post was to show you that there is such a thing as
Reformed Epistemology, and it is really epistemology, not just apologetics.
Plantiga is a heavy hitter, dont take him lightly. Maybe you need to spend
some time reading what he has to say. In this essay he claims that there
are two core beliefs in our faith: 1) The world was created by God, an
almighty, all-knowing, and perfectly good personal being. and 2) Human
beings require salvation, and God has provided a unique way of salvation
through the incarnation, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of his
divine son (Jesus Christ).

To me these things stand, no matter what early Genesis says. Who am I to
question how God inspired scripture and why did he have the authors of the
scriptures write what they wrote? These questions are important in
apologetics, but I dont think that is your main interest in asking these
questions.

I am afraid you will not find what you are looking for, on this list or from
any other author. But Plantiga argues in this essay and others that
belief, Christian belief is rational.

It is not a matter of checking your mind at the door of the church, it is a
matter of taking a leap beyond the evidence.

I know you are not looking for proof. But you will not accept anyone else's
explanations either. If all of early Genesis is completely falsified
scientfically, does that invalidate everything? Is there anything else that
is better? You might hate me for saying this, but is your difficulty an
issue of pride? You are brilliant I can see, but perhaps you are fooled by
your own brilliance?

Take some advice from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

You have asked these same questions over and over again for years. And you
have asked them to many Christian believers, some of them brilliant, and
highly educated. And yet you are not satisfied with the answers. Maybe
you are looking in the wrong place. Dont get me wrong, I like the questions
you ask, and am not implying in anyway that they shouldnt be asked.

Now, to answer your question, yes the GGS apologist can do it, the Morman
can do it, the Animist can do it, the Buddhists can do it.
But what should you care that they can do it?

Can all of these other religions, and your GGS claim the same thing, that
they are the Truth, yes they can. But in the end they will be wrong. And
we will be right. How can I know this? I cant, but I believe it anyway.
It really is just that simple.

----- Original Message -----
From: <glennmorton@entouch.net>
To: "'David Opderbeck'" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>; <glennmorton@entouch.net>;
"'jack syme'" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 10:11 PM
Subject: 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 23:34:48 2006