Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

For Michael Roberts and Paul Seeley,

Michael wrote:

>>>If I found a great green slug in my vegetable patch I would squash it or put
salt on it.

The question is silly so cant be answered as I have implied before
Michael<<<

You know, Michael, since other people, like David, Iain, Jack and Paul find that it isn’t a silly question and is a question which is capable
of being answered, maybe your emotional reaction shows that you can’t handle the truth which logic dictates. You won’t answer this simple
question but I have seen you over and over demanding that YECs answer equally simple questions. That seems a bit inconsistent and borders on
showing what a double standard you have for yourself vs. the YEC. They must answer questions while you avoid them.

Paul Seeley, who does indeed have guts wrote:

>Since you have thrown down the gauntlet while flattering me for my
>fortitude, I would surely be breaking some rule of chivalry not to respond.
>So...
>

Yeah, I intentionally wanted to put maximum pressure on you. I was tired of people ignoring a simple question. :-) But I knew you would
come through and deal honestly with an honest question.

>At the same time, there are primitive origin stories which mention a god who
>pries the solid sky off of the earth. The Rig Veda says, Varuna “pushed away
>the dome of the sky” (7.86.1; cf. 10.82.1). This is partially comparable to
>Gen 1:6-8 where God creates a solid sky. So, there is false science in both
>religions which could be called accommodation by educated believers in those
>religions.
>
>But, so what? The accommodation does not prove that Varuna or Elohim or any
>other named creator-god did not create the sky. It leaves open the true
>answer to Who made the sky?

OK, but that is the point I am trying to make. Without some form of concordism (reality) in the mix, the accommodationalist position takes
one into a totally fideist and circular system, as I showed with George’s statement that God accommodates to the point of not interfering
with the theology. The ‘so what’ is that, like a house without a foundation, one is left in epistemologically floating without a foundation
based in reality.

The thing that makes science real is that input of the observational. I drill a well, it tells me whether or not my pre-drill theories are
correct or not. Often I am wrong, but occasionally I am at least partially right.

The thing that makes most religions wrong is that they are mutually inconsistent. They can’t all be true at the same time (unless we are like
the queen in Thru the Looking Glass, who could believe 2 impossible things before breakfast). Thus, if there is a true religion, then
99.999999999% of the religions are false. I see only one way to know if a religion is true and that is by observational input.

The fact that 99.9999999% of all religions must be false, by logic, means that 99.99999999% of the religious people of the world have
deluded themselves. And that means that the odds are not really with us. I would never drill a well with that kind of odds against me.

>
>Concordism can do no better. It rejects the historical-grammatical meaning
>of the Bible’s words and twists them around until they agree with modern
>science. Could a believer in the Great Green Slug, or Varuna or any other
>god do the same thing with their stories? I don’t see why not.

Then, if what you say is true, that concordism is mere twisting facts, there is still the possibility that the whole thing is false.
Accommodation then becomes an impediment to drawing the correct conclusion. It gives the appearance of making the religion true, without
actually doing so.

>
>To me it is a simple matter of honesty. I will not take the scientific data
>out of context and twist it to agree with Scripture, so I cannot be a YEC.

But YEC is not the type of concordism I am talking about. You know how much I fight the YECs, so is this a strawman?

 I
>will not take the biblical data out of context and twist it to agree with
>modern science, so I cannot be a concordist. The beauty of accommodationism
>is that you do not have to twist either the Bible or science.

The beauty of accommodationalism is that one gets to live in a self-made virtual world—kind of like a dream, thinking one has the truth but
logically knowing the odds are quite against you, but believing it anyway.

Your comment is similar to what Rich Blinne says in his Calvin,Accommodation and the Trinity thread. He says that the accommodationalist
goal is not to make the text say what it doesn't say. But in point of fact, that is exactly what accommodationalism does. It takes an
account widely believed to be history prior to modern science and makes it say theological truth rather than history. The YECs are right
whether we like it or not when they say that the natural reading is of a 6-day creation.

>
>(Believers in the Book of Mormon could theoretically appeal to
>accommodation, but I think accommodationism would have to be applied too
>extensively to be a practical answer.)

I agree with you.

And thank you for being honest enough to actually deal with this question in a forthright way. The already considerable respect I have for
you has just grown.
Received on Thu Jun 8 22:14:58 2006