Re: [asa] Wells and traditional Christianity

Ted Davis wrote:
> ...
> The important question here is, why? That is, specifically why do they see
> evolution and traditional Christian belief as incompatible? The answers, in
> my experience, are numerous and varied. I haven't time here to type them
> all in adequately and fairly--that is, giving readers an adequate
> understanding of the reasons without unfairly trivilizing or misrepresenting
> them.
>

...so just leave the misrepresentation and oversimplification to me,
then. I've got some practice at it!
Seriously, though -- perhaps some helpful simplifications are in order
to stimulate different thoughts & still promote understanding. I had
fun late one sleepless evening drawing up the following chart to see
whose hat might hang where. If your browser let's you view jpegs, then
what do you think of the one below.

An origins matrix with Christian - NonChristian continuum horizontally,
and elevated to limited science along vertical axis

Specifically: where does each group try to draw the "battle lines" (if
indeed they promote any -- sorry Keith, I know you're trying to tear
some of these down, but I still think it's helpful to know how people
view themselves). The YECs (and I guess IDers would get lumped in
with them here) would try to corner off their section and view it as
themselves against everyone else. But in practice I would suggest that
they actually draw their own battle line horizontally -- since the
Dawkins crowd provide so much needed fuel for their fire. As
detestable as a YECer may find this comparison, I wonder if they don't
save more of their vitriol for the crowd below them than those across.
(What indeed do Christ and Belial have in common? -- elevated science?
-- that may be something for YECs to think about.)

Had it not been for the aggressively atheistic group, one wonders if the
YEC movement would ever have gotten the fuel it needed. And the more
rambunctious TEs, in their own turn, are happy to reciprocate the YEC
exculsiveness and also draw their own battle lines in between. And they
can point at the YECs and yell "They started it!". The question of
Christian unity (& splitting churches and friends) is very present in my
mind lately. So I wonder outloud-- Am I dishonest to not throw this
battle into the face of my every new acquaintance so we know each
other's stances? Am I dishonest to sometimes hope this subject need
not come up at all to blight an otherwise valued brotherly Christian
relationship? Something in me is loath to fire the first shot. Dick
would no doubt see it as cowardice, and maybe he's right, but I'm still
not quite convinced that's all there is to it.

--merv

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Received on Mon Aug 28 20:56:15 2006