My comments inserted and italicized below.
__
Louise M. Freeman, PhD
Psychology Dept
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, VA 24401
540-887-7326
FAX 540-887-7121
T: Exactly. Anyone who pays attention to my posts here knows this is my
view. For a great rejoinder from the early 19th century, check out Edward
Hitchcock on my webpage. http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm
Several nerdy friends of mine (it takes one to know one) are planning a
book on just this issue. I hope it comes to be.
I am rapidly approaching the point where I don't trust scholarship by
non-nerds!
3. No literal world-covering, most-life-wiping-out flood (
The Dinosaurs in Africa thing is another hoot, generally, though we do
know of course that some really old animals are out there, like coelocanth
and crocodiles and some other stuff.
I thought it was a hoot until I heard a brilliant, homeschooled boy in my
class say, in all seriousness, that his career goal is to go to Africa and
find the critters so he can disprove evolution. (It's either that or a
career on stage. I had to tell his mother that I thought the showbiz career
was far less risky.)
Pulling an occasional thought-to-be extinct, deep-sea fish up from the
depths of the oceans is one thing, T rex tromping around Africa is another.
Is this boy's faith going to crumble if he ever gets a half-way decent
science education (he's been homeschooled with Hovind material) and realizes
these things he's been taught are cannot possibly be true?
the relation between canonical and
non-canonical literature -- is also likely to bother many YECs. It's
extraordiniarly rare, IMO, for conservative churches to talk about this type
of thing in a serious way. It's as though the decisions made about
canonicity were given to the Pope on stone tablets.
Well, no, not to the Pope, he's Catholic :) but the Bible has been
supernaturally protected throughout history and is therefore inerrant in the
original manuscripts. (which we don't have... I guess that part of the
protection ran out.
Every summer we have theological fellowship discussions which spring from
questions people submit to the pastor. Next year I'm going to ask if the
miracle celebrated at Channakah is a historical event.
5. No special creation of Adam from dust.
The deepest, rock-bottom objection, I think. A bright student once told a
colleague in one of our humanities departments, "I refuse to believe I'm
nothing but pond scum."
My mom (a highschool AP biology teacher) once had a student ask to transfer
out of her class because she "just couldn't believe we all came from cells."
She wanted to take physics instead. Wonder what happened when she was taught
there that we all come from atoms created by supernovae explosions.
I'm fine with my students all believing in special creation of
humans (as most of them do, if not all), since it's a lot easier for them to
see value in that, and value is more important than scientiifc truth in any
case.
As you know, my school, although church-affiliated is not as explicitly
Christian as yours. On one level, I have to be "fine" with students
believing anything that is essential to their faith. On the other hand, if
there is no scientific evidence that that belief is true, and indeed much
evidence suggesting it is not, I'd be remiss in not teaching that truth.
Louise
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Jan 31 11:55:16 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Jan 31 2007 - 11:55:16 EST