Rich Blinne wrote:
>
>
> On 4/25/07, *Michael Roberts* <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk
> <mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>> wrote:
>
> Perhaps the strongest argument against any kind of ID is the
> charming behaviour of Dembksi O'Leary and Nelson.
>
>
>
> While this is an ad hominem argument nevertheless this is what people
> do, viz. evaluate truth claims based on the character of the
> proponents. The problem goes from bad to worse because people won't stop
> there and will accrue this to Christianity in general. You can replace
> ID with Christianity and the comment applies mutatis mutandi:
>
I know ad hominem arguments can be deadly and very un fair. However,
when reading outside of one's field of expertise one has no choice but
to trust the writer's integrity both in matters of science or
mathematics but also to some extent at least in world view. Certainly
at a professional conference ad hominem arguments have no place in
general but some people that one has prior confidence in have much
greater credibility than unknowns.
To quote George:
I think that Dawkins' statement - or at least the one I recall - was
that Darwinism "made it possible for a person to be an intellectually
fulfilled atheist."
If Dawkins were a civil engineer and designed a bridge then I would have
no problem driving over it. However, given that he writes on origins
and that he needs a particular view of origins, namely Darsinism to
flush out his world view, I at least take his writings with a large
grain of salt. Yes I do understand that his early writings are good but
I wanted to read something like Ken Miller's and Keith Miller's books
before tackling Dawkins. I think this is part of the reason why some
people want textbooks in some subjects written by Christians.
Dave W
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Apr 25 15:17:21 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Apr 25 2007 - 15:17:21 EDT