Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

I went to a very conservative "independent" baptist-type church for many
years where the leaders were YEC. Never was it suggested that there was a
choice between YEC and "damnation." Even AIG doesn't say this. Maybe that
is the case in some churches, but let's not overstate it.

On Nov 27, 2007 2:04 PM, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:

> Given the choice, usually made clear in many Baptist churches, between
> YEC and damnation, and the clear evidence that YEC is false, indeed
> nonsensical, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the salvation message is
> also balderdash.
> Dave (ASA)
>
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:25:27 -0500 "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> writes:
>
> I suppose the point here is that the Church was at fault for not giving
> Wilson other options. Perhaps there is a fair point there given the
> particulars of Wilson's upbringing. But what if Wilson's response had been
> to continually ask God to help him better understand the truth. Would
> Wilson then have found organizations like the ASA that existed at the time?
> Would he have found friends and mentors to help him work through the
> questions everyone faces when they grow out of a childish fundamentalism
> into a more mature faith? Would he have felt freer to question some aspects
> of "evolution" as a metanarrative while at the same time broadening his
> understanding of theology and scripture? In short, do we really have to buy
> hook, line and sinker the story: "Church: bad; Wilson: innocent?"
>
> On Nov 26, 2007 11:01 PM, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Here is a relevant and chilling quote from E.O. Wilson from
> > "Consilience".
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9805/consilience/index.html
> >
> >
> >
> > On a far more modest scale, I found it a wonderful feeling not just to
> > taste the unification metaphysics but also to be released from the
> > confinement of fundamentalist religion. I had been raised a Southern
> > Baptist, laid backward under the water on the sturdy arm of a pastor, been
> > born again. I knew the healing power of redemption. Faith, hope, and charity
> > were in my bones, and with millions of others I knew that my savior Jesus
> > Christ would grant me eternal life. More pious than the average teenager, I
> > read the Bible cover to cover, twice. But now at college, steroid-driven
> > into moods of adolescent rebellion, I chose to doubt. I found it hard to
> > accept that our deepest beliefs were set in stone by agricultural societies
> > of the eastern Mediterranean more than two thousand years ago. I
> > suffered cognitive dissonance between the cheerfully reported genocidal wars
> > of these people and Christian civilization in 1940s Alabama. It seemed to me
> > that the Book of Revelation might be black magic hallucinated by an ancient
> > primitive. And I thought, surely a loving personal God, if He is paying
> > attention, will not abandon those who reject the literal interpretation of
> > the biblical cosmology. It is only fair to award points for intellectual
> > courage. Better damned with Plato and Bacon, Shelley said, than go to heaven
> > with Paley and Malthus. But most of all, Baptist theology made no provision
> > for *evolution.* The biblical authors had missed the most important
> > revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the
> > thoughts of God? Might the pastors of my childhood, good and loving men
> > though they were, be mistaken? It was all too much, and freedom was ever so
> > sweet. I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or
> > atheistic, just Baptist no more.
> >
>
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Nov 27 14:24:59 2007