RE: [asa] Invitation to Pim

Bravo!

Moorad

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Ted Davis
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 10:08 AM
To: PvM; wdwllace@sympatico.ca
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [asa] Invitation to Pim

Pim,

You took my comments as an ad hominem, for which I apologize. My intent
was otherwise.

Dave Wallace understood me as I had intended. You have been posting to
the
ASA list for several years, and it really does seem to me that you have
one
theme, and one alone: that Christians must always avoid appearing
foolish by
thinking they know more about science than the experts. As I indicated,
Pim, this is a good message that ASA people typically accept
wholeheartedly.
 

But ASA people have many other areas of interest, beyond those in which
Augustine's advice is about the only thing worth adding by way of
commentary. While it's good to remind people not to say foolish things
about science, we're interested as an organization in going well past
avoiding the negative, to saying very positive things about the
interaction
of science and Christian faith. I don't think you're an ASA member, and
it
may well be that you don't understand this key point about who we are as
an
organization. It does seem appropriate to make this point here, on our
list, by way of inviting you to engage in that type of conversation.
Your
ideas on this are being solicited.

Now, Pim, there is some additional context for my comments. First, you
are
associated with the PT blog, a place where comments typically go well
beyond
informed discussion of ID and other efforts to challenge evolution.
More
than a few posters engage in genuine ad hominems (often vicious ones) on
religious people and, more to the point, PT is not a place whose purpose
is
to advance the constructive interaction of science and Christianity. PT
has
every right to be who they are, Pim, and you have every right to take
part
in it. My point here is -- and this is not an ad hominem -- that part
of
your public identity is linked with a site, related to science/religion,
that lacks the constructive agenda/purpose of the ASA. We are
different,
Pim. We don't exist for the sole purpose of debunking ID or any other
form
of antievolutionism. (Quite a few of our members would agree with you
that
ID has not on balance been very helpful to the science/religion
dialogue,
just as quite a few would not.) We exist for other purposes, and my
post
calls attention to this, and asks directly whether or not you want to
participate in that.

There is a further reason for my comments, Pim. As you will recall,
there
was a lengthy exchange of views not long ago concerning your
interpretation
of Richard Dawkins' view of religion generally and Christianity
specifically, and in that exchanged it seemed to most (perhaps all) of
us
here that you do not see Dawkins as unfriendly to religion. It is very
difficult to understand such an interpretation of his work, but I'm not
going to rehash that now. The relevant point concerning my recent post,
Pim, is that your defense of Dawkins suggests to me, and probably to all
or
almost all others in the ASA, that you have no interest at all in the
positive interaction of faith and science -- or, at least, that your
idea of
the positive interaction of faith and science does not extend beyond the
invocation of Augustine's dictum at every opportunity. That is, you
seem
only to want to caution Christians *not* to try to engage science,
whereas
that is what we at the ASA are about.

I see nothing ad hominem in any of this, Pim, and I hope you do not
either.
 It's simply about my impression of your views and attitudes. If I'm
wrong
about this, I invite correction. If not -- if I've correctly inferred
that
you have no interest in the positive interaction of faith and science --
then I would ask you please to make more effort to understand what the
ASA
is about and to enter into that conversation. That is the invitation I
am
making, Pim: please join this larger conversation, and please try to
move
past simply invoking Augustine's dictum -- although there are certainly
times when that is about all that one can say.

My best to you, Pim,

Ted

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Jan 14 10:32:15 2008