Re: [asa] Crossing the Divide

I am not sure that CS Lewis would say this today.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "Christine Smith" <christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 4:13 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] Crossing the Divide

> C. S. Lewis said, "If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you
> you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you,
> brains and all. But, fortunately, it works the other way round. Anyone who
> is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being
> sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a
> Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an
> uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has
> astonished the whole world." Mere Christianity, page 75 (The "Cardinal
> Virtues.")
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Christine Smith
> Sent: Fri 2/22/2008 6:41 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] Crossing the Divide
>
>
>
> Greg writes: "What is ASA doing for the
>> 20-something generation?"
>
> I am 26 now, and ASA was quite literally an answer to
> my prayers last year when I had a major crisis of
> faith. ASA has helped me grow both spiritually and
> scientifically by introducing me to new concepts,
> helping me to explore questions I had never even
> considered before, and just generally challenging me
> to expand and deepen my thinking. It has become a
> place I can go to ask honest, hard questions and get
> answers that I know I can trust will uphold the
> integrity of both the scientific and theological
> facets of the problem. It is a place of (albeit
> largely virtual for me) fellowship where people who
> share not only my faith, but also my scientific
> mindset, can interact. It has also become a resource
> for me when I engage in apologetic discussions at
> other on-line forums and in-person with one of my
> Atheistic co-workers. On that latter point, ASA also
> serves as a positive counter-example that I can bring
> up when Christians are stereo-typed in a very negative
> light as a result of YEC, which hopefully will
> encourage skeptics to keep an open mind towards
> Christianity.
>
> In short, ASA has done plenty for this 20-something.
>
> In Christ,
> Christine
>
>
> --- Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>> Running to evolution(ists) for help...hmmm, quite an
>> image that provides!
>>
>> A question on the text quoted: that's not Brian
>> Alters (McGill, Evolution Education Research
>> Centre), is it? I tried to meet him last summer
>> after the SSHRC fiasco, no answer, disappeared.
>> Definitely not an ASA/CSCA member.
>>
>> Though perhaps suggesting a different 'divide'
>> that is to be crossed, one point to make is simply
>> this: TE, if ASA is indeed to be a haven for it,
>> unfortunately seems uninterested in bridging the
>> divide between natural sciences and human-social
>> sciences. THIS divide, however, is what is most
>> notably touched on (though not thoroughly discussed)
>> by the IDM and its peculiar brand of 'design'
>> theory. That is because intelligence is 'always
>> already' acknowledged in human beings. Human beings
>> simply do 'design' things, 'nuf said.
>>
>> Turning the Creator into an anthropomorphic
>> 'designing agent,' is nevertheless, a less than
>> ideal solution. Theologically suspect,
>> naturalistically-scientistically challenged.
>>
>> One other note: CSCA's Lamoureux converted to
>> Evolutionary Creationism (not to TE) during mid-age.
>> The tone of ASA seems directed to middle-aged or to
>> retired persons. What is ASA doing for the
>> 20-something generation? This is the demographic
>> attracted to 'i+d,' which an antiquated TE, based on
>> biology-physics-chemistry added to theology, minus
>> anthropology, sociology, psychology (which should
>> these days almost be written as PSYCHOLOGY), all but
>> ignores. Where is a psychological account of
>> transition from YEC to
>> OEC/PC/TE/EC/not-literalist/hermeneutically-inclined
>> person given? This seems to be, from the quotations,
>> what the article is about (powerful emotions, risk,
>> identity, loss of community, etc.).
>>
>> The notions of intentionality, purpose, meaning,
>> reason (somewhat TE/ECish), and teleology embraced
>> by i+d are quite attractive to young people today.
>> Isn't this a 'divide' that ASA should draw its
>> attention and network to?
>>
>> Which divide? Whose divide?
>>
>> Arago
>>
>>
>> "Dehler, Bernie" <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:
>> v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:*
>> {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:*
>> {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape
>> {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
>> st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
>> Randy said:
>> "I particularly wanted to flag the comment "no one
>> to turn to". I think this is a key function for ASA
>> and the reason we need all you folks and your
>> friends signed up for ASA so we can build a network
>> and help folks know who they can turn to."
>>
>> Randy- you know your charter well. I needed
>> something, and ASA has been a tremendous help for
>> me. I'm still searching and learning, and ASA is
>> helping tremendously. Without ASA, where would
>> Christians, who are willing to consider evolution,
>> turn to?
>>
>> ...Bernie
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>>
>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
>> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Randy Isaac
>> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 12:07 PM
>> To: asa@calvin.edu
>> Subject: [asa] Crossing the Divide
>>
>>
>> Those of you subscribed to Science or other
>> access may be able to read this article:
>> Evolution: Crossing the Divide?
>> I don't have permission to copy the whole article
>> but here are a few snippets, including a quote from
>> ASA's Denis Lamoureux.
>> I particularly wanted to flag the comment "no one
>> to turn to". I think this is a key function for ASA
>> and the reason we need all you folks and your
>> friends signed up for ASA so we can build a network
>> and help folks know who they can turn to.
>> Randy
>>
>> EVOLUTION:
>> Crossing the Divide
>> Jennifer Couzin
>> Like others who have rejected creationism and
>> embraced evolution, paleontologist Stephen Godfrey
>> is still recovering from the traumatic journey
>>
>>
>> ....
>> Powerful emotions bind together young-Earth
>> creationists, members of a movement making inroads
>> from Kenya to Kentucky, where a $27 million Creation
>> Museum opened last year. Scientists and educators
>> have responded mainly by boosting biology's place in
>> the classroom and building rational arguments for
>> evolution. But reason alone is rarely enough to sway
>> believers. That's because letting go of creationism
>> carries enormous emotional risks, including a loss
>> of identity and community and an agonizing, if
>> illusory, choice: science or faith.
>> People like Godfrey tend not to advertise their
>> painful transition from creationist to evolutionist,
>> certainly not to scientific peers. When doubts about
>> creationism begin to nag, they have no one to turn
>> to: not Christians in their community, who espouse a
>> literal reading of the Bible and equate rejecting
>> creationism with rejecting God, and not scientists,
>> who often dismiss creationists as ignorant or
>> lunatic.
>> .....
>> Although creationism might seem bizarre to
>> individuals who have never believed in it, for those
>> who do, its power is almost beyond words. Alters
>> remembers, as a young teenager, sitting in on a
>> sermon by Robert Schuller, a televangelist whose
>> California church is fairly liberal. Listening to
>> Schuller endorse the views of scientists who
>> consider rocks to be millions of years old, Alters
>> began to cry, horrified that the preacher would lie.
>> "It was almost as if he stood there and said Jesus
>> Christ didn't exist," he recalls. For biblical
>> literalists, belief is generally an all-or-nothing
>> proposition.
>> ...
>> Parents often cannot cope with such an upheaval in
>> a child. "The day I had to tell my mother I wasn't a
>> young-Earth creationist was the scariest day of my
>> life," says Denis Lamoureux, who teaches science and
>> religion at St. Joseph's College in the University
>> of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. His mother was so
>> embarrassed by his work in biology that she told her
>> friends her son was still in the profession he once
>> belonged to: dentistry. Some compare these
>> conversations to informing fundamentalist Christian
>> parents that they are gay--but perhaps even more
>> wrenching.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Received on Sat Feb 23 15:43:27 2008