RE: [asa] Crossing the Divide

Some of you may have interest in the response letter I sent to Science
magazine:
 

I would like to correct the impression in your article, "Crossing the
Divide" (Science, 22 February 2008, p. 1034) that biblical literalism is
the key problem. In 1611 when the King James Version of the Bible was
produced nothing was known about anthropology or the history of the
ancient Near East where Genesis originated. Working off the Hebrew
Masoretic text, the KJV translators chose their English words in a
vacuum of mitigating information available today, and commonly-held,
traditional beliefs worked against them. They already "knew" going in
that Adam was the first human being, that Noah's flood enveloped the
earth, and that all the world's languages began at the Tower of Babel.
There were clues in the Old Testament that such was not the case, but
either these were overlooked or ignored.

Young-earth creationists have gone down a path of explanation undeterred
by limitations imposed not only by science and history, but inherent in
Genesis as well. They should have realized that Adam needn't "dress and
keep" a garden on the same 24-hour day that God plants it (Gen. 2:8,
15). Or that an olive tree could bear leaves after months-long
submersion in sea water (Gen. 8:11). Or that all the earth's population
was gathered at Babel (Gen. 11:2) when the dispersion of the sons of
Noah occurred in the previous chapter. Creationists perpetuate these
mistakes still today and the inspired text is not responsible.

It is precisely errors in translation coupled with erroneous
interpretation that are the prime culprits giving critics the impression
Genesis is out of step with scientific explanations.

Dick Fischer, president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History

www.genesisproclaimed.org

Yours faithfully,

Dick Fischer

Richard James Fischer, author

Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham

 <http://www.historicalgenesis.com/> www.historicalgenesis.com

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Randy Isaac
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 3:07 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
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5866/1034?sa_campaign=Em
ail/sntw/22-February-2008/10.1126/science.319.5866.1034> 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 Mon Feb 25 14:04:05 2008