[asa] Quote from Panda's Thumb

Sorry, I meant to change the subject but forgot.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] red in tooth and claw
To: asa@calvin.edu

Interesting quote from Panda's Thumb:

"So who came up with methodological naturalism – the idea, as well as the
term? It turns out it was those notorious atheists, the Christians."

I agree. Its a Christian term. Even the atheists say so. The problem is
though, they don't really know. On that blog page they talk a lot about how
it was Christian investigators into "secondary" causes who invented the
term. nevertheless , when they go into court and tell the judge that MN is
a Christian term, and then ask the court to impose it, they will be arguing
the court should violate the establishment clause by imposing a Christian
concept on non-Christain students.

OR - they can deny it ever was a Christian term and claim it was invented
by non-Christians.

(Please note they aren't doing this latter - yet).

My own thought is if one can show how to solve a non-theological problem
with MN then one can demonstrate it is a secular concept. Then it won't
matter if Christians use it. However - it still might matter *how* they use
it. For example, if it is used to show the difference between a Christian
view and a secular view, then it is being used as a religious demarcation.
But if it is used by a Christian to show the difference one secular view and
another secular view - then it is not being used as a religious
demarcation.

Thanks,
-Dave C

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Nov 28 22:35:11 2009