Posted on 06/28/2006 8:06:10 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
Gratuitous assertions, gratuitously denied.
Thanks for the excellent post.
Sadly, Lewis died the same day as JFK and his death was overshadowed by Kennedy's assasination. Lewis's book, "A Grief Observed" helped me think through the events leading up to my father's death.
You're welcome.
C.S. Lewis was one of a kind. A giant in the world of Christian thought. bttt
You may find these comments food for thought:
Kurt Wise: "Given what we currently think we understand about the world, the majority of the scientific evidence favors an old earth and universe, not a young one. I would therefore say that anyone who claims that the earth is young for scientific evidence alone is scientifically ignorant. "
Towers Online - The News Service of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary http://www.towersonline.net/story.php?grp=news&id=344
April 13, 2006 By Jeff Robinson
Excerpts:
"Trustees at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on April 11 unanimously approved the creation of two new theological study centersthe Center for Theology and the Arts, and the Center for Theology and Law, during the board's annual spring meeting.
Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said the new study centers aim at equipping pastors and church leaders to think biblically about pivotal issues which dominate contemporary culture.
"One of the ways we want to lead Southern Baptists is through helping evangelicals and Southern Baptists in particular to engage some of the most critical issues of our day," Mohler said.-
"This is not a time for Christians to be out-thought by the world, but in general that is what happens. We find the church behind the times in thinking about some of the most crucial issues of our day."
Mohler also announced the appointment of two new faculty members to lead the centers. [snip] ...
...Mohler also named Kurt Wise as the new director for Southern's Center for Theology and Science, and professor of theology and science. Wise currently serves on the faculty of Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., where he is also director of the Center for Origins Research.
Wise earned both a doctor of philosophy and master of arts in paleontology from Harvard University. He and his wife Marie have two daughters.
Wise replaces William Dembski, who is leaving Southern Seminary to join the faculty at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary so he can be closer to his family.
"With the addition of Kurt Wise, we are recognizing that creation is a ground zero theological crisis point right now in American culture and even in our churches," Moore said. [snip] ..
*
A couple of interesting items on the web regarding Kurt Wise:
[1] 7/3/2003 http://www.christianforums.com/t43741&page=12 "Ok, I just got a email from Dr. Wise. This is what he said:
"I am a young-age creationist because the Bible indicates the universe is young. Given what we currently think we understand about the world, the majority of the scientific evidence favors an old earth and universe, not a young one. I would therefore say that anyone who claims that the earth is young for scientific evidence alone is scientifically ignorant. Thus I would suggest that the challenge you are trying to meet is unmeetable." ~ Kurt Wise
[2] December 19th 2004 http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=44017 Theologyweb.com
Post # 7:
"...there is new breed of YEC out there, of which Kurt Wise is an example, who recognize that there are scientific problems with their Weltanschauung. I knew Kurt was exceptional, but there are more of his stripe. Affectionately, I'd like to refer to them as neo-YECs, as opposed to the Wieland-Ham-Morris-Safarti-Jorge YECs for which I would propose the oxymoronic moniker paleo-YECs."
Amen to that. You probably didn't bother to look, but he is one of the few mentioned in my FR profile.
"Lewis was an evolutionist..." ~ Jedi Master Pikachu
There are various theories of evolution. C.S. Lewis would have pretty much agreed with Pope John Paul's opinion on the subject. bttt
See #15 for details:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1657102/posts?page=15#15
I was in a group of about half a dozen skeptics, including Paluxy "Man-Track" critics Ronnie Hastings and Glen Kuban, science writer Bob Schadewald, biologist Karl Fezer (a founding member of the National Center for Science Education) and a creationism critic from Kentucky name Frank Lovell.
It was pretty interesting. I'd just been to an AAAS convention that same year. There the presentations were all 90 minutes: 45 minutes for the presentation of the paper and 45 minutes for questions. It was my first science convention also and I was impressed with how aggressive and searching the Q&A was. Often impatience in the audience would lead to the Q&A period breaking out even before the first 45 minutes was over.
By contrast at the Creationism convention, I don't recall EXACTLY, but it was something like 45 minutes for the presentation and only 15 minutes for Q&A. Might have even been more like 45 and 10 with time for a break between sessions.
Even more striking was the difference in the tone and substance of the questioning. Sometimes a couple of us skeptics would speak up, but if we didn't there weren't ANY challenging questions, UNLESS Wise was in the audience and decided to ask some. He was the ONLY creationist that I ever heard to ask really challenging questions. ALL other questions were softballs. Sometimes there would be no questions at all.
Even when Wise, a creationist and the host of the whole convention, was asking tough questions (and us heathens were keeping our collective mouths shut) you could still feel, and even see in movement and expressions, a palpable discomfort in the audience. There was an OBVIOUS feeling that asking challenging questions was inappropriate, or at least embarassing and uncomfortable, even if they came from another creationist. (Maybe especially if they did. We skeptics were treated pretty well and maybe even indulged to some extent.)
There was also very obvious discomfort when Glen Kuban very aggressively questioned Don Patton (an associate of Carl Baugh) on Paluxy Mantracks. This was even though many creationists in the audience were dubious about both the mantrack claims in general, and Baugh and Patton in particular. It didn't matter. They still didn't seem to like the searching criticism taking place out loud and in the open. Again, the fact that Kuban was himself an evangelical Christian just might have made things worse rather than better.
Granted that this was a fairly small convention, and may have had a higher than usual ratio of lay creationists to "professional" creation scientists, but I still found this very striking contrast in the attitude toward criticism most illuminating.
Re: #26 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1657102/posts?page=26#26
By appointing Kurt Wise, Moehler seems to be telegraphing something pretty important about "the direction" things may go. At least to my mind, he does.
The churches that give their congregations the impression that they must embrace YEC or they will be rejecting the Scriptures, are boxing themselves into a corner just like the RCC did. It resisted the science of Copernicus and Galileo in favor of the science of Aristotle because his agreed with what they thought the Scriptures taught.
To me, this subject is like religions, in that it's all just a matter of what one believes.
The Genesis Flood wasn't even published until 1960. That book marked the beginning of the modern creationist movement. The fact that he may have accepted a lot of evolutionary ideas doesn't surprise me. After all he was an atheist for most of his life.
ping
You may find this interesting. Especially see the letter that I copied and pasted below the "snip".
Astrophysicist writes Dr.James Kennedy. http://csharp.com/kennedy.html
April 16, 2005
Dear Dr. Kennedy,
In general I applaud your ministry by standing up for Christian values in a post-modern society which is progressively becoming more degenerate. The obvious evils I can immediately think of are abortion, homosexuality and pornography, amongst many others. You project a most laudable image of authority in your various programs, such as “Truths that Transform”.
Like you I am a Christian, and like you I have various academic qualifications, though not as many nor as impressive as yours. Your qualifications appear to be mostly in the arts and divinity, whereas mine are in the sciences. I do not know what your Ph.D. is in, but presumably it is in divinity or a related subject. Mine is in astrophysics.
As a professional scientist, I feel that I am qualified to speak with some authority in the branch of astrophysics and related subjects I work in, and less authority on other fields of science. Not being a scholar in ancient Hebrew, Greek, biblical hermeneutics, or ancient Middle Eastern studies, I am not qualified to speak on these at all except at an amateur level, and although I have my own interpretations of the Scriptures, that may agree or disagree with other individuals, I cannot speak with any authority, and depend on and respect those who are qualified and have taken the trouble to undertake the necessary studies. Of course this does not mean that even when talking on a subject I am familiar with I am infallible, and like anyone I make mistakes.
Having said all that, it rather puzzles me how you can speak with any authority on science, such as, astronomy and geology, unless you have studied these subjects. I note that this is an unfortunate characteristic of several church leaders who think that because they are an authority on the Bible and are devout Christians, they are automatically an authority on some branch of science without studying it. I am referring to your two broadcasts in the “Truths that Transform” archives on your http://www.coralridge.org/BroadcastArchives.asp website for May 24 and 25, 2004, where you talk about the young earth. I can tell from a number of major errors in your broadcasts that you have moved far outside your area of knowledge in your apologetics.
[snip] click above link to continue.
Here is the response to his letter from an employee:
XXXX, An Employee
During office hours I believe that the earth is 6004 year old, on nights and weekend (including all Christian holidays) the earth is 4.5 billions years old, give or take 10,000 years.
NB. Please note that my views here are my private views, and have nothing to do with Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc. XXXX Operation is a part of CRM's XXXX. In addition to our mission statement, we are a ministry within a democracy and not necessarily here to practice it, unfortunately free speech is a questionable one.
I wish a big dollop of such good sense could be slathered on a bunch of creationist freepers, who want to argue in fields where they are not trained.
In principle there is nothing wrong with that...scientists are wrong to say you can't criticize them unless you are a scientist. This is nothing more than the argument from authority they claim to abhor.
There is also nothing wrong with laypeople criticising the logic of evolutionists' reasoning. Logic is logic. There is no special science logic. Scientists who sniff at lawyers (Coulter, Johnson) for criticising their logic should, rather, defend their logic. (But the problem is that -- like Coulter -- these critics will often shift from a logical argument in paragraph to a scientific argument in the next, and can't apparently tell the difference.)
But scientists are of course right to insist that if you are going to enter the arena of scientific argument, you must demonstrate the level of knowledge a professional has a right to expect from a SERIOUS amateur. Most people who are trained in a subject don't resent at all an amateur questioning them and even offering a contribution to the field, but an ignorant and arrogant amateur is just intolerable.
I am a Christian who believes the Bible is literally true, and I am not trained in the sciences. But I find the creationist side of the argument, as it is represented here on FR, so embarassing I usually don't even go into those threads.
I'd urge Lewis' attitude on many here.
I agree.
Along those lines, you may want to take a look at two links I have in post #1 when you get time.
Love it! LOL
Faith and science ping.
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