fpb | Hair-raising

I read this article, and could not believe my eyes. http://townhall.com/Columnists/FrankPastore/2008/10/07/sarah_palin,_matt_damon,_dinosaurs_and_%e2%80%9cdivine_deception%e2%80%9d?page=full&comments=true It is apparently possible in the USA to have postgraduate degrees in both Political Science and Theology and still believe in the fable of a Young Earth (in other words, in creationism in its most idiotic form) and have one's view published in supposedly respectable conservative fora.

That being the case, it becomes easier to understand why all the lies against Sarah Palin have gained so much credibility. They are wrong about her, but the type that generated them really does exist. Unless the conservative environment does something to rid itself of this kind of member, they will go on poisoning their image with the rest of the world. It is no damn good to keep harping on the fact that fifty years ago, Bill Buckley refused the John Birch Society a place in his movement, if this sort of thing is allowed now.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It may have struck some of my conservative friends that I recently posted rather a lot of critical items. The reason for this is fairly simple. I and people like me cannot find a home in what now passes for the left - a grouping that betrayed its own roots in the working classes, that has forgotten its own values and reason to exist, and that has become a herald of mere antinomianism. We have obviously many more things in common with most of today's conservatives, beginning with the assumption that permanent values exist. But all the same, the longer I for one spend time with conservatives and in conservative environments, the more aware I become of things that I simply cannot accept. You may call this being independent, or being a candid friend. At any rate, if I have come here in order to keep my own view of right and wrong, it must be expected that I will not give it up only in order to stay here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Newton was a singularly nasty human being and, if you did not know, a sworn enemy of orthodox Christianity. But even he would have been horrified at the thought that after three hundred years of research people would use his work to contradict the work of scientists who came after him and built on (the good bits of) his investigations. I find your attitude simply incredible. Not only do you make an idol of the Bible - whereas the Word of God that Christians worship is the man Jesus, who has not left a single word written by His hand - but you even harden the scientists of three hundred years ago into idols, the better to attack the scientists of today. I am reminded of the reported words of Our Lord, Who pointed out that those who build great monumental tombs to the prophets of old are doing nothing else than cooperating ex post facto with those who murdered them in the first place.

1. I do not "make idols" of the scientists of the past. I was merely responding to Baduin's premise that these ideas "make any scientific reasoning impossible." Obviously most of the scientists of what many view as science's heyday did not find this to be true.
2. The "scientists of today" are not monolithic in accepting an old earth. I have repeatedly tried to point out that those holding to a young earth position are not all ignorant rubes, nor do they base their position solely on "what the Bible says." But if you have an a priori viewpoint that this position is anti-intellectual, then there is nothing more to say.

Newton was also an alchemician. That is not a problem - the science continually progresses. The problem is not whether the Earth is 6 thousand years old, or 6 billion years old. The problem is whether we can use and trust Reason, or not. Newton used reason, with remarkable results. He was hardly infallible - no man is. Young Earth creationists deny reason and reject reasonable argument because of something written in a book.

It is true, that book is the Bible, but the way they treat it, it should be really called the Holy Quran. That is not the way in which the Christians read the Bible.

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

– The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]

With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.

– ibid, 2:9

St. Augustine in The Literal Meaning of Genesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo

Hair-raising

Re: Young Earth Creationism

My last word

Re: My last word