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From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Re. Bishop Ussher and the age of the earth,etc.
Message-ID: <1099@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Mar-85 11:20:20 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.1099
Posted: Wed Mar 13 11:20:20 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Mar-85 03:32:51 EST
References: <1041@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 66
>
> The same sort of bosh is put forward by no less (he should know better!) than
> Ethan Vishniac when he asks if Christians wish to defend a flat earth and a
> geocentric universe because HE says that a literal reading of the bible leads
> to those ideas. Please. Spare me, Ethan. Perhaps, your lack of liberal arts
> training is showing, perhaps you are being flip, perhaps you really believe
> Christians believe those things, perhaps you are silly. But 'literal' reading
> MEANS reading the document through the eyes of writer and his times!!!!!!
> At the time the Old Testament was written the earth appeared flat to a great
> manny people. And geocentric too. Just how would you EXPECT someone from the
> tenth century BC to describe the earth???? And if God gave an ACCURATE
> scientific description of things, who would understand them????? Tenth
> century people, us, in the future???? The point is of course that as Calvin
> (of Geneva, not Klein) said "God lisps" when talking to man. Otherwise we
> wouldn't know what he was talking about, eh? The bible is not a scientific
> explanation of the world. But it does describe accurately what men saw and
> heard. We do the same today. Talk about things in not a strickly 'accurate'
> way. One MUST be less than entirely accurate to communicate! Now, I'm not
> jumping on you Ethan, really, I respect your mind and views and have enjoyed
> your postings to net.physics.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ken Arndt
It's not Ethan who is ignorant.
A substantial minority of Creationists are, in fact, geocentrists,
and many of these are, in fact, Flat-Earthers. Their basis for this
belief in the face of clear evidence to the contrary is a literal
reading of certain passages in the Bible, exactly as Ethan said.
These facts are documented in an article in "The Skeptical Inquirer"
which appeared about 2-3 years ago, as well as an article in the most recent
"Creation/Evolution Newsletter". Geocentrism and Flat-Earth-ism were
major topics at last Summer's Bible-Science Conference. My copies of
the articles aren't handy at the moment, but if someone wants the
references, I can look them up.
The Flat-Earthers and Geocentrists pose somewhat of an embarrassment
for more "left-wing" Creationists, as Ken's article clearly shows.
But it is wrong to deny their existence.
Ken makes a good point about the need to read the Bible through the
eyes of the writers. What is hard to understand is how he can give this
advice with regard to Flat-Earth-ism and ignore it with regard to
the Genesis account of the origin of Mankind. By insisting on a literal
interpretation of the words of Genesis, instead of viewing the
Bible as a religious document containing religious (not scientific)
truth, Creationists leave themselves open to the probability that
science will slowly eat away at their position leaving them with
nothing. This has already happened to the Geocentric and Flat-Earth
positions (except for a minority of die-hards), and largely to
the anti-evolutionist position as well. I believe that
this attempt to do battle with science *on Science's terms* is
inevitably doomed. To equate the Bible with scientific truth
is to trivialize the religious truths contained in the Bible.
The Creationists are playing a very dangerous game.
--
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal
Bill Jefferys 8-%
Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail)
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