Re: Flintstone's Footprints

[larrys@zk3.dec.com]

Roudebush@aol.com:
>I really disturbes me to read post such as this one.  Number one it has
>nothing to deal with concerning the forum of this mailing list. And number
>two I do not see why someone, such as this person, has the need to bash
>others beleives.  I am a old earth geologists and also a Christian and I
>don't have any problem incorporating Gods Word with the geologic timescale. 
>     To this statement he made:  And he talks about creationist being closed
>mined:
> "it should be criminal to indoctrinate children with such hokum."
>     I find don't see instilling loving principles in our children such as
>the ten commandments "criminal" at all.


There is nothing loving about quelling a child's natural curiousity
about the world with a dose of religion.  Religions do not exist to
foster inquiry, they exist to stifle it, and to maintain orthodoxy
and control over their adherents - and to provide justification for
hostility against adherents of other religions.  This can be demon-
strated historically with virtually no effort.  I do think there is
some movement to try to emphasize the positive side of religion, and
to deemphasize the foregoing, but the context of this reply does not
reflect that, nor can one easily count on the long-term success of it
based on progress this far.

It is possible, I suppose, for one to believe in God and still under-
stand and deal with the unknowns and complexities of our universe,
with its disturbing lack of concrete and final answers to questions.
I suppose one can serve both God and Science, even if religion asserts
one cannot serve both God and Mammon - but I've yet to meet anyone
with that combination of reverence and olympian attachment.  And you,
Jon, show the rough edges where those two masters rub together.  You
have decided to interpret a scientist's distaste for replacing veri-
fiable facts in education with provably false assertions based on a
religious document as an attack on core principles of "love" that are
utterly irrelevent to the complaint at hand.  This is, I am sad to say,
a typical religious defense that attempts to substitute a defensible
point (love thy brother) for an indefensible one (God created the Earth
in six days and rested on the seventh), and thus, in effect, seek legit-
imacy for the indefensible point of view.  Whatever one feels about the
Christian virtues of love and caring for one's fellow man, assertions
about creationism are just, plain, wrong.  And however right Christian
principle's of tolerance and love might be - even though honored in the
breech more often than in the heart - they in no way ameliorate that
fact.



And on that note, I will be retiring from this list for a time.  I
can read talk.origins whenever I wish, so I hardly need follow this
incarnation of the debate, and the volume of this list in general has
made it difficult to follow in email, especially since I must keep
close tabs on incoming work-related email.  I will return in a few
months, hopefully after the Christians-and-Science debate has burned
itself out, when my schedule permits indulging my love of dinosaurs.
It has been educational, and I've greatly enjoyed the contributions
of Tom Holtz and other professionals, as well as those of our host,
Mickey.  By way of substitute, I will be lurking the paleontology
newsgroup, so I'll still see you on the net.  Thanks one and all.

warm regards,
Larry Smith