Hi, Steve.
I again thank you for your consideration.
All I meant by referring to you being tolerant of non-YECs is that I have the distinct impression you are not of the contingent of exclusivistic young earth creationists who believe that if a Christian rejects YEC then he is not pleasing to God. In other words, there are YECs who believe this creed is a "salvation issue," while there are (today) an even greater number of YECs who believe that this creed is not a salvation issue. In other words, a tolerant, or non-exclusivist, YEC is one who would agree that "a Christian can accept the idea that the universe and earth are ancient as long as he maintains his belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and believes, teaches, and lives accordingly, and lacking belief in YEC should not be a disfellowship matter" — even while they do not believe that the universe is ancient.
I have the distinct impression that in this perspective you are not an exclusivistic YEC (and I have this same impression of other YECs in mars-list who participated in this discussion in past months — even while their rhetoric at times seemed to imply otherwise). If my impression about you on this is wrong, feel free to correct me.
By the way, while I do not intend to discuss this subject here and now, I wish to simply direct your attention to what I have found to be the most detailed discrediting of YECs' "moon dust implies a young moon" argument, and, interestingly enough, it is at the AiG website:
Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System,
by Dr. Andrew A. Snelling and David E. Rush
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/moondust(v7n1)/moondust.asp
All I mean by "hermeneutical dilemma" is the dilemma that arises when there comes a distinct and critical crux when fallible humans come to the realization that there is something wrong with their biblical interpretation. (This is a general principle regardless of the particular context.) The geocentrists experienced such a hermeneutical dilemma, and even evangelical Christians (by which I mean those members of churches in general — COC and otherwise — who adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy) acknowledge that the resulting hermeneutical changes were beneficial ones. At this stage in the evolution of our religious culture, young earth creationists find themselves at a point similar to where geocentrists found themselves about 300 years ago. What we have discovered about the real world contrasts very sharply with a particular kind of biblical hermeneutics, and the contrast is such that there is no possible resolution between them. Just as happened in the former age, those who accept what we have learned about the real world will either modify their biblical hermeneutics (which, by the way, I believe most of them do for the distinct purpose of maintaining their adherence to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy), or move to what I call "a weak concept of biblical inspiration" (which abandons biblical inerrancy), or altogether abandon belief that the Bible is divinely inspired. On the other side, those who choose to adhere to the literalistic hermeneutic are forced to abandon what we have learned about the real world. The rest simply flows from there.
I appreciate your appeal to me. However, again, I reiterate (since I know I stated it explicitly at least three times in mars-list) the fact that I rejected my belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible due to considerations based on its theological portrayals of God, not due to the antiquity issue. In fact, I was an active member of the church for a number of years after I accepted the fact that the universe and earth were ancient. I was, indeed, an old earth creationist for those years.
Yes, I was speaking in an accommodating (actually, a metaphorical) manner. The "mess of pottage," of course, is the fallible human interpretation of God's Word that has come to be considered by many to be the same thing as God's Word. Alexander Campbell, an old earth creationist himself, often preached against this denominational phenomenon.
Take care.
Regards,
Todd S. Greene
•••• Steve Willis, 2/16/01 1:42 PM ••••
Subject: Re: A Removal and Explanation
[snip]
At 12:52 AM 2/16/01 -0500, you wrote:
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Third, you are welcome to (and I invite you to) discuss creationism-related issues in my discussion forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/creationism
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Thanks for the invite. For now, anyway, I will turn that down. I have too many irons in the fire.
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Finally, I close this email by appealing to you personally, Steve, as a young earth creationist who is tolerant of non-YECs in your own brotherhood (i.e., who is against making this an issue over which there should be division),...
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I'm not sure how "tolerant" I am. Sure, they're in the brotherhood. Sure, there are some on ML. In that since I may tolerate them. I cannot agree with them. The college where I attended has been tap-dancing all around this issue and until they are clearer on this point, I'm not sure what I'll do about supporting them or, when it comes time, to send my children there. How tolerant does that make me? I'm not sure, and I don't like being faced with such a decision about men I've trusted in the past.
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(I also encourage you to calmly hold other YECs responsible for cleaning up their act on this constant promotion of a whole list of falsified ideas, such as the "shrinking sun" and the "antiquity implies deep layer of moon dust" and so on.)
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I have studied those matters in the past and, if you were on the list then, may remember that I did RECENT research about the "moon dust" matter. I posted this to ML in October, 2000 (other current text continues after this letter):
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Steve Willis here,
I've been trying to catch up on some of the older ML mail, in particular on the discussions with Robert Baty and that on MDR.
I saw that Robert wrote this about the amount of dust on the surface of the Moon; he quotes Bert Thompson:
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"There is a constant rate of cosmic dust entering the atmosphere from outer space. ...If the earth is nearly 5 billion years old, as evolutionists assert, there should be a layer of meteoritic dust approximately 182 feet deep over the entire world...!
Of course, no such layer exists. Evolutionists speculate, however, that is has simply been dissipated through the erosion processes of wind and water. It was predicted, though, that on the moon, where erosion is not a factor, meteoritic dust would be quite deep....
Then, in July 1969 the Apollo 11 space craft landed on the moon. It did not sink into a vast layer of moon dust. In fact, the dust was only a couple of inches thick! Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon were a cruel blow to evolution's feeble predictive power!
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and replies:
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That's the version put out by Bert Thompson, Ph.D. (one among many among us). It is almost identical to that of Henry Morris, one of real "big names" among the "creation-science" crowd.
I am not going to take near as much time to explain or argue the point with you, but the claims were wrong when Bert started putting it out and it is still wrong.
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Funny. I had heard the claim that there'd be too much dust to land, and yes, I heard it from people who believed in creation not the naturalist's view of the evolution of the universe. Then I heard that it was NOT so, as Robert claims above. It really didn't matter to me for I believe that the universe was probably created in such a way that if we examined it seconds after it's creation, we might have thought it was ancient — except that God has told us otherwise.
But then, I finished a book in July 1999 called Moon Rocks by Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr. that suggested it again. This book was a report on the examination and later discussions from 1969-1970 which reports closer to the time of the taking of the rocks what some felt then.
I do not have the book in my possession — it's in my local library, but here is the summary on that topic I wrote in my Books I've Read notes: "Astronauts 'did _not_ sink deeply into lunar dust (some geologists had warned that they would)'" (quote from page 29). This book was not written by a creationists, as is evident from the dating they suggest in the book. It seems it WAS a real concern to some and not one made up by creationists.
So, I set out to see what I could find IN my library to see if I had any other NON-pro-creationists sources. Indeed, there WERE was some concern at NASA, expressed even by the astronauts themselves.
Astronaut Michael Collins, of the Apollo 11 crew — this was the mission that put men ON the Moon, wrote this:
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"The moon's surface was also the subject of great debate in 1964. Some people thought that, except for a few boulders, it would be hard and flat — and they turned out to be right. But other scientists thought there was a layer of dust on the surface which in places might be thirty or forty feet thick! If a spacecraft came down there, it would be in great trouble, sinking down out of sight" (Flying to the Moon and other strange places [1976], pp. 27-28 ).
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Another observation made at that time that shows that SOME thought there might be a deep layer of dust on the moon was made by Neil Armstrong himself, the first to step foot on the Moon, in the post-flight press conference of the Apollo 11 crew:
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Armstrong: "The LM (lunar module — SPW) was in good shape, and it exhibited no damage from the landing or the descent. ... There was a question as to whether the LM would sink up to its knees. It didn't, as you can see" [as he shows a photo — SPW]; (quoted from Apollo 11: The Mission Reports [1999], vol. 1, p. 235).
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This cause concern not only for the lander and the men on the moon, but the rover. Here is a comment by astronaut David R. Scott (Apollo 15), who drove the rover:
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"There is no accumulation of dirt in the wire wheels."
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Author Anthony Cipriano who provided the quote above, explained the statement:
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"The latter observation was very important. If the wheels had become clogged, the rover might have bogged down in the lunar dust and become useless" (America's Journeys into Space: The Astronauts of the United States [1974]; pp. 145-146; portraits by William Joffe Numeroff).
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According to John Noble Wildor, the NY Times reporter on space events, the concern about so much dust ...
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"...gave Apollo planners something to worry about for several years. In 1955 Thomas Gold, then an astronomer of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England and now [book published in 1969 — SPW] at Cornell University, suggested that the _maria_ were covered with a layer of dust so deep that anyone who attempted to land might be swallowed up. This layer of dust would be the accumulation of fine particles produced by meteorite impacts and micrometeoroid showers. To Gold and his followers, one clue was the way the moon absorbed and radiated the sun's heat, suggesting some type of insulation such as dust. Astronomers, including Gold, hastened to point out that the dust might not be loose and powdery, for in a vacuum fine particles tend to stick together like clods in a freshly plowed field" [We Reach the Moon [1969], p. 23).
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Robert Baty also had written:
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Why don't you join me in admitting that the "moon dust" promotion of Bert Thompson, Ph.D., which I recently posted here, was false when first presented and remains the same, despite its popularity among many in the "creation-science" movement.
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I reply to Robert, Why don't you join me, John N. Wilford, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong and other NASA planners in admitting that SOME scientists, before the landing on and study of the Moon, did have the concern expressed, as stated by Thompson and others?
And if you do, will you recant publicly to the list and before all to whom you've sent your information?
BTW, a couple years ago in Astronomy magazine, they published two pictures of the Moon that were taken and colorized to reflect the filtering that should have shown the different ages — thought to be older or younger — of the surface of the Moon. They were surprised that the "older" sections seem to look the same as the "younger." They didn't conclude if it was ALL older or ALL younger, and I'm not making that claim either. I just had to wonder though why it all looked the same age in that study.
Steve Willis
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People like Hill Roberts and Tom Couchman, far from being "false teachers" (as exclusivistic YECs like Daniel H. King, Sr., Harry Osborne, and Bert Thompson describe non-YECs), are engaged in the work that is necessary for you (plural) to pull yourselves our of your hermeneutical dilemma.
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"Hermeneutical dilemma" — If we accept "hermeneutics" to mean "the study of God's word" then the dilemma is not there. The problems come when we try to look at the universe and study it and come to conclusions contrary to the revelation of God's word. I realize that ANY miracle left people wondering — they're called "wonders" in the New Testament. If believing in a "wonder" is a dilemma, I'm guilty — but I'd rather not characterize it as a hermeneutical dilemma. I believe those you mention above have put less faith in the Bible and are not left "wondering" enough.
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Truth cannot contradict truth. People who are educated about matters related to astronomy or geology or the like will, in their understanding about these aspects of the real world, absolutely turn away from your (plural) claims about respecting truth and worshipping God without creeds when at the same time they see you dispute genuine aspects of the real world and cling to a fallible (and falsified) human creed.
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But think about it. You say you know there are men like Roberts who do not take a YEC view. Has that changed YOUR view of the virgin birth or the resurrection? No, it hasn't. Why would my doing so change you — or others? To use the criteria of science, God can't be measured, so why believe He exists at all? I know you're not saying you don't believe it God, but this must be your "hermeneutical dilemma" to believe in God with no measurable evidence. To me, that's what FAITH is all about, the evidence of things not seen. And scriptures teach that anyone who will be pleasing to God and be rewarded by Him, must do so by faith (Heb. 11:6). This means accepting a few "wonders" and "signs" — which SIGNify reasons to believe.
You wrote:
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YECs have sold their souls for a mess of pottage.
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A harsh response from me would be to say the same of OECs.
I may say this, but I don't mean it to be harsh. Let me explain. The idea of selling the soul for a mess of pottage is the idea of accepting something now, regardless of the consequences later. I do believe there are consequences later. I don't just mean, Will I be able to convert a person when I hold a YEC view? I'm talking of eternal consequences. That's what the figure of selling the soul for a mess of pottage is compared to — also in Hebrews (12:15-17). There it tells us to encourage people to keep the faith. It teaches that one who once had a birthright gave it away for something presently tangible. When you wrote,
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YECs have sold their souls for a mess of pottage.
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Do you mean to say you DO believe in "souls" or are you using that accommodatingly? Todd, you say you once had the faith. That would mean at one time you believed in "souls." I believe you've said you "left the faith" in a previous letter (you may correct me if I'm wrong). I believe you have accepted what is presented to you TODAY, as a desirable, factual way of explaining things, only to give up the real idea of faith in God's wonders and His explanation for them. I think it takes as much "faith" to accept a lot of the explanations given by science for origins and appearance of age — and they keep on changing — but that "faith" does not hold a hope for the future. If anything, it only points to a demise of everything. If you have a hope beyond that — for souls — Todd, upon what do you base it? If if you admit SOME belief in the supernatural, why not take the whole thing?
[snip]
I hope you will consider carefully my appeal — to accept the wonders as taught in the scriptures — as much as you would have me to do yours. As we sing in a song at church, "We'll understand it all, by and by."
Sincerely,
Steve Willis
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