{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4573",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4573,
    "subject": "\"Observants\" OT",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2006-04-20T17:15:44+00:00",
    "last": "2006-04-20T17:15:44+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<4023691.1145553344164.JavaMail.root@elwamui-rustique.atl.sa.earthlink.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2006-04-20T17:15:44+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"Observants\" OT",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Dan'l said:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "There is an alternative approach: I believe in Revealed Truth.\nI also believe in Observable Facts.\nWhen they seem to be in conflict, it means that I have\nmisunderstood one or both of them; and this is where Reason\ncomplements Faith. Faith will not allow me to discard a Revealed\nTruth because it is inconvenient or incompatible with Observable\nFact; Reason will not allow me to discard an Observable Fact\nbecause it is inconvenient or incompatible with Revealed Truth."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think you have described here the \"observant\" position on Reason\nand Faith very well here. My point is that \"seculars\" would not be at all\nbe surprised to find Revealed Truth and Observable Facts in conflict.\nIn fact, for them \"Faith\" does not truly begin until they *are* in conflict."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "To maintain integrity, I have to understand both in such a way that\nI reject neither, and yet resolve _apparent_ contradictions.\nIt isn't always easy. In fact, I suspect that the difficulties it\npresents are one reason why so many people _do_ take refuge\nin Fundamentalism, Literalism, etc."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And I am asserting that the fundamentalists, the literalists, do the\nsame thing you are doing. They have merely set a more difficult\ntask for themselves."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Seven-day creationists do _not_ value faith and reason equally; they\ninsist that reason must be the handmaid of faith, and that all\nObservable Facts must be interpreted to align with (their version of)\nRevealed Truth."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "For the sake of argument, I'll agree with you about this and remind \nyou that they have an important model in this in the letters of Paul:\n\"Let God be true and every man a liar.\" Romans 3:4\nHowever, in my agreement I will stipulate that in my experience\nthey do not believe little handmaid Observable Facts will ever go\nher own way. They affirm that she will always continue to\nhold the hand of her mistress. If she is undeniably not there, they\ncontend, then neither is Revealed Truth. You are looking at\nsomething besides Revealed Truth. \n\nPractically, your position and theirs are indistinguishable."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It seems to me that your use of the term \"observants\" is ... well,\na little narrow. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It is intended to be narrow. I'm using the term technically,\nnot conventionally. I'll accept a better term if you have one.\nThe term \"seculars\" is equally narrow.\n\nMy point is to stipulate the division between\npeople who believe that Faith is \"real\" (in the ordinary sense)\nand can be articulated and those who see it as free-floating metaphor."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It is possible both to be an observant Christian and\nto subscribe to the findings of modern evolutionary biology (including\nits psychological implications)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't deny that it is possible...easy really...to be an observant (as\nI am using the term in this thread), and to believe in evolution.\nLooking back on it, after the fact, I chose seven-day Creationists as an\narchetype for at least two reasons. \n\n1) I figured that seven-day Creationists would be the *least*\nrepresented on this list, and therefore I could eliminate as many voices\nas possible saying that I had mischaracterized their beliefs.\n\n2) I figured that that position was the *most* based on Faith while\nsimultaneously *least* based on Reason (as Chris providing the \nconventional definition: \"a combination of reason with certain everyday\nempirical assumptions/premises that we need to get by in our\neveryday lives\"). Just as pure secular materialists (ala Richard Dawkins)\nwould represent the other extreme. I never intended to rob from you\nthe honest appellation of \"observant Christian\". There are lots of ways\n\"observe\" one's Faith and lots ways to think about it while one observes it.\n\nYet, I suspect a your justification for being a believing Christian\nwhile subscribing to the psychological implications of evolutionary biology\nwould make interesting reading.\n\nOnce again, the dividing line is whether one believes matters of Faith\nare \"real\" or metaphors. And whether they can or ought to be\ncritically examined at all."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The Catholic church, a while back, declared that -- though it is not\nheretical to believe in literal 7-day creation -- it _is_ heretical to\n_insist_ upon it, because it attempts to put limitations on God's\noptions in _how_ He chose to create the universe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've heard this before, and while I'm not familiar with the details\nof this encyclical, it seems to me that Seven-day Creationists have\na bone to pick with the Catholic Church. After 1900 years of teaching\nSeven-day Creationism, it is now suggesting that there is something\na devilish about believing it strongly or arguing for it with vigor.\nThis, despite the extensive and famously contentious list of things\ntaught in encyclicals and the Catechism that a Christian *must* or\n*ought to* strongly believe and affirm."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "But \"science\" -- as opposed to _scientists_,\nwho are as human as you, me, and Chris -- in its proper form\n_always_ doubts its theories."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, and \"true religion\" is always humble and turns the other cheek.\nThis is why I'm uncomfortable with speaking as though \"science\" is\nthe sole, exclusive tool of seculars and reason while \"religion\" is the\ndomain of observants and faith, as some tend to do.\n\nAs for your Feyman example, I'm afraid he is beside the point. I'm sure\nI could find plenty of similar qualifications by evangelists interpreting\nthe book of Revelation. But in matters of both Science and Religion,\nthere are inevitably underlying unverifiable presumptions which the\nindividual practitioners find they cannot relinquish.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I'm also something of a Nietszche fan...He was hugely influenced by\nthe arrogance of the Victorian scientific establishment,\nand particularly their tendency to think they'd done away with God."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm hardly a *fan*, but I allowed Friedrich his best shot on my world-view.\n\nToday, I think the issue is not whether we have killed God so much as\nwhether we have rendered Him unable to say anything meaningful nor\nto lay any solid claim on our existance.\nWe've not excised him from our bodies, we've only rendered him a\nbenign logical appendix.\n\nIn this way, the Victorian sentiment is hardly out-moded, Hubble's Big\nBang theory suddenly and surprisingly put God back in center stage,\nand it has ever since made secular theoritical physicists extremely\nuncomfortable as Stephen Hawkings noted in his famous book.\nHawkings was not the first or last to devise theories with the\ndeliberate purpose of removing \"In The Beginning\" as an\nimplication of Hubble's theories.\n\nJ"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}