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More on Chick vs. Science
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I call myself a Bible literalist, as do most creationists, but that doesn't mean that we dismiss the idea that various literary devices are employed throughout Scripture, including poetry, allegory, parables, etc. None of those we believe are used in the accounts in Genesis which describe the global deluge or the six-day creation. Think of a Bible literalist as someone who by default believes the Bible literally, but doesn't rule-out the use of symbolism where it exists. Again, see the following links for more elaborate explanations than any I can provide: Should Genesis Be Taken Literally? Genesis 1-11: Authentic History? Should Genesis Account Be Taken Literally? -Ramon Thanks for the additional links Ramon. Of course, the trick is knowing where the literalism ends and the symbolism begins. The Bible has no such sign posts.
I just discovered, though an AOL search, two more chick websites, whose operators I just e-mailed and directed to yours, the best of all unauthorized Chick-related websites: Flak Magazine: Review of Chick Publications The Chickgeneration host even has his own e-mail discussion group on Jack Chick, though I've no idea how much activity it has. I hope they're as impressed with your website as I always am. I did notice that I cannot find your website listed in the AOL search engine. I really should organize my list of favorite places, as I'm coming to rely on using a search engine to quickly find your website, though lately that's involved going to PsychoDave's rather rarely updated anti-Chick website and clicking on his page of links, on which yours proudly stands at the top tier. Yours should be one of the first URLs that websearches for "Jack Chick" produce, eh? -Ramon Aw, shucks, your just being nice 'coz you want me to go easy on the Kent Hovind video review. But seriously, AOL still lists us under the "most popular places" heading-- even though you have to dig to find that heading. We used to pop up first and foremost, but I suspect dirty tricks by Jesuits! (Haw-haw-haw!) [Ramon's follow-up] Hi again! There are assumptions in your response to my e-mail concerning the historicity of Genesis that I would like to address: First, the flood of Noah wasn't just 40 days, nor was it just rain that contributed to the flood. Genesis 7:6 reports that Noah was 600 years old as the flood began, and Genesis 8:13-14 describes how the floodwaters receded enough for Noah to safely evacuate the ark after almost 15 months. The most intense period of the flood lasted for five months (Genesis 7:24), after which "the waters assuaged" (Genesis 8:1) and "the waters were abated" (Genesis 8:3). During the seventh month, the ark floated around the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4), while the floodwaters continued subsiding until, during the tenth month (Genesis 8:5), the mountaintops became visible again. The Bible seems pretty clear to me when and where these events occurred, and it seems pretty pointless to dismiss this as a myth, or to resort to the "local flood" compromise, which renders useless all the effort Noah went through to build his boat and secure provisions for possibly a hundred years (he turned 500 in Genesis 5:32). You don't need a boat loaded with food and animals if the flood you're trying to survive is only local in scope, especially if you've ample time, as much as a hundred years, to seek higher ground. If the Bible has no sign posts concerning where literalism and symbolism, not to mention the various other literary devices employed throughout Scripture, begin and end, then we might as well give up believing anything in the Bible, as we couldn't be sure that any article of faith isn't actually just lifted from one of the symbolic passages. The science of Biblical hermeneutics and exegesis helps clear the fog in this area, and it is thus not impossible to discern which litererary techniques were used for a particularly questionable passage. Even an Oxford professor of Hebrew, James Barr, who doesn't personally believe in the six-day creation week nor in the global deluge, admits that Scripture is not ambiguous in its testimony: "Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: "(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience "(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story "(c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. "Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know." I don't mean to fall into the illogical trap of making illegitimate appeals to authority in quoting Mr. Barr. I'd simply like to illustrate that even many who personally dismiss Genesis's historicity admit that it's intended to be read in a literal fashion. I know you've more of an affinity with those Intelligent Design folks like Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson, and William Dembski, as opposed to literal creationists like Henry Morris, Ken Ham, and Kent Hovind, and I do detect not so subtle barbs flung by you at creation science when you make dichotomies throughout your website like "Chick vs. science" or "evolution vs creationism." I appreciate arguments in favor of nature providing ample evidence for an intelligent designer, but that's about the extent to which these ID people endeavor, which is a shame. It seems almost as if they're embarrassed with most of Scripture, particularly those parts that dare to contradict established evolutionary dogma like the prerequisite 10-20 billion years for evolution to work its magic. I've asked Phillip Johnson during a radio interview if he's consulted accredited creationists concerning Scripture's historicity and scientific evidences for a universe much younger than what evolutionists believe, and Mr. Johnson's evasive reply left me with the impression that he was more concerned with saving face before his evolutionary critics than he was with defending an unfashionable truth. It seems like IDers expect to earn more respect from their harsh evolutionary critics if they concede the billions of years magical component required by evolutionism, though that still doesn't stop such critics from branding IDers "stealth creationists" in their literature. Yet Mr. Johnson paradoxically challenges prevailing orthodoxy in a different area, AIDS research, where he joins with fringe AIDS heretics like retrovirologist Peter Duesberg and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Kary Mullis in disputing the link between HIV and AIDS. That was the subject of my second question to Dr. Johnson during a seperate interview, and while I agreed with him in challenging the communicability of AIDS, I was disappointed with the circumlocutory way in which he replied, though I might ascribe that to an incompatibility on his part with radio broadcasts where articulating ideas is concerned; he certainly has more time to carefully choose his words and edit his material when writing. Finally, in response to your doubt about humans and dinosaurs living
together on account of their fossils being found in vastly disparate stratum,
I'd encourage you to re-review the article Where
are the Human Fossils? - ChristianAnswers, which explains at length
why human remains from the Flood are so difficult to find and to verify.
I've referred you to that link in previous e-mails, but that was always
nestled in with many other links, so I'm not sure if you had the patience
to follow through with each and every one. This is the only hyperlink I'm
including in this e-mail, and I do believe you'd find the information provided
there of some use in addressing your doubts and in making more feasible
the notion that the Biblical flood really did occur and that it was worldwide. Hey Ramon, I don't normally post responses on a single subject past three installments, but this is an important topic that keeps getting more interesting the deeper one digs. So perhaps others will want to follow it more as well. Yes, I forgot that the 40 days and 40 nights of the flood only referred to the rain, but even so, the layers we're talking about show evidence of many seasons, not just a lot of the same kind of mud. But let's face it, when you go back that far, science doesn't really know much of anything for certain. It's all guess work based on the latest "finds". I just heard on the National Propaganda Radio (NPR) "Science Friday" show that they found a speck of dirt that was supposedly 4.4 billion years old and that made all the theorists run out and change their time lines. (The Earth was supposed to be lava at that point and this was soil.) These are theories based on other theories, and when one changes, the rest flip flop as well. You are correct in assuming I did not read all the links you provided. Some of that stuff I save for a later time when I'm caught up. I'm still wading through Kent's video and it looks like I have many more hours to go! Don't get me wrong: He's an entertaining speaker and fun to hear. However, one thing I notice with him and I expect I'll find the same with the Christian Answers link, is that they don't always represent the conventional scientific side fairly or fully. They "spin" them to make them sound ridiculous. Unfortunately, most science preachers (Freudian slip, I meant "teachers"), do the same thing when discussing Creationism. They deride it and don't give a fair presentation of it at all. Democrats do the same thing when discussing Republican ideas, and Republicans do the same thing in reverse. So do lawyers. It's a common debate technique but it undercuts the credibility of both sides. It also makes it difficult for undecided persons who seek unbiased information to judge properly, since both sides are misstating the other's position. Let me state my position about the origin of life and the universe. I don't know what happened that far back and don't think any human ever will. Those who claim to know are expressing their religious or scientific beliefs. They can believe whatever they want, but don't claim it's a fact because facts require proof. Not just scripture, not just a consensus among scientists, not just a good story. In that respect, Hovind isn't exaggerating much when he calls that kind of science a religion. Many scientists are very closed minded about their beliefs. (So are the fundamentalists, but they take pride in that.) Many scientists think they're being "scientific" when presenting their theories as factual and beyond debate. The arrogance and derision they aim at detractors looks to me to be a lack of a better response. Regarding my remarks about literal and symbolic interpretations of the Bible: There are certainly clues to the writers intent of each section, but it's never clearly labeled. Book of Revelation in a good example. Some say it's a dream, others say prophecy, and others claim it's an allegory about then-current Rome. Just because most Biblical scholars agree one section is "literal" and another section is symbolic doesn't mean they're right, any more than getting a majority of scientists to agree on a creation time line makes it true. Of course, that doesn't mean the debate can't be interesting and educational. I realize this makes taking anything for granted difficult since doubts always persist. That's where faith comes in. I have my opinions and most my basic beliefs have not changed since High School. But that doesn't mean I'm not listening to opposing voices and still weighing the evidence. There's nothing wrong with evolution when it refers to your growing enlightenment. One last point. I am not "opposed" to Kent Hovind or the literal interpretation of the Bible. It's true that I'm unconvinced by it, just as I am the Big Bang and magical mud theories. But unlike Kent, I don't think anything other than a literal reading of Noah or Genesis makes the rest of the Bible a Big Lie, any more than thinking a unicorn reference in a poem proves the author is a liar and didn't really love the one he wrote it to. It's not the POINT of the POEM. And I don't think who begat who or how many drowned or DNA vs. a rib borrowing birth is the point of the Bible. I'm not trying to be PC here, I just don't think the Bible was intended to be a science manual or an exact census. It has much bigger fish to fry. The "digs" at Creationism verses Evolution were unintentional. But Chick vs. Science was a little tongue-in-cheek. Still, the more I examine the smug assertions of science and the criticism it invites from reactionaries like Hovind, the more similarities I see between Chick and the Scientists. (That's a slam at Science, not Chick.) Both groups seem hell-bent on converting the masses and often go way overboard. Rather than get upset about it, I choose to be amused by the spectacle. I don't really know if we're evolved from monkeys or not. But I DO know that we often act like them (myself included). Haw-haw-haw! Return to Chick Memories3. |
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