Lectures update (at last)

Since Just Wanna Know is coming by tomorrow (with his very pregnant wife :)) for part of the homecoming festivities, I guess I'd better get the promised lecture update finished beforehand. (Now we just need Bloggerhea--hmm, that's not spelled right--and his wife, and we could have a party.)

Anyhow, the lecture on the Muslim view of the Abraham stories in Genesis was a disappointment, primarily because the speaker got delayed and then lost on his way to Wooster and a COW prof filled in for most of the hour. When he did get here, he didn't say anything that I didn't already know. I guess we've read the same sources. I didn't even get a chance to meet him. I did continue my conversation about the Hebrew Bible concept of "sacrifice"--which Rabbi J says is not a satisfactory translation of the word that appears with its Hebrew origin in several columns in my concordance (and hers too)--but in the end we had to agree to disagree about the significance of the notion of sin (for which I believe sacrifice is a necessary remedy) for both of us. It's fundamental and not an easy hurdle to overcome. Same with Islam. If people can handle their own sin problems by simply repenting, then there's no need for a Savior.

As for the Ruse lecture, you can read a summary of it on the COW webpage ("more news" link), but he primarily claimed that Christianity (broadly defined) and Darwinianism, (somewhat broadly defined) are compatible. He said that if it weren't for the mechanism of natural selection, he'd be a "Great Optician in the Sky" person himself because many natural features (he used an optical example) are "design-like." He did not set up straw men on either side, which impressed Chuck, though I felt like using Pat Robertson as a representative of creation science was a bit low because PR is not a scientist (did I hear you say that he is not even a thinker?...ok). He set Robertson and Dawkins in opposition on the extremes. In any case, what Chuck did two nights later was to draw distinctions more carefully, to lay out a greater range of positions from Dawkins to Morris/Gish. Then within that, he tried to show the students that creed-believing/Bible-believing Christians fall within a range of those positions, from M/G to, say, Van Till. He also argued that as Christian (scientists) they should stand firm for three fundamental ideas, which he painted in very broad strokes: 1) that God created, 2) that God created human beings (specially) in his image and 3) that God continues to interact with his creation and is not just distant from it. Lots of kids, both Xn and non-Xn, stayed around to talk afterwards despite the fact that it was midterm week and the night before fall break.