Will do, Wm Trevor.

>>Having already "been there and done that", Pericles… Whilst you're there see if you can find anything that sets aside the presupposition of Biblical inerrancy.<<

No luck so far, unfortunately.

I'm only about halfway through, so there may be some excitement yet to come.

I have to admit to a slight feeling of disappointment though, having been motivated on this particular mission by this line:

>>To truly encounter or learn from another's view, you must desire to meet with its best examples, on it's strongest terms, to properly hear what they have to say.<<

I hope that this is not intended to be one of creationism's "best examples".

It seems more of an introductory document for people who are already theists - and Christian theists, at that - and who want some ammunition to fortify their own beliefs. As a document that steps back to look at the bigger picture, of evolution over creationism, it seems horribly light-on.

Although if the prerequisite is to picture oneself in the other's shoes - that is, put yourself in the frame of mind of a young-earth creationist Christian - then I have to say, it is quite a polished work.

Dan S de Merengue, any thoughts?

Any thoughts on what in particular? 

This thread was started by Helen, who was reviewing de Botton's book. Yet if you consider 'The Answers' book worthy of discussion, I'd be willing to discuss its contents. I appreciate you having taken the effort to read it. 

Sorry, I wasn't very specific, Dan S de Merengue.

>>Any thoughts on what in particular?<<

I meant, any thoughts on the suggestion that it is necessary first to put oneself in the shoes of a creationist, in order to accept anything in the "Answers" book. It seems - to me, at any rate - to lack the sort of objectivity that tends to be applied to other studies of the universe and its beginnings.

For example, it is not necessary to be an atheist in order to explore the point at which the universe as we presently know it, came into being. It is however necessary to believe explicitly in the words of the Bible, in order to make any sense of the arguments put forward in "Answers".

I still haven't made it to the end, I'm afraid, what with the weekend and so on. But a word or two from you on how I should address my initial concerns might be helpful.

Pericles,
I agree with your observation regarding presuppositions (similar to WmTrevor's), but I don't see it as a problem. For it's normal for any view to be examined within its own terms. 

'The Answers' book is designed as something like an FAQ sheet, attempting to broadly answer the most commonly asked questions on origins from a creationist perspective. So they're obliged to answer from that perspective. How could one expect otherwise? By analogy, if you approached a particular doctor for his opinion on a diagnosis, you're expecting him to give you a view from his perspective.

So you are correct in speaking of the need to put yourself 'in their shoes' if only momentarily, for the sake of argument. Only then can you assess whether that view (with its preconditions) is consistent and adequate in accounting for the evidence at hand.

So it's not necessary to believe it, only that you try and see it from that perspective. But make no mistake, all views are coming with certain presuppositions and preconditions, implicit or explicit, conscious or unconscious. It's good to try and recognise them. The authors of this book are just being rather open and explicit about theirs.

I am completely at a loss to know how to respond to this, Dan S de Merengue.

>>I don't see it as a problem. For it's normal for any view to be examined within its own terms<<

This indicates that you would feel entirely comfortable with an analysis of "The conduct of Nazism between 1933 and 1945", presented by, say, Heinrich Himmler.

He would clearly be able to - and did - justify every atrocity he perpetrated, within the context of his political and social beliefs. They would all have made internal sense, and they would all have had a specific objective entirely congruent with the requirements of the thousand-year Reich.

To an external observer who did not share these views, the activities he undertook and supervised in order to rid Germany of its Untermenschen might appear controversial, even unsound. Even though they did have the unequivocal virtue of internal consistency.

>>So it's not necessary to believe it, only that you try and see it from that perspective.<<

Well, yes.

But at some point you surely have to ask what value such an analysis might have. If the starting-point (Christianity; Untermensch) is a necessary precondition for the explanation, your conclusions will necessarily be confined and restricted by that premise. Whereas if you start from a more open proposition, such as "the universe exists, and is all around us", or "Germany between 1933 and 1945", your research, and your findings, could take you - literally - anywhere.

But I guess if you don't see it as a problem then, well... you don't see it as a problem.

Which certainly helps explain "Answers".

DSM says, "....all views are coming with certain presuppositions and preconditions, implicit or explicit, conscious or unconscious."

The presupposition evolutionist come with is that any inference drawn from observations made by the five senses must take into account ALL the observations.

To observe that life on earth is complex then to draw the inference that it must be intelligently designed/created by a higher being, does not take into account all observations.

To simply write off evolution as a concoction without recognizing all the observations supporting it, including the biological mechanism (mutation and enviroment) by which it proceeds, and to cling to an alternative having none these features is not good enough.

ID/creationism concocts the asolute existence of a higher being, not just its possible existence which can be weighed against the probabilities, time-scale, and mechanism underlying evolution. This leads it outside the purvey of science and into the realm of untestable faith/belief/hypothesis.