TILL
Well, let's look at exactly what I said. Here it is copied directly from
file 922FRONT, "There's a Living in It," which was the front-page article in
the Spring 1992 issue of *The Skeptical Review.*
"When I debate the inerrancy doctrine with fundamentalist preachers, I
have no economic pressure at all on me. If one of them should prove beyond
question, so that no rational person in the world could deny it, that the
Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God, all I would do is ac-
knowledge that I was wrong (which wouldn't be the first time I've admitted I
was wrong), return home, go back to my job, and draw my salary as an
English teacher. I would have to disband Skepticism, Inc., of course, but
that would cause me no economic loss. It is a nonprofit organization with a
decided emphasis on the nonprofit.
"On the other hand, if I should prove beyond question, so that no
rational person in the world could deny it, that the Bible is not the verbally
inspired, inerrant word of God, what would that do to my opponents? They
couldn't return to their jobs, because there would be no one for them to
preach to, no one to put money into the collection baskets to keep their little
empires going. Their livelihood would be gone with the public's loss of faith
in Bible inerrancy.
"If you think that they don't know that, you must be very naive."
Since writing this article over seven years ago, my situation has changed.
I am now retired from my teaching position, and I am living off my teacher's
retirement annuity, which no one can take away from me, and from personal
retirement investments, which only a stock-market crash could take away from
me. I obviously have no vested interest at all, as far as personal income
is concerned, in maintaining an errantist position on the Bible. (The fact
is that my work in this area costs me several thousand dollars per year that
I personally contribute to maintaining *The Skeptical Review* and my
debating activities.) This is not true of Michael Huges. If he announced
today that he no longer believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, he would be
out of a job faster than ugly on a monkey. And $300 per week, plus a house
and utilities, is better than nothing.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net