Creation, Evolution, and faith

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If you seriously think that the objection that rational people have to religion is based on hermeneutics, you either haven't been paying attention or you're irretrievably stupid.

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No, this IS the objection that I've been fighting in this thread. I've been making the simple claim that religion involves reason and evidence. I believe this should be patently obvious, but many have disagreed and argued against this statement. (Look back at the thread and you'll see that this is what I've been saying since Message 25.)

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Faith in religion has little to do with whether someone's particular interpretation is accurate or not, but whether the claims made by the religion are accurate.

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In any religion with a "holy book," the claims stem from the text. The text must first be correctly interpreted to know what the claims of the religion are. The text and its interpretation are crucial for faith in the religion.

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Would you care to try to defend that territory, or will you concede that, in that regard, religion is based on subjective evidence and appeals to authority? Or will you simply ignore this question?

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I have mentioned the truth-claims of religion a number of times. They are analogous to whether or not scientific theories are "real." Is faith in these truth-claims (whether Deity of Christ or quarks) well placed? This is a good and important question. But it is a huge topic, and there are many threads on EvC forum that already deal with it (with no agreement or resolution). I see no point in sidetracking this thread into yet another repetitive, endless argument. I suggest that we ignore the question for this thread.

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And there you have it. Christian faith depends on what the Bible teaches. Christian faith is based on a set of ancient texts.

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Of course. Who doesn't know this?

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Science is not based upon any text in any comparable way.

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Of course not. Science is based on nature, as Christianity is based on the Bible. This is the analogy that I've repeatedly tried to explain. Is something unclear about my explanation? I've repeatedly said that the main difference between religion and science is in the types of evidence that they employ, and this is all that you are noting.

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Science uses reason and evidence to study nature. Agreed.

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Religion uses reason and evidence to study alleged holy texts as a proxy for nature.

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No, not as "a proxy for nature." Religion is not trying to understand the natural world, but the spiritual world.

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Both are attempting to describe reality. The difference is that science tries to study reality as directly as possible, it cuts out the middle man (and to paraphrase Bill Mahr, when I say man it usually seems to mean someone with a penis). Religion seeks to study reality through a murky lens, that of it's chosen scripture (which it invariably places on a pedestal, another notable difference with science).

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Absolutely not. Science only tries to study physical reality; this is the only reality that it CAN study. Religion tries to study spiritual reality, which cannot be addressed with science. Religion and science are NOT trying to study the same thing.

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But are these claims "wholly unevidenced" in either endeavor? These truth-claims are not provable, of course. A step of "faith" is involved in both endeavors.

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False. There is a major difference. It's about the framework within which each claim is judged.

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Science can prove it's ideas to a very high degree - within the framework created by the assumption of a consistent observable reality.

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Religion cannot do this. Religion cannot prove the reality of the Trinity, even with the framework of an observable reality.

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Science can prove its claims within the framework created by methodological naturalism.

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Religion must, almost by necessity, cast this aside when making claims about supernatural entities (like the Trinity). This leaves it open to the possibility of supernatural outside interference, even within the framework of a consistent observable reality.

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There is a tremendous confusion of categories in your statements above. I'll try to unravel them.By "truth-claims" I mean questions like "Does God REALLY exist?" and "Do quarks REALLY exist?" For both, we can provide evidence but not proof. Believing in their actual reality (as opposed to their usefulness in a model) requires a step of faith. This is the metaphysical/theological level that you don't want to discuss.So let's leave this, and let's talk about your "frameworks." I agree with your scientific framework; we assume a consistent, observable physical world and study nature with an approach of methodological naturalism. In this framework, we can see convincing evidence for quarks (I am hesitant to use the word "proof" in science).But I disagree with your religious framework; it implicitly treats religion as science. The analogous Christian framework to the scientific framework above would be a consistent, observable, divinely-inspired Bible which is studied with proper hermeneutical methodology. Within this framework, we see convincing evidence for the Trinity. With the "frameworks" set up in an analogous fashion, the evidence or "proof" is analogous.You keep trying to judge religious claims on scientific grounds, as if it were a subset of science, but this doesn't make sense. Religion and science study different things, using different types of evidence. They ask different questions. They are analogous, but not equivalent. Neither is a subset of the other.

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I don't understand what you are trying to say here?

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I am saying that your claimed analogy is false. Christianity does NOT have an agreed "acid test" anything like that of science.

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Sorry, but I've lost complete track of what you are talking about here. Can you please point me to the post where you described this "acid test"?

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Your analogy left out ALL religious belief. You implicitly denied the entire religious content of Christianity. That's the point that you seem to miss.

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No, I am simply trying to show that religion involves reason and evidence. So I am focusing on the reason and evidence that underlies and undergirds religious faith. I have affirmed the religious content of Christianity multiple times in this thread. Are you so desperate that you must completely mischaracterize my position?

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And Christianity involves faith commitments that go beyond anything that theology of Bible study can support. But as soon as you admit that, your argument fails.

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My Message 268 that you replied to when you wrote this said something very close to this: Please try to read what I actually say, not what you want to hear. It is very difficult to carry on a discussion with someone who ignores what I actually say and tries to twist my words to mean their opposite.

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In message 32 you also said:

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"But many aspects of religious faith ARE based on reason."

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Yes. The Christian faith, for example, is based on the claims of the Bible. Figuring out these claims requires reason. (How many times have I said this so far?)

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We are talking about religious faith. You have stated that it is based on reason, but the only argument that you have put forth so far is "because the Bible says so".

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No--I have argued for reason and evidence in figuring out what the Bible says.

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That is not reason. That is blind faith. Nowhere in science is a theory upheld "because the textbook says so".

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We uphold theories in science "because nature says so." Analogously, we uphold theological claims "because the Bible says so." A Christian theologian deals with the Bible analogously to how a scientist deals with nature.

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In science claims are tested independent of the claim. In religious faith the evidence is the claim. It is circular. It is blind.

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I am trying to explain the analogies between nature and Scripture, between science and theology. In the DOING of science, nature is taken as a given. In the DOING of Christian theology, the Bible is taken as a given. It is analogous.Many here don't like this, because they don't take the Bible as a given. Perhaps there are mystics who analogously don't take nature as a given. Belief in the truth of the Bible and the reality of nature both require a step of faith, as the OP and my Message 25 mentioned. There is evidence (but not proof) for both the truth of the Bible and the reality of nature, of course, but that's not the topic of this thread.I realize that many here want to pull this thread into a "why should we believe the Bible" argument. I'm not really interested in yet another argument on this topic. I'm more interested in discussing the topic of the OP. If you REALLY want reasons to believe the Bible, there are many threads here which have discussed the topic, and many other good websites and good books.

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Science is based on nature, as Christianity is based on the Bible.

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Are you kidding me?

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Of course not.

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Nature is real kbertsche.

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I happen to agree with you on this. But this is a metaphysical statement, not a scientific one. Reality is the province of metaphysics, not of science. The Bible and the spiritual world are equally as real as the natural world. (Note: this is another metaphysical statement.)

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No-one wrote, composed, edited or redacted nature.

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God did. (Another metaphysical/theological/philosophical claim.)

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Books can be made-up, imagined. They can be full of lies. They can be written in honest error. Nature cannot.

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Nature could be just as false, in principle. Last Thursdayism or Omphalism could be true, and we couldn't tell otherwise.

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Your retreat into solipsism does not solve this problem. Even in the internally consistent world of the matrix, your book could still be fiction. You must worry not only that reality is fictional, but that the book is fictional, even within that reality.

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In principle, yes (though I don't give much credence to solipsism).

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Science need worry about neither.

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Yes and no. In the teaching of science at the lower levels, or in the daily doing of science, there is generally no thought about whether or not one is studying reality. But good, thoughtful scientists DO think about metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

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Religion does make claims about the natural world. About its history, its cosmology, its origins. I could go on.

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Certainly. Its focus is the spiritual world, but it does overlap with the natural world.

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Secondly, you posit the existence of a "spiritual world", but you do so with no reason. WI ask you what spiritual world? Where or what is it? How do we know it's not a figment of theist imaginations?

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ALL of this could be said about the "natural world." We've given no reasons to support its existence in this thread. It may equally be a figment of our imaginations.

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Science does not concern itself with studying what cannot be evidenced.

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Correction: Science does not concern itself with studying what cannot be scientifically evidenced in the natural world.

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Religion does and your "spiritual world" is a prime example. This is another huge difference between the two and it undermines your contentions of similarity.

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No--religion is also evidenced. But the evidence is of a different type than scientific evidence.

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You know perfectly well that religion does make claims about physical reality, you have simply chosen to ignore it. The claim that Christ rose bodily from the dead is a claim about physical reality.

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I do not ignore this, of course--it is central to the Christian faith. Christianity is a historical religion. Like all historical religions, it makes historical claims.

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By "truth-claims" I mean questions like "Does God REALLY exist?" and "Do quarks REALLY exist?" For both, we can provide evidence but not proof.

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Except that the evidence for quarks is experimental, repeatable, observable, falsifiable, etc.

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First, the reality of anything (including quarks) is a metaphysical concept. Science cannot answer whether or not quarks are "real."
Second, the evidence for quarks is quite indirect. All that we can test, observe, or falsify are the predictions of a model which has quarks as part of it. This is not a very good test of whether or not quarks exist.

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The evidence for God is non-existent.

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False. There are plenty of threads on EvC forum on this topic, if you are interested in it.

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No scientist need believe in quarks, not even those who study them. Christians must believe in God. There is a major difference which you seem to want to ignore.

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Far from ignoring it, I myself raised this as a difference in Message 256.

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You must assume a divine Bible, which assumes a divine. you must assume a God to find evidence of your god. You must assume that the Bible is accurate and appeal to its authority. Science need do no such thing. You have failed to show any similarity.

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False. Science must analogously assume that nature is accurate and must appeal to the authority of nature.

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Yes. The Christian faith, for example, is based on the claims of the Bible. Figuring out these claims requires reason. (How many times have I said this so far?)

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However, it doesn't appear that anyone is using reasons to conclude that these claims are true. Instead, these claims are believed to be true through blind faith.

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If you really want to investigate these more foundational questions (reasons to trust the biblical claims) I'm sure you can find plenty of threads here on EvC Forum.

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Science determines how reality is from reality itself. Religion is a dogmatic belief of how reality is without any reference to reality. That's the difference.

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No, you are making the same metaphysical error as GM. Reality is the province of metaphysics, not science. Nature is the province of science. Science seeks a scientific explanation of how nature works. Religion seeks a religious explanation of how the spiritual world works (and yes, it does make some crucial historical claims in the process).

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I realize that many here want to pull this thread into a "why should we believe the Bible" argument. I'm not really interested in yet another argument on this topic.

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Then why did you state that belief in the Bible as being true is based on logic and reason?

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I don't see where I quite said this in this thread. What I've said is that religious faith involves logic and reason.

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That is what we are discussing in this thread. This thread is not Theology, Evolution, and Faith. It is Creation, Evolution, and Faith. The act of Creation is about nature, not figuring out what the Bible says. Creation is about God being a real entity outside of the Bible.

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Actually, the main topic of the thread is whether or not "faith" is present in science, and how this is different than or similar to religious faith. The question of whether or not there is evidence or reason in religious faith was a secondary discussion, which threatens to derail the thread.

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No--I have argued for reason and evidence in figuring out what the Bible says.

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But this has nothing -absolutely nothing - to do with the logical basis for religious ideas.

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Not so. Christianity claims to be based on the Bible. So its central ideas need to be logically derivable from the Bible. Of course, this does not guarantee that the claims are true. But this is not what I am claiming in this thread.

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Sure, you use reason to interpret the book. What we keep pointing out to you is that you are not using reason as the basis for the actual religious beliefs themselves. Interpreting a book is one thing. Deciding whether or not to believe what the book says is quite another.

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Of course.

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That is the distinction that undermines your comparison.

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No, now we are back to metaphysical questions of truth and reality.

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A false analogy. Compare and contrast;

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A scientist studies reality in order to find out what exists in reality.

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No, this is a very poor, sloppy description. A scientist studies nature in order to derive a scientific explanation of the natural world.

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A Christian studies the Bible, not merely in order to find out what the Bible says. He studies the Bible to find out about reality.

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Yes; a believer is not quite analogous to a scientist. And I've been careful not to claim that he is. The analogy is between biblical scholarship and science. A biblical scholar studies the Bible to find out what the Bible says. A Christian takes the metaphysical/theological/philosophical position that this is actually true.

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Example; the divinity of Jesus. You can study the Bible. You can see what it says about the divinity of Jesus. Let us suppose that we reach the conclusion that, yes, the Bible does say that Jesus is divine.

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Yes, so far we are doing biblical scholarship. This is a basis for religious faith, but it is not in itself the same as religious faith.

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This would be fine if Christians claimed only that "The Bible says that Christ is divine.". But that is not what Christians claim. They claim that Christ actually is divine. That he is absolutely real, that he really is divine, that this is all much more than some story in a book.
... No Christian I have ever met regards Christ as merely a character in a book. They regard him as real, not just historically real, but usually real and contemporary, a very real divine presence. That is clearly a claim about reality, not just a claim about what it says in a book.

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Yes, exactly. We have gone beyond biblical scholarship to metaphysical/theological truth-claims.

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Scientists on the other hand study reality directly. They make claims about reality (usually far more tentatively than theists do), but this is justified, since they are studying reality. Science has cut out the middleman.

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Correction: Scientists study only nature, using a specific methodology with a specific type of evidence. They make only scientific claims, and only about nature.

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In summary, science makes claims about reality based upon observation of reality.

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Correction: Science makes scientific claims about nature based upon scientific observation of nature.

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Religion makes claims about reality based upon observing what it says in a book.

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Sort-of, but not quite. Biblical scholarship makes claims about what the text says, based on observation and study of the text. Religion makes truth-claims about reality which are based on biblical scholarship. So religion is based on observations of the text. But this is not the whole story, of course; it does not address the question of why the text should be believed as true. This is a huge, multifaceted topic with many threads, websites, and books written on it. I do not intend to address it in this thread.

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And what do logic and reason tell us about the biblical claims of a worldwide flood?

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I believe the Bible claims that all of the then-known land was covered with water. The size of this region is not well defined.

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What we actually see is that secular biblical scholars study the Bible to find out what it says. But religious biblical scholars study the Bible to find out if they can come up with ways to construe the Bible as providing support for their theology. That is to say, confirmation bias is a core component of their method of study.

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Can you provide any evidence of "confirmation bias" among leading Christian biblical scholars?

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Not so. Christianity claims to be based on the Bible. So its central ideas need to be logically derivable from the Bible. Of course, this does not guarantee that the claims are true. But this is not what I am claiming in this thread.

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Well you need to address that.

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Not in this thread.

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No, now we are back to metaphysical questions of truth and reality.

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No we're not kbertsche, and shame on you for dragging solipsism into this, like a stoned fifteen year-old.

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Yes we are. "Truth" and "reality" are metaphysical concepts. "Solipsism" is only one particular metaphysical perspective on reality, and I am NOT dragging any particular perspectives into the discussion. YOU are the one who insists on dragging the metaphysical concepts of "truth" and "reality" into the discussion.

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So you have not been merely talking about science vs biblical scholarship.

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True; I've made lots of posts and have mentioned lots of things in this thread.

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You have been trying to equate religion and science, trying to claim that both are based on reason. Now you are trying to move the goalposts. Feel free to lie to yourself if you must, but don't lie to me please.

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False. I have never equated religion and science. If you've read my posts carefully, in an attempt to understand instead of simply to argue, you would see this.Rather, I have argued for some similarities and analogies between the two. Specifically, that both involve faith or belief in various ways, and that the scholarship in both fields is performed in an analogous way.I have also pointed out crucial differences between the two. Specifically, in the type of evidence that each uses, and in the importance of metaphysical/theological truth-claims in each.

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A biblical scholar studies the Bible to find out what the Bible says. A Christian takes the metaphysical/theological/philosophical position that this is actually true.

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And that is the key difference. Can you show me what reason and logic the Christian uses to reach that conclusion?

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I could present lots of evidence for this, but you've probably heard and rejected all of it already. I won't attempt this in the present thread. If you really want to know the evidence for the truth of the Bible, there are many, many websites, books, and other threads on EvC Forum where you can find it.

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Yes, so far we are doing biblical scholarship. This is a basis for religious faith, but it is not in itself the same as religious faith.

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You know, if you'd restricted yourself to saying that at the beginning of this thread, we might have saved some time...

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Not true. I said that "reason is not the ONLY basis for religious faith" way back in Message 74.

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No-one argues that biblical scholarship doesn't use logic. But then, anyone can be a biblical scholar, even an atheist. Scholarship of this kind is not intrinsically religious. People are arguing that religion doesn't use logic. For you to change your tune this late into a debate and then pretend that was what you've said all along is dishonest and pathetic.

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Not true. Taq took issue in Message 132 with my claim that theology (not religion) relies on evidence and reason. In Message 163 subbie again claimed that theology (not religion) "involves only subjective evidence and appeals to authority." In Message 242 I agreed that one does not need to believe the message of the text to do biblical scholarship. I have not changed my tune on these issues. Rather, you are mischaracterizing the discussion.

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Yes, exactly. We have gone beyond biblical scholarship to metaphysical/theological truth-claims.

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Can you show me how those beliefs are based on logic? No. Your comparisons between religion and science have proved false.

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Addressed above.

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Correction: Scientists study only nature, using a specific methodology with a specific type of evidence. They make only scientific claims, and only about nature.

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A meaningless distinction. Nature is synonymous with reality.

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Absolutely not! Either you are not thinking clearly, or you are trying to force a materialistic metaphysical position onto the conversation. "Reality" is the province of metaphysics. "Nature" is the province of science. They are different categories.

Yes, let's try to get back to the topic of the thread and the OP.

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Atheists (e.g. Dawkins) often use the word "faith" to mean "blind faith" and then deny that scientists have "faith." This is a straw-man argument...

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1) Is science based on faith? Does science have faith-based presuppositions? Yes, this is a metaphysical consideration. Scientists have faith in their basic senses and in logic. They have faith that the physical world behaves in a consistent and potentially understandable manner...

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2) Does the daily practice of science involve faith? Of course. Any practicing scientist knows this... There comes a point in the development of a scientific theory when if finally crosses a threshold in the mind of the scientist and becomes accepted as true. Perhaps the evidence for it has finally become overwhelming... There are always still some "loose ends", some data which doesn't quite fit. In spite of this, the scientist has become convinced that the theory is true...

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I would consider this line of argument to be a misuse of the term "faith", and a misrepresentation of scientific endeavor.

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It is clear that many in this thread agree with you.

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As for the last point in kb's item #2, I'll grant that we could readily find practitioners of scientific research whose thought processes fit that description, being "convinced" that a theory is true despite "loose ends" (beyond the normal sense of reasoning under uncertainty) -- perhaps I would be inclined to behave that way myself (or might give the appearance of doing so), and maybe the Darwin quotations chosen by kb are "proof" that Darwin himself was that way. As I see it, a scientist who accepts this sort of "certainty" is at risk of failing to be scientific.

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Yes, there is some risk here. But this is the way that science is actually done. This has been noted by many philosophers of science and by many professional scientists.People here like to ask for "evidence" So here are some examples that I posted in another thread of how a leading scientist actually uses the words "believe" and "belief": These examples demonstrate that scientists DO use words such as "belief" in a scientific context. It has the same basic meaning of confidence, trust, conviction as it does in a religious context, yet there is no religious implication here. "Faith" has these same basic meanings as well, but it's less common for scientists to use the term.

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I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger

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People here like to ask for "evidence" So here are some examples that I posted in another thread of how a leading scientist actually uses the words "believe" and "belief":
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These examples demonstrate that scientists DO use words such as "belief" in a scientific context. It has the same basic meaning of confidence, trust, conviction as it does in a religious context, yet there is no religious implication here. "Faith" has these same basic meanings as well, but it's less common for scientists to use the term.

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Before the inevitable attacks pointing out that my quotes from Luie do not include the word "faith," here are some quotes from another Nobel laureate: As you can see, George uses the words "faith," "belief," and "believe" in a scientific context, but with the same basic meanings that they have in a religious context.

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Thanks for the replies, kbertshe. My main response is that you are ignoring the distinctions I was trying to explain: (a) constant, unwavering belief based on religious faith vs. contingent, transitory belief based on available, incomplete information; and (b) a lack of objectivity that might arise from personal limitations of some individuals performing science vs. a complete absence of faith that results from the aggregate competence of thousands of people employing the scientific method.

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OK, let's discuss these.(a) You have a point here, but based on my experience in both science (physics) and religion (Christianity), I do not believe this represents a qualitative distinction. This is more a matter of degree.Yes, the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy are agreed on with essentially no deviation. But other important theological issues are the subjects of lively debate and divergent opinion within Christianity. The process is quite similar to that in areas of science where there is divergent opinion.In principle, scientific belief is contingent and transitory. But actual practice is not quite so idealized as this. Scientists tend to get stuck thinking in the paradigms that they are used to, as Kuhn pointed out. This is difficult to break out of. When scientists take public stands on one side of a scientific debate, they tend to become entrenched in their positions. (e.g. Pons & Fleischman's belief that "cold fusion" was real). Further, theories such as gravity are so well tested and verified that we all strongly believe that they are true, so much that they have pretty much lost any contingency or transitory-ness.(b) Yes, science is a human endeavor performed by humans who have their own limitations and biases, and who sometimes lack objectivity. And I agree that the scientific community helps in this regard. I share your belief that in the long term, science will sort out its errors and will converge on the correct answers. However, the scientific community also gets stuck in current paradigms (a la Kuhn) and can exhibit a "group-think."

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As you can see, George uses the words "faith," "belief," and "believe" in a scientific context, but with the same basic meanings that they have in a religious context.

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No, they do not have the "same basic meanings that they have in a religious context."

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Perhaps my phrase "religious context" was too broad. Instead, I should have said "orthodox Christian theology and the Bible". I can't speak for other religions.

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Of course scientists use the words "faith" and "belief" when they write and speak, because these are common words in the language that get used in lots of contexts -- including metaphor, which is a common rhetorical strategy used whenever people write about science and scientists for the general public.

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But George Smoot and Luie Alvarez were NOT using metaphor in the quotes that I provided. They were simply using normal English. This is the way that scientists normally speak in casual contexts, such as at the lunch table.

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When a scientist says "I believe this equation is correct," it's clearly not the same sense being used by the Christian who says "I believe that Christ loves me." It's the difference between "I believe it will rain tomorrow" vs. "I believe my soul is eternal."

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Perhaps you are correct in this example. But let's look at some of the examples from Alvarez and Smoot.When Luie Alvarez says "but I do believe in you, so I'll help you get the money," this is similar to a Christian saying "I believe in God, so I'll trust what He says." Both convey confidence and trust in a person.When George Smoot says "Olbers believed that the cosmos was infinite," this is similar to a Christian saying "I believe that God exists." Both convey confidence in and conviction of a fact.When George Smoot says "it renewed Marc’s faith in the DMR" or "Our faith in the big bang is revitalized" this is very similar to the Christian saying "Our faith in God's love is strengthened." Both convey a depth of conviction.

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I think the difference is clearly shown in the quotes you extracted from Smoot's book (which I assume was written for a general audience): if Einstein's "belief" in the notion of a static universe were at all comparable to the religious use of "belief", then Einstein himself would not have changed his position in the face of Hubble's observations. Instead, there would have been (and there would still be) competing and irreconcilable "sects" in the field of physics: the Einsteinist "static" believers and the Hubbelian "expansion" believers.

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Physicists today do not sort themselves into those two groups, because the notion of belief in science is very different from belief in religion. It's a mistake to confuse or conflate these two distinct senses of the word.

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First, similar reversals DO happen in Christianity on secondary issues. Last week, Bruce Waltke, a leading conservative Christian scholar of Hebrew and Old Testament, resigned his seminary teaching appointment because of the flap that ensued when he came out in favor of "theistic evolution." In his theological papers of 35 years ago on interpreting Genesis, he took a stand against evolution in any form.Second, there ARE competing opinions and sub-communities in the field of physics. I believe there is still a small sub-group that holds to a steady-state cosmology as opposed to the Big Bang. Most of the physics community is convinced of "dark matter," but a sub-community believes this can be better explained with various formulations of "non-Newtonian gravity." When enough new evidence is gathered, these debates should eventually be resolved and the community should settle on a common position. I agree that this doesn't happen nearly so often nor as quickly with religious sects, though few Christian sects from the early church have died out.

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{AbE: I suppose it's possible that you personally regard your religious faith as comparable to your practice of science -- you feel that your religious beliefs are evidence-based, and in the event that new evidence comes along, you would be inclined to change (or at least adjust) your religious beliefs accordingly. My understanding is that this approach to religious belief is not shared by all who consider themselves religious believers -- indeed, you may be in the minority in this regard.}

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Yes, this is pretty much how I regard my religious faith. I would hope that ANY serious Christian would be honest enough to change his religious beliefs in the face of new evidence, as Bruce Waltke has done.Whether I am in the minority or not when speaking of all religion, I can't answer. I can only speak of what I know, which is orthodox Christianity. The definitions of "faith", "belief", and "believe" that I presented earlier are standard biblical (Koine Greek) and orthodox theological definitions. So these should be the "majority" view in Christianity.Other religions and cult groups would be closer to your characterization. Cults tend to follow a leader with little question, and are discouraged from independent thought. Cults may fit the "blind faith" label that atheists try to put on all religion.

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Second, there ARE competing opinions and sub-communities in the field of physics.

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I wasn't asserting an absence of contention -- quite the contrary. I was rather asserting an absence of devotion to dogma.

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Yes, though these sub-groups sometimes become fairly dogmatic and unyielding.

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Thanks for demonstrating how hard it is to avoid using the word "believe". Is this a "contingent" belief on your part, or "dogmatic" belief?

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I think it's misleading to dichotomize "belief" into these two categories. In reality, everyone's belief is somewhere in between. Opposition of Christian Evangelicals to evolution may seem quite "dogmatic." But given enough evidence, leading scholars such as Waltke can and do change their views. On the flip side, scientific belief is not always so "contingent" as is sometimes portrayed. The idealized, sanitized descriptions of science in many textbooks do not quite match the way it is really done.

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And if such a small sub-group does in fact still exist, I wonder whether they do so on the basis of new evidence they are finding, rather than simply rejecting (in the manner of dogmatic belief) the evidence for an expanding universe. If the latter, I would say these people have lost their qualifications as scientists -- like that handful of people with degrees in physics or geology who are active YECs. {AbE: Lest this be misconstrued as the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, my point is simply that such people have stopped applying the scientific method to support their position, and this should be clear enough on objective grounds.}

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Adherers to the steady-state hypothesis may well be characterized as overly dogmatic. They are stuck in a paradigm that they cannot break out of. But I wouldn't necessarily say they have "lost their qualifications as scientists." In general, areas of scientific dispute are somewhat more complex than this. Areas of active scientific research are rarely definitive one way or the other. The evidence can often be interpreted in different ways. Deciding which is correct relies in part on experience and on one's overall interpretive framework, or paradigm.

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When enough new evidence is gathered, these debates should eventually be resolved and the community should settle on a common position. I agree that this doesn't happen nearly so often nor as quickly with religious sects, though few Christian sects from the early church have died out.

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Dying out is quite a different thing from settling on a common position, especially in those cases where the members of a "dead-end" sect did not die of old age. (Is it any wonder that we don't see a lot of Huguenots these days?)

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"Dying out" is also involved in the change of scientific paradigms. Older scientists tend to remain stuck in their paradigms as the younger scientists learn the new paradigms. the paradigms don't fully change until the old guard has died out.BTW, I was thinking of religious groups much earlier than Hugenots. E.g. Montanism, Marcionites, Eutychians, Nestorians, etc. Some of these were labeled heresies, and they pretty much disappeared from Christianity.But let's back out a bit and look at the bigger picture. There seems to be a very strong feeling among some in this thread that "faith" in religion is completely blind, unreasoning, and unevidenced, while "faith" does not exist in science at all. Many seem to hold this position in a very dogmatic, unreasonable, unwavering fashion--is this "blind faith" on their parts? Those who take this position seem to have a strong desire to denigrate religious faith. None have religious faith themselves, and I think all claim to be atheists. They ignore our experiences of religious faith, examples of how it works in practice, scholarly and theological definitions of religious faith. Those who have rejected it think they understand it better than those of us who live it every day. This is as silly as a geocentrist thinking he is an expert on astronomy.And I see similar dogmatism in some of these folks regarding science. They ignore my experiences and conversations with leading scientists involving casual usage of words such as "faith" and "belief". They dismiss actual quotes by Nobel laureates which support this. Some want to ignore metaphysics and philosophy of science, as if these are irrelevant. How can we discuss religion--which is inherently metaphysical--and ignore metaphysics in science? By their perspectives and replies, I suspect many of these critics are "armchair scientists" rather than real, working scientists. Yet they think they are more expert regarding science than Nobel laureates such as Alvarez and Smoot!Why do these folks have such an insistence on denigrating religion and religious faith? I suspect it is because they perceive a conflict between science and religion, and feel that attacking religion and religious faith is the way to address it. I think they are wrong; there is no inherent conflict between science and religion. Between atheism and theism, yes. But not between science and religion.I've stressed that science and religion differ in the types of evidence that they use. An equally (or more?) important distinction is the type of questions that they ask. I've posted a
this quote in another thread from the article "What is Science?" by Helen Quinn, published in Physics today in August 2009:
http://ptonline.aip.org/.../PHTOAD-ft/vol_62/iss_7/8_1.shtml I think Helen's "different question" perspective is much better and more productive than the "conflict" perspective.

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If you want to call confidence in expectations supported by empiricism, experimentation, and verification a "faith" then go for it.

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Not "a faith", but "faith." This is normal English usage.

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What you can not do is conflate this confidence with a belief devoid of empirical evidence, experimentation, and verification.

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Yes and no. "Faith" is just "confidence," and is still "faith" or "confidence" no matter what it is based on. But the type of evidence that this confidence is based on is a fundamental difference between science and faith. Science uses scientific evidence, but religion does not. All throughout this thread I have avoided conflating the types of evidence.

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Your argument is semantics, and very little else.

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If you think this, then I still have not been clear enough. My argument is conceptual, not semantic.

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When asked for how reason, logic, and evidence can lead to religious faith you grow quite silent. Instead, you deflect and start talking about textual analysis as if that is the same as religious faith. Your own actions tell us that religious faith is devoid of everything that leads to the confidence we have in scientific theories.

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Why and how could you construe my silence as evidence that "religious faith is devoid of everything that leads to the confidence we have in scientific theories?" This does not logically follow. (Unless for some reason you think I am the only world authority on religious faith??)I believe the folks who are most strongly trying to cajole me into an off-topic, extended discussion of reason for the Christian faith are not serious. They just want something else to argue against. I believe most of them already know (and have rejected) many of the points that I would raise. If I have misjudged you (or anyone else) and you seriously want to look into Christian apologetics, please let me know and I will refer you to other threads, websites, or books that you can study on your own.