As usual I feel obliged to make the necessary correction to this common idea: there is NO conflict between SCIENCE AS SUCH and Christianity, NONE. The conflict is specifically between the Bible and the scientific claims that support evolution, which are not provable because they are pure conjecture about singular past events that can only be interpreted, not replicated or tested experimentally. Science as such -- meaning science that can be replicated, tested, experimentally verified -- is supported by the Bible.
The conflict is specifically between the Bible and the scientific claims that support evolution,
So what does the Bible say about climate change, genetic engineering and vaccines, which are scientific issues that seem to be in conflict with a significant portion of the evangelical population? There is something else going on besides just rejection of evolution because of Biblical teachings.
Not that I know of. I've never heard any of that criticized on the basis of the Bible. They aren't even particularly evangelical concerns as far as I know. Vaccines are considered unsafe because of additives; climate change is doubted on the basis of scientific questions, saying it's unproved, at least that its causes haven't been proved; not sure about the genetic engineering arguments. These aren't biblical issues.
Precisely. So why does the same group of people who object to evolution for Biblical reasons also reject climate change, vaccinations and genetic modification? I am not asking what the reasons are that they reject those areas; I am asking why the same group of people reject a wide range of scientific ideas. It seems "anti-science" or at least anti progressive science.
AS I SAID, I am not aware that it IS "the same group of people." The people against vaccinations that I know of are NOT Christians for instance. My impression is that the same is true for climate change.
So the first two categories are not evangelical concerns, that I'm aware of, AS I SAID, and I'm not up on genetic modification and don't know if it's particularly an evangelical concern or not.
BUT SINCE YOU ARE NOT ASKING ABOUT A CLASH BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE THIS IS OFF TOPIC.
I'm fairly sure that vaccine opposition does not correlate with religiosity. I'm sure I've seen research showing this, but haven't been able to find it in a quick search - I'll come back if I do. A quick Google search as you recommend, however, finds only sources demonstrating no correlation between political views and anti-vaccination beliefs; despite known correlations between political beliefs and religious views.
If there's a correlation between climate-change denial and religiosity I suspect that's more an artefact of the fact that conservatives are more likely to be Christians (in the US) - climate-change denial tends to be caused more by fear of governmental regulation (in my opinion).
Thank you, that's pretty much what I was trying to say.
The conflict is specifically between the Bible and the scientific claims
You are describing your own personal conflicts with science.
Not as I see it. I'm making an objective generalization about the conflict between Science AS SUCH, and Biblical Christianity AS SUCH, meaning a conflict between science as a procedure and Biblical Christianity as a doctrine.
The conflict actually extends into the scientific use of empiricism in general and extends beyond what you claim regarding evolution.
Not as I see it. I see no conflict with empiricism at all. This you would have to explain. The problem with evolution is that it makes specific statements that contradict the Bible, and I argue that it is false science because it can't be experimentally tested but is nothing but conjecture building on conjecture.. None of the other examples given here could be described that wqay. They conflict in terms of their time estimates but not in terms of anything substantive about their observations and conclusions.
Perhaps you've forgotten that for people who believe in a 6000 year old universe, the conflicts extend beyond evolution to areas such as astronomy and cosmology, nuclear physics, archaeology and paleontology just to name a few.
But there is no reason for this to be so. True, the time estimates conflict as I say above, but nothing substantive about the sciences conflicts otherwise. There is no conflict with astronomy except the time factor, and on the scale of astronomy time does weird things anyway, but astronomy is an empirical science and its various observations and conclusions are replicable and testable, and in no way contradict the Bible. Archaeology and paleontology suffer from evolutionist interpretations, however, besides the time conflict with the Bible, but on the level of simple fact they also don't conflict with the Bible. Paleontology is of course really studying the creatures that lived before the Flood.
Beyond that there are other fundamental conflicts that crop up with many fundamentalists (maybe not including you) involving environmentalism and conservation in general and the Biblical view of dominion over the earth and the close proximity of the end times.
Dominionism is a false theology. The other topics brought up here, however, are not "fundamental conflicts" at all, not about Science As Such, as a discipline unto itself, but about specific scientific conclusions, and they're all in the basic category of the "soft" statistical sciences, rather than the hard sciences which are reliable in a way these are not. This factor makes these scientific issues more a matter of politics, so whatever position anybody takes on them, whether Christian or not, is not fairly understood in terms of Relligion versus Science. I'm glad it was shown that the vaccination issue is clearly not a religious issue. To bring these political issues into this skews the whole topic into something other than science through the lens of religion.
Again, I don't want to attribute any particular philosophy about any of these things to you, but they are a part of the wider discussion about the conflict between science and religion.
The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason - but one cannot have both. Robert A. Heinlein
Sounds plausible, except that the idea that reason provides certainty is laughable. The revealed word of God DOES, however, give certainty. I think it was Anselm who said "I understand because I believe." That wasn't a statement of faith either, that was a description of his personal experience as a believer, and I recognized it as a description of my own experience when I read it too.
Hard for the believer in bleak reason to grasp of course.
In light of this experience, the notion of relying on faith as a meaningful way to find a bigger and grander Truth about everything feels like little more than the seduction of wishful thinking.
Dear Blue Jay. You are an awfully nice person, as Mormons often are (though I realize you've left your Mormonism behind). The thing is, Mormon faith isn't a faith anyone could rely on because it's empty. The faith that leads to understanding is faith in Jesus Christ who died for our sins, but if you have a false idea of who Jesus Christ is (the brother of Satan/Lucifer?) then you don't have that saving faith.
So you are talking about a "faith" that IS nothing but a seduction. The real thing is something else.
Thanks to my transition from faith to reason, I am no longer Certain that I can distinguish faith from gullibility.
I'm glad you acknowledge that reason does not produce certainty, which is the case no matter what one says about faith. Heinlein was simply wrong about that. But there is really no such thing as "faith" as such anyway, it has to be faith IN something, and I for one believe my faith is founded on solid evidence, AND that it doesn't cancel out reason either, it just provides a solid basis for reasoning.
So here we are on a rabbit trail set up by Heinlein. Oh well.
Mormon doctrine has been known to shift from time to time, but Jesus is not "one of God's children" so to identify him with Lucifer who IS in some sense "one of God's children" is false no matter how you look at it. However, Lucifer has been depicted in Mormon theology as literally the flesh and blood brother of Jesus, both of them the offspring of a flesh and blood "God the Father." The words can sound very Biblical and evangelical and yet mean something entirely different to a Mormon. It would take some discussion to find out exactly what a particular Mormon believes about all these things.
You seem to be trying to rationalize away some really nutty theology just because you can make the words seem to mean something sensible.
Are you aware of the film "The God Makers" that was an expose of Mormonism made in the 80s by ex-Mormon Ed Decker with Dave Hunt? You can find it along with lots of other exposes at You Tube, but here's the most famous part of that movie, the "Banned" Cartoon:
This shows the sense in which Lucifer and Jesus are supposedly brothers. It's nothing like what you are trying to make out of it. I shouldn't have said "flesh and blood" because apparently they are "spirit" people, though this is all about billions of "gods" on billions of planets who were once human and give birth to spirit babies who then become human or something like that though it's hard to keep track of it all. One of the children of one of the gods was named Elohim and became the "heavenly father" of the Mormons. Two of his sons, spirit people, were Jesus and Lucifer. Some of their other siblings became demons because they followed Lucifer. I don't know if I got all the details right although I listened more than once, but in any case it's pretty crackpot theology you shouldn't allow yourself to defend for a moment. ======================
ABE:
The words can sound very Biblical and evangelical and yet mean something entirely different to a Mormon. It would take some discussion to find out exactly what a particular Mormon believes about all these things.
Exactly so.
I suspect you missed my point, probably because I didn't spell it out clearly: The point was that you have to discuss these things at length because the Mormon will start out using language that sounds biblical and evangelical and if you stop there you'll miss the fact that he means the words in an entirely different sense than it first sounds like he does.
I saw this film back in the 90s, I didn't just discover it for this discussion, and have read lots of articles and books about Mormonism over the years, including the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon -- about all I could take. There is no reason to think of Ed Decker as anything but an ex Mormon who wanted to expose the truth about Mormonism. You think he just made up all that stuff? Don't think so. Joseph Smith did though. And the movie was made with Dave Hunt, who is well known for his research into the cults. "Hates it with a passion?" Not that I've noticed. The guy is pretty even tempered. But of course shouldn't we hate lies?
But I should have known there's no point in trying to tell the truth about something like this here.
So maybe we can get back on topic now.
==================== ABE: Just discovered the Extended Version of that cartoon video has an interview at the end with a Mormon standing in line at a dedication of the Seattle Mormon temple, who says God is human being just like all of us and yes we all can become gods too if we live perfect lives. This is apparently just an ordinary Mormon guy. So don't tell me this crackpot theology isn't *really* Mormon doctrine.
Weird. Anselm discovered that his faith led him to understanding; his report on that experience echoed my own. I have no idea what your carryings on have to do with any of that.
weirder and weirder. Coyote quoted Heinlein. Heinlein was wrong about reason producing certainty. He was also wrong about the uncertainty of faith, or the idea that faith is only good for comfort. Which in itself can be debatable. However, all that brought Anselm's quote to mind, which I'd always appreciated. There was no specific content, just the experience he reported, which I recognized. dwise and you are making up your own stuff. Go ahead, have at it, has nothing to do with anything I've said though.
What ARE you going on about? This thread was off topic far enough without you and dwise deciding to accuse me of who knows what from who knows where on the basis of nothing whatever. Ahaz? On a thread about science? What's with you:?
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