Having been short on time at the time (a month ago), I let slide my reply to your
Message 80. But now while you're cooling off, I thought I should submit my reply.
I have never known any christianity that was not based on the idea that the whole bible was absolutely true.
vs
Most christians I run into are of this stripe {ie, do not base their faith on the whole bible being absolutely true}.
You're contradicting yourself there. I believe what you really meant to say is that it is
your belief that Christianity must be based on biblical literalism and inerrancy, however most Christians you meet do not share in that belief.
So then, even though you cannot conceive of being a Christian if the Bible is not 100% true and accurate, most Christians
can. Instead of preaching to them to adopt your position, shouldn't you take a little time to listen to them to try to understand something about
their position?
Nothing an atheist or scientist can ever say will sway these folks {who do not believe the Bible to be literal and inerrant} away from their faith. They believe because they need to believe. However, once the hardknocks of live come along, or someone of the christian faith they looked up to lets them down, their faith will come crashing down.
And yet, ironically, it is the biblical literalist/inerrantist whose is susceptible to what scientists say, because they are basing their faith on "scientific" statements that are contrary-to-fact. And if even one error is found in the Bible, then they are taught to discard the whole thing because that proves either that God does not exist or else is unworthy of worship so their only choice is to be atheists -- fundamentalists have preached so many variants of that nonsense at me over the decades, but it still boils down to the same thing that you're saying.
Obviously, because fundamentalists and especially young-earth creationists are required to believe as true things that are contrary-to-fact, that means that they are basing their faith on falsehoods. Of course, this raises the question of the actual role of truth and truthfulness in their form of Christianity, along with the role of lying and deception. That is especially the case in the promotion of "creation science". Which of course very readily discredits the religion among observers, which is one reason why you see so many eyes start to roll up when you start talking about your beliefs.
Which necessarily brings us to the question: Is that any way to run a religion? You may believe that it's the only possible way, mainly because that's what you've been taught to believe, but we see so many serious problems with it.
And when you start to also see those problems, you will need to decide on a course of action. You've been taught to become an atheist, but is that really necessary? I'm reminded of a Bertrand Russell quotation, which paraphrases as: "When a Catholic becomes a free-thinker, he becomes an atheist, but when a Protestant becomes a free-thinker, he merely forms a new church." The reasoning behind that is that Catholic teaching is that it is the only Christian doctrine, deviation from which is heresy, whereas the history of Protestant Christianity has been churches splintering into new churches over all manner of doctrinal differences.
So then, when that time comes, will you approach the situation like a Catholic, as you have been taught, and abandon Christianity? Or like a Protestant and form or adopt a new theology that is much more concordant with reality?
Because you are not immune. Conservative Christian sources and youth ministries estimate that of the children raised as fundamentalists (and evangelicals and conservative Christians), 65% to 80% of them will leave the faith in young adulthood with most of them leaving Christianity and even religion altogether. And college is a prime experience in that deconversion process. Having been involved with "creation science" and having read deconversion stories caused by creationism, my understanding is that it's when they learn actual science and realize that they had been lied to all their life, but a blog I was referred to (unfortunately, neither I nor Ed Babinski, who had led me to it, can find it again) cited a study that showed that it's the humanities in college that lead to far more deconversions than science does. According to that study, it is due to their learning that there are other perpectives exist, ways of looking at things other than their own, and of looking at things through other perspectives, as well as understanding those other perspectives, which are all what happens in history, literature, and philosophy classes.
The best way to preserve one's fundamentalist beliefs is through ignorance, but yet again, is that any way to run a religion? Or to live your life?
The only logical way to be a christian in my opinion is to look at my way: The whole bible is true, including genesis. If this kind of thinking is only a century old, then the vast history of christianity has been practiced on shaky ground.
No, I didn't say that. Rather, what I said in
Message 71 was (emphasis added):
DWise1 writes:
Fundamentalism traces back at least a century, ...
You may refer to the
Wikipedia article for more complete information, but
Fundamentalism started as a movement in the wake of the Niagara Bible Conferences at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, followed by the publication of
The Fundamentals between 1910 and 1915; it was in 1920 that the actual term "fundamentalist" was coined. It was a reaction against the modernism and liberal theology that had started in the 19th century following the Enlightenment, and especially against the "higher criticism", which was a German attempt to understand the origins of the Bible through textual analysis (eg, the source for the Gospels was named "Q" for "Quelle", meaning "source").
While many of the ideas had existed before, they were codified into actual doctrine during this time. The article names three sources fundamentalism drew from:
1. The Five Fundamentals, from the aforementioned publication, which were:
a. The inerrancy of the Bible
b. The literal nature of the Biblical accounts, especially regarding Christ's miracles and the Creation account in Genesis.
c. The Virgin Birth of Christ
d. The bodily resurrection and physical return of Christ
e. The substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross
2. Dispensationalism, a new interpretation of the Bible created in the 1830's by John Nelson Darby and the Brethren movement. This is what all your end-times interpretations and the "count-down to Armageddon" are based on; it got really crazy in the local fundamentalist mega-church, Chuck Smith's, during the 1980's.
3. The doctrine of inerrancy courtesy of Charles Hodge in the mid 19th century. This was mainly an attempt to counter the higher criticism.
So as I told you, fundamentalism is only about a century old, with its component parts not much older than that.
You really should learn something about your history, and being in college is the ideal time to do that. I know that some disciplines' requirements can keep students very busy; eg, engineering demands so much that students have no free time nor much opportunity to deviate from the curriculum plan. I do not know how demanding the geology program is on your time, but you do still have your general ed and elective requirements. You should look into what religious studies has to offer and how those classes could satisfy those requirements. A history of Christianity, which might be offered instead through the history department, would be a good idea too. Or a kind of "development of Christian thought" class. That would also help you to understand other Christians.
Take advantage of the opportunities to learn! As the Talmud teaches (in the
Pirke Avoth, "Sayings of the Fathers"): "The more learning, the more life!"
) he doesn't post like our young friend has.
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