I recently made the mistake of visiting a Christian chat room, something I haven't done in well over a decade.
I was pretty cautious, to ensure I knew what sort of environment I was walking into. So when I did join in conversation I intentionally tried to keep comments that I thought might result in flaming to myself. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped.
The topic came up initially that the Jewish calendar was a lunar calendar. Someone commented that it was amazing that ancient people were able to study the patterns in the sky like they did. I joked that thousands of years ago without electricity and video games, astronomy was kind of like the main bronze age hobby.
I mentioned astronomy, and apparently all sorts of heck was let loose. First someone thought I was talking about astrology, I explained I said astronomy. Then I had to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology (something I thought was very basic knowledge). I used the 's' word. You know, "science".
So the conversation degenerated into something like this:
Person A: "Is astronomy actual facts or just human opinions"
Me: "Science deals with facts, astronomy as science deals with observations and the collection of data"
Person B: "It's just human OPINIONS not God's TRUTH"
Me: "No, science deals with facts. It deals with objective observations and addresses them through the scientific method"
Person B: "God's Word is TRUTH"
(Yes, "TRUTH" and "OPINIONS" were in all caps, that wasn't creative liberties on my part)
I realized at that point I really had nothing I could contribute that would have been in any way fruitful.
It boggles my mind that if one were to believe in a Creator God, as Christianity does, its right there in our Scriptures and in our Creeds, that God wouldn't imbue His creation with, well, truth. That what we actually observe in the universe is, in fact, a true observation. Theologically it's just insane to suggest otherwise.
It had been a very long time since I attempted entering a Christian chat room. Like I said it's been probably about a decade.
It was also a pretty good reminder that Christian Forums, for some of the craziness that does sometimes occur, is a rather sane place for discussion.
-CryptoLutheran