Debating fellow Christians (plus greetings from a lurker)

[shernren]

Hey all! Hope things have been going well here.

I've been incommunicado for a while, since one of my posts was flagged for swearing - that woke me up to the fact that I'd become quite a bit too cranky and smug for anybody's good, thanks to the long hours spent here.

Life's good, though immensely tiring. I'm teaching A-levels physics in a Christian private college in Kuala Lumpur - it's for 18-19-year-olds, which makes it about SAT level? Most frustrating thing in the world, trying to teach them how to think critically!

I'm here because my college's Christian Fellowship is putting together a debate event in about a month's time. Interestingly enough, the focus is YEC vs TE and it's Christians vs Christians. You can guess which side I've been roped in to!

Now I've heard a lot about debates between atheist evolutionists and YECs, and even watched one or two, but I have absolutely no idea how often YEC vs TE live debates happen and I don't think I've seen one. I am also very nervous about this - not because I'm afraid of losing (or winning!) but because I am all too aware that a debate of this nature can turn ugly in a very shameful way, because it is being done between brothers.

The help I could use is:

1. What are some *simple* analogies or models that we can use to explain certain aspects of TE belief? For example, one of our core beliefs is that the Bible is true yet not necessarily historical; what is a good way to describe this convincingly in a short amount of time?

2. How should I cushion my judgments of "unscientific" against my brothers in Christ? Are there any things I can say to make it clear that I am giving a technical judgment without insulting their character?

3. How do I tell kids that the science is on my side without having them dogmatically believe that the science is on my side? And how do I tell kids that science is provisional and they are free to find the truth for themselves without having them fall prey to the very persuasive presentations of YEC?

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

I'm not sure I'll be able to help you with the science bits but here goes


#1 Reminds me of something I read in What's So Great About Christianity? It was Stephen Barr using the blind watchmaker analogy to criticize Richard Dawkins:

What Dawkins does not seem to appreciate is that the blind watchmaker is something even more remarkable than Paley's watches. Paley finds a "watch" and asks how how such a thing could be there by chance. Dawkins finds an immense automated factory that blindly constructs watches, and feels tht he has completely answered Paley's point. But that is absurd. How can a factory that makes watches be in less need of explanation than the watches themselves?
​

Or to put it simply, which is better: a guy who makes individual watches, or a guy who makes his very own watch-making factory?

BTW, what's the general view of science and evolution in Malaysia? I would have thought it wouldn't be supported very much in a primarily Muslim country.

 

[ebia]

1. What are some *simple* analogies or models that we can use to explain certain aspects of TE belief? For example, one of our core beliefs is that the Bible is true yet not necessarily historical; what is a good way to describe this convincingly in a short amount of time?

Nathan's parable if they know the story or have time to be told it.

In 2 Sam 11 it tells the story of David's infidelity with Bethsheba and his treachery toward Uriah in a fairly historical-factual form.
In 2 Sam 12 Nathan retells the story in a parabolic form.

Nathan's version of the story isn't any less true than the form in the previous chapter, it's just parabolic. Rather than focusing on factual precision it is focused on the significance.

 

[shernren]

BTW, what's the general view of science and evolution in Malaysia? I would have thought it wouldn't be supported very much in a primarily Muslim country.

You are right that the country is primarily Muslim, and (as is often politically convenient) the mainstream of that thought is slowly becoming more and more fundamentalist, supremacist, exclusivist, and superstitious.

In The Creationists Ron Numbers classifies Malaysia as a creationist country. The classification is given on the grounds that, although biology is a science-stream subject for two years (ages 16-17), neither creationism nor evolutionism is mentioned in any form in the state-sanctioned syllabus. There are also "soft" creationist overtones in the inclusion of such topics as "the uniqueness of man from other animals" and "the responsibility of man to care for life". Nevertheless, after school, students are free to take up external pre-university qualifications (typically ages 18-19), many of which mention evolution, such as the Edexcel GCE A-Levels - my students actually learn quite a bit about competition and speciation at that level.

As far as I know, there isn't a lot of talk about Muslim creationism in the Muslim community - superstition rather than scientific superiority seems to be winning out in the cultural wars here, though I may well be entirely wrong.

The Christians here meanwhile generally have not made much of a fuss about creationism - we have far too many social injustices to worry about, and ideological conflict tends to be against Islamization rather than against secularization. Mainstream denominations (particularly the Methodists) tend to worry more about simple proselytization and survival than about theological issues such as liberalism.

Nevertheless, there is a growing trend of home-schooling, and quite worryingly a corresponding shift towards Christians using creationist materials from the US in such settings. I can only wonder what the implications of this will be - it is certainly interesting seeing the debris from American cultural conflicts being imported and decontextualized and fed to kids who are already more at risk (I generalize, of course) of being brought up away from society. What does a Christian kid who's been taught all about Adam do when he meets a Muslim who believes more about the Garden of Eden than he could ever imagine possible?

 

[shernren]

ebia - thanks for the thought. I can certainly imagine the creationists saying "yes, but we recognize the parabolic account only BECAUSE we have the literal account lying around just a chapter before", but the point is fundamentally sound (it's merely the difference between a non-literal account to which we have a literal counterpart in Scripture, and a non-literal account to which we don't).

Mind if I pick your brain about a specific argument? What if the creationist says "Well, why stop at Genesis? Why not tell me that the crucifixion was also a strange fable, and the Resurrection a pretty story, and that the bit about people going to hell is not literal, if indeed there is any such thing as heaven or hell at all?" How would you deal with that? I raise it not just because it's a very punchy argument but it is really such an important thing for evolutionary Christians to come to terms with.

 

[philadiddle]

I would focus a lot of time on theology and explain the creation account in it's context, making it clear that the culture of that day wasn't concerned with writing down the historical account but rather they were concerned with setting up the proper theology about god, people, and our relationship. It should be made clear that ANY origins theory would be compatible with the bible, whether it be creationism, evolution, or something else that we haven't thought up yet.

Then I would focus on how nothing is random to God (there are verses to support that, don't know em off the top of my head) so if God were to have used evolution it wouldn't have merely been some random occurence that just happened to make us, He would have known that we would have been the product.

I would then conclude by defining "theory" and explaining that the theory of evolution ties in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, paleontology, genetics, etc, etc. Explain how looking for oil can only be done with that model, finding fossils can only be done with that model, working for a pharmaceudical company can only be done with that model, etc.

Getting into too many specifics will be pointless. Specific evidence of evolution won't be enough to trump anyone's all inclusive worldview. That's why I would focus on theology first. In one public speaking class I took she told us to think of one key thing you want the audience to take away, and make everything you say revolve around that. In a 20 minute talk people won't remember if you give a bunch of arguments, no matter how rock solid they are. They will only pick out one or two things that they actually remember and take away from it. You may want to consider a theme like "It's ok if God used evolution because it doesn't contradict the bible".

Jusy my thoughts.

 

[philadiddle]

Mind if I pick your brain about a specific argument? What if the creationist says "Well, why stop at Genesis? Why not tell me that the crucifixion was also a strange fable, and the Resurrection a pretty story, and that the bit about people going to hell is not literal, if indeed there is any such thing as heaven or hell at all?" How would you deal with that? I raise it not just because it's a very punchy argument but it is really such an important thing for evolutionary Christians to come to terms with.

If you set up your explanation well for why Genesis is not meant to be literal, then answering that should be straightforward. You can mention the poetry, imagery, relation to other mythologies etc and then explain that other accounts such as the resurrection weren't written in that way, they were written historically.

Also, whether or not the creation account is a historical account doesn't affec the meaning of it, but whether or not Jesus actually died and rose again does affect the meaning of it.

 

[shernren]

In a 20 minute talk people won't remember if you give a bunch of arguments, no matter how rock solid they are. They will only pick out one or two things that they actually remember and take away from it. You may want to consider a theme like "It's ok if God used evolution because it doesn't contradict the bible".

Thanks for reminding me of that - absolutely important to remember the basics and have a key point.

One of the major difficulties I'm thinking about is this: how do I get the students both to understand that science is consensual instead of dogmatic, and that right now the consensus is overwhelmingly towards "conventional" conclusions (i.e. old earth + universe, evolution)? If I push too far towards "examine the facts for yourself" then they will say "So I think AiG's really convincing!" and if I push too far towards "everybody knows evolution is true!" (think Steve Project references) then they will say "You're a brainwashed sheep too!". Is there any kind of "right" answer, or do I have to suffice with saying that this is, indeed, the very situation we find ourselves in - many scientists independently converging on what is likely to be the scientific truth?

Also, how do I respond to people insisting that Christian thought should be "distinctive"? I.e. sure there's a consensus in science but it's secular, isn't it? For example, a common refrain even here on CF.com is "why would you listen to an evolutionist when there's a Christian scientist telling you otherwise?"

 

[metherion]

You could try pointing out some real life applications of TE and the various sciences that rely on the TOE being true.

Flu vaccines for flu seasons that haven't happened yet, oil drilling (old earth geology), classification of new species, maybe some neat stuff with astrophysics for the Big Bang Theory, et cetera. That will show the consensus, give plenty of real life examples, and not be insulting the YECs in any way, shape, or form... since you're only talking about how current sciences work.

Also, bring up Christian scientists, Christian evolutionists. That will help undercut the false dichotomy and show that evolution isn't just a secular consensus, it's the consensus of how the world actually works.

You could also use some logic, such as why haven't countries with official churches like England or Vatican City, who have among the most to gain with definitive proof and consensus of YEC to convert believers, have taken no stance? Well, those two might be bad examples, but you get the idea.

Metherion

 

[gluadys]

Thanks for reminding me of that - absolutely important to remember the basics and have a key point.

One of the major difficulties I'm thinking about is this: how do I get the students both to understand that science is consensual instead of dogmatic, and that right now the consensus is overwhelmingly towards "conventional" conclusions (i.e. old earth + universe, evolution)? If I push too far towards "examine the facts for yourself" then they will say "So I think AiG's really convincing!" and if I push too far towards "everybody knows evolution is true!" (think Steve Project references) then they will say "You're a brainwashed sheep too!". Is there any kind of "right" answer, or do I have to suffice with saying that this is, indeed, the very situation we find ourselves in - many scientists independently converging on what is likely to be the scientific truth?

Also, how do I respond to people insisting that Christian thought should be "distinctive"? I.e. sure there's a consensus in science but it's secular, isn't it? For example, a common refrain even here on CF.com is "why would you listen to an evolutionist when there's a Christian scientist telling you otherwise?"

It seems to me that if you use a concept like "examine the facts for yourself" you have to stress that you don't mean simply comparing what a biology text says with what AiG says and choosing what makes more sense in one's current frame of mind. You mean learning enough about the facts of nature to decide whether the biology text or AiG is actually giving a better description of what is really observed in nature. If you go in that direction, you might like to use that quote of Todd Woods on the solidity of the evidence for evolution (even though he chooses to reject it.)

As for the Christian distinctive, one fact is that the majority of scientists who are Christian also support the scientific consensus on evolution. But deeper than that theistic evolution, by virtue of being "theistic" is distinctive. Not in bending the science away from the consensus, but in interpreting the scientific consensus theologically. Science is seldom conducted objectively; every scientist and every commentator on science brings their own worldview to it and gravitates to interpreting the science to support their worldview. A Christian will always bring a distinctive Christian view to science and look to what in the scientific understanding of the world is consonant and supportive of a Christian worldview.

One example of that is the Christian and non-Christian views of "chance". To an unbeliever, chance is just a crap-shoot. That's the way the cookie crumbles and there is no sense trying to see it any other way. And, of course, that seems to remove all sense of dignity and purpose from existence. In reaction, some Christians have almost made "chance" a dirty word and begun supporting a strict determinism. But scripture actually makes clear that God provided a place for chance events in creation, yet remains in full control of the ends. So this is a Christian distinctive we bring to the role of chance in evolutionary change, whether we are speaking of the randomness of mutations or the concatenation of events and conditions that constitute selection pressures. We can certainly see God's hand moving behind the veil of chance to drive probabilities in the direction of God's purposes. Yet we can understand why in a strictly scientific measurement, we get unpredictable consequences.

 

[philadiddle]

Another general note for you, remember how easily things can get twisted when someone is bias. For example, a creationist once quoted part of a peer review paper on horizontal gene transfer. The paper was good, and explained what we are learning about HGT, and it outlined how this would have affected the early stages of evolution and how species were related. So why was the creationist referring me to this article? Because when they read it all they saw was "The tree of life is a false idea that we are now understanding to be incorrect." Keep that in mind when preparing.

 

[mark kennedy]

Hey all! Hope things have been going well here...

Been on kind of a debate sabbatical myself so welcome back to the boards. I don't like to intrude in here so I'll be brief.

3. How do I tell kids that the science is on my side without having them dogmatically believe that the science is on my side? And how do I tell kids that science is provisional and they are free to find the truth for themselves without having them fall prey to the very persuasive presentations of YEC?

How about this, tell them science doesn't take sides. It measures things and demonstrates through direct observation and systematic organization. It's not YEC that is so persuasive, it's the primacy of faith behind it. I think as a TE you should fully realize, there are ways of separating between transient controversy and core Christian conviction.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[shernren]

Checking back in

So the debate didn't materialize, but our college's youth group went ahead and did something even crazier: they actually agreed to run a camp all about origins. We hedged our bets by only giving me two sessions (an hour each + half an hour Q&A) and leaving the last day to a guy who's quite firmly reformed and creationist, but from what I could tell the students were okay though some came out a little confused.

What I did

I did the first talk about the origins of the universe. Opened by saying that I was always open to correction and review but here's what I've learned so far. Told students that there was a difference between mechanical ("the water boiled because heat was being supplied to it") and intentional ("the water boiled because I wanted to make tea") accounts of nature; example taken very helpfully from Dinesh D'Souza.

I framed the discussion in the following way: Does the Bible give an empirical account of the universe's origins? If no, then either it's rubbish or it must be telling us something non-empirical; if yes, then you are either a YEC, an OEC (science supports the empirical account) or an atheist (science doesn't).

Asked them to look through Genesis 1 and see if they could identify intent in the passage, what was the purpose of things? They could and so I gave them a bit of a briefing about the framework view. Then I told them about Enuma Elish and drew comparisons (poly vs monotheism, chaos personified vs submissive, etc) and a possible conclusion (God used a contemporary tale to make a non-scientific account which was egalitarian, i.e. accessible to non-scientific people).

I then told them about the Big Bang on the simplest level possible (Hubble's Law + redshift measurements) and said that most of the YEC counter-arguments didn't really hold water. Asked them to consider, if the Big Bang was really so godless, then how come most modern technology is pretty godless too? I gave the analogy that when a car breaks down, technology usually fixes it just as well regardless of whether one prays or not, whether one is a Christian or not, and said that this is a serious question which extends far beyond theories of origins. Then I did give some indications that fine-tuning arguments can point to design, as well as the fact that scientists don't really have any current theory beyond the Big Bang.

The first session was a night session and so the next session was in the morning; I was told before then by one of my co-organizers that I was coming across as too dogmatically in favor of my views. Oh wow! So I did a last minute brief treatment of the various positions one could take, which are basically what I've seen on CF.com before (you can probably recognize individual posters in my portraits )

- you could be confused, in which case you should trust that God can still use you and work in you despite your confusion, and commit to working through those beliefs; but don't pretend to be confused when you're actually not and committed to one of the other positions!
- you could be a science guy, in which case you should accept that other Christians may not necessarily accept your scientific evidence as being conclusive;
- you could be a nice guy, trying in really ingenious ways to harmonize between science and scripture, in which case best of luck but be aware that if you're the only person who understands and supports your theory you may just be a crackpot, and
- you could be a simple guy, rejecting contemporary science and clinging to a literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1, in which case you should again not expect the science guys to be very accepting of your views, but you should at least acknowledge that the contemporary interpretation of evidence doesn't leave a lot of room without some kind of omphalos theory (though I didn't use that term).

I then launched into a talk about evolution. I did a crowd-based version of a ratchet game (randomly choosing between alleles - represented by scraps of paper with "a" and "A" written on them - in such a way that "A" was preferentially chosen) and pointed out that their random actions had non-random effects. I went through some of the misconceptions about evolution (organisms evolve; evolution is godless; evolution is completely random and that's rubbish) and then went through my main piece of evidence - phylogenetic similarities; pointed out that while it is possible for similarities to not be phylogenetic, evolution was bolstered by the discovery of the double nested hierarchy. I then pointed out that adaptationism was a massive fallacy ("hey look this evolved, it must serve some adaptive purpose") which I would later link to etiological discounting of religion.

I then went into talking about the Biblical account of Adam and Eve - pointed out similarities with the Gilgamesh epic but again highlighted some important differences. I then did a brief cameo with original sin, saying that whatever we do we need to avoid Pelagian conclusions. But I then used that to take a turn on evolutionary psychology, and asking the age-old question of if evolution is all there is - if you're not just theistic, but an atheistic evolutionist - then where do our morals really come from? Aren't they just adaptations as much as religion and beliefs are? And I closed on that note.

Reflections and feedback

Most people smiled and laughed at the jokes, and were quiet at the serious parts, which generally indicates that they're either listening or asleep. The second talk was by far heavier, roaming over a very wide scope, and I think most people got slightly lost in it.

I had the occasion to talk for a while with two of the campers in person after the talks. They started with the question, "But if you really restricted yourself to absolutely just strictly the Bible, what would it say?" I thought for a while about how to answer that, and gave my honest opinion: if you excluded all of modern science from the conversation you'd end up with most likely a YEC or a marginally OEC view. (Which is how I do, honestly, view my current position - but all reading is interpretation and all of that.)

At that they were even more confused. I could see the gears turning - I knew one of the girls did refer to AiG sometimes for apologetics info - and then one of them complained, "Before you told us any of this stuff, my faith was really simple and I thought I could just believe the Bible. But now my faith is being challenged. I don't know what to do."

I told them that okay, maybe you could reject the scientific evidence, but in our modern world your faith is bound to brush up against something. Is it theologically right, I asked them, to go for cheap clothing sales, knowing that you might be funding sweatshops in poorer countries? Was it right for Obama to institute universal healthcare, and take taxes from people for things they didn't want to pay for? What if you were a lawyer, and someone asked you to arrange a divorce? Or if you were a doctor and someone asked for euthanasia? I told them that if they wanted to, they could sit out this fight, but really there was no way they could sit out of a fight forever. I didn't really see much relief come to them. I felt sad.

I had to rush home because my girlfriend Florence was flying back to Prague that night and I wanted to see her off. As such, I was unavailable when carnage occurred the next day: the creationist I mentioned earlier took the stand and confidently assured the students that science was ever-changing but evolution surely had never occurred. Chaos ensued. In the end, one of the other speakers (a psychologist who spoke about the psychology of sin) made the point that faith was always a journey and sometimes it was painful and difficult, but the truth was worth knowing.

Interestingly, though, at lunch earlier in the same day, someone came up to me and asked me whether Cain's wife could have been from one of the hominid groups lounging around at the time of Adam! I was initially shocked, but in retrospect I remembered that there is an American-trained academician (Ron Choong) who's been pushing fairly modernist views to whoever will hear him. Just a sign that you can't hold back the tides of progress.

What I would have done differently

I don't know, I think I did the best I could. I still struggle with being undogmatic about something that, as far as I'm concerned, seems cut and dry. "I can see how you could see it that way" just doesn't ring a bell.

I would definitely have emphasized more on the non-literal ways of knowing - stories, myth, analogy, metaphor, allegory - and tried to defuse some of the concerns about a non-literal Adam. Not many came up though! One definite change - Q&A sessions with young people should not be "free". It would have helped them a lot more if some of the more conservative lecturers came up on stage and gave me a nice good grilling

What do you guys think? Can 17-18-year-olds learn to handle this stuff properly, or do they need to grow a bit more before we even try?

 

[Papias]

Cool. Thanks for the update! I was wondering how that went.


Shernren wrote:

What do you guys think? Can 17-18-year-olds learn to handle this stuff properly, or do they need to grow a bit more before we even try?

I think kids can get this stuff well before 17-18. I've seen plenty of kids at ages 6 or 8 (and even younger) be able to both understand and handle this just fine. In fact, they like it, and it makes them less likely to just leave Christianity altogher when they see that creationism is wrong as they get older.

That's of course, different from the case where a kid is taught creationism, and taught that evolution is evil. In that case, I've seen plenty of Christians, even in their 40's, 50's or 60's who can't handle it. I think that speaks more to the need to teach a Christianity that is compatible with reality from the start.

Papias

 

[rcorlew]

Papias, I agree with you, if your God ain't big enough to create things using evolution then He is not bigger than the boogieman.

Shernen, I have been using an analogy that evolution is just like a recipe that God used to create everything, finding a recipe book does not change the fact that the baker actually made the cake.

 

[troodon]

That was a nice read, shernren.