Indeed it is hard not to.
Most of us, including most bishops, have received a modern, not classical education, which has an atmosphere and is founded n certain philosophical assumptions which are never stated, but can be found in the rules, regulations and requirements covering teaching and the schools and are in fact essentially atheist and materialist. And private schools are no help, as a rule, because they mimic and imitate the structure and even curriculum of the public schools. This means that anyone in the Church, even a bishop, can be a sincere believer in the Church, AND hold ideas incompatible with Church teaching, unawares. The philosophical assumptions are assumed, and rarely thought out.
The basic assumption evolutionists hold is that “most scientists seem to affirm it, and the textbooks tell us of mountains of evidence, and what we see seems to bear it out, therefrore it is true fact, as certain as the statement that Jesus is Lord”. Now there ARE mountains of evidence - of something - but it is the interpretations and conclusions drawn by people trained in the philosophical assumptions in an education system not designed to give what our ancestors would call an education at all that we would question. In short, modern education is dust and ashes. It has not taught us truth, our college degrees are largely worthless, the philosophies have no love of wisdom, the teachings in the natural sciences regarding what has not, and cannot be observed, teach an erroneous narrative, and most, f not all of us, are full of ideas born in agnosticism and atheism, hostile to the revealed revelation of the Church, and the wisdom of the Church fathers.
The modern must essentially return to Socrates’ “I know nothing”, to the innocence and faith of a little child - not in modern schools and universities, or the priests of the religion of our time (scientists), but in the traditional teachings of the Church. To be Orthodox is to be traditional by definition, and to sneer at tradition, above all Holy Tradition, is to reject Orthodoxy and (if one continues to claim the name) to become a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Science is useful - in its place. It can help us build and make many useful things, and understand fascinating things about God’s Creation. But it ought not to be worshiped, or placed on a pedestal giving its adherents equal authority to that of the Church fathers in our understandings of what truth is. We are fools if we think we know better than the fathers, if we think we have any kind of superiority because we live today. And many are indeed such fools. The only way to be sure of avoiding that is to say that “If my ideas contradict the Church and consensus of the fathers, then it is my ideas that are wrong, not theirs”.
When in doubt, ask the fathers. Your (and my) formal education is worthless next to them.
