Why some don't trust science

[juvenissun]

That's the stance I take too, which doesn't go over to well or fall on many open ears here in the south. Yes, the Bible can convey the truths of the Lord and can reveal thuths about ourselves in miraculous ways but it is still an ancient text written in a certain context and time and should be read in that context, like literature, only Holy.

If so, why would TE insist that Genesis creation is not scientifically true? They should not say that at all because the Bible does not mean to address the issue.

If evolutionist did not attack Bible, then there is no need to have creationist to defend it. Our school kids will still read the Bible, have prayer in school, and study their sciences.

 

[jonathan180iq]

If so, why would TE insist that Genesis creation is not scientifically true? They should not say that at all because the Bible does not mean to address the issue.

If evolutionist did not attack Bible, then there is no need to have creationist to defend it. Our school kids will still read the Bible, have prayer in school, and study their sciences.

Theistic evolution insists that the literal reading of Genesis creation isn't true simply because it doesn't line up with the evidence presented, not because of some ulterior motive or some conspirital attempt to disprove the Bible. Scientific research and evicdence should be netural.

And if the Bible didn't mean to address the issue creation, it shouldn't have gone into such detail about how exactly God created the Earth.

There are some that use evolution to try and disprove the Bible. That is true. But that is the fault of the individual and not the fault of the science behind it.

I do not doubt that there are things that I do not understand about scripture and about science both. However, there is ultimately only 1 truth and somewhere between the literal interpretation and the scientific evidence that truth exists. As long as we seek the Lord first, and use whatever tools we have to try and understand the Lord, we will be doing alright.

 

[metherion]

If so, why would TE insist that Genesis creation is not scientifically true? They should not say that at all because the Bible does not mean to address the issue.

If evolutionist did not attack Bible, then there is no need to have creationist to defend it. Our school kids will still read the Bible, have prayer in school, and study their sciences.

Because there is actual EVIDENCE against a literal Genesis creation. The fact is, people who attempt to get it INTO schools, or using it to try and get real science OUT are the ones forcing the issue.

And actually, ‘evolutionists’ didn’t start the slide away from a literal Genesis, it was Christian geologists in the early 1800s or thereabouts.

And at least over here in the US, mandatory or state-sponsored prayer in schools, teaching out of the Bible, and attempting to put religious dogma into the science classroom is against the Constitution, c/o 1947 (or was it 57?) Everson v. Board of Education.

Metherion

EDITED TO ADD
It is quite possible I misunderstood what you meant, as another way of reading it just hit me in my brains.

If TEs would insist that the Genesis creation is not scientifically true, that would mean someone was trying to insist it was first. After all, if the notion never crossed anyone’s mind, there would be nobody presenting that view, and no need to show how it doesn’t work.

And the creationists defending the Bible would seem to be defending something that was never meant in the first place, and thus doesn’t need defense because it is already an incorrect/unmeant/whatever idea.

However, my point about Constitutionality still stands in the US of A.

 

[lucaspa]

If so, why would TE insist that Genesis creation is not scientifically true? They should not say that at all because the Bible does not mean to address the issue.

I agree that the authors of the Bible did not mean to address the issue of how God created. But people today do insist that Genesis tells us how God created. Shoot, you do in your insistence on a global flood. The problem is that God, in His Creation, tells us He did not create that way.

If evolutionist did not attack Bible, then there is no need to have creationist to defend it. Our school kids will still read the Bible, have prayer in school, and study their sciences.

Juvenissun, please listen carefully. Evolution contradicts a particular interpretation of the Bible. Look at the first quote in my signature. The problem is that some people insist on keeping that interpretation even when God tells them it is not true.

Also, you have your history wrong. Creationists attacked evolution, not that evolutionists attacked the Bible. Remember, for over 50 years it was illegal to teach evolution in public schools in most states in this country. That was only finally remedied by the 1968 Epperson vs Arkansas case.

Prayer in public school has nothing to do with evolution. That issue is due to the US Constitution that forbids government from promoting a religion. Public schools are part of the government.

 

[lucaspa]

Good argument.

OK, now let's see the definition of "worship".

From Merriam-Webster Online:
"2 : reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also : an act of expressing such reverence
3 : a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual
4 : extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem "

So "worship the words" is an illogical description. "word" is not in the domain of "worship".

The text of a document is "an object". Thus it fits #4.

If the Bible is regarded as a divine being -- and that is what I am arguing when you capitalize "Word" -- then it fits #2.

 

[lucaspa]

To relate it to Lucaspa's argument, one can worship many things, such as tree, rock, cloud, idol, or even book (as an object). But nobody worships written words.

Not even when those words are God's? Didn't you say that, when people received messages from kings, they regarded those words as the king and paid homage to them? Hoisted on your own petard.

Also, you argued that the words were as God. Since that equates the words to God, why wouldn't you worship the written words? Again, hoisted by your own petard.

 

[lucaspa]

In Islam, Muhammad points to a book and says "There is the Word of God."

In Christianity the scriptures point to a Man and say "There is the Word of God."

Nicely put. Christianity is about a man. Fundamentalism is about a book.

 

[lucaspa]

Aren't these pro-Bible=as-the-word guys simply saying that they worship that which the Bible is referring to, and not the Bible itself. (To use the example of capital letters, it should be "they worship That which the Bible is referring to...")

But then they wouldn't refer to the text itself, the words, as "Word".

If they were worshipping God instead of the Bible, then they could listen to what God is saying in His second book. But we see, time and time again, "it doesn't mention evolution in the Bible" or "what is found in science must be confirmed by the Bible."

I would also refer you to this website: http://www.newreformation.org/heresy3.htm

In particular, look at this:
"On page 2 of the May 14, 1996 issue of the Western Recorder, a local Kentucky Baptist periodical, is a report of comments made by Morris Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee at a gathering of Baptists from across North America. Another denomination's top executive asked him to state an "irreducible minimum for an evangelical theology." In response, Chapman is reported as saying, "I would have to say the word of God is absolute truth and . . . Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Savior of the world." This is a very "tell tale" comment. Chapman lists his commitment to inerrancy before his belief in Jesus Christ."

And for the Jesus-is-the-Word, don't you have to view the Bible as a flawed document to reconcile the percieved inconsistencies between scripture and scientific evidence?

All you have to do is 1) discard a literal interpretation and 2) realize that the Bible is a theological document. The Bible is not meant to contain science, but theology. The idea of "flawed" comes from Fundamentalism which states that the Bible is "inerrant".
"(1)The Bible is the written Word of God, and because we believe it to be inspired thruout, all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all of the original autographs. To the student of nature, this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths. "

That is part of the creationist scientist oath. No mention of theology anywhere in there. The Bible, to them, is a history and science book, not one of theology.

 

[lucaspa]

That's the stance I take too, which doesn't go over to well or fall on many open ears here in the south.but it is still an ancient text written in a certain context and time and should be read in that context, like literature, only Holy.

That is because the South is predominantly Fundamentalist. And Fundamentalism converts the Bible from a book to a god.

If you look at 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul is saying that scripture is not a science book. The uses of scripture are limited, and those limits do not include science.

 

[marlowe007]

Given how science is an ascetic pursuit of tangible, palpable knowledge for its own sake only in the abstract, and has otherwise displayed an appalling tendency to co-optation by both commerce and militarism, particularly in the past 100 years and with often-DISASTROUS results, how can one blindly place one's trust in science alone?

 

[Orogeny]

Given how science is an ascetic pursuit of tangible, palpable knowledge for its own sake only in the abstract, and has otherwise displayed an appalling tendency to co-optation by both commerce and militarism, particularly in the past 100 years and with often-DISASTROUS results, how can one blindly place one's trust in science alone?

Science, as a methodology, is benign. What people apply the produce of scientific endeavor to is wholly unrelated to the nature of science itself.

It is not the knowledge that is to be feared, it is, as you say, the cooptation of the knowledge that can be harmful.

 

[gluadys]

Given how science is an ascetic pursuit of tangible, palpable knowledge for its own sake only in the abstract, and has otherwise displayed an appalling tendency to co-optation by both commerce and militarism, particularly in the past 100 years and with often-DISASTROUS results, how can one blindly place one's trust in science alone?

Certainly the co-optation of science is a problem and I would go a little further than Orogeny in noting that it is not only the consequences of science that become co-opted. Given the heavy dependence of scientific research on government (mostly military) and corporate funding, there is even a significant influence on what becomes a subject of research. We spend a lot more researching new ways to kill each other than new cures for malaria, for example.

Then there is also a lot of suppression of genuine scientific findings too. And deliberate funding of pseudo-science like the tobacco companies funding "research" denying the link of smoking to cancer or Exxon Mobil funding "research" denying the link of fossil fuels to global warming.

Cooptation and suppression don't actually change the data or the fundamental conclusions based on scientific methodology. They are political dangers we need to keep in mind rather than something fundamentally wrong with science as a quest for knowledge.

Yet these political dangers are sound reasons for not trusting a policy direction just because it is said to be based on science. One has to ask for whose benefit has this "scientific support" been sought. And what scientific questions are the policy wonks not asking or presenting.

 

[Orogeny]

I agree with most of your points, gluadys. I think you agree with me, though, when I say to fear the man, not the method. Yes?

 

[juvenissun]

I agree that the authors of the Bible did not mean to address the issue of how God created. But people today do insist that Genesis tells us how God created. Shoot, you do in your insistence on a global flood. The problem is that God, in His Creation, tells us He did not create that way.



Juvenissun, please listen carefully. Evolution contradicts a particular interpretation of the Bible. Look at the first quote in my signature. The problem is that some people insist on keeping that interpretation even when God tells them it is not true.

Also, you have your history wrong. Creationists attacked evolution, not that evolutionists attacked the Bible. Remember, for over 50 years it was illegal to teach evolution in public schools in most states in this country. That was only finally remedied by the 1968 Epperson vs Arkansas case.

Prayer in public school has nothing to do with evolution. That issue is due to the US Constitution that forbids government from promoting a religion. Public schools are part of the government.

This is a reply to several people:

OK, who attacked who first? This is the question.

For thousands of years, people believed in the creation, mostly by faith. The Bible describes the creation. According to some of you, what's said in the Bible (by ancient people) does not imply anything about modern science. This is fine.

See who started to attack the faith of creation? It is the idea of evolution and people who believed in it. Why? Because evolution is scientific. Evolutionist started to read science in the Bible.

So who started to use science to attack the Bible? It did not begin with creationists who banned the teaching of evolution in school. It started with evolutionists who attacked the Biblical creation as non-scientific.

According to some of you, Is TE able see that the Biblical creation does not imply any scientific argument? If so, why is it attacked by science?

Anyway, the Biblical creation was attacked by evolutionist in the name of science. That is why creationist raised and started to talk about the science in the Bible. Faithful people are forced to examine science in the Scripture in order to defend the Scripture. If there were no attack from evolutionist, there would be no creationist.

 

[juvenissun]

Not even when those words are God's? Didn't you say that, when people received messages from kings, they regarded those words as the king and paid homage to them? Hoisted on your own petard.

Also, you argued that the words were as God. Since that equates the words to God, why wouldn't you worship the written words? Again, hoisted by your own petard.

People honored the words because they came from God (King). They worship God (King), not the words. How many times I have to repeat this?

 

[juvenissun]

From Merriam-Webster Online:
"2 : reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also : an act of expressing such reverence
3 : a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual
4 : extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem "



The text of a document is "an object". Thus it fits #4.

If the Bible is regarded as a divine being -- and that is what I am arguing when you capitalize "Word" -- then it fits #2.

There are so many texts in the Bible. Are they all objects? Which one I worship? Is it "In" or "The" or "Beginning"? Should I make a big sculpture on the word "God" and worship the sculpture?

I am going to quit on the argument of this issue. It is boring.

 

[metherion]

OK, who attacked who first? This is the question.

The creationists, long before evolution existed. Don’t worry, I WILL provide evidence.

For thousands of years, people believed in the creation, mostly by faith. The Bible describes the creation. According to some of you, what's said in the Bible (by ancient people) does not imply anything about modern science. This is fine.

Agreed.

See who started to attack the faith of creation? It is the idea of evolution and people who believed in it. Why? Because evolution is scientific. Evolutionist started to read science in the Bible.

WRONG. Case in point, Galileo. People trying to read science into the Bible to contradict actual observed science. PRE-EVOLUTION.
Case in point: James Hutton came up with the geological idea of uniformitarianism, and died BEFORE 1800. So he died more than 60 years before Origin of Species was published.
There are more.

NO. It was NOT evolution, it was Christians trying to find actual science having the Bible used to attempt to contradict their actual scientific findings. The BIBLE was co-opted as a science book to try and make creation a scientific theory (which it wasn’t) to refute ACTUAL science, LONG before evolution. You, sir, are wrong.

So who started to use science to attack the Bible? It did not begin with creationists who banned the teaching of evolution in school. It started with evolutionists who attacked the Biblical creation as non-scientific.

But for that to have happened, somebody MUST have been attempted to USE the Bible AS science, which you have already admitted is the wrong use for the Bible.

According to some of you, Is TE able see that the Biblical creation does not imply any scientific argument? If so, why is it attacked by science?

In order, : Yes, by some of us. I know I see that Biblical creation stories are not meant to imply science.

Because people insist on trying to make it science to refute ACTUAL science. So the not-science of the Bible had to be SHOWN as not-science so ACTUAL science could progress. The Bible was used to attempt to deny ACTUAL science FIRST.

Anyway, the Biblical creation was attacked by evolutionist in the name of science

As my examples show, and to quote Gene Wilder:
WRONG, SIR! WRONG!

That is why creationist raised and started to talk about the science in the Bible. Faithful people are forced to examine science in the Scripture in order to defend the Scripture.

This statement is based on your previous statement, which is wrong, which explains why THIS statement is wrong too.

If there were no attack from evolutionist, there would be no creationist.

Except there WERE creationists around LONG before evolution, and science making new discoveries is not ‘attacks’ on the Bible.

People honored the words because they came from God (King). They worship God (King), not the words. How many times I have to repeat this?
...
There are so many texts in the Bible. Are they all objects? Which one I worship? Is it "In" or "The" or "Beginning"? Should I make a big sculpture on the word "God" and worship the sculpture?

I think you mean ‘words’ and not ‘texts’.

And I would submit that a great many people worship specifically the KJV with the whole KJV only movement which (in some cases) specifically states that God actually spoke in Middle English to the Hebrews and through Jesus’ mouth, and even tho it was miraculously understood and recorded in Hebrew/Greek/whatever, when it was translated in the 1611KJV it was the actual words that came from God’s mouth. Yeah... sounds a bit like Bible worship to me.

And putting WORDS about the Creator, not even literally the direct words OF the Creator, above the WORK of the Creator, and in spite of the nature of the Creator himself... I’d say that’s worship of the Bible.

Metherion

 

[lucaspa]

OK, who attacked who first? This is the question.

For thousands of years, people believed in the creation, mostly by faith.

STOP. This isn't about the Creation. This is about creationism. Creation and creationism are 2 different things.

What happened is that some people decided that the Biblical description of creation was how it really happened. They were doing that long before evolution. Here is Francis Bacon writing in the early 1600s .

"For nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error; and it is a very plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration. Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings, seeking for the dead among the living; which also makes the inhibition and repression of it the more important, because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy[science] but also a heretical religion. Very meet it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith's." Francis Bacon. Novum Organum LXV, 1620 Francis Bacon: Novum Organum (1620)

So, people had made Genesis 1-8 into a scientific theory long before evolution was discovered.

See who started to attack the faith of creation? It is the idea of evolution and people who believed in it.

Darwin did everything possible in Origin to avoid attacking the idea of creation. Read the Fontispiece. Then consider these quotes:
"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

The first attacks came from the clergy. Remember the Bishop Wilberforce vs Huxley debate in 1860? The attack came from creationists.

What happened next was that Christians rapidly accepted evolution.
"When my Father [Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury] announced and defended his acceptance of evolution in his Brough Lectures in 1884 it provoked no serious amount of criticism ... The particular battle over evolution was already won by 1884." F.A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 1948, pg. 491.

Then came the Fundamentalists. These people believed the Bible was inerrant. In a series of pamphlets published between 1900 and 1910 called The Fundamentals they attacked evolution.

So who started to use science to attack the Bible?

Creationists. Fundamentalists. They felt attacked. But only because they were worried about the Bible and not God. As you are.

Faithful people are forced to examine science in the Scripture in order to defend the Scripture.

And why are you "forced" to defend "Scripture"? And why do you capitalize "Scripture" like you would capitalize "God"? Scripture isn't God. We can dispense with the creation stories and still have God. Genesis 1-8 is not essential to Judaism or Christianity.

 

[lucaspa]

Given how science is an ascetic pursuit of tangible, palpable knowledge for its own sake only in the abstract, and has otherwise displayed an appalling tendency to co-optation by both commerce and militarism, particularly in the past 100 years and with often-DISASTROUS results, how can one blindly place one's trust in science alone?

What are you talking about when you say "place one's trust in science"?

Science is the study of the physical universe. It tells us how the physical universe works. So far, science has earned a lot of trust in how the physical universe works. Let's face it, science was very correct in what it knew about nuclear fission and fusion. If it hadn't been correct, we never would have had fission and fusion bombs that work.

So, if science tells us the earth is 4.55 billion years old, we can trust that. If it tells us that energy in our bodies is provided by the Krebs cycle, we can trust that.

What then happens is how the knowledge is used. That is, technology we make with the scientific knowledge as a base. Do we build power plants or bombs with the knowledge about nuclear fission? Do we make vitamins for better nutrition to help the Krebs cycle work better or do we make poisons? That decision on what technology to make is not made by scientists. It's made by businessmen, politicians, and the public. Scientists often help with the construction of the technology, but the decision is not made by them.

What you seem to have done is confuse the technology with the science. You don't trust the decisions on which technology to make. That's fine. I don't either.

Let me give you an example my daughter and I were talking about the other night. She had heard that someone had proposed cloning a Neandertal. Yes, the science of genetics and reproductive biology is sufficient that this could be done. We can trust the science enough to think that cloning a Neandertal would actually work.

BUT, then comes the ethical decision on whether we ought to do it. That's not a scientific decision. Even if scientists make the decision, it is not a scientific decision. It's an ethical decision. Both of us could envision several huge ethical problems with cloning a neandertal. Enough of them that neither of us thought it should be done.

There is nothing in the science of genetics and reproductive biology that tells us we ought to clone a neandertal.

Do you see the distinction between science and ethics?

 

[lucaspa]

People honored the words because they came from God (King).

The way you stated it, the people behaved toward the words as they would toward the King. They treated the words the same as they treated the King. So what is the distinction? If there is no difference, how can you say there is one?

Look at your post about the "history" of the conflict between evolution and religion. You keep harping on evolution attacking "the Bible". If you worship God, shouldn't your concern be whether evolution attacks God? But it never is. Your entire focus is on "the Bible" or "Scripture". You even capitalize scripture like we capitalize god.

The more you write, juvenissun, the more you give us examples of how you treat scripture as tho it is a god.