David Moyer Posted:
I am a Christian Engineer/Scientist and I have no problem with conflicts between the facts of science (as opposed to some hypotheses of science) and the teachings of scripture. I know literally dozens of other engineers and people with doctorates in technical fields including medicine, veterinary medicine, biology, etc. who also see no conflict. I was once a staunch evolutionist and I could easily teach a high school or community college course on evolution. There are some aspects of evolutionary theory/hypotheses with which I have no quarrel. But nearly the entire field is a matter of hypotheses with very little of it proven by the scientific method, because so little of it is falsifiable. It certainly does not deserve to be classified as a theory- that is a hypothesis that has been tests by real scientific methods so often that almost no one can devise another test that might disprove it. Remember, that scientific hypotheses are not proven, but rather attempts are made to disprove them and those attempts fail repeatedly. Most evolutionary hypotheses cannot be tested.
A big problem which causes the supposed conflicts between science and scripture is that too many people like to claim that they know more than is readily evident both in science and in scripture. Much of the Bible is translated from ancient languages with which we have only a passing familiarity. Some translator proposes a translation for a difficult term and thousands of people accept it and claim that it must be true when none of them would have any way of knowing if it was true. Fans of the King James Version lead the list, here, and bringing ridicule upon other Christians who are often assumed to believe what the King James folks proclaim. Much of the Bible was intended to be poetry, but some claim that the poetic passages must be translated as literally true. There is the Arch-Bishop Ussher chronology which would seem to prove that the world is only 6000 years old, but it is based on many obvious misunderstandings and demonstrably false assumptions. Yet, it is a test of one’s faith in many denominations that one accept this flawed piece of work.
I have maintained for many years that the means used to judge distance, and thus time, in astronomy was based on way too many unprovable assumptions and on assigning too high a precision on measurements which are then extrapolated billions and billions of times. I think the recent “discovery” that the expansion of the universe is accelerating for reasons unknown and then the creation of dark matter and dark energy to explain it shows how far off the beam these folks have been.
The message of scripture is that there is a God and you aren’t Him. Furthermore we are all so screwed up that we need to be rescued from our messed up condition. The path to that rescue has been revealed- Jesus the Christ. Accept it and live- fail to accept it and die. All the other stuff is there to make that point. Those who look for other things are making an error just as grave as the errors scientists make trying to prove their pet hypotheses when they should be looking for flaws in their hypotheses, instead.
I am a Christian Engineer/Scientist and I have no problem with conflicts between the facts of science (as opposed to some hypotheses of science) and the teachings of scripture. I know literally dozens of other engineers and people with doctorates in technical fields including medicine, veterinary medicine, biology, etc. who also see no conflict. I was once a staunch evolutionist and I could easily teach a high school or community college course on evolution. There are some aspects of evolutionary theory/hypotheses with which I have no quarrel. But nearly the entire field is a matter of hypotheses with very little of it proven by the scientific method, because so little of it is falsifiable. It certainly does not deserve to be classified as a theory- that is a hypothesis that has been tests by real scientific methods so often that almost no one can devise another test that might disprove it. Remember, that scientific hypotheses are not proven, but rather attempts are made to disprove them and those attempts fail repeatedly. Most evolutionary hypotheses cannot be tested.
A big problem which causes the supposed conflicts between science and scripture is that too many people like to claim that they know more than is readily evident both in science and in scripture. Much of the Bible is translated from ancient languages with which we have only a passing familiarity. Some translator proposes a translation for a difficult term and thousands of people accept it and claim that it must be true when none of them would have any way of knowing if it was true. Fans of the King James Version lead the list, here, and bringing ridicule upon other Christians who are often assumed to believe what the King James folks proclaim. Much of the Bible was intended to be poetry, but some claim that the poetic passages must be translated as literally true. There is the Arch-Bishop Ussher chronology which would seem to prove that the world is only 6000 years old, but it is based on many obvious misunderstandings and demonstrably false assumptions. Yet, it is a test of one’s faith in many denominations that one accept this flawed piece of work.
I have maintained for many years that the means used to judge distance, and thus time, in astronomy was based on way too many unprovable assumptions and on assigning too high a precision on measurements which are then extrapolated billions and billions of times. I think the recent “discovery” that the expansion of the universe is accelerating for reasons unknown and then the creation of dark matter and dark energy to explain it shows how far off the beam these folks have been.
The message of scripture is that there is a God and you aren’t Him. Furthermore we are all so screwed up that we need to be rescued from our messed up condition. The path to that rescue has been revealed- Jesus the Christ. Accept it and live- fail to accept it and die. All the other stuff is there to make that point. Those who look for other things are making an error just as grave as the errors scientists make trying to prove their pet hypotheses when they should be looking for flaws in their hypotheses, instead.
Comments
I agree with most of what you say here... I apologize for the confusion... The blog email system is a bit screwy...
I think you may be more sceptical than is necessary about both evolution's merits as a theory and how well we know the ancient languages. Of course there are areas of uncertainty and therefore mistakes made in both fields, and of course there are still things to learn, but I'm not convinced the problems are as important as you seem to suggest. I'll comment briefly on the language issue simply because it's more my "bag" than scientific theory. Remember that there is a LONG tradition of Biblical scholarship in the Church going back to just after the apostles. The line has been unbroken since then and each generation has taught the next. Furthermore, Christian scholarship and knowledge of the Hebrew of the original texts and the Greek of the Septuagint built upon rabbinic scholarship. Second-century Christian scholars would have had no problem with the first-century KOINE of the NT. The language of the Latin Vulgate is much later--fourth and fifth-century. I'm just saying our understanding of these "ancient" languages comes in fact from contemporary or nearly contemporary sources. Of course, some of the transmissions over two millenia could become garbled, and there are ridiculous claims made. My all-time favorite is the late twentieth-century scholar who claimed (claims?) that the KOINE word that is usually translated as something like "sexually immoral" (the REB says "obscene") he KNOWS is first-century slang for "homosexual." Of course, the man has an agenda.
PS - I meant to add the Scriptural reference for my last comment. It's Revelation 21:8.
I think the Reformation changed the way scripture was interpreted in a way that is destructive of both science and religion. Before the Reformation, it seems to me, that religious practitioners who could read the scriptures clearly understood that the roles of religion was to help us in our relationships with each other and in our search for personal meaning - sometimes in a mystical context. As such, religion dealt with no issues of fact. None. It told stories whose truth lay in symbolic meaning, which in the realm of human behavior is frequently more powerful than fact. It did not matter whether the stories of the Bible were true. It only mattered that they be believable and that they carried the right body of mythology. To imagine that any "fact" in the Bible either is "true" or that it must be true for the mythology to work is to misunderstand both its purpose and its method of operation.
In fact, I've often argued that our own sense of the word "true" has changed materially over the last millennium. Long ago a wheelwright was a person who "trued" wheels. They made them round and flat, so they were good for the purpose at hand. And a person who was "true" was loyal. Being true had a lot more to do with utility than it had to do with fact. A fact that is verifiable and useful is true in the same sense that a wheel that is round and flat is true. Truth is not some obscure metaphysical or religious fact or idea. It is a deep quality of utility. Sadly, we have all forgotten this sense of truth. Our sense of truth, interestingly, is no longer true!
[continued]...What does all this have to do with religion vs science? Science deals with fact. It deals with how we understand the physical world. It can help us understand what we value and how we make decisions. It can help us understand that religious feeling may actually be a physical state of mind - since it can be induced by psilocybin. It can even help explain why societies have a habit of inventing gods and adapting them for their use. But it is useless in helping people find meaning in their lives.
Religion, by contrast, deals with personal meaning. It deals with how society is shaped so that the people in it experience life in a constructive, meaningful way. Religion properly ought to use any tools of science at its disposal if it is to maximize its impact. But there is no part of religion that necessitates conflict with science. No part of religion rightly deals with fact. In the sense that we defined truth above, it might deal with mystical or psychological truth. Again, it may draw on what we know to be factual in these arenas to help people find meaning. But, of course, the danger here is that once our understanding of the facts change, the practices would have to as well. And religious societies have always had factions that see their religious practice as lying in the rituals and rules rather in the way we see others.
I agree that it is a big problem that people think they know more than they really do. Anyone who studies science very carefully must know that in the physical realm only a small amount of stuff has good descriptive models. Beyond that almost nothing is known. Before Newton, even the categories upon which classical physics were built were not well defined. Outside of physics and chemistry, I think there are very few realms of human work where we have developed the level of understanding necessary to define the fundamental categories that might eventually help us terms with what's actually happening.
I happen to see the message of scripture quite a bit differently than the [writer[s] posting above]. I see God as a useful construct to confer authority to the guys who wrote the old testament, and by extension, the new. The truth of God lies more in the idea's utility in bringing people into compliance than it does in any connection with fact. I think that humility is among the most important attributes humans can possess, since it keeps us open to new relationships and new ideas. If one is a Christian, it can help a person be open to better ways of defining their own relationship with their God and with their friends and foes. But I wonder whether Buddhism's methods might not sometimes be more effective in training us in this arena.
I also think that Christ's message of truly caring for your neighbor (see also, your sworn enemy) is central to Christianity. Sadly, I fear that some of the most devout sit in the pews and listen, but fail to hear that message.
An old book of I Ching carries on its cover the key to actually getting what's essential from any true religious writing "Pick this book up. Feel it. Throw it away."
In "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," Annie Dillard comments on how advancements in quantum physics have revealed the essential mystery of particles - how we have pulled back the veil on nature only to find we cannot know past a certain point. We can either know the velocity or the location of a particle but not both at the same time, and ultimately the movement of particles is chaotic and unable to be predicted. This is the point where a man must decide what or Who he believes calls the shots; this is the realm of belief, and science cannot comment on that.
On one hand we are discussing compatibility between science and religion and we all seem to find no great conflict, and have worked it out each in our own way...on the other hand, there seems to be a conversation about belief--Christians believe in a real Christ, with Real Authority, and in a history in Biblical writ that to some extent actually happened...we trust that Jesus will return, and that we are saved already by his death and resurrection on the Cross...Science really has no role to play in that belief.
Secondly, Wayne, I'm uncomfortable with the absolutism of your assertions. I do believe that we all come to God through Christ, but I'm not so sure the process is always as cognitive as you say it is. Pagan neighbors forced St. Augustine to re-examine his beliefs. He believed that GOd was the source of all good. Then he noticed that some of his pagan neighbors were really quite good. They were kind, decent, and compassionate to the needy. Augustine was forced to deduce that God had to be in some sort of relationship with them because only God could have given them the power to be good. He concluded that some pagans who thought they were serving some Roman deity were in fact serving God. The Catholic church institutionalized this insight as what they call, I believe, the "baptism of intention."
As far as the “scientific” nature of the “Theory of Evolution” I pose this challenge: write a testable hypothesis describing it. If you can’t write a falsifiable proposition, it isn’t science. It could even be true and factual, but if it isn’t testable, it isn’t science.
I do this to the adamant AGW (global warming-climate change) believers as well. I’ve never had anyone propose a testable hypothesis or proposition.
Regarding the language issue I was, perhaps, a bit casual and imprecise about what I meant. I wasn’t speaking about most of the words, but the troublesome ones. Certainly many scholars have put in centuries of collective effort getting the gist and even quite a bit of precision about what the authors intended to say. But there are many words, terms, idioms and nuances where we probably don’t understand. If we really understood, then there wouldn’t be so many differing interpretations of what was written.
I participate on theology discussion forums in which people argue endlessly about the meaning of even “simple words”. For instance Baptize/baptism etc. causes no end of trouble. Some people insist that it means to immerse, usually in water. And it would seem that in some circumstances it does mean that. However, in other references it probably doesn’t and then the question arises as to how do we know what in means in which circumstance. There are many terms like “all” and “world” which cause endless debate with many folks claiming that they know for certain what the term meant.
Actually, the Bible also suggests that some people are, by their actions, commended toward God [not sure of the reference right now or exact words used], and you should revisit the Mars Hill sermon of Paul's where he mentions that they had been worshiping God [their "unknown God"] all along...but as for your other comments--Romans 10:1-21 stands out: 1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. 5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?' " (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: "Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." 19 Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, "I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding." 20 And Isaiah boldly says, "I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me." 21 But concerning Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."