I like how you’re addressing the matter of questions here, as well as @LM77’s observations. I agree that good questions draw people out and get a good discussion going or help sustain it. I am TERRIBLE at asking good questions.
Context and, as you pointed out purpose, make all the difference in the world. Good will is a necessary given if people feel there is enough mutual trust to have a good conversation in the first place.
Some important conversation/question goals that I systematically fail to focus on and deserately need to are:
understand better what the person actually thinks
in listening to them, understand what I actually think as well
make sure I have the right information or any information at all
find out what I need to learn more about
think together (I am finding in reading some things today that are like things I read in college classes where we would discuss them, how much I dearly miss the opportunity to think together about what I’ve read.)
practice humility that I really need to practice
build trust (on both sides) and/or relationships
find out where we need to agree to disagree, or establish areas where we all know care must be taken in working through differences.
If no one is talking, because we just can’t stand each other or abhor the ideas that the other person holds so much that we can’t see the person for their ideas, then nobody learns anything. No dialectic happens, no interaction; we know what we know and we know how wrong the other person is.
In my experience, good questions prompt people to describe their thought processes and/or how they arrived at a certain position. We will have better discussions if we understand why we believe the things we do instead of just describing what we believe. Follow up questions will try to dig deeper into the reasons why they think evidence points in a certain direction, and what evidence would point away from their conclusions or towards a different conclusion.
Oh I agree. Loaded, closed, baited, and Trojan questions are not only bad, they are disrespectful and dishonouring.
There are a few. Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive domains is a tool that’ve found very helpful for crafting questions over years. It reminds me that good questions questions promote higher orders of thinking that evaluate or synthesise ideas and information. As opposed to simply recalling facts.
But I think, for me, my working criteria of a good question would be curiosity seeking understanding.
Earlier you said that a question-based approach might make you
So I’m interested, what criteria would you use for a differentiating good and bad questions? That’s neither a deflection or a palm off by the way. Genuinely interested.
In case anyone is interested, a baited question is one that sets up trap:
“answer me this one question, do you think that feeding the pigeons is morally wrong or not?”
The questioner usually just wants you to stand against a position so they can nail you to it with their counter argument.
Trojan questions are what I call rhetorical questions. Unless you’re talking to Cicero or the Writer to the Hebrews, the questioner is probably using their rhetorical question to disguise what they actually think.
I am not sure that you can set guidelines or criteria. Clearly loaded questions like
Why did you kill your mother? are a no-no. But sometimes the barb or catch is not so obvious.
Just avoiding the subject in hand, ie biblical accuracy or science would be self defeating. You end up talking about the weather or how is your mother? (That one can drop a clanger).
The other thing to ask is whether you are prepared to change your viewpoint? It will become apparent very quickly if you are dogmatic and immovable. No matter how subtle you try to be the truth will out. If you can establish that winning is not an option, so that you can agree to differ the questions become more informative and less argumentative.
My problem is that usually I am fully aware of the arguments against my viewpoint. I understand them, I just don’t accept them This can produce claims of arrogance or ignorance (because they do not believe that you could possibly understand and not believe what they do). Have you ever tried to keep a straight face while being taught how to suck eggs? (not that I am a grandmother)
I think that is a good question as well. In the case of YEC’s, you could ask what type of sedimentary layer a flood could not produce. You could ask them what features a fossil would need in order for them to accept it as being transitional. You could ask what type of geologic features they would expect to see on an old Earth, and why. In response, they could also ask you what you would expect from YEC and what type of evidence would change your mind.
If it does come down to someone not being able to change their mind, then maybe some sort of resolution can be found between people. Agree to disagree. This would be especially true between friends, which appears to be the case in the opening post.
The reason for this is very simple. Those who have a deep theological understanding of the Bible recognize that you can not twist the meanings of scriptural passages to suit secular scientific interpretations.
It is also wrong to make the claim that all AIG and Creation Ministries science interpretations are errant…that is almost always based on the idea that there are more secular science interpretations that disagree with a minority of YEC ones. It is also rubbish tto make the claim that science is universal. I do not agree that measurements are proof that YEC is wrong. YEC are using measurements too.
At the end of the day, I would suggest that one frist decides what they are going to believe…the Bible or secularism and its interpretations. It is at that point one makes their bed and to be honest, if it turns out that secular science is wrong in its interpretations, then all those who claim to be Christians and yet follow the secular view of it are going to be left out of the kingdom (of that there is no doubt) .
I would suggest that anyone who is unsure study the Old Testament Sanctuary. If you truly understand the Sanctuary, you would have zero problems with YEC. Cain and Abel for example, both gave sacrifices to God. If the Sanctuary is simply a Mosaic tradition, why were Cain and Abel offering sacrifices to God?
Also, Christ told the Apostles to take the Gospel to the World…even to Gentiles…modern Christians are all known biblically as “Spiritual Israel”. The point is, the term refers to Gods people as outlined in Revelation 14:12 "te patience of the saints are those who:
Keep the commandments of God (google search prooves this is all of the 10 commandments)
Good point. Most of the time, these forum discussions are not about changing someone’s mind if they are committed to YEC, as their motivation in coming here is not to learn more about EC in consideration of changing their views, but rather it is seen more as an obligation be light in a dark world. We do have some who are genuinely seeking clarity, but those conversations are often different. Perhaps the first thing we need to do is determine the purpose of the conversation, and questions to that end may be in order.
The other conversations between those committed to their position, is more to help both sides of the argument understand the strengths and weaknesses of their relative positions, and to better understand the other’s points so as to not misrepresent them so that fairness and truth might prevail.
I think there is a real difference in how people view the world.
The outlook of scientists (believers and non-believers alike):
No scientist is trying to “suit secular scientific interpretations”. For example, a doctor doesn’t conclude you have a bacterial infection because he is trying to suit the secular scientific interpretations of Germ theory. NASA isn’t planning paths of spaceships through space to suit Newton’s laws of gravity. The universe around us are facts, not ideologies that we have pledged to uphold.
There are millions and millions of Christians who believe both.
Now that is certainly a matter of “just an alternate opinion!” It helps if we all try to have an attitude of humility in our interactions, and it is even a biblical mandate.
Very true. But that does not mean we should overlook those that are wrong.
Perhaps in religion that is true, but it is the very opposite of what science teaches.
That gets into a can of worms. My personal opinion for many reasons is that it is because it was written in the Exilic period and has anachronistic features.
When a discussion with a young earthist starts going round and round in circles, it is a good idea to see if you can figure out why, and whether continued discussion is a good use of your time.
One particular red flag is when they keep repeating the same falsehood over and over and over and over again, despite the fact that you’ve repeatedly corrected them on the matter. For example, I have repeatedly made the point that deep geological time is established on the basis of rules and principles that have nothing whatsoever to do with secularism, but that apply to Christians and atheists alike, and that apply whether you acknowledge miracles as a legitimate explanation for scientific observations or not. Yet when I see individuals to whom I have repeatedly made this point continuing to denounce deep geological time as “secular scientific interpretations,” without even showing a shred of concern as to what the rules I am referring to actually are, it becomes abundantly clear that they are not listening, they are only interested in shouting, and in all likelihood they are approaching the discussions in bad faith.
At such a point, it is no longer fruitful to continue the discussion with them, and so the best course of action is to just ignore them. Some such people act like this because they are trolling and get a kick out of seeing knee-jerk reactions to bad arguments, so the best course of action here is to deny them that particular satisfaction.
Internet forums present a bit of a challenge here however, because you aren’t responding just for their benefit but for the benefit of everyone else following the discussion. Nevertheless, there does come a point at which “don’t feed the trolls” becomes advice that we should all seriously consider following. Besides, it is often the case in such situations that the badness of their arguments speaks for itself.
“What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.” Stephen Hawking 14 Mar 2018
How would you determine such things? How do you know a teacher knows more than you do about education?
It isnt rocket science really, you listen to the theology that individual is presenting, go to the bible texts they quote, consider the interpretations given and see if they indeed line up with the overall themes of the Bible. If it all checks out, then yes, that individual most likely has a deep theological understanding of the Bible. Obviously, that is not stating the person is a Bible scholar…these are not the same thing in my opinion, there are many scholars with terrible theology.
To relate this back to the O.P, the way to talk with committed YEC is to seek biblical understanding before scientific understanding. It is pointless to attempt to claim that the Bible interpretation must fit the science…that is foolishness, no world view works that way. The philosophical comes first.
Actually come to think of it, does anyone have examples where an ancient culture has changed its beliefs because of modern science? (ie Aussie Aborigines,American Indians etc?)
Well, the ancient Jewish culture believed that center of ones emotions was the kidneys, and reason was the heart. I think they now think the brain has something to do with it. And good Catholics in ages past held that the sun went around the earth, and now think the opposite.
In the science-faith discussion, it is not a matter of which trumps the other, but rather of how they can be integrated into an understanding which contains the truths of both. That was successfully done when heliocentrism became common knowledge, and also when medicine advanced to determine how organs functioned. Verses previously taken as literal were then accepted as either symbolic or as part of God’s divine accommodation. The YEC approach is to deny and distort to force the truth we see in nature to fit their preconceived ideas based on their narrow literalist interpretive approach. I
This is why I generally avoid contesting with committed YEC’s at all. More often, they are not seeking scientific understanding and are not really interested in the natural world, which they expect is all going to burn soon anyways. They are, however, very keen on practicing their apologetics, and will parrot back whatever they were told by AiG et al no matter how ridiculous the spiel. You would have better success with the proselytizer who rang your doorbell.
There are also those who are so persuaded of the YEC approach to Biblical interpretation that their entire world would come crashing down if they allowed the Earth was old. This is unfortunately retrograde, because a few decades back there was much more evangelical acceptance of day age and gap interpretations which at least did not conflict with the established age of the Earth. To me, it is not worth straining a friendship, being divisive, or precipitating a crisis of faith just because someone is wrong. It is different if the discussion is sincere, and usually isn’t hard to tell.
Exactly. Sometimes I encounter comments to the effect that you cannot reason people out of beliefs they did not reason themselves into, but I have read countless comments from ex-YEC’s that left after investigating and learning more about the science. There are people seeking answers anyways, and arrive on forums such as Biologos on their own initiative.