Janet Kellogg Ray | Science Denial and Christian Culture

Faith & Science Conversation
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I read the transcript slowly to see if the audio wasn’t clear, but I can’t find where she throws out anything. So this looks like just sheer dishonesty on your part.

You ascribe so much to Satan it strikes me as Satan worship. That’s certainly how the devil will take it; he can boast to his demons that this Christian ascribes great power and influence to him!

I’ve seen you claim some, but I have yet to see one that’s actually a theological or philosophical problem. They may appear to be from your mangled reading of the scriptures, but that’s the problem – you’re operating from a mangled view of the scriptures.

This is just nonsense, as several others have demonstrated quite clearly. Just because Jesus died physically doesn’t make the physical death the sole or even primary reason for His death. You have this fixation with wanting so many things to be physical one might wonder where you leave room for anything spiritual at all.

There most certainly is: if there had been no death for them to observe, warning them about death would have been meaningless; we would have been reading, “And Adam said, ‘What is this “death” You talk about?’” But we don’t read that, which suggests that they knew what death was.

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Redemption in terms of people means to re-connect what has been disconnected. That’s why the requirement for a redeemer is to be close kin to both parties, and why theologians have the term “kinsman-redeemer”, to make the idea clear.

Nope – not unless you think that when you have climbed one rotation on a spiral staircase you’re back where you began. That may be true if you’re plotting the staircase on two-dimensional paper, but it’s not true in three dimensions.

You’re being dishonest again, misrepresenting what others have said. “only spiritual death” is something no one here has said except you, so the question is where you’re getting that, especially since it’s very plain from reading people’s posts that they have not said that.
So somewhere along the line you’ve bought into a worldview that only has certain categories, and you have to stuff people into those categories whether they fit there or not, because you can’t see the possibility of other categories.

Which is also dishonest for the same reason – that’s hardly a universal view here, and when it’s been put forward there have been solid responses detailing why it’s incorrect. Of course you will read such statements as supporting your view, but the truth is that both are wrong – your view ignores the reality of the scriptures being ancient literature that have to be understood from the perspective of the worldview of the writers, and “it’s an allegory” its really a cop-out in terms of doing the work to find out something about the actual literary genres and their worldviews.

False. That claim shows bad Christology, a failure to understand Who Christ is: it can only be true if Jesus was only a man or that His two natures were disconnected. It is also a failure to understand the nature of sin, namely that sin is at root spiritual. It further is a failure to understand the nature of humans, that we are both physical and spiritual.

The rest of your post just repeats the same errors that have been dealt with before.

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We Christians speak about truth but how many of us are really interested about what is the real truth?
How many of us have the courage to really seek and receive all truth?

We may speak about the Truth and that is for us Christians easier because we believe that Jesus is the Truth. We believe that what the Truth speaks is true, there are no lies in God.

For me, following the Truth means that I should seek the real truth in all matters, even when I do not like what I learn. Learning the truth about myself is not fun, it may sometimes be painful. Learning the truth about other matters may sometimes be confusing. If what I learn does not fit nicely to what is my view of the universe, I face a need to modify my worldview. In some matters, understanding the truth may also question my image of God. That is confusing because it forces me to re-evaluate what I have believed about God and how He acts.

Cosmology and the evolution of life are matters where I have faced a need to re-evaluate my image of God and my beliefs that were based on an apparently false image of God.
The scales and energies are so huge they are practically impossible to understand with a limited human mind. The Creator who works at this scale is much greater than my petty ideas about a human-centered God.

The evolution of life during the hundreds of millions of years includes a wide variety of already extinct species and a slow change towards something we are familiar with. The idea that God would work utilizing such a slow process is difficult to grasp when a millennium is a too long time period for our expectations. We have waited for the return of Jesus for two millennia and we wonder why it has taken so long? We expect that God would act immediately, now and here, no long waiting times and no suffering.

Cosmology and the evolution of life may shake our beliefs and assumptions, the pillars of our worldview and our image of God. The childlike simple worldview should be replaced with something that is much greater, more difficult to grasp and not in our control. That is confusing and scary. I understand why many are not willing to face that kind of messages, especially if these matters are told by persons we do not trust.

We may think that the real truth about matters that are not very influential in our everyday life can be forgotten, we do not need to think these. From the viewpoint of salvation, that is true. You can be saved even if you believe that the Earth is flat and extraterrestrial aliens are trying to rule the nation. We are saved through faith, not knowledge.

Yet, there remains the question should we just close our eyes from everything that seems to threaten our simple worldview and our interpretations of biblical scriptures? It is perhaps not a direct lie but it is closing the eyes from the truth, which is not far from living in a lie. It demands a lot of courage to tell in front of God that I do not know anymore what is true, I am confused, please give me understanding to know what is the truth. When everything seems to shake, it demands faith, trust in God, to start to slowly build a more realistic worldview and a more truthful image of God. When everything happens in a social environment where the message is that you have to believe what we tell, it makes the process much more difficult.

I assume these are among the reasons why science denial is still so common among Christians.

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Yes. Those were great points.

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Uncertainty is what makes science fun: it means there are more things to learn.

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I meant, rather, uncertainty about key theological concepts that are supported in the bible by things that are challenged by consensus science.

Adam has been arguing since I first noticed him here that consensus science that weakens support for the theological basis of things like sin, and salvation is unacceptable, because these doctrines have eternal consequences.

Whether one agrees with Adam’s conclusions or not, it’s essential to correctly understand what he is saying and to accurately represent his views as well. I work very hard to do that.

Additionally, I understand his concerns and empathize with him in his struggle to deal with them. We have taken different approaches so far, I think for a number of reasons. I expect that neither of us will convince the other so as to cause a change in views.

As I understand Adam’s thinking, any view of science must allow him to preserve the basis and structure for his theology which provides a proper understanding of sin and salvation. This is not a frivolous goal.

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I disagree with a statement by Janet Kellogg during the podcast. She stated, “I think one of the biggest breakdowns that we have in gaining trust is a breakdown in science literacy across the board among people of faith and those who don’t claim faith and just not understanding that science doesn’t offer certainty.” She seems to lay the entire blame at the feet of the public. While scientists may “turned themselves in knots not to say they proved anything” in their research papers, that is not what is communicated to the general public. Watch any scientist on the news or read scientific information in media beyond academic journals. You will see and hear nothing but certainty. There is a distinct air of “I’m right. You’re wrong. I’m an expert and you’re not. How dare you question my conclusions.”
She has completely missed another significant contribution to the breakdown between science and the general public, the lack of humility.

Case in point, the theory that COVID-19 originated from a wet market in China was initially presented as an undisputed fact by all the experts and reported as such by trusted organizations. Anyone who brought up the lab leak theory was dismissed or attacked. They were called deniers and summarily ignored. These attacks happened even against people who are experts in the field of infectious diseases. Reputations and careers were destroyed in the name of “following the science” and adhering to the accepted narrative. A few years later the lab leak theory has gained more acceptance by many of the same people and organizations that previously attacked it as a conspiracy theory. Have any of the scientists and trusted organizations publicly apologized for actively attacking or dismissing people who originally proposed the lab leak theory? Have they worked to restore the reputations and careers of those they destroyed? The answers to these questions go a long way toward explaining why people have lost faith in science and many organizations. The lab leak theory may still turn out to be wrong, but the initial reaction by the experts demonstrated anything but humility and a lack of certainty.

There are other examples, but I think you get the point. Yes, the public should have more respect for the expertise of those who dedicate their careers to research in various fields. They need to learn that cherry-picking your experts and ignoring others is not scientific. At the same time, those experts need to have more humility. They need to be willing to explain and defend their positions without dismissing people and their questions out of hand. They also need to publicly admit when they have been wrong and take action to support those impacted. They need that person whispering in their ears, “Remember you are mortal.”

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I read a piece recently that was lamenting the sad state of science writers because they love announcing new discoveries but don’t like indicating uncertainties or disagreements. Headlines using words “maybe” or “might” or “possibly” don’t get clicks while articles titled with “discover” and “breakthrough” do. One scientist related that of the last dozen articles he’d read about “breakthroughs” in his field, only one was an actual breakthrough. It was suggested that actual scientists should review science pieces in ordinary magazines, and the scientists were in agreement that they have more than enough to do already!

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A grad student when I was at university actually commented on this once, and said “We remember that every time we have to spend hours writing grant proposals”.

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I had that discussion here. Scientists use terms poorly but I was more or less told scientists just make bad philosophers. Also be careful of popularizers pushing scientific info. The news has anchor-people and broadcast journalists, usually not professional scientists. There is a lot of click bait out there and a lot of amateurs looking for hits/views so things are sensationalized.

One other point to consider is some scientific views are so firmly established they are considered scientific facts.

My biggest problem with Kellogg is a complete lack of attention to scripture. For a self professed evangelical attempting to explain “How to hold true to your faith and embrace modern science” she just doesn’t discuss scripture. How can that be? I read her most recent book (2023–The God of Money Science) and it was well written, entertaining and I agreed with most of it, but it was completely void of scriptural exegesis. The language of conservative Christians is scripture. Almost 200 pages of informed opinion on how evangelicals get a lot of science wrong is not providing anyone a path forward. The stories were great but they are not explaining to anyone how to balance science and the Bible. I felt it was a catalogue highlighting in broad terms, some evangelical science errors, not a way forward for those who take the Bible more literally.

I also think she passed along a myth about insulin as a historical story (the first child stirred by the time the last was injected) which would be a small mistake, but if it is one, it’s quite ironic when that is precisely what conservative Christians do with Genesis— confuse a mythological narrative with history remembered.

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One scientist here was investigated about a failure of following good scientific practise. He was found quilty. The interesting point was that the study and written report (scientific article) were completely ok, nothing to blame. The break of good scientific practise was restricted to the press release. He had an interesting hypothesis and tried to squeeze a long story to a short and selling press release. He managed to get much public attention but had cut the parts stressing the speculative nature of his suggestions and did not mention other influential factors in the short press release. Other experts felt that the simplified story might be easily misinterpreted and risk the health of many people (the topic was related to the causes and prevention of depression and related brain problems, inspected from the viewpoint of evolution). Therefore other experts demanded the inspection of whether the scientist had followed good scientific practise.

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So we’re projecting our impatience onto God?

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Unfortunately yes. Our image of God is always(?) subjective and depends on what kind of teaching we got, what is our personal experience of family relationships and the society around us, what kind of personal experiences we have in matters of faith, etc. It is healthy to remember that our perception of God (image of God) is not the same as what God is in reality. I guess for most, true God is greater than our imagination of what God is like.

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Whether it’s the reporters or the scientists themselves, my point is the public is being fed a lot of scientific certainty despite what Janet claims. So, you can’t lay all the blame on them for being skeptical of science. When the certainty crumbles and no one explains what went wrong or takes any responsibility for the error, you are going to create a trust issue.

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One thing you have to realize is that the statements you see from scientists in the news or other media are highly biased by the channel you see them in. Press releases are typically written by communication departments, not the scientists themselves. Journalists quote scientists who say something interesting and definitive, not those expressing carefully nuanced qualifications. After I had one interview with reporters about a covid paper, our head of communications told someone, ‘Steve was great – he’s the guy you want talking to reporters if you don’t want to be quoted.’ That’s me.

Early in the pandemic (say, all of 2020), most researchers that I was aware of were pretty agnostic about the immediate source of the virus, but that wasn’t necessarily what you heard in the media. (For most, the probabilities have shifted strongly toward a zoonotic origin since them.)

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You deserve an award.

Personally, I leaned a bit more towards a zoonotic origin based on historic trends. However, I was completely open to any evidence of a lab origin, as were the other scientists I talked to. Moreover, the idea that scientists could somehow be silenced was pretty funny.

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I could care less where Covid originated, I just don’t want it and better not get it from you, whoever “you” are.

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That’s my whole point. It doesn’t matter who is communicating with the public. If they are only fed “certainty”, then they are hardly the only ones to blame. How can you be surprised the public starts to distrust science when that “certainty” they were given turns out to actually be shaky or totally wrong?

As for the scientists, you can’t just wash your hands and say “I was taken out of context” and then complain the public is skeptical. You need to take some ownership to get it right. I understand it’s an uphill battle, but the alternative is to continue down the current path which isn’t pretty.

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You can if it is science journalists who are writing tabloid headlines. And then there are other journalists who take the offending science journalists at face value and report to the rest of the public, the rest of the public who would not typically read science journalism. How is it an individual scientist’s responsibility to police it all?

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