I don’t know much about social media but one commenter that a friend would constantly send me, Massimo (an engineering platform), would amaze me with the wide variety of physics and humanities posts he had. His posts also resonated with others, too, as even Elon Musk had commented on how his posts were the best on the platform.
A long while back, I remember seeing a post of his with only the words “Jesus Prime,” and it showed a video of what appeared to be a custom Transformers-like toy that turned a crucifix into a crusade-like knight. This gave me the impression that this engineer was a believer, and since he posted about science so frequently, I had assumed that (like me) he was a believer that had reconciled his faith with science. Unfortunately, a little while ago, I was looking through some of his old posts and noticed that many of them were anti-God. For example, he claimed that the Bible wasn’t real because if it truly was a truth document, it would “try to tell us what galaxies are.” In other posts, he spoke of an old idea from a philosopher that posited that the universe was just God’s corpse. One other cocky post said “Christians are already atheists of 2999 other gods. Atheists are just atheists of one more. So…”
Of course, when I found this out, I was greatly disappointed and distraught about the things he had said. I was going through a bit of a low point with my faith so I had assumed that looking at what I presumed was a Christian engineers posts would help me with my issues. Yet, I ended up worse off because, as it turns out, this highly intelligent scientist seemed to find that, with his knowledge of science, God wasn’t real.
What are your guys thoughts on this? How should I walk away from the knowledge that this respected scientific individual believed that God wasn’t real? How would you respond to some of his claims?
You should treat it the same way you would if your trusted mechanic told you not to get a vaccine or if your trusted pastor told you evolution is false or if a wrestler told you the airplane is fine to fly with one wing.
Why on earth would you think a scientists is credible source to talk about God?
No offense but this is too stupid to dignify with a response. Is the person talking about Tiamat and the Enuma Elish?
The “one less God argument” doesn’t work for Christians or monotheists because God is sui generis. You are dealing with a bunch of contingent beings vs the ground of being. It is a category mistake. That’s like saying you doubt these five things classify as fruit and therefore fruit itself doesn’t exist.
If we approach the Bible expecting to learn science, philosophy, archaeology or exactly
what happened in the past (history), I think we are going about it wrongheadedly and will be disappointed. I don’t consult with a physics textbook to gain spiritual truth, nor do I read an introduction to philosophy if I want an intimate portrait of what life was like for African Americans in Alabama in the decade after the Civil War. That is treating Scripture like an artifact in a museum to be studied instead of using it as a mirror to learn about ourselves or as a window through which we see God. The Bible was written through humans and works through the knowledge of the time. It was written for us but not to us. It is also not concerned with modern science anymore than it is with iPhones or cars.
My own view is that the purpose of the Bible is to train us in righteousness, equip us to do good works and most importantly, lead us to salvation through Christ (2 Tim 3:14-17). The Bible is in the business of transforming hearts and saving lost souls. I believe it succeeds in this regard, and it has held up well enough for any modern person to say, “Hmm, maybe I should check this work out and see what it is all about.”
Never accept one expert’s opinion as “gospel” no matter how smart he sounds. He may just be a clever, smooth-tongued snake oil salesman. Listen to both sides of the argument with an open mind. Then check if there is a consensus of experts on the issue in question. Yes, experts can be wrong, but the best bet is to go with the expert consensus.
Thank you for that analysis. I’m only about six months into becoming an Evolutionary Creationist (I’m a life long Christian) so it is very difficult to find Christian sources either around me or online that I can use to build my expertise when it comes to internalizing these issues (that is, I’m still trying to learn about the Bible and how it reconciles with science and other issues).
The main thing to internalize is that the Bible never, not in the slightest, gives any indication that scientific accuracy, or even scientific information, is even on the radar as a concern. To anthropomorphize, the Bible doesn’t care about science! And since it doesn’t care, there’s no problem reconciling it as there is nothing to reconcile.
My opinion is that the big reason for such struggles are with Bibical interpretation, so reading some good books on how to read the Bible, like Walton and Wright are helpful.
By the reasoning that the Bible can’t be true if it doesn’t tell about galaxies, physics texts can’t be true because they don’t tell about paleomalacology. Both young-earth and atheistic bad arguments demand that the Bible be talking about science. In general, the Bible is talking about more important things.
Its certainly important but many also see evolution as implying meaningless and view it as completely inconsistent with a good God. So these have to be addressed as well. I also wouldn’t run out and buy a bunch of books a stranger on the internet told me to. So I tried to stick with free resources to establish some sort of common ground. I did leave a link to “How Do We Interpret Genesis 1?” that I wrote because of this, however, and the Biologos page does address these issue even if not in a comprehensive fashion:
I do agree something like Walton’s Lost World Series is a good start. I don’t share his commitment to inerrancy, however and I think that impacts his research in a few places that is otherwise quite excellent.
Vinnie
3 Likes
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
12
We don’t even have to bring religious beliefs into the discussion in order to find comparable examples. Scientists are just humans who happen to be really good at one narrow thing (i.e. their field in science), and even then it isn’t hard to find scientists who go down some random nonsense rabbit hole in their own field. For example, there is a doctor I worked with on several research projects while he earned his MD/PhD, and I have great respect for him both as a person and as a scientist. However, for whatever reason he went on to champion magnet therapies which have no scientific evidence to really support them. As another example, the great Linus Pauling went of the deep end with some of his vitamin advocacy.
The short of it is that the religious opinions of scientists are no different than anyone else’s.
Well said. Scientists use the Scientific Method to make hypotheses about our universe. The Scientific Method cannot be used to evaluate metaphysical (supernatural) claims. So if the smartest scientist on the planet tells you that God/Gods do not exist, you can safely ignore him/her. He is not an expert in that field.
If you want to investigate the existence of a particular God, read that God’s divine scriptures. If you want to know about the Muslim God, read the Koran. If you want to know about the Mormon God, read the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price. If you want to know about the Judeo-Christian God, read the Bible. I suggest that whichever holy book you choose to read, read it from beginning to end. While reading, ask yourself: Does the God in question say and do things which are consistent with the teachings of the religion founded in his name? And, does the God in question say and do things that are consistent with your own moral values?
I believe that the Judea-Christian Bible was the best divine scripture we have, mostly due to the real-world person of Christ to back it up. Do you think it is necessary for me to undergo a truth-seeking mission as such?
Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you were having doubts about your Faith due to the statements of one scientist whom you respect. If this one scientist stated that God doesn’t exist without providing any evidence, then he is only expressing an opinion. You can ignore him. If he provided evidence why a particular God does not exist (Allah, Yahweh, Lord Krishna, Lord Jesus, etc.) then I would look at his evidence. My bet is that he was only talking about a generic creator god and since most scientists are theists, his evidence can’t be that good. If you are uncertain of the Christian God, I suggest you read the Bible, from beginning to end, not piecemeal like most people read it!
Well, just know that I appreciate the encouragement, but I’m still a bit weary with this faith. What do you believe personally? Did a truth search of your own lead you to Christ?
Okay. Thank you and Vinnie, as well as everyone else who has responded here, for your help on my initial post. I’m glad to find a community where these big questions can be discussed without twisted logic.
