I was told as a child that evolution contradicted the second law of thermodynamics. Now I know that is incorrect.
I was also taught that there were no transitional fossils. Now I know that is incorrect.
Is that the type of thing you are looking for? Are you searching for reasons some of us once held different views, but no longer find these reasons compelling? Because that’s not what the OP asks…
Common Larry - you made a completely incorrect statement about the Higgs Boson which is forgivable of course but not the sign of someone who is familiar with particle physics at all or its conclusions. And then go on to bash science and scientists to paint the entire enterprise in a negative light.
The Higgs Boson was only called the God Particle… because particles gain mass as they interact with the Higgs Field via the Higgs Boson. It is a real thing and if its existence means God doesn’t exist… well because it is something real we have measured it means God isn’t real. Good news is that it has nothing to do with God at all! So why was it named the God particle? Because, as the poor misnomer goes, only God can give things mass and the interaction with the Higgs field gives electrons, quarks, etc. their mass. In reality it has nothing to do with God. And believe it or not, science can never prove or disprove God.
I would say to comment on the scientist ratio of those who believe, if Christianity cannot hold up to skeptical scrutiny, then why should any of us affirm it? Are we just believing an ancient fairy tale? I think some things in Christianity do not hold up to scrutiny (like young Earth creationism, flood geology, etc.) and if this is what we keep presenting, say farewell to Christians doing science to reveal our Creator’s glory.
I don’t, nor does anyone else, have the time to read the entire site as it’s massive and always changing. I have heard this viewpoint many times within the forum.
@benkirk What is your viewpoint?
Do you believe in the Big Bang?
Did God give self awareness or did it evolve by natural process?
For years it was not about evidence. I simply held the positions I was taught in Sunday School and church. In the early 1960’s a lot of us were intrigued by the alleged evidence presented in The Genesis Flood (1962, Henry Morris & John Whitcomb Jr.) Unfortunately, it was many years before I started checking the citations for myself and I had learned enough about science and exegesis to see the flaws and misrepresentations.
Frankly, it wasn’t the grasp of scriptural evidence and scientific evidence which led to a crisis of sorts. More than anything I was very upset about the dishonesty and misrepresentations I discovered in the leadership of the creation science ministries of those days and the decades which followed. I’m not talking about the average Young Earth Creationist friend or colleague. I’m talking about the leaders and authors who I saw confronted with the facts and even their own errors—and their reactions and responses were not Christ-like. Years later I got to know a lot of seminary and Bible college colleagues who had almost identical experiences. They had been enthusiastic creation science advocates and assumed that their spiritual heroes and authorities were carefully checking their footnotes and properly defining scientific terms. They weren’t. I well remember an informal meeting of a group of us after the Evangelical Theological Society annual conference. The professors cautiously started sharing their experiences. (Some could have been immediately fired if their schools learned of their abandonment of YEC beliefs.) Every single one of them described how their change of mind was difficult not so much because of the scientific evidence or scriptural evidence but because of how it related to their trust in various scholars and authorities and how it affected participation in their faith communities. I lost count of how many of my colleagues said, “I realized that I had been lied to by people who either knew better or didn’t bother to verify the truth of what they were teaching.”
I can address specific types of evidence but that should start a dialogue.
I think the general answer to the question, "Why did you believe in Young Earth Creationism before deciding in favor of “More Evolutionary Explanations” (as opposed to “Exclusively Evolutionary Explanations”) is the “same old same-old”:
I’m not a physicist so I can’t take a position on the validity of the science. Moreover, I accept or affirm The Big Bang Theory in the same ways I accept other scientific theories presented in textbooks, such as The Germ Theory of Disease, the Theory of Photosynthesis, and the Theory of Special Relativity. Why should I regard the Big Bang any differently?
That said, I don’t know of any scriptural reason to reject it. The clergyman physicist who first published the theory, George Lemaitre, clearly didn’t see any conflict between a singularity and his adamant creationism as a Bible-believing Christian. So I’m not clear on why anyone would think a Christian should oppose it.
Yes.
Or at least probably. (I’m not being facetious.)
I’m not sure why you are presenting the question as a dichotomy. I don’t know exactly how God went about imparting to humans this “self-awareness.” God created a “very good” universe where natural processes are clearly how he meant for it to operate most of the time. (After all, even in what Christians typically call “Bible times” miracles were quite rare. Indeed, that is what made them special as a means of revelation! Of course, I don’t even know whether those miracles came through natural processes or not. We aren’t told.) So whether God used natural processes to give humans self-awareness or he somehow divinely intervened in some non-natural way, I don’t know. Does anyone know? The Bible doesn’t say.
If you believe that you know the answer to your question, I’d be very interested in your answer. I especially want to learn how you came to that conclusion and how you know that your answer is correct.
I do think it is a very useful, thought-provoking question!
Just for clarity, the forum is open to many opinions, and does not necessarily represent the beliefs of Biologos the organization, which is how it should be. My opinion as a moderator is my own also, as the moderator job is pretty much that of a bouncer at the local pub. It is pretty easy to find the belief statement of Biologos on the home page, here is a link for your convenience:
Are you confusing correlation and causation? If not, what is the purpose of the comparison? You lost me.
The conclusion would be that 66%of scientists are some kind of atheist, either a gnostic atheist or an agnostic atheist. (In my experience, very few claim to be gnostic atheists and the vast majority of them claim to be agnostic atheists, including Richard Dawkins. I know that based on his response in a recent interview. Same with Neil Degrasse-Tyson, if he chose his words exactly as he intended.)
That is the only conclusion I can draw from the data you posted. Any other conclusions would be speculation at best and a logic fallacy at worst. So I’m still not following your point here. Sorry.
That doesn’t logically follow. That can be true of some and not others–so it is not a “certainly” situation. I’ve had faculty colleagues who are atheists and yet have told me that they want to know if God exists and whether he created everything as Christians claim. They have asked me many excellent questions.
As a Bible-affirming Christian I believe what the Bible says on this matter: whether or not someone is searching for God depends entirely upon the Holy Spirit draws them. That applies to scientists just as much as anybody else. And both scientists and non-scientists come up with all sorts of reasons for resisting the Holy Spirit’s drawing them to Jesus Christ. Our Lord was very clear about this—and the Apostle Paul spoke of repeated resistance as quenching the Spirit to whether a person is no longer drawn. I don’t see any scriptural distinction between scientists and non-scientists in this regard.
I have no idea. But I can’t think of a reason why it would be important in ways that are any less important than for non-physicists.
Some do. Some don’t. That’s one of many reasons why non-believers become believers! All born-again Christians were once non-Christians. And many were theists while non-Christian and others were non-theist non-Christians. Both types of people are eligible for being drawn by the Holy Spirit. So I’m still unclear where you are headed with this.
Jesus said that NOBODY comes to the Father except the Spirit draws them. All sorts of things can be obstacles. I know from observation that some people cite scientific issues as major reasons for them seeking God and some people cite scientific issues as major reasons for why they don’t seek God. So you will need to be more specific if you are making some sort of cause-and-effect argument. (I certainly hope that you are not trying to make an genetic fallacy argument or a negative association logic fallacy.)
By the way, I’ve been told that the percentage of theists among physicists is relatively low while the percentage of theists among biologists and astronomers is relatively high. If true, what can we conclude from this? I don’t know. Probably not much without compiling a lot more data related to all sorts of contributing factors. Yet, I’m very interested in learning why Larry/Hisword posted the percentages for physicists.
I can say that I have had Christian faculty colleagues in each of those fields and many others—and a great many of them said that their study of science played an important role in their coming to Christ. Even so, I’m sure that there are many atheist scientists who would say that they used to be theists but that their study of science led them to decide that they didn’t know whether God exists or not.
Francis Collins tells an interesting story of how he was an atheist until he was out of med school and practicing medicine. He says that what he saw in nature together with his experience with a particular dying patient led to his coming to know God. What conclusion can we draw from that? As Jesus told Nicodemus, the Spirit draws who he will.
Presumably, 33% of the scientists do believe in God, and they agree with the other 67% as far as the science goes.
This really also isn’t the process of science. It’s not that science has ever truly arrived, but rather the big bang theory is the best explanation of a vast network of observations about our universe. Nothing else comes close in its explanatory and predictive power as far as Cosmology goes. It is not perfect and you better believe that scientists would have long since abandoned it if it didn’t describe our reality very well. So I don’t ‘believe’ in the Big Bang but acknowledge that it is best explanation of how our universe got to where it is today, some 13.8 billion years later. And I will keep saying this again and again, the Big Bang has nothing to do with God or not. Either He’s the creator of everything or nothing.
It is also not that anyone here really ‘believes’ the theory of evolution, but instead many affirm/acknowledge that it is the best explanation of what we currently see, the fossil record, the genetic record, etc. Nothing else comes even close to providing a model that can explain what we see today. In the words of a YEC that I personally respect very highly:
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.
Taken from: The truth about evolution
I posted the beliefs of scientist because of a response to my statement that I don’t like the conclusions of CERN because their conclusion is that “there is no God”.
In reply to that
I then said the reason the Higgs particle was called the God Particle is because the CERN community doesn’t believe in God. The implication is that most of those that do work at CERN do not believe in God.
So I stand by the statement that those entities like CERN that feel comfortable with calling something the God Particle or do nothing to change the name, do so because they do not believe in God.
Atheist or agnostic scientists will rarely look for evidence supporting the conclusions that promote the existence of God.
Again this is completely wrong. The Higgs Boson has nothing to do with God or the CERN community and their beliefs. I posted part of the misnomer above… And they don’t bother ‘changing the name’ because they never even called it the ‘God particle’ to begin with.
You didn’t answer Glipsnort’s question: “When did CERN conclude that there was no God.” He was basically asking you for a citation. Where in the CERN literature or some published lecture do they state that God doesn’t exist?
You appear to be confusing your own assumption with a citation. That’s not a reason nor is it a source.
Perhaps somebody at some time has made an atheistic claim based on subatomic particles but that is not the same thing as CERN reaching a conclusion. Moreover, I saw a PBS documentary and they provided the same explanation for the informal nickname of the Higgs Boson as the “god particle” as I’ve read everywhere else:
(1) It had been a very elusive, difficult to detect particle, so some of the physicists got in the habit of calling it “that god-#@&x! particle”
(2) When a physicist sent a book manuscript to his publisher, his proposed title referred to the above phrase. The book editor at the publishing company said that they would never use “swear language” in a book title—so the editor suggested cleaning it up and calling it “the God particle.” No, the book editor was not a physicist.
I don’t have a citation at hand but I would bet that if you looked up the Higgs Boson entry at Wikipedia, it will probably cite a primary source that establishes that fact.
In any case, who told you that the much derided nickname for the particle (which journalists love but physicists hate) was an official “there is no God” declaration by CERN or anybody else?
(1) How can you stand by a statement for which you have no evidence?
(2) Why do you expect CERN or anybody else to change the name that journalists like to use? Have you read any of CERN’s scientific papers? They always call it the Higgs Boson and never “the God particle.”
I used to work at an electronic supply company where most of the staff did not believe in God. That is, of course, irrelevant and, likewise, I don’t see how the atheism or theism of a group of scientists tells us anything about a scientific topic.
How did you reach that conclusion? Have you worked with many atheist or agnostic scientists? How do you know that it is rare?
Even so, why would it ultimately matter? After all, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit leads people to God, not evidence.
I look forward to your responses to my answers I posted previously and to the questions I posed to you.
Also, I think it would be appropriate that you retract your false claims about CERN. You are bearing false witness against them. It sounds like you are repeating a claim that is basically a false rumor: that they allegedly said that Higgs Boson somehow leads to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. That’s not true.
One of my former professors (physics), and member of the National Academy of Sciences (one of those 7%ers), Bob Griffiths, has a great quote:
“If we need an atheist for a debate, we go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”
In my experience in physics departments, from undergrad to grad to postdoc to faculty, is that it’s the department where you find some of the least antagonistic views toward Christianity. There may not be many Christians, but they generally enjoy friendly discussions. If you want real antagonism, in my anecdotal experience, go look in the Humanities. I also find life scientists generally more unfriendly than physicists–but I chalk that up, to a certain extent, because they had to deal directly with the counter-productive efforts (Wedge Strategy) of the ID movement. That built up some animosity.
That’s been my experience as well. In the sciences you have people who are intensely interested in science, not in the religious beliefs of their co-workers. 99.99% of the time, religious beliefs are a non-issue, about as important to the practice of science as your beliefs about what the best flavor of ice cream is. This isn’t an attempt to downplay the importance of religious faith to a believer’s daily life, only that atheist and theist alike speak the same language of science. Science is a secular pursuit, much like sports or accounting. When there have been episodes of animosity towards people because of their religious beliefs it has very often been because that person puts their religious belief ahead of their science.
That’s very interesting, David! It [biology versus physics] actually fit my own experience teaching at a state university long ago but was almost the opposite of what I found at a private regional university. I wonder if anyone has done a large scale international survey looking for such correlations?
I don’t think I can generalize all of the Humanities (in my own limited experience) but I immediately thought of the “antagonistic” anti-theists I have known in the political science, economics, and sociology departments at two universities in particular! Political Science seemed to have some very hard-core non-theists in my day. I have no idea why that was the case.
How can you have read many of the postings here at BioLogos and still ask a question like this?
How can you imagine a BioLogos supporter saying that self-awareness evolved without God’s participation?
But I imagine you can still have your reservations. So the better way to ask the question would be:
“Did God give humanity self-awareness by means of Evolution? Or did God endow either human bodies or human minds with awareness?”
Asking the question in this way allows for a greater range of answers - - since there are no doubt some here on these boards who think the spiritual side of the human mind belongs to god in all ways.
How about adding to the last sentence “…by some means that did not involve any natural process.”
For my self, I don’t consider it all that important how God imparted self-awareness. I guess it reminds me of when theologians argued over Newton’s physics: Did the planets move through the heavens because of gravitational forces or did God command them to move?"
If you add the additional phrase above, you are ruling out any metaphysical or miraculous activity. While you are prone to rule such things out … and I am prone to rule such things out… we still must allow conversational “spaciousness” for those like @Hisword who pretty clearly do not want to rule these things out.
And besides, the mission statements of BioLogos pretty clearly don’t rule these things out either.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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