Thanks, @marvin . I will check out the podcast tomorrow.
As far as embarassment goes, yep.
Thanks for writing this article. I agree and share similar experiences. I have been in an interdisciplinary study of faith and science for 50 years. I recently created a website (faithandphysics.tv) dedicated to the convergence point between faith and physics that is written for scientifically-minded individuals who want to explore insights gleaned from both fields of study. I would love to get your feedback and join that community as well.
I never had or have a faith crisis over science because it is not science that is the problem
i do not understand why it is that it is wrongly claimed science does or, science claims…science has no mind of its own, no conscience, no capacity to do or claim anything. Its about time some here started to accept this in ALL of their post content instead of when it suits them.
So given the above, its individuals who created their own faith crisis by foolishly stuffing around with philosophical writings in order to generate a belief structure that is not in those writings…in this case, that belief is actually contrary to those writings!
Where does the above lead? Well, it leads to conundrums like the following:
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If genesis says God created the world in 6 days…
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If Exodus 20 says “In six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth”…
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If 2 Peter chapters 1-3 say Peter recieved his tuition from writings of the prophets, Direct instruction as a witness to Christs ministry, and by divine revelation…and then Peter goes on to say:
- “God cast Satan down from heaven to this earth”,
-“God saved Noah from a flood that wiped out all life on earth”,
-“that God saved Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah”…
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If Christ died physically on the cross to make atonement for the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and was physically raised from the dead, physically ascended into heaven, and will physcially come again in the clouds of heaven…
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If the apostle John in Revelation says “and i saw a new heavens and a new earth”…
It is pretty obvious to me that the theme of the bible is equally physcial in nature and that we have both Old Testament and significant new testament writers all in agreement that the Genesis account is literal.
The restoration of life and this planet from the clutches of sin may be a spiritual separation from God, however, it is very definately physical destruction/restoration.
So the claim that Genesis 1-11 is allegorical is not at all consistent with any biblical theme…therefore those who explain away the literal reading of Genesis are writing their own religion…and that is not one based on the bible because its inconsistent with the bible!
I think its crasy talk to read the bible in such a manner as to be driven by “i see therefore i must believe”. Even Christ himself said to doubting Thomas “blessed are they have have believed but not seen”! The bible talks extensively about the corruption of mankind, the corruption of this earth. How anyone can place that over their faith and the writings of that faith is absurd!
That fits my experiences helping fellow students past that crisis; they realize they weren’t taught about Jesus as much as about creationism. When they can recognize that YEC has the equation reversed, that Jesus is the foundation and not apologetics about Genesis, faith blossoms.
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I never had a faith crisis from/over science because there is nothing in the text of the scriptures that is against any science I’ve ever studied or read about. When read from the point of view of an ancient Israelite science has nothing to do with the text because ancient Israelites had no interest in science, as shown by the types of literature the scriptures actually are.
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I think it academically and intellectually silly that individuals wish to ignore the importance of apologetics…particularly given they seem to spend so much time “defending” evolutionary science.
Its funny that christians are not allow to defend their faith, but that rule apparently isnt allowed to apply to creationism?
The conflict of interest there is rather mind blowing but not apparently to TEism.
Pot calling the kettle black comes to mind!
If one cannot defend ones faith, then what are they left with?
I guess the important thing is not to use arguments that are:
- bad
- at the core rhetorical strategies
- coercive
- illogical
- dependent on assent to what the apologetic is supposed to “prove”
- at odds with reality
- easily disproved
- only work within the logic of the system they are intended to “prove”
etc.
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I never had any real crisis of faith over science because I always was raised up in a house that was science friendly. Back in the late 90s I lived out in the country off of a dirt road. Our school even had a pasture for those of us who rode our horses to
School and there was several of us. In 1999 the population was about 1600 adults. The school actually had several kids, like 800 but that’s because kids up to almost an hour away came there. The town next to us had about 6,500 people and went to a different school. In our county three towns went to one school and the other like 9 towns went to one school. Despite being in south Alabama in a very country part of town saturated with YECism most of my science teachers were pro science. Actual evolution was taught, though kids could sign a paper, or rather there parents, that had them taught yecism type “science”. But my dad accepted science, even though he did not really understand it.
I was a loner and home schooled for a lot of my years though. I preferred to be home. Had a handful of friends, boys and girls, who stayed the night and we would sometimes all camp outside for weeks at a time in this large field. I was a huge book and magazine nerd as far as I can remember. My dad ordered tons of magazines and would buy entire $3,000 collections even then of science books. Like “young scientist” and “encyclopedia of wildlife”. I still have some from then.
My step grandmother who’s been in my life since I was like 4 was also an archeologist or geologist I’m not sure now. It was way before I was born back in the 50s. She had a whole room full of rocks, geodes, minerals and handful of fossils. For a long time, most of my childhood, god was rights real, but not really in the forethought. Discussions over genesis conflicting with science never arose really. When I was a bit older for some reason my mom went super religious, believed in yecism, and thought Satan was hiding under every rock. Even Catdog the cartoon was called satanic. Luckily, this was just for like a year and it ended. To this day I’m not really sure what caused this. Maybe her dad dying , my real grandpa on her side that I barely knew triggered some craziness. Not sure. But in ended.
When I was 18ish I begin to wonder about the contention. Picked up some books on young earth creationism, and by Behe on ID. Read a bunch of them. Read a bunch of books written to counter them. Just simply recognized that yecism was silly as far as science went. So rejected it. Then found various books on taking the Bible more metaphorical. Made more sense. Came across John Walton and so on while later. So just never really struggled with it
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I agree with the above…trouble is, what is a bad argument exactly?
An academic would suggest its one with poor referencing for one thing, poorly thought out and presented for another, and has inconsistent evidences presented in the paper.
Given religion requires consistent evidences in order to address the atheism claim its a fairytale, one cannot ignore the philosophical inconsistencies when attempting to defend ones belief.
The reality is, christians do not jeed to defend faith against differing views in science…those are purely scientific defenses, however, religion must be able to defend itself against the criticisms of inconsistency in the use of the internal evidence.
Failure to address the above is why individuals lose faith…it has nothing to do with dissagreements in the science…science isnt a religious belief!
Its purely a poor theological founding and even worse understanding of the bible story that leads to a loss of belief.
The bible tells us quite plainly, “people lose their faith because of unbelief”.
Now individuals here can claim belief is scientific…that is 100% false. Belief is entirely based on the same premise given to Abraham, Moses, Job, Daniel, Christs followers…
That the Old Testament Sanctuary illustrates that symbolism/rituals is not the saving act, its the death and resurrection of Christ to oay the wages of sin is death…righteousness and salvation by faith in the grace of God to allow Christ to take on the punishment for us!
If your faith rests on young earth creationism, how is it Christian?
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Then what’s the point of YEC?
But what’s the cause of that unbelief? In my experience and according to surveys churches doing bad science while claiming to support the Bible is right up at the top of the list.
The tragedy is that there is a belief that the Bible needs to be defended! Nowhere do we get a command to defend the scriptures, what we get are instructions to use the scriptures. It’s up to God to defend His revelation, and He’s never failed yet; it’s up to us to be proclaiming the Gospel, not trying to make the scriptures talk science.
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Would you consider defending the Bible against baseless accusations to be reasonable? Say, that it promotes cannibalism or some of the really strange bad anti-Christianity arguments that I’ve seen.
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“Professor Darrel Falk has recently pointed out that one should not take the view that young-earth creationism is simply tinkering around the edges of science. If the tenets of young earth creationism were true, basically all of the sciences of geology, cosmology, and biology would utterly collapse. It would be the same as saying 2 plus 2 is actually 5. The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?”
–Dr. Francis Collins, “Faith and the Human Genome”
If apologetics requires you to abandon reason and logic, that would be a bad argument. At the same time, you have always been very gracious to non-YEC’s, and I get the feeling that you are open to Christians being non-YEC.
If you are telling Christians that if you follow the evidence scientifically it will disprove the Bible, what are Christians to think?
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Only in the same way that I deal with YEC material: ask where is that in the text, and then show what the text actually says. It isn’t so much defending as expounding.
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That was a refrain from quite a few YECers at university who had that faith crisis and abandoned the faith: "But my pastor said . . . . " followed by one or another version of the slippery slope argument that Adam and others employ here, that if on part is wrong in some way the whole thing falls apart. My response was always to put Christ back in the center.
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LIbby Anne is also an oft cited example:
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Is that what you are afraid of, giving up YEC is a loss of your faith?
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that you are talking rubbish 
following the evidence scientifically may help you to understand the bible, e.g. how to interpret its poetic statements in the light of that evidence.
Take the famous part of genesis
" AI Overview
According to the Bible’s Genesis 1, yes, plants were created before the sun and moon:
- Day 3: God created plants, dry land, and the seas
- Day 4: God created the sun, moon, and stars
The Bible’s creation account describes the days of creation as ordinary days. The initial light created by God on Day One may have provided enough heat to keep water in liquid form. The sun may have replaced this initial light on Day Four.
The Bible also says that God created plants to use visible light for photosynthesis to generate energy.
- Did God Really Create Plants Before the Sun? - Answers in Genesis
What Happened When During Creation Week? * On Day Three of Creation Week, God made all kinds of vegetation to cover the earth: *
[image]
Answers in Genesis
- Sunlight Before the Sun | The Institute for Creation Research
1 Jan 2008
[image]
The Institute for Creation Research
- Accounts of creation - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - WJEC - BBC
the third day - dry land, seas, plants and trees were created. the fourth day - the Sun, Moon and stars were created. the fifth da…
[image]
BBC
- Show all
Generative AI is experimental.
interestingly the bible nowhere states that God created the sun and the moon and the stars on day 4, he let them appear in the sky. It makes me wonder how the writers of the bible could have known that it needed the plantlife to clear the atmosphere? the initial atmosphere did allow light through, but it was like living in a diffusor, more like more or less dull light all the time.
Have to take some pictures in the dark to illustrate that better
The embarrassing thing is that even the glorified AI doesn’t get it, but then its artificial and clearly not as intelligent as a human - or as they state -work in progress
Or perhaps it’s just a mirror to whatever our collective humanity happens to look like on the internet.
Draw your own conclusions as to whether that would be a good thing or not.
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This statement is false:
And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.
That’s the same verb as “Let us make man in Our image”.
BTW, if you don’t use the quote function it’s hard to tell what’s a quote and what you wrote.