Man, I really hate falling under a label that seems to generate so much animosity and antagonism from folks in the scientific community – that being, in this case, Creationist (as opposed to the term ‘denialist’ that is also mentioned). It honestly makes it difficult for those of us who are genuinely interested in the study and research in those fields to actually have calm, rational discussions with these folks because they’ve already labeled us as ‘quacks’, ‘kooks’, and ‘idiots’. We never even get a fair shake to ask our questions because as soon as we do, we’re blown off with some sarcastic, derisive answer. I am actually quite hesitant to identify as being with any one particular camp exactly because of the reaction I know I will get – I hate being written off just out of hand. It kind of annoys me, really.
I’ve deliberately subscribed to RSS feeds from a number of science blogs recently because I want to stay abreast of the things that are being discussed in the scientific community. I have to admit, though, that I have to grit my teeth through just about every single one because the comments and snide remarks directed at Creationists and people of faith who hold opinions and beliefs that differ from those popularly recognized in the scientific community set me right on edge. Granted, a lot of this animosity some of these folks bring on themselves due to ill-informed arguments and general ignorance, but some of it is truly undeserved, as well. There’s something about people of faith being involved in science that almost instantly seems to generate the hostility of secular scientists. It makes it tough on those of us who do belief in a literal 6-day creation but who also want to be involved in, at the least, the discussions going on around the scientific community.
Consider me a true skeptic, I guess, who also holds Creationist beliefs. I know I’m not going to get in your face about things, but I will look at the evidence presented with as impartial a mind as I can.
So, I guess I’d just like to see the hostilities dialed back.
Tags: christianity, creation, intelligent-design, religion, Science, viewpoint
Interesting. Rob pointed me at a link for a Christian philosophy blog that endeavors to address some deep philsophical arguments coming out of at least one corner of the atheistic community. At this point I’ve read only the three entries at the top of the page, but in just the few moments in which I have done this, I’ve followed a link-path that has illuminated what is, to me, an intriguing juxtaposition of viewpoints and reactions.
1) Rob sees Steve as being full of himself. I see Steve simply as knowing what he believes so well that he is able to defend his beliefs very eloquently from a philosophical viewpoint.
2) Both Steve and John Loftus (whom Steve has been going head-to-head with lately) see each other as taking snippets of the others’ arguments and presenting them out of context and in so doing twisting the arguments to put words in each others’ mouths.
3) John has added an entry to his blog (shared with several other authors) ranting about how some people on the web are “poison[ing] the well.” I’m sure he had Steve in mind when he wrote that, particularly since John left a comment on his site today. What I find interesting is that John wrote that rant on his own site, then neglected to disallow the option for anyone to comment or leave feedback.
As I said, interesting. Both Steve and John just got added to my blogroll and daily reading list. I’ve always enjoyed good philosophical discussion and being prompted to think deeply on some of the weightier matters of life and faith. I think I’ll follow both these men for a little while and see what takes place in their discussions. Heck, I may even opt to contribute, and I’m sure there will probably be fodder for writing some things of my own here.
Tags: atheism, christianity, debunking-christianity, john-loftus, philosophy, theology, viewpoint
There’s an interesting little discussion going on over here:
the thing i always wonder about is how much evil was there in Satan to begin with? i mean if God hadnt cast him out of heaven and ostracized him so much, would he really have been that evil?
[...]what makes God so right and Satan so wrong? isnt God being just as selfish as Satan by not allowing anyone to disagree with him? what makes God’s rule any less tyrannical than Saddam Hussein?
[...]so i ask you, why is god any more worthy than Satan to be the supreme being?
There’s a lot of tough questions in this discussion, many of which do not have comprehensive answers, many that require a certain degree of faith. Partial answers have been supplied, though, so let me see if I can bring some of them to light.
It’s interesting that people tend to view good and evil in terms of quantity – “Oh, that’s just a little bit bad” or “Oh, that was just a little white lie. It wasn’t as bad as if I had actually stolen anything” or “He’s not that bad of a man. He just got a little confused and depressed there for a while.” – when the Bible pretty clearly delineates good and evil in terms of a binary system. You are either 100% good, or you are 100% evil. There is no middle ground. So to question just how much evil there was in Satan to demand his eviction from Heaven is an incorrect starting point. The very fact that he went against God dictated that he forsake his righteousness and embrace his own will. In effect, his own selfishness is what turned him from an angel of light to an demon of evil. He gave up any hope of remaining in God’s fellowship for no chance of overthrowing God and usurping His throne.
Isaiah 14:12-15
12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
15 But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit. #
I love this statement:
what makes God so right and Satan so wrong? isnt God being just as selfish as Satan by not allowing anyone to disagree with him? what makes God’s rule any less tyrannical than Saddam Hussein?
It’s a tough question to answer, and honestly, it’s one that I’ve asked a few times myself (which is probably why I like it). The answer, though, is found by readjusting one’s perspective. We ask the question from the perspective of the created, from the viewpoint of one is who used to having one’s own way about anything and everything. By adjusting one’s view to that of the creator, however, we can again ask that question. You may find that you understand a bit better. If you were the creator of something, then that thing you just created belongs to you. You, therefore, have the complete right to set all the rules, to determine how things work, and to set your own image and personality upon the creation. It is an extension of yourself, an expression of who you are. The creation, as the created, cannot tell the creator how things ought to be. It has no rights with the creator, except for those rights that the creator grants the created.
There’s an additional part of this, however. God is, by His very definition, holiness. He is the epitome of all that is good and right. As such anything that is a violation of God’s being, of His nature, of the rules that He has established is wrong and is sinful. Is it selfish of God to expect His creation to live in such a way as to abide by those things that are good and beneficial for it? God has demonstrated time and again that He is good and that He does all things for the good of those created in His image. He is not a tyrant, since it is clear that He allows people to live as they see fit, choosing whether or not to actually follow Him (along with all the consequences that go with that decision).
So why is God any more worthy than Satan to be supreme being? Because God created everything (including Satan, originally as Lucifer), He is the very definition of holiness and righteousness, He loves us and has our greatest good in mind (unlike Satan, who only wishes to destroy all that God has made), and He gives us multiple chances to choose to follow Him and allows us entire lifetimes to do so. I don’t know what more we, as the created, can ask for. Can you?
Tags: faith, good-and-evil, holiness, theology, viewpoint
One of the things that I think I find most irritating is when people make the assumption that, just because you hold a different viewpoint than them, you 1) must be mis- or underinformed; 2) must be spouting the standard ‘party’ line; and 3) must be unable to think for yourself, able only to blindly accept and regurgitate the viewpoint you’ve been taught all your life, since anyone who can and does think for themself would just have to come to the same conclusion they hold. There is no room in these people’s minds that someone could look at the same evidence they have seen, experience the same events, or look at the same issues and still come to a different conclusion about all those things. The same people who tell you to use your head and think for a change are the same people who seem incapable of doing so themselves, because surely if they were to actually think about this topic long enough, they would realize that people who think do often come up with different conclusions.
I see this phenomenon all the time in the world of politics and in the world of religion. One party touts their viewpoint and accuses the other party of being blind and of not thinking, so sure are they that if the other party were to think, they would have no choice but to embrace their own viewpoint. (How’s that for a contradiction in terms, since so many of these people also do not believe in absolute truth?) Christians are continually accused of this by their antagonists. Part of this is because a lot of Christians don’t think, don’t exercise critical analysis, do blindly accept answers they have never personally investigated. But part of this is simply unbelievers being unable to entertain the idea that anyone intelligent could possibly ever disagree with them. The latter we can do nothing about, but the former is something that anyone and everyone can continually work on. This is part of why I, personally, write, since the feedback I receive continually exposes me to new ideas and new questions. I, for one, believe that both faith and critical thinking can co-exist, a notion at which many unbelievers scoff. Faith, by itself, can be just as blinding as rationality left to its own ends. I have seen people argue with incontrovertible scientific evidence, simply on the basis of their ‘faith’ (e.g. the Earth is flat, not round). Likewise, there are supernatural occurences that happen on a daily basis all around the world that science and rationality are wont to explain (e.g. keys that float through midair in someone’s home). This is why I believe that God asks us to first believe on Him, in faith, then provides us with further information, both about Himself and about this world around us and tells us that we should explore His creation.
Faith, without rationality, is dead; likewise, rationality, without faith, provides only half the answer. Only when the two meet and supplement one another can balance be found.
Tags: assumptions, christianity, critical-thinking, faith, politics, rationality, religion, Science, supernatural, viewpoint
What about questioning the existence of God, the legitimacy of the Bible, whether or not one should be living to bring glory to God? Are these also questions one should speculativly ask? #
Absolutely. I think everyone asks these questions at some point in their life, and probably more than once. Growing up I was raised in a particular way of belief. As a teenager I took that belief system for granted. It wasn’t until I got to college that my belief system was challenged, both by practical living and by my academics. I asked myself a lot of difficult questions—does God really exist? what if He really doesn’t, what then? what would it mean for my life now and in the future if we really are all alone in this universe? could evolution be true? could Christians be wrong? how do we know the Bible is true? how do we know that Christianity is the one, true faith? is God really good? why couldn’t God have created man without the ability to sin? if God knew man was going to sin, why did He create him anyway? what was the point of doing all this? did God need company? I asked myself all these questions and so many more. And I didn’t ask them once or even twice. I ran through them many, many times over the years. I conducted heavy research, talked to a lot of different people, wept and cried and wrestled with the questions and the answers. I was no less a Christian, even though there were points when my faith flagged, even though there were times when I really thought maybe Christianity was a bunch of garbage and lies and myths.
Ultimately, though, I came back to Christianity as the only complete answer for everything. Part of what swayed me was the general revelation of the world around me—I found it impossible to believe that the level of complexity this world, this universe exhibits could come about by some cosmic accident, even one that took billions of years. Over the years I have systematically answered all of these questions for myself. In the process I have made my belief system my own and become more convinced than ever. It does not mean, however, that I am opposed to listening to new viewpoints and contemplating them for a time. But what it does mean is that I subject every viewpoint to the same scrutiny that I ran my own belief system through. What has happened is that every other viewpoint has folded up beneath that level of questioning, leaving my own belief system as the only one able to answer every question and to answer it well.
All this to say one thing—yes, I believe that these are all questions that one can speculatively ask. I believe that it is expected that we should ask them, that it is good and healthy to do so. Not everyone will arrive at the same answers, of course, and many who arrive at different answers will criticize and belittle those who come to different ones. But the process of searching out your own worldview is important, and I do not think that there is any question that is off-limits. Ask the questions, find the answers. Through the process everyone will have the opportunity to choose or reject God. Through the process He will get all the glory.
Tags: christianity, faith, general-revelation, god, philosophy, speculation, theology, viewpoint, worldview
The older I get and the more experience I receive in this world, the more I find that I cannot adequately or consistently predict the behavior of other people. My own viewpoint, my own knowledge, and my own experience that I have gleaned over the years are far too limited and far too narrow in scope to provide an adequate estimation of human behavior overall. I assume that the way I think, that the way I view the world is the only way to do so and that everyone
simply must view and think the exact same way. So I make predictions and judgments based on this assumption and am annoyed when the predicted behavior does not occur because it means that I was obviously in error. I forget that the knowledge and experiences that shape my predictions and judgments are unique to myself. No one else in the world has experienced the world in quite the same way as I, and no one else has had the same interests or learned the
same things or seen quite the same things as I. So my way of seeing the world is unique, and I cannot expect anyone else to behave or think the same way I do. Additionally, I make the common mistake of relying on anecdotal evidence to support my predictions and judgments. The trouble with doing this is that anecdotal evidence is typically not representative of the general population. It is merely one example of human behavior that may support a given idea or assumption. It is very problematic when people rely too heavily on anecdotal evidence to support decisions or judgments. Making snap judgments is also dangerous for another reason—psychological studies have shown that human memory both decays rapidly and is frequently rewritten unconsciously over time, effectively altering or even corrupting the very information upon which we rely so heavily.
The beautiful thing about statistics is that it often corrects for the shortcomings in human judgment by aggregating a large pool of information into relatively simple descriptive numbers. A good predictive statistic will have a good sample of data that is representative of the population at large. If the sample is representative enough, the results of the analysis will generalize well to everybody, meaning that it has a much better chance of accurately predicting behavior by providing a probability value for the occurrence of a particular behavior. Naturally, there will always be those individuals who are so far different from the general populace as to be outliers, and no statistic will completely describe any single individual. However, statistics are meant to be descriptive of large populations and give the inquisitive mind a better chance at accurately predicting how people will behave. There will also be
those unscrupulous individuals who will bias the data in such a way as to serve their own purposes. But for the wise and those genuinely seeking to learn, the use of statistical sampling can counteract the shortcomings of the human condition. It has been proven time and again that statistics can predict human behavior much more accurately, effectively, and consistently than can human predictions based solely on head knowledge.
All this is to caution you against relying too heavily on your own snap judgments (and even against well-thought-out, yet unsubstantiated judgments) because chances are good that your judgments and predictions will be erroneous. The numbers are useful tools to have in one’s
‘toolkit’ and should be used frequently to avoid making crucial, critical mistakes. Nothing replaces good, sound research in the endeavor to make good decisions.
Tags: analysis, anecdotal-evidence, assumptions, human-behavior, predictions, psychology, Statistics, viewpoint
