Does Science Point to God? Part II: The Christian Critics

Crisis Magazine ^ | Benjamin D. Wiker

[RightWhale]

Kaku is da Man. One of the founders of string theory, string field theory in particular, he interviews all the leading personalities in string theory constantly, and since he actually understands the math, he gets it right.

Kaku is a teaching prof, has a physics radio show, and appears on radio and TV a lot. He was the primary anchor to reality on the recent ABC UFO report.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the information on Kaku. He certainly sounds interesting.

[Doctor Stochastic]

This is the Humpty Dumpty version of discussion. You attempt to define "religion" to mean what you want it to mean rather than use the common meaning of the word (common in the context of discussion, of course). This is a fundamentally dishonest tactic often used in debate. The usage suggested by the website you quoted makes the word "religion" worthless as one never can tell what is meant by the user; I think that is what that site really wants. It's just another PostModernDeconstructionist attempt to confuse things.

Riding Shank's Mare isn't an equestrian event.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

You attempt to define "religion" to mean what you want it to mean rather than use the common meaning of the word (common in the context of discussion, of course). This is a fundamentally dishonest tactic often used in debate.

My experience is that both the statements "nature did it" and "God did it" are faith-based declarations which foreclose further investigation.

If an atheist, under color of science, wishes to declare to me in a debate that "nature did it" then I shall counter that his position is faith-based unless he fully responds to my challenge at post 40. When the correspondent replies that "someday science will have an answer" that is a statement of faith per se.

If science is not pursued objectively it is no longer science but metaphysics or ideology.

[betty boop]

If science is not pursued objectively it is no longer science but metaphysics or ideology.

Underscore that, Alamo-Girl!

Came across this in National Review today (Andrew Suttaford, "Global Warming," February 28, 2005)

"In reality, the facts, such as they are, do not support any orthodoxy. There aren’t enough of them, and those that exist often appear to contradict one another."

So i just hate it when people withdraw into orthodoxy or ideology, of whatever kind. Science of all things must free itself from this tendancy. Or so it seems to me. FWIW

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your agreement and for that excerpt! Seems to me that it benefits everyone to insist on objectivity in science.

[betty boop]

I'll miss you, psipsistar! I've thoroughly enjoyed our brief conversations, and admire the way you think. I hope you will come back soon! (Do people ever come back here, after they're "banned?")

[StJacques]

". . . It seems more like typical Creationist name-calling. This has been the pattern of Creationist argument for the last 50 years at least. The author is just another guy with no logical argument about biology so he resorts to attacking the religion of those who disagree with him. . . ."

All too true Doctor Stochastic. All too true.

You quoted the heart of the matter in your earlier post:

". . . That atheism is the natural effect of embracing evolutionary theory should come as no surprise. . . ."

Creationists consistently cling to their misconception that if you believe the Theory of Evolution is credible, you deny God. I have pointed out on thread after Crevo thread that Pope John Paul II and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Roman Catholic Church have stated that the Theory of Evolution is credible and supported by a convergence of findings from many scientific disciplines that was "neither sought nor fabricated." The Catholic Church's response is to distinguish between the spiritual and material evolution of man, which makes the Theory of Evolution and the Biblical story of creation compatible. But the Creationists continue to insist that the Theory of Evolution denies God, while refusing to call the Pope, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Catholic Church atheists. It is only a matter of time before the religious bigotry of these Creationists becomes evident as sooner or later one of them is going to step forth and do just that.

And then finally there is this:

". . . evolutionary theory, for a variety of nonscientific reasons, has become sacrosanct. To express doubts by bringing up the most glaring counterevidence to the theory is to brand oneself an intellectual infidel . . ."

These words are nothing more than notes from the Creationist subculture, which consistently tells itself within an enclosed self-supporting community that the Theory of Evolution has been undermined while never offering anything besides a link to some article on a creationist web site to back this up. I repeat here the same challenge I have put up time and again on these Crevo threads. If you believe the Theory of Evolution has been undermined by new scientific evidence, then explain to us how Petroleum Geologists look for oil and why they actually succeed in finding it. The only answer I have ever received to this challenge is a statement that went something like "Geologists succeed in finding oil for reasons other than the ones they believe explain their success."

I'm still waiting for an answer to my challenge.

[xzins]

This article says that the theory of evolution is atheistic in intent. It is.

It also said that one attempt to reconcile theology and evolution has ended with the recognition that the evolutionary worldview really will impact one's reality. One cannot split this debate down the middle and have a "science side" and a "morality side." One's worldview/cosmology necessarily impacts one's morality.

Additionally, the author said that the evolutionary reliance on natural selection will also necessarily deform Christian theology. There is no doubt that this does transpire. God becomes a pantheistic engineer who sets the machine up and wanders away, disinterested in what's going on. I don't see any way to avoid some variety of that type of theology.

And I remind that these are questions of "how" evolutionary doctrine affects those various areas of theology and morality....which is the focus of this article.

Now, why do you think that evolutionary doctrine will NOT affect Christian theology and morality?

[PatrickHenry]

I repeat here the same challenge I have put up time and again on these Crevo threads. If you believe the Theory of Evolution has been undermined by new scientific evidence, then explain to us how Petroleum Geologists look for oil and why they actually succeed in finding it.

Looks like a good place to repeat the PatrickHenry challenge: Explain why the biotech industry, which is profit-motivated and therefore non-ideological, and which hires tens of thousands of scientists in the biological disciplines, doesn't hire those who profess "creation science" (other than to staff the janatorial ranks).

[shubi]

"Now, why do you think that evolutionary doctrine will NOT affect Christian theology and morality?"

Why do you think a superficial literal interpretation of the Bible is good theology? That is really the important point.

Biological evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution explains the mechanisms that allow evolution to work.

Bad theology merely separates us from Christ, by inserting OT misinterpretations into the Gospel. When science finds another explanation, say for origin of life from chemicals, the creationist theology will crumble like the Jehovah's Witness' end of the world nonsense.

I have a feeling it will end in the same result. To continue to keep the money coming in they will adjust the theology and move on. To a certain extent this has already happened in the creationist movement. Creation science was totally discredited, so now they call it intelligent design. It is just moving from one scam to another.

[StJacques]

". . . Now, why do you think that evolutionary doctrine will NOT affect Christian theology and morality? . . ."

First of all; I would separate "Christian theology" from "morality" here, because the latter is in no way forced to adjust to science, while the former must.

There have been many advances in science in recent years; such as Quantum Physics, the Theory of Relativity, and the Theory of Evolution, which have forced a reexamination of Christian theological doctrine. But this is nothing new, it has in fact been an ongoing process from the very beginning of Christianity, though it was not until the major advances in science that came within the last four hundred years or so that there has been any significant rethinking of Christian theology. And that reexamination has extended historically and factually far beyond the Theory of Evolution. In the sixteenth century it was Astronomy that forced Christian theologians to rethink the biblical insistence that the earth was at the center of the universe. When the evidence that the earth was not even the center of this solar system became clear, Christians universally came to an understanding that the biblical text could not be taken literally. In the seventeenth century it was Physics in Newton's Natural Law Philosophy and its precursors, which denied the idea that providential intervention was a sufficient means of explaining material reality, and Christian theology adjusted to recognize that there was an order in creation that explained the way things worked. And ever since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century the need for Christian theology to adjust its view of the world has come from a wide variety of scientific study; including Geology and Biology, the two disciplines that come together in the Theory of Evolution.

Clearly the Theory of Evolution affects Christian theology. The very fact that I posted the examination of it by the Catholic Church makes it clear that it does, so it is not fair to say that I think it does not. But if you or anyone else wants to insist that the biblical story of creation must be taken literally in spite of the findings of science, I will ask in response whether you think the earth is the center of the universe, which is the literal statement from the Bible. So the adjustment in Christian theology that the Theory of Evolution brings with it is not unexpected. It is not the first adjustment nor will it be the last.

None of this affects "morality" however, unless you believe that all morality is dependent upon the literal acceptance of the biblical story of creation. Obviously I do not believe that, because I would see a logical inconsistency with opting for literal acceptance of the story of creation in Genesis, while not accepting the literal description of earth as the center of the universe, which I know is denied by modern astronomy. And there are many other passages in the Bible I cannot take literally as explaining the material world for similar reasons.

I do believe morality is dependent upon a divine being whose very essence objectifies that which is good, but that is another matter altogether and is not connected with material reality.

[StJacques]

"Looks like a good place to repeat the PatrickHenry challenge: Explain why the biotech industry, which is profit-motivated and therefore non-ideological, and which hires tens of thousands of scientists in the biological disciplines, doesn't hire those who profess "creation science" (other than to staff the janatorial ranks)."

Yes Patrick, and I should begin to group our two challenges together. I'll try to remember that next time I post my own.

[xzins]

I haven't finished reading your entire post, but it is not possible to adjust one's knowledge of truth without it having an impact on one's morality. Christian morality would be no exception.

[xzins]

Why do you think a superficial literal interpretation of the Bible is good theology? That is really the important point.

Not to be too difficult here, but "literal" has many meanings in theological circles. However, are you familiar with "face value."

An example would be the story of Jesus walking on water. There are all kinds of efforts to interpret "walking on the water" in terms of some "meaning" rather than at face value. The face value story is simply that a human being was walking on water. That is the claim the story is making to the average reader.

[shubi]

I don't have any problem with Jesus walking on water, or most of the NT, for that matter. The NT was written so close to the event that mythology did not have time to develop.

It is Genesis and some of the OT where the creationists have gone beyond all reason in altering the meaning. One example is the YEC insistence on a 24 hr day, when the Hebrew clearly means an indefinite period of time.

My translation of Genesis shows very little conflict between modern science and God.

[StJacques]

One of these days I'm going to post a thread "A Day in the Life of a Creationist" and it will go something like this:

The Creationist gets up in the morning and has a bowl of cereal made from grains that have been genetically altered by agronomists acting under their mistaken belief that the natural grains evolved as a genome from distinct ancestral species and therefore could be altered to embody new characteristics desirable for agricultural productivity. Then the Creationist will get into his car and, on the way to work, will stop at a gas station to put fuel into his automobile that was refined from oil found by Petroleum Geologists acting under the mistaken belief that their radiometric dating of rock formations, their examination of the taxonomy of fossil remains of rock samples taken from elsewhere in the same geologic strata, and their findings from an analysis of reduced carbon graphite deposits to indicate the presence of ancestral species of modern plants would establish the probability that oil would be located where they said it would be. Then, while at work, the Creationist will leave his office for an hour to go to the local medical clinic to get a flu shot which epidemioligists have constructed under their mistaken belief that some current infectious strains of influenza have evolved from earlier strains after surviving exposure to antibiotics which strengthened them.

Then, later that day, the Creationist will fire up his PC, log on to the internet, and go to web site messageboards and post the truth: that supporters of the Theory of Evolution refuse to come to grips with the evidence that the theory is flawed.

I need to collect a few more such examples Patrick. Maybe you and I can start collecting a list.

[PatrickHenry]

I need to collect a few more such examples Patrick. Maybe you and I can start collecting a list.

A worthy project. I'll ping a few of the regulars.