[_ Old Earth _] "each after their own kind" NOT

[JM]

rez, what do you mean by "kind" what is your understanding of the word?

 

[ArtGuy]

And the fact is, many Christians simply aren't able to participate in adult discussion. It is beyond them. And so they certainly waste their time here.

And what does that say about Christians? :roll:

That they have the same propensity for industrial-grade stupid as any other group? I see plenty of rolleye-worthy discourse from people of all stripes, here.

 

[DivineNames]

And the fact is, many Christians simply aren't able to participate in adult discussion. It is beyond them. And so they certainly waste their time here.

And what does that say about Christians? :roll:

That they have the same propensity for industrial-grade stupid as any other group? I see plenty of rolleye-worthy discourse from people of all stripes, here.

I wasn't actually thinking of idiocy as such. Not exactly. The problem, so to speak, is that some Christians seem to think a discussion forum is a place for them to spout off opinion with an attitude of infallibility. And in this manner they behave with both skeptics and their fellow Christians. Where they are talking with skeptics, they don't put forward their (unsupported) claims as a modest statement of personal belief: "This is what I believe as a Christian, this is what I have faith in". They put forward their dogma and opinions as the most certain of fact, and it doesn't occur to them that they have to argue for it and answer objections made against. There seems to be an unwillingness on the part of Christians to honestly debate. Christians will often simply run away from an issue: presumably because their belief system is under threat. So yeah, many Christians waste time here. They come to a discussion forum when they aren't actually interested in discussion.

 

[JM]

What's the difference between so-called Christian dogma and the dogma that surrounds "theory" put forth from science?

 

[reznwerks]

dogma

What's the difference between so-called Christian dogma and the dogma that surrounds "theory" put forth from science?

Christian dogma has no evidence and evidence isn't dogma.To put it further there are reasons to believe and unfounded belief.

 

[ArtGuy]

Re: dogma

What's the difference between so-called Christian dogma and the dogma that surrounds "theory" put forth from science?

Christian dogma has no evidence and evidence isn't dogma.To put it further there are reasons to believe and unfounded belief.

Put another way: YEC is at odds with our observations of the universe God has given us, while established scientific theories are in agreement with them.

 

[Drew]

What's the difference between so-called Christian dogma and the dogma that surrounds "theory" put forth from science?

As others have stated, science is all about constructing models of the world that are subject to confirmation / disconfirmation based on observational evidence that is accessible to the third person world of "objective experience". We all can agree that the apple falls at 9.8 meters / second / second. This observation is in the domain of "public" experience.

To the extent that Christian claims are subject to the same process, there would be no difference between Christian "dogma" and scientitic "dogma". For example, if one believes that Christ promised that all who have experienced spiritual rebirth would suddenly speak in real existing languages that they do not already know, this would be "objective" evidence to support such a theory about the world (subject to some other considerations that I will not go into here for the sake of brevity).

The reality, however, is that many elements of Christian doctrine are not subject to such confirmation / disconfirmation - we cannot empirically show the truth of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Someone may object that since Christian doctrine suggests that believers will live morally better lives, and since this generally seems to not be the case (to which I would agree), this counts as publically accessible evidence against the truthfulness of the Christian worldview. I would be willing to deal with that in a different post.

Now I will perhaps disagree with I think reznwerks means when s/he talks about unfounded belief. I believe that we often overlook the rather obvious fact that the world is structured in such a way that some items of "knowledge" are publically accessible (e.g. the 9.8 meters /s /s thing) and some are in the domain of private subjective experience. If someone whacks me on the kneecap, I experience something that is totally private - the content of my pain experience is mine and mine alone. My belief in the reality of the pain experience is well-founded, although not verifiable by others.

I think that God works mostly in this realm of private subjective experience. In short, his reality is, for this reason, not subject to "objective" study in the realm of the "publically accessible". I suspect that some will argue that this is a rather convenient position to take.

The short version of my response (since this post is long already) is basically this: one cannot deny the reality and rich content of the private subjective world of inner experience. So it is not at all intellectually dishonest to claim that such experiences can point to the existence of a real God, without there being a "publically measurable" test to confirm this.

As much as I am a committed empiricist (as I understand the term), I do not think that only that which is "publically demonstratable" is "real". I know that my pains, joys, and other subjective experiences are real, and yet there is no "scientific experiement" that can confirm or disconfirm them.

I can anticipate a number of objections but I will deal with them as they come.

 

[JM]

Drew, how does the Bible describe faith and how does that description of faith [as a substance of things not seen] affect your understanding of the faith science relationship?

 

[Drew]

Drew, how does the Bible describe faith and how does that description of faith [as a substance of things not seen] affect your understanding of the faith science relationship?

Short answer: I see faith as involving a willingness to commit to the realilty of "things not seen" - things which are outside the publically accessible domain of the "objective" and also outside my private inner world of the purely subjective. This is probably what most Christians would say. I do not need faith to know that apples fall at 9.8 m/s/s, nor do I need faith to apprehend the reality of a whack to the knee. I do need it, however, to believe, for example, in the proposition that Christ will return.

The domain of science, by its very nature, does not deal with the kind of propositions whose truthfulness is can only be committed to by an act of faith alone. This is not to say that science denies the truthfulness of such propositions - they are merely outside the scope of the scientific domain. I suspect that you will agree that some propositions are factually true, yet can only be believed to be so through an act of faith.

 

[DivineNames]

What's the difference between so-called Christian dogma and the dogma that surrounds "theory" put forth from science?

Western science can't be that "dogmatic", as it has been willing to discard theories that are found to be inadequate, even theories that were undoubtedly useful have been superseded.


"The religious message, whether it is in the form of ancient books or a new revelation, is then necessarily regarded as sacred and unalterable. Development of doctrine and accommodation with changing thought patterns must always, on the pain of irreligiousness, take place within the set verbal framework of the authoritative texts. This respect and reverence for specific and unchangeable verbal formulations is quite foreign both to science and to the critical attitude as a whole. There, if a theory or set of policies comes under critical fire, they are revised or even replaced with better ones. Preservation of formulae at all costs is regarded as tantamount to intellectual dishonesty."

Anthony O'Hear, Experience, Explanation and Faith (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984)