Evointrinsic
Member
The Title changed! Just a heads up. The original title was "A question on Christianity and Knowledge", however, it was too misleading for some people who thought I was specifically addressing all of Christianity, when in fact I am only talking about Young Earth Creationism.
Just to forewarn people, this topic isn't an intention attempt to insult anyone, but it will be quite controversial. I am sorry if I offend anyone, please feel free to address any concerns by commenting.
The question itself is rather short and sweet, I highly suggest reading through the entire first post, but if you rather not, feel free to look at the very last sentence of this post.
I just took a quick read on another topic (This one in particular) and was surprised to see so many members saying that knowledge and Christianity can coexist. There's a better way of putting that, give me a moment.
Yes, I understand that Christianity and Knowledge can exist - Simply learning about the bible itself is an act of acquiring knowledge - but what I have seen in many members of this forum is that their lust for knowledge only goes to a certain extent.
As many of you know, I am a very questionable individual (by that I mean I like to ask questions) and adore the Christianity & Science section of this forum. And it seams remarkably clear - to me at least - that some Christians pick and choose what they would like to consider true or false only if it agrees with their understanding of scripture.
Before we go on, however, let's talk about what "Knowledge" really means. The truth is, there is no precise definition of the word "Knowledge". But for the sake of argument, let's go with this:
Knowledge is the information of a specific subject that one has acquired through experience or education.
Now, when we get into "touchy subjects" such as evolution, for example, we get Christians (generally Young Earth Creationists) who simply are unable to accept anything that a person educated in that subject will give forth. To put it more simply (for the people who don't really see what I am talking about) if we grabbed a mathematician, and an individual who simply refused to acknowledge any form of math as even possible, this individual wouldn't accept that 2+2=4 regardless of how detailed the mathematician explained how 2+2 does indeed equal 4. It's the same concept.
There is a very interesting reverend that I would really like to meet. His name is Reverend Dr. Laurence C. Keene, in the film For The Bible Tells Me So (which i highly recommend seeing). Keene says
I have a soft spot for biblical literalists, because I used to be one. However, when someone says to me "this is what the bible says" I say "no, that's what the bible reads" It is the struggle to understand context and language and culture and custom that helps us understand the meaning, or what it is saying.
This is helps me understand the position of a young earth creationist to an extent, and really, Young Earth Creationism hasn't been around for a long time. When I say that, I mean that it made a very brief appearance in the mid 1600's (Source), and then suddenly revived itself in the 1920's (Source) when a paper was published about evolution (of all things).
Right Reverend Richard Holloway - another reverend i would greatly enjoy a discussion with - stated
Biblical literalism, far from being the classical Christian approach, is in fact very modern. It belongs in the early part of the 20th century. So we have almost 2000 years of Christian history without biblical literalism, it's a modern invention.
Which is why I always say that Christianity and Evolution have no quarrel. Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and Evolution do.
Now, when we take the view of YEC and the search for knowledge, we have an issue. Why? Because nearly everything in the natural world outside a YEC view contradicts what a YEC view represents. Things such as; Embryology, ecology, genetics, medicine, histology, paleontology, immunology, cellular biology, molecular biology, anthropology, anatomy, embryology, geography, astronomy, physics, taxonomy, chemistry, cosmology, Gravity, zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Physiology, meteorology, oceanography, geophysics to name a few.
In this case, YEC can't really learn and gain knowledge about anything natural without having to alter that information to abide by YEC views. In a sense, knowledge (that applies to anything natural) and this particular view in Christianity cannot exist.
On the lighter note, those Christians that do apply the bible in a "not completely" literal sense, still are capable of gaining knowledge within the fields of nature (without altering the information that was gained).
This next statement is going to be quite odd coming from a person such as myself, but from what I can tell, the issue isn't about the person themselves, it is just how well they understand the context in which the bible was written in. And I'm sure you'll all agree that we can all use our time to attempt to more clearly understand the bible.
On to my question however :D
Can Christianity (in the view of Young Earth Creationism) coexist with clear, unaltered Knowledge of the natural world?
Just to forewarn people, this topic isn't an intention attempt to insult anyone, but it will be quite controversial. I am sorry if I offend anyone, please feel free to address any concerns by commenting.
The question itself is rather short and sweet, I highly suggest reading through the entire first post, but if you rather not, feel free to look at the very last sentence of this post.
I just took a quick read on another topic (This one in particular) and was surprised to see so many members saying that knowledge and Christianity can coexist. There's a better way of putting that, give me a moment.
Yes, I understand that Christianity and Knowledge can exist - Simply learning about the bible itself is an act of acquiring knowledge - but what I have seen in many members of this forum is that their lust for knowledge only goes to a certain extent.
As many of you know, I am a very questionable individual (by that I mean I like to ask questions) and adore the Christianity & Science section of this forum. And it seams remarkably clear - to me at least - that some Christians pick and choose what they would like to consider true or false only if it agrees with their understanding of scripture.
Before we go on, however, let's talk about what "Knowledge" really means. The truth is, there is no precise definition of the word "Knowledge". But for the sake of argument, let's go with this:
Knowledge is the information of a specific subject that one has acquired through experience or education.
Now, when we get into "touchy subjects" such as evolution, for example, we get Christians (generally Young Earth Creationists) who simply are unable to accept anything that a person educated in that subject will give forth. To put it more simply (for the people who don't really see what I am talking about) if we grabbed a mathematician, and an individual who simply refused to acknowledge any form of math as even possible, this individual wouldn't accept that 2+2=4 regardless of how detailed the mathematician explained how 2+2 does indeed equal 4. It's the same concept.
There is a very interesting reverend that I would really like to meet. His name is Reverend Dr. Laurence C. Keene, in the film For The Bible Tells Me So (which i highly recommend seeing). Keene says
I have a soft spot for biblical literalists, because I used to be one. However, when someone says to me "this is what the bible says" I say "no, that's what the bible reads" It is the struggle to understand context and language and culture and custom that helps us understand the meaning, or what it is saying.
This is helps me understand the position of a young earth creationist to an extent, and really, Young Earth Creationism hasn't been around for a long time. When I say that, I mean that it made a very brief appearance in the mid 1600's (Source), and then suddenly revived itself in the 1920's (Source) when a paper was published about evolution (of all things).
Right Reverend Richard Holloway - another reverend i would greatly enjoy a discussion with - stated
Biblical literalism, far from being the classical Christian approach, is in fact very modern. It belongs in the early part of the 20th century. So we have almost 2000 years of Christian history without biblical literalism, it's a modern invention.
Which is why I always say that Christianity and Evolution have no quarrel. Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and Evolution do.
Now, when we take the view of YEC and the search for knowledge, we have an issue. Why? Because nearly everything in the natural world outside a YEC view contradicts what a YEC view represents. Things such as; Embryology, ecology, genetics, medicine, histology, paleontology, immunology, cellular biology, molecular biology, anthropology, anatomy, embryology, geography, astronomy, physics, taxonomy, chemistry, cosmology, Gravity, zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Physiology, meteorology, oceanography, geophysics to name a few.
In this case, YEC can't really learn and gain knowledge about anything natural without having to alter that information to abide by YEC views. In a sense, knowledge (that applies to anything natural) and this particular view in Christianity cannot exist.
On the lighter note, those Christians that do apply the bible in a "not completely" literal sense, still are capable of gaining knowledge within the fields of nature (without altering the information that was gained).
This next statement is going to be quite odd coming from a person such as myself, but from what I can tell, the issue isn't about the person themselves, it is just how well they understand the context in which the bible was written in. And I'm sure you'll all agree that we can all use our time to attempt to more clearly understand the bible.
On to my question however :D
Can Christianity (in the view of Young Earth Creationism) coexist with clear, unaltered Knowledge of the natural world?
I just hope it doesn't get too ugly. 
Thanks for your comments, then :D
Should I perhaps reword the question to "Are YEC's able to accept the knowledge of nature and still follow a YEC view?
