Comment on Michigan Conference vs. LSU – Right Wing Politics or Truth in Advertising? by Thinker.
Just this rejoinder, Sean…
From your reply, I don’t think you got my drift, exactly. Yes, employees are to do what the employer wants. I am questioning what the employer wants.
I believe fundamentalism of ANY stripe is unsupportable by any reasonable thought process and dangerous—Muslim, Christian, SDA, whatever. I think history is on my side about that! So you could say my plea is for individuals and churches to UPGRADE to the other brand of Christianity: “mainstream.”
If it were POSSIBLE to take every word of the Bible literally, I would sing a different tune. But to cite a single example out of hundreds, the mere fact of two contradictory creation stories in Genesis is proof enough that not every text can be taken literally. The stories are different, they can’t both be right. Same with the 4 gospels; how can the fundamentalist pick one text over here and claim it is exact, perfect, literal and “clear,” while finding acceptable excuses for the contradictions, large and small, among the gospels?
Same with many texts on slavery, same with beating your unruly kids to death, same with the biblical testimony that God rewarded his religious terrorists with virgins, … on and on and on. Same with God being loving and sorrowful that the least of his creation might suffer—then to demand that unbelievers be brought into his presence before being slaughtered, so he could watch. What happened to Jeremiah’s weeping over such loss?
Fundamentalist proof-texting under the pretext that every word is perfect and literal NECESSARILY requires picking and choosing.
The problem with upgrading to mainstream Christianity is that leaders steeped in fundamentalism would feel adrift and defenseless as the members started to think for themselves, according to what is good and positive and uplifting and loving and sensible. Who knows what these frail humans might think or do if given such license! (Can’t depend on God helping them with that??) Fundamentalist churches just can’t fathom giving up that ability to conk ’em over the head with those proof texts—while hoping no one notices the picking & choosing!
So I hope that clarifies… I’m not talking about whether the employees did what they were told; I’m talking about what they’re told in the first place. And I stick to my point about this fear that students will be led astray merely by being informed as to what most of the world thinks about how life forms evolved over time. (Evolution does NOT address how life started.)
I do think this is a perfect example of a fear that this particular “truth” cannot stand up to critical review. What? Students can study other world religions and not be swayed by such false teachings (that’s mysticism), but they can’t study a “falsehood” that most of the world accepts (that’s science!) without succumbing? Methinks there would not be this much consternation if church leaders honestly thought evolution is bunk and the truth of creationism could stand scrutiny. Let’s get real!
What’s threatened is the house of cards that fundamentalism built. Fiddle with one card, the whole thing falls apart. That’s what happens when you claim absolute certainty AND can never be wrong. It’s what happens if the cherished prophet can’t possibly be wrong. In fundamentalism, once you announce a point of doctrine, it isn’t REALLY ever re-examined. It’s “cherished” and it will remain cherished.
I like science because its “beliefs” are never cherished, but constantly challenged and re-tested. It is how we recognize Truth (best we can) when we see it. If the Bible is Truth, then what’s the problem? Why the consternation?
I think it’s sad that the church can’t leave something like this in abeyance or, I mean, see it as something to be worked out between the believer and God. But in fundamentalism, there’s that house of cards. Dogmatism. Never a good thing, IMO. Which is why I urge an upgrade from fundamentalism. Much of Christianity has, so it’s not like this is a bizarre suggestion!
By the way, I wish I knew how to write a short post. I should take a class. 🙂
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Michigan Conference vs. LSU – Right Wing Politics or Truth in Advertising?
Sean Pitman: I’m only wondering if you wish to clarify?
I am not on here to explain mainstream Christianity to you beyond the basic differences I already pointed out between it and fundamentalism. So stop badgering me. If you don’t understand it, read some books and stop mischaracterizing what I said.
Your implication that mainstream Christians aren’t really Christian is typical fundamentalist fare. I’m among the many who disagree. Frankly I think it’s quite arrogant to imagine that one’s own sincerity trumps that of others merely because their understanding of things religious is different from yours.
I told you before that I have no interest in arguing endlessly with you, especially not with your continued disingenuousness (as in claiming you would be “overjoyed” to find evidence that evolution is truth, etc.).
Feel free to take a final jab, but I will simply not respond to any further comments or questions. And to avoid any temptation to do so, I am choosing not even to see them (un-marking the follow-up flag). I regret you have not dispelled my distinct impression that fundamentalists worship cherished beliefs more than Truth. I can relate to that. I was there once.
Michigan Conference vs. LSU – Right Wing Politics or Truth in Advertising?
@Sean Pitman:
As I said, I’m not interested in arguing with you further. If you want to characterize that as a “win,” go ahead. “Winning” is precious to a fundamentalist.
As for your incessant question, “Do you believe that Jesus was really a God-man, born of a virgin woman, walked on water, raised the dead, and was himself raised to life and went to heaven after being dead for three days?”:
I can only imagine these are the questions YOU struggle with, as these are, in your mind, the beliefs threatened by evolution. They go a-tumblin’ (for a fundamentalist) if Darwin is right! Which is why he will always be rejected by fundamentalists, no matter how overwhelming the evidence becomes.
Like I say, you could retain these beliefs AND respect evidence by upgrading to mainstream Christianity. Plus you wouldn’t have to get tongue-tied over how to reconcile biblical contradictions with literalism.
That is all I have to say.
Michigan Conference vs. LSU – Right Wing Politics or Truth in Advertising?
@Thinker:
I am not going to endlessly debate you on this, so I expect this will be my last response.
As for your P.S. about biblical contradictions being “generally” minor, then what about the major ones, even if they are few? Or the many “minor” ones, if you are going to take the Bible as inerrant or useful at all for proof-texting?? I address this because, again, I plea for fundamentalists to upgrade to mainstream Christianity.
Re the topic at hand, I am wondering how you can be as well-read as you claim to be, and still find evolution to be such a mystery (even if you reject it), begging people to explain it to you—and couching it in words intended to imply it can’t be explained. Once again, I suspect your reading has been of other creationists ABOUT Darwin, evolution, etc. If you had studied Darwin, as opposed to about Darwin, I think your criticisms would contain more of a ring of credibility. (Same would be true of a person whose education was a night of watching pro & con YouTube clips on the topic.)
Regardless of what position a person takes on a topic, credibility is established by evidence that the person actually knows and understands the topic. I see no evidence from what you’ve said so far that you have ever actually read The Origin of Species or equivalent. I see evidence that you’ve read what people who share your religious stance have said about it. (Not saying you haven’t, but that I detect no evidence of it.)
Even if you disagreed with evolution, you would, if truly knowledgable, have something better to refute it than the absurd assertion that evolution takes as much faith as creation. Thoughtful people on both sides would see that statement is just plain ridiculous. One might not believe the evidence is adequate, but one cannot say with a straight face that there’s no evidence at all, putting it on the same par as believing a deity just spoke everything into instant existence (including fossils in place!).
Perhaps you mean you feel certain PARTS of evolution aren’t yet understood adequately for you to accept the whole. If so, say that! This illustrates a difference between religious fundamentalism (all-or-nothing thinking) and science. Fundamentalism requires all the answers, complete answers, absolute certainty of the answers. Fundamentalism is extremely defensive and hostile to evidence, because once a stand is taken, it CANNOT BE WRONG without the entire belief system falling apart! Therefore, by definition, no evidence, no matter how compelling, is evidence! Unless it’s supportive evidence.
Science, on the other hand, would NEVER claim to have all the answers, nor complete answers! Science has nothing to defend! Science BEGS to have people disagree with it and come up with a better, more accurate answer.
Your position seems to be, like other creationists, is that if there is anything whatsoever that science can’t explain, then it’s ALL bunk. Never mind the overwhelming evidence of fossils and bones—Satan put them there! Or maybe God put them there during creation, just to see if thinking people would be tricked and baffled, and then be sent to hell for employing reason with the brain God gave them. Go figure.
Yet we see creationists doing this all the time, picking something science has yet to figure out and holding it up with a great “Aha!!!” as if science is suddenly entirely quackery just because it doesn’t know something, or once got something wrong. Find something science still doesn’t know about evolution and Bingo! Ta-dum! Evolution is false! Unlike fundamentalism, science doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but that doesn’t stop the tired refrain, “Well, YOU don’t know how life started!” as if somehow this lack of information, not wallpapered over with the God-of-the-gaps, is some kind of a big revelation. But duh, we didn’t CLAIM to know the answer to that! We aren’t bewitched, bothered and bewildered by what we don’t know!
You also trot out the “argument” that evolution is only a “theory” (by putting it in quotes), pretending the word “theory” connotes a lack of factuality. Gravity is a theory too. Do you also doubt gravity because it is only a theory?
I will leave you with this. You can easily find countless things that humans, in spite of our scientific inquiry, still don’t understand—including missing knowledge about evolution, the human body, the universe, disease, weather, all sorts of things. The fact that we don’t know everything is no big “duh” to anyone but religious people who need to defend a cherished belief. No matter how you slice it, you simply cannot deny that there is now such overwhelming evidence for species evolving that it is now accepted as fact by most of the world, and certainly by nearly all scientists. Period. You can say you don’t believe them, but you can’t deny the bulk of existing science. Instead of denying the reality we know, on the pretense that what we don’t know invalidates everything we do know, it seems to me you should just be honest and say your religion doesn’t allow you to accept as real what everyone else has overwhelmingly accepted as real.
You could post every day of the year to assert that what we don’t know invalidates everything we know so far, based on overwhelming evidence. But that wouldn’t make it true.
To summarize my take on it, metaphor is a wonderful, useful literary device, not an enemy. When (a) a story is fantastical on the face of it to begin with, and when (b) we have mountains of evidence that it cannot be literal, then it is obviously metaphor. And there’s nothing wrong with that!
As M. Scott Peck put it so well in The Road Less Traveled, having our cherished beliefs challenged is unspeakably painful. Most people will put forth more effort to deny reality or to try to bend it to make it conform to their comfortable beliefs than would have been required to adjust their beliefs to conform to reality in the first place.
Seems clear to me that people who rail against the science of evolution do so to protect their religious beliefs, not to test, refine and adjust their beliefs. That is the difference between fundamentalists and the rest of us (including mainstream Christianity). We seek to know truth and reality wherever it leads, even if the news is bad (even if we have to painfully adjust a cherished belief).
Just as you wondered how I can believe in anything at all, when I could (supposedly) claim everything is metaphor (I guess you don’t realize metaphor doesn’t negate stuff, it restates and explains stuff), I would similarly ask you in return, If “faith” is the only reason to believe something, without any attention to evidence, then why don’t we all just pick whatever cozy beliefs strike our fancy—which is typically whatever faith we grow up in—and believe them by faith no matter how goofy they may prove to be? Personally, my faith is worthless and meaningless if it cannot be tempered or adjusted on the basis of evidence. There’s faith, and then there’s blind faith.
(That question was rhetorical. I don’t anticipate responding further. And by the way, I’m not sure what being a pathologist has to do with understanding evolution. I think any reasonably intelligent person can gain a good working knowledge of this topic simply by reading—both sides directly, NOT just what one side says about the other.)
