Our faith deals in the realm where we exercise our free will in making moral
decisions. Such is not the realm of science. The interpretation of the data
is what is crucial. For instance, in cosmology people accept the
inflationary model of Alan Guth where a fast expansion is postulated to
solve certain know puzzles in the observed data. Could the six days of
Creation be the analog of the inflationary expansion posited in cosmology?
What I want to reconcile are questions which arise when Christ says: " Have
you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and
female." Matt. 19:4. Christ must have been referring to the Book of Genesis.
I am sure that Christ also made references to the Flood. Is Christ trying to
deceive us? What is He saying?
>Or are you suggesting that if evolution is true, then Christianity is wrong
>and we shouldn't try to "salvage our faith"?
If our existence can be proven on the basis of physics and chemistry, then
our thoughts of God is a total delusion. Of course, one can invent all sorts
of hybrids of evolution/christianity in order to justify anything.
>At one point in my life it was this latter position that I was fully
>prepared to accept. I had become convinced that in order to reject
>evolution I had to reject all the vast observational data that went with it.
It is not a question of rejecting observational data, it is how such data
are to be interpreted.
> As a physicist I am more knowledgable of
>>cosmology, a deductive science just like evolution, where we cannot be
>>certain that a Big Bang actually occurred. We make measurements in the
>>present and work backwards in time, but all such approaches are very
>>speculative and never conclusive. Perhaps we ought to face the whole problem
>>of origins, creation of life from matter/energy, in order to have a clearer
>>preservative of the difficulty or, perhaps, impossibility of creating any
>>theory which would explain the existence of conscious beings.
>
>If we do that, as Christians, then we relinquish the intellectual playing
>field to those who have absolutely no sympathy for Christianity. This is
>the "surrender" strategy. Surrender rarely advances one's cause.
People like Phillip Johnson are not surrendering but fighting at the correct
front. Christians have been forced to fight the misuses of observational
data and the destruction of our public educational system.
>>Scientists will one day claim that our actions are governed by our genes. On
>>that day we would have the perfect excuse: "my genes made me do it." Of
>>course, that is nonsense since I do believe in the reality of a free will
>>and so our actions, even though predisposed by our genes, nevertheless
>>result from actual moral choices.
>
>How can they when there is not enough information content in the genes to
>specify the brain? That dog won't hunt.
Isn't the genetic code of an individual sufficient to reproduce the
individual? What is all the cloning all about, then? Enlighten me. The brain
is physical, thoughts are something else.
>>Long ago Descartes said that "matter cannot think" and so it is. Perhaps
>>C.S. Lewis said it best when he said that "reasoning is supernatural." It is
>>so obvious that a purely scientific approach to the whole of reality is apt
>>to lead to all sorts of nonsense. For instance, if evolution is true, why
>>not help it. Wasn't that the logic of Hitler? If evolution is true, is it
>>possible that some races are less developed than others?
>
>So why did good southern Baptists in the south own slaves last century? They
>didn't believe in the humanity of blacks either and they didn't believe in
>evolution. Why would my mother's southern Baptist church in 1963 refuse to
>let blacks worship with them? No one in that church believed in evolution!
>What was their problem? This whole "racism comes from evolution" argument is
>highly flawed and pays no attention to the Christian examples of racism. How
>about the (former? I don't know if they changed) policies of Bob Jones
>University? They actively taught that evolution was wrong but wouldn't allow
>any blacks into their school.
> Racism comes from sin--the sin of pride and the sin of hate--nothing more.
Their practical Christianity was lacking! Also, they misused the Declaration
of Independence and our Constitution in order to justify their actions. Much
as it is done today with abortion which is legal by declaring humans non
persons. You know full well that the same action can have two widely
different reasons. If you are an atheistic scientist, then helping evolution
is the correct thing to do. Isn't that what is actually taking place in our
society today? Why cloning people without head? That is good science. Isn't
it? I did not say that past racism comes from evolution, I said future
control of who is born and who is not will come from idealogies that fully
accept evolutionary views. You raise the issue of sin but that word means
nothing to those who do not believe as we do. To those people science is God
and the uses of science with no moral conscience will give rise to a society
which will make Sodom and Gomorrah look like Paradise.
Take care,
Moorad