> Kevin, from what you have stated above, it sounds to me like you are making
> science the arbiter of your religious belief. If so, you have chosen a
> dangerous and predetermined pathway that will lead you ultimately to reject
> the God who made you.
I appreciate your concern, but I see no danger of that happening. The Holy
Spirit continually reaffirms my faith in God and Jesus Christ while at the
same time reassuring me that there is no conflict between my Christian faith
and scientific reality. The Holy Spirit is the final arbiter of my religious
belief, whereas science is the final arbiter of what I perceive to be the
reality of the natural universe.
My statement to Bertvan that I, like everyone else on this listgroup, have
the right to challenge beliefs that reject clear scientific evidence concerns
**scientific** beliefs only, not religious beliefs. When Bertvan says, "I do
not believe that 'random mutation and natural selection' is an adequate
explanation for the diversity of life", he is expressing a scientific belief,
not a religious one. It may be based on certain of his religious beliefs,
but as worded it is scientific claim. Since I believe that that claim
rejects clear scientific evidence, I will challenge it. If, however, Bertvan
were to say, "I believe that God created each species supernaturally, with no
recourse to naturalistic forces," that would be a religious belief and I
would not challenge its scientific validity. I would ask him to clarify his
statement, such as defining whether we could tell the difference between
supernatural speciation and natural speciation, but I would not say that his
religious belief rejects clear scientific evidence.
Having said that, I hope that creationists and ID theorists will not start
disquising scientific statements as religious statements in an attempt to
sneak scientific beliefs through unchallenged. For example, someone could
claim that the statement, "I believe that all species appeared fully formed
with no ancestor-descendent relationship with any other species whatsoever",
is a religious belief. In some contexts it would be, but if it were stated
in a debate over the scientific validity of common ancestry and was meant to
appeal to the appearance of the fossil record, I would take it as a
scientific claim. Even if the statement was, "I believe that God made all
species appeared fully formed with no ancestor-descendent relationship with
any other species whatsoever", in the context of a scientific debate I would
take that as a scientific claim. I recognize that this can be a gray area
and I expect to make mistakes, but I have no tolerance for people who try to
hide behind "personal religious belief" to safeguard what are actually
scientificall beliefs from being scientifically challenged.
Kevin L. O'Brien