Why do christians pick and choose which of the sciences they agree to?

Question

They like astronomy (this wasnt always so), chemistry, physics, oceanography, meteorology but have big problems with geology (5,000 yr old earth), biology (evolution) and hydrology (a flood over the entire earth and the water was miracled away). Is this the same pick and choose behavior fundies use when deciding which parts of the bible to use for daily living?

Answer 1

For daily living, Fundies pick the disciplines of science that are actually good science.

The "old earth" theory is not good science. The fossil record and the whole Carbon-14 dating method cannot be proven to be accurate because the atmospheric conditions of the earth cannot be known, nor duplicated for testing from 10,000+ years ago. Radio-carbon 14 dating pre-assumes that nothing has changed in the last 5,000 years.

The Theory of Evolution is taught as having been proven, yet in spite of a mountain of evidence, it remains unproven. Even Darwin was suspicious of his theory due to its highly speculative nature.

The world-wide flood has plenty of evidence to support it, yet evolutionary scientists reject it because it does not fit the unproven evolutionary model.

We Fundies will stick with the proven sciences.

Answer 2

Christians test science at least as much as scientists. Test this observation of gravity. Send me your hypothesis; Get in an elevator and go up. Can you say with any certainty that you are moving, and that the earth did not acquire more gravitational pull? No. There is no instrument known to science that can tell the diference between gravity, and acceleration. You can hypothesize, theorize, and speculate all you want. But, there are things that you just have to accept, until you have more information, from better sources.

Accept the world, God, and the people you meet, until you are wise enough to judge. And sin no more...

Answer 3

We like things that make good sense. Evolution is a theory. thought up by a man who began to doubt God after he himself made some bad choices based on his theories. He did what many people do. Blame God for their own faults. And deny His existence because of that which they lack understanding.

Faith and understanding is process. It is wisdom. Unlike superficial intelligence it isn't instantaneous.

We live in a microwave society. This is why our children are out of control, crime is rampant, people are overweight, etc. People want everything in their laps right away. They have no patience. We have technical expertise and vast knowledge. You can reach a Bachelor level education for free via WWW. But people are getting stupider (willful stupidity) by the day. Watch the news.

In our plastic, lickity split, and chop chop convenient world people don't take the time to slow down and think. To look around them. To have patience and humility. That is why there are so few people of faith. It's a process. It's not something that can be held under a microscope. Because of this reality many people will miss the opportunity for peace and happiness.

Answer 4

Why not?

Why do you pick and choose what foods you like?

Why do you pick and choose what sports you participate in?

Why do you pick and choose the car you drive?

Why do you pick and choose which political candidates you vote for?

Remember that science can't accept supernatural explanations for anything. So they're forced to make things up in order to explain questions of origins. I'm sure they'd like to be honest and stick with the facts, but their underlying assumptions force them to fudge the truth. If I choose not to believe made-up explanations of origins, what's the big deal?

Answer 5

Some science is just junk science.For example...

Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould put it this way"Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless." In other words, Throughout the geologic layers, which supposedly formed over eons - the various kinds of fossils remain essentially unchanged in appearance.They show no evolution over long ages. Paleontologists call this "stasis."
Wouldn't a fossil record, showing all animals complete when first seen, is what we'd expect if God created them whole, just as the Bible says?
Austin H. Clark, the eminent zoologist of the Smithsonian Institution, was no creationist but he declared:
"No matter how far back we go in the fossil record of previous animal life upon the earth we find no trace of any animal forms which are intermediates between the major groups of phyla.
This can only mean one thing. There can only be one interpertation of thisentire lack of any intermediates between the major groups of animals - as for instance betweenbackboned animals or vertebrates , the echinoderms, the mollusks and the arthropods
If we are willing to accept the facts we must believe that there never were such intermediates, or in other words that these major groups have from the very first, borne the same relation to each other that they have today."
.British science writer Frances Hitchens wrote" On the face of it, then, the prime function of the genetic system would seem to be to resist change ; to to perpetuate the species in a minimally adapted form in response to altered conditions, and if at all possibe to get things back to normal. The role of natural selection is usually a negative one : to destroy the few mutant individuals that threaten the stability of the soecies.
Why aren't fish today, growing little arms and legs, trying to adapt to land? Why aren't reptiles today developing feathers?Shouldn't evolution be ongoing?
Evolution Is not visible in the past, via the fossil record. It is not visible in the present, whether we consider an organism as a whole, or on the microscopic planes of biochemistry and molecular biology,where, as we have seen, the theory faces numerous difficulties. In short, evolution is just not visible. Science is supposed to be based on observation.
L. Harrison Matthews,long director of the London Zoological society noted in 1971:"Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parrallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true, but neither up to the present, has been capable of proof.
Norman MacBeth wrote in American Biology Teacher:
"Darwinism has failed in practice. The whole aim and purpose in Darwinism is to show how modern forms descended from ancient forms, that is to construct reliable phylogenies(genealogies or family trees). In this it has utterly failed...Darwinism is not science."
Swedish biologist Soren Lovtrup declared in his book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth:
I suppose nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology;for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar" Darwinism" vocabulary -- "adaptation","selection pressure","natural selection", etc.--thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events.They do not, and the sooner this is discovered, the sooner we will be able to make real progress in the understanding of evolution.
As natural selection's significance crumbles, the possibility of God, creation and design is again making a wedge in scientific circles. In a 1998 cover story entitled"Science Finds God" Newsweek noted:
"The achievments of modern science seem to contradict religion and undermine faith. But for a growing # of scientists, the same discoveries offer support for spirituality and hints of the very nature of God...According to a study released last year, 40% of American scientists believe in a personal God---not only an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a diety to whom they can pray."
Author David Raphael Klein may have said it best:
"Anyone who can contemplate the eye of a housefly, the mechanics of human finger movement, the camoflage of a moth, or the building of every kind of matter from variations in arrangement of proton and electron, and then maintain that all this design happened without a designer, happened by sheer, blind accident-- such a personbelieves in a miracle far more astonishing than any in the Bible."



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Answer 6

Why do you choose which sciences you think Christians believe in?

Why, if I am not convinced that Humans evolved from another species, because, as Darwin himself said, there are not multitudes of links in the fossil record, does that mean that I don't believe in all biology.

Answer 7

If i became a christian, i'd in basic terms say that God magically transported them around the sea. Magical transportation is the sole way diverse the animals would are transforming into there in time (if in any respect), no longer in basic terms the australian marsupials.

Answer 8

Astronomy proves as much as geology.

Usually it is because they only want the things that fit their dogma.

Fundies cherry pick, that is true. You forgot misinterpreting and never ONCE refuting my positions or answers to their Qs.

Answer 9

Religion is very personal to each person and what they believe, not every Christian believes and agrees on exactly the same thing. We can believe anything we want to believe, and just because it's different then the mainstream doesn't make it better or worse

Answer 10

uhhhhh I believe in all science, and I'm Christian....except I think there is something wrong is crbondating because I do not believe people were around like 20,000 years ago...

I believe the earth is millions, maybe even billions of years old, but not human life.