What Happens if Both Sides are Making Faith Based Arguments?
Posted by: Blue Collar Muse in Education, Individual Responsibility, ReligionI have a close friend with whom I disagree on many things. While I love him like a brother and he could have anything of mine he needed that was mine to give, we see things very differently. It’s both a blessing and a curse. I enjoy our conversations since I learn so much but I despair sometimes for his heart and mind. I’m pretty sure he feels the same.
Yesterday’s conversation returned to a frequent topic between us, Evolution v Creation. While we were talking, I had a bit of a revelation (religious pun intended). My friend says that Creation and ID arguments are invalid scientifically because they insert a Creator or Designer into the equation at some point. Since the existence of God is not demonstrable to a scientific certainty, any such insertion renders the Creation/ID argument invalid and unscientific. The host of factual and scientific research and data which exist in support of a Creation/ID view are summarily rejected as worthless or meaningless because, at heart, the argument is faith based.
Not so with Evolution, my friend argues. All the best science and research supports the Evolution model. While my friend admits that Evolution is not demonstrable to a scientific certainty either, he feels it is a better explanation of the fossil record and other evidence scientists in this field deal with on a daily basis. My friend believes in God but believes He used Evolution as the means by which He accomplished the world we see around us today. Interestingly, despite his appeal to science alone in reaching his conclusions, the truth of his assertion that Evolution cannot be demonstrated to a scientific certainty leads me to conclude that, his assertions to the contrary, my friend occupies a faith based position as well.
At the heart of the argument is the question of origins. I begin with a Creator and work forward. I admit that is a faith based approach. Bringing that a priori to the table, I can find scientific evidence to support my beliefs. But the question is ultimately one of faith. I have no problem with that. My friend begins with a vacuum and works backwards. He finds a wealth of evidence that can be interpreted in many ways. He keeps going back to earlier and earlier yesterdays to find evidence to make sense of what he finds in his today. In so doing, I believe my friend runs into his own crisis of faith.
The subject is “Life” and how it got to be what we see today. But when we start looking back, at some point in the discussion we get to the time where the “Life” in question did not exist in even its most foundational form. All that existed at that point was the world into which “Life” would either arise or be placed. Here is my friend’s crisis of faith. Where did that world without “Life” come from?
I mentioned I began with a Creator and so I have an answer. It’s not scientific and I can’t prove it but I have an answer. My friend rejects all the science in support of my answer because he doesn’t like my starting point. It’s faith based, not scientifically based. Does he not face the same problem? When asked where the world before “Life” came from and how it got here, my friend has no scientific answer, either. It might be God and it might not. Because there’s no answer, my friend adopts the view that God had nothing to do with it. That’s as big an assumption as mine. How is that scientific? That assumption also creates an a priori which my friend brings to the discussions that follow.
Each of us clings to an origin which is not scientifically verifiable. I got mine by looking backward. My friend got his by working backward. The science involved only makes sense when one places it in a frame of reference. Science supporting Creation/ID makes sense if one assumes God created the world. But that’s a faith based argument. Science supporting Evolution makes sense if one assumes He did not. How is that not equally faith based?
We cannot answer the question scientifically in a way that satisfies either group. Not at the moment, anyway. Maybe never. Maybe not until Jesus comes back. The point is, for all my friend’s reliance on science and for all the science which backs his views, he has the same problem I do. Regardless of where we both are today, we cannot prove that our explanation of how we got here is the truth. One either accepts the evidence as pointing to one or the other or one does not.
But I’m tired of being told I’m unscientific for pointing to evidence which supports my position simply because I start at a point that I can’t prove. It’s no more unscientific than the starting place my friend launches from. I have a faith based premise which forms a frame onto which I can hang evidence. So does my friend. So do all of us. We’re all faith based. Perhaps it’s time we agreed on at least that fact.
Blue Collar Muse
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Tags: Creation, Creationism, Evolution, Faith, ID, Intelligent Design, Science
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August 13th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I was born Catholic, so I had a ready made belief system established for me from the womb. As I got older, that was no longer good enough, so my quest for knowledge that gave me an intellectual basis for my faith was needed.
Natural Selection is a scientific theory that has resisted all scientific proof longer than any other theory in the history of man. Still not one drop of scientific proof after over 190 years of furious searching. 159 years have passed since the original publishing of On the Origin of the Species. No fossil, that has ever been found, supports the theory that a slug evolved into a pigeon or a squirrel. the fun part of that is that Darwinists claim that those “evolutionary” fossils must not have contained the skeletal system needed to fossilize. So, dinosaurs evolved into something without bones and back into something with bones. How fun!
The mathematical odds that had to be overcome in order for this occurance to happen in every “evolutionary” creature would require three digits in the exponent.
Anyone that argues evolution or natural selection stating that it is based on science is misinformed. Creationism is further proven repeatedly by those “scientists” that search for proof of evolution, every single time. And furthermore, every “proof” that Darwinists cite as “proof” has been proven to be a hoax. Two come immediately to mind, Piltdown man and the peppered moth.
Just so you can put the length of this scientific study on evolution into perspective, every single drug known to man has been created since evolution was posited. Even aspirin.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
On this subject… Back in May we went to see Ben Stein’s new docu-film “Expelled.” Though I could’ve done without the insertion of old black-and-white film clips for dramatic effect, I thought the rest of the film was pretty good mainly because Stein did a decent job of choosing representatives from both sides (i.e. Intelligent Design/Creationism vs. Evolution). Stein asked respectful and thoughtful questions; he never interrupted; and he gave everyone ample time to speak their respective pieces. For the most part, he got out of the way, which I find admirable in this day and age of unrepentant Me-ism.
The most unlikable scientist in the film heatedly called anyone who does not believe in evolution – as in, ancient lifeless primordial goop spontaenously birthing a living cell which then evolved into every species on the planet – “stupid.” Whatever his beliefs, I don’t see how that sort of name calling is necessary, constructive, or scientific.
For one thing, the stupidity of a human being has no bearing whatsoever on a Fact. If a scientist thinks he has a waterproof case, then he ought to thoughtfully and logically present it. If the evidence is sufficient, then no amount of stupidity in the universe matters. It is what it is and eventually all will know it.
If, on the other hand, his “scientific” theory is birthed from the loins of pre-existing assumptions (a priori), carries numerous unanswered questions in its backpack, and is missing key evidence and therefore requires a series of additional assumptions in order to make it a unified whole, then perhaps he ought to pluck the log out of his own eye and realize that the ignorance may be his – or, at the very least, that he still has some work to do.
Secondly, there is simply no rational justification for calling scientists who reject evolution, or those who believe in a Creator and who think they see both Design and Designer in the universe “stupid,” even if they are one day found to be wrong (which I don’t think will be the case, but allowing for the possibility helps my argument).
Very smart people are wrong all the time. Throughout history, very well-educated scientists and researchers have been proven incorrect by later discoveries. Wrong does not equal stupid. It’s a blatant Fallacy, and it’s incredibly annoying to hear puffed-up and self-congratulating scientists use it on their fellow citizens as if it says something meaningful.
I believe there is no conflict between True Science and the existence of a Creator. I believe that serious, exploratory science can, has, and will continue to lead to the discovery of absolutely amazing Truths about the cosmos. Quantum physicists and certain sub-sets of chaos theorists are perhaps coming closest at present, but other newer branches of science may replace these in the future.
It is my unapologetic view that what evolutionists call “natural selection” – mutations within species – may well be true, but evolution as a unified theory of the origin of all life on Earth is inadequate, unlikely, and as of yet, unproven.
I can accept the fact of changes in a finch’s beak over time, as supported by fossil records. I cannot accept that a single-celled organism rode on the back of some magic crystal, suddenly came to life, and evolved into Me after passing “Go” and dumping off two million other species along the way. Call me crazy - or stupid, as the case may be.
I longingly wait for the day when more scientists acknowledge, as atheist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins finally did at the end of Stein’s film, that science still cannot explain the existence of a living cell, that neither Nothingness nor non-living matter could possibly have birthed it without some “spark” or “pre-existing” force or yet-unknown element, that the discoveries of microbiology have utterly astounded the scientific community in the years since Darwin, and that the inner-workings of a living cell (reproduction, metabolism, transport, repair) do indeed appear to be fabulously and wondrously engineered and/or Sesigned.
When Stein pressed him to name possible Sources of that first living blob on earth, Dawkins became uncomfortable and hestitatingly cited ancient alien DNA as one feasible font-o-life. When asked where THAT came from, Dawkins smiled and seemed to realize his predicament.
The so-called conflict between science and God is an illusion. The origin of life is neither a scientific question nor a religious question. It transcends both. When we all finally realize this, men and angels can rejoice – and Dawkins, Stein, and all of us can have a beer and laugh.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Rationally and logically speaking the origin of the world and the cosmos is irreconcilable scientifically absent from a Creator. Logical views of spontaneous energy exploding and forming the cosmos is really rather sensational.
Order does not come from disorder. The world (energy and matter) is becoming less complex not more complex. The appearance of design logically implies a Designer. The watch theory… if you see a watch on a table and look at it you would not logically assume that the watch spontaneously appeared due to an explosion of energy and the sum of watch parts. The intricate design implies a Designer.
There are those who are blinded to the Truth and logical reasoning can only go so far toward enlightening blinded soul. Ultimately, that’s not our job…