Conflict of interests

I'm aiming this post toward the "Faith and Belief" message board. Hopefully it'll end up there.There's something that's been bugging me for a while, since I've been involved online in arguing in the evolution vs. creationism debate for a couple of years now.I am strongly in favor of good science education, promoting evolution, etc. I don't believe that accepting evolution has to conflict with religious beliefs, including Christianity.However, when I first accepted evolution, I had many challenges to my faith. Some people were very helpful in explaining evolution to me, but at the same time they put pressures on me, both directly and indirectly, to give up my belief in the supernatural and in Christianity in particular.I'd liken this experience to taking a stroll through a minefield.I am satisfied both emotionally and intellectually with my choice to both remain as a Christian and accept science fully. However, there are many people who try to trip up Christians who don't know how to argue back with them or who try to get them to reject their faith, or try to force them to choose one or the other.I've actually met two different people online who have told me straight up that's their goal, to get Christians to give up their faith. I've seen more than one person move from devout Christian to weak Christian to agnostic as they went through the same learning process.I want to help promote science and acceptance of evolution and long ages, etc. On the other hand, I don't want to send people off into this dilemma either.I feel that my faith is ultimately stronger for having been tested, but others may not be so lucky. There are many who are actively trying to "deconvert" Christians who are making the transition from creationist to evolutionist. They are trying to weaken and undermine the faith of these people at a time when they are especially vulnerable to being influenced in that way and could use guidance and support.When you give up something like creationism, which preachers have over-emphasized as important, then you begin to question everything you've ever believed. In itself, that's a good thing! This is productive and in my opinion ultimately leads to stronger faith once things are sorted out. However, when you have atheists and others coming in at this time deliberately trying to push people then it becomes much more difficult for someone in this situation.My conflict of interest comes in, in that I want to promote evolution and good science, and at the same time, as a Christian I don't want to help cause others to stumble in their faith.I'm just interested in knowing if others have similar feelings or not.

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personally, i have not had the same experience. but then i was a nerdy little kid first, and a christian second.

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I was always both, but for the longest time I didn't know how to tell the difference between junk and real science.

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as a child, i wanted to be a paleontologist later in life. so needless to say, biology and especially geology interested me from a very early age.

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I've always liked animals and wanted to be a Biologist. I like other types of science too.

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when i became a christian, retaining my understanding of scientific things became kind of hard. keeping my faith in science, as it were, was like walking through the same minefield.

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That's interesting. I've heard plenty of creationists tell me that they were "former evolutionists." so maybe it does go both ways so to speak. I always thought that if they had ever really understood evolution, the evidence in favor of it, etc. that they couldn't just decide not to accept it anymore without a large amount of cognitive dissonance.Now that my eyes have been opened by facts and evidence, there's no way I could ever go back to being a creationist!

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except it wasn't a matter of faith: i KNEW they were just simply wrong. i'd seen enough geology and biology to know creationism was a lie, and i'd just kind of laugh about it. i never saw any IMPORTANT problems between creation and evolution.

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That's good. I feel that rather than using miracles, the supernatural usually works through natural processes. I believe miracles are possible of course, or I wouldn't be a Christian. I just think they're rare.There are so many things that have gone on in the last few billion years on this planet that the YECs would say never happened. I was watching Walking with Dinosaurs one afternoon and I thought to myself "If the YECs were correct, this prehistoric world and ecosystem never would have existed." I had similar feelings when I watched a show about ancient cartilagenous fish being diversified at a certain period of time (may have been the Devonian).They want to smash everything into a ridiculous 6,000-10,000 year window. Thankfully I was never really a YEC, but I listened to both YECs and OECs. Even OECs often deny a lot of things that went on in the past, such as the elegant transitions from land mammals to whales, etc.The world of a creationist is so much poorer and duller, the worlds science tells us of are so much more rich and interesting.

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and now i have more and more knowledge of the bible, and i'm starting to understand where the problem is: they're reading wrong. creationists HATE me because i tend to out-bible-quote them, and put the contextual knowledge behind it. they love to say "the bible says such and such" and i can usually correct them...

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Great! I think if people making the transition from creationist to evolutionist were more grounded in their faith, then it would be easier for them to make that transition, but unfortunately most people really aren't as smart about that stuff as they need to be.I found myself on a crash course so to speak about various theological concepts that I never took much time to think about when I was suddenly bombarded with anti-Christian arguments.

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personally, i have not had the same experience. but then i was a nerdy little kid first, and a christian second.

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I was always both, but for the longest time I didn't know how to tell the difference between junk and real science.

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as a child, i wanted to be a paleontologist later in life. so needless to say, biology and especially geology interested me from a very early age.

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I've always liked animals and wanted to be a Biologist. I like other types of science too.

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when i became a christian, retaining my understanding of scientific things became kind of hard. keeping my faith in science, as it were, was like walking through the same minefield.

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That's interesting. I've heard plenty of creationists tell me that they were "former evolutionists." so maybe it does go both ways so to speak. I always thought that if they had ever really understood evolution, the evidence in favor of it, etc. that they couldn't just decide not to accept it anymore without a large amount of cognitive dissonance.Now that my eyes have been opened by facts and evidence, there's no way I could ever go back to being a creationist!

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except it wasn't a matter of faith: i KNEW they were just simply wrong. i'd seen enough geology and biology to know creationism was a lie, and i'd just kind of laugh about it. i never saw any IMPORTANT problems between creation and evolution.

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That's good. I feel that rather than using miracles, the supernatural usually works through natural processes. I believe miracles are possible of course, or I wouldn't be a Christian. I just think they're rare.There are so many things that have gone on in the last few billion years on this planet that the YECs would say never happened. I was watching Walking with Dinosaurs one afternoon and I thought to myself "If the YECs were correct, this prehistoric world and ecosystem never would have existed." I had similar feelings when I watched a show about ancient cartilagenous fish being diversified at a certain period of time (may have been the Devonian).They want to smash everything into a ridiculous 6,000-10,000 year window. Thankfully I was never really a YEC, but I listened to both YECs and OECs. Even OECs often deny a lot of things that went on in the past, such as the elegant transitions from land mammals to whales, etc.The world of a creationist is so much poorer and duller, the worlds science tells us of are so much more rich and interesting.

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and now i have more and more knowledge of the bible, and i'm starting to understand where the problem is: they're reading wrong. creationists HATE me because i tend to out-bible-quote them, and put the contextual knowledge behind it. they love to say "the bible says such and such" and i can usually correct them...

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Great! I think if people making the transition from creationist to evolutionist were more grounded in their faith, then it would be easier for them to make that transition, but unfortunately most people really aren't as smart about that stuff as they need to be.I found myself on a crash course so to speak about various theological concepts that I never took much time to think about when I was suddenly bombarded with anti-Christian arguments.

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Anyway, I gave up my faith not because of science but because of the realization that you just don't need the metaphysical or the supernatural for the world to make sense. I came to this realization when I was in junior year of high school. I don't exactly remember how, but I do remember clearly that it struck me really hard, that the world wasn't as magical as I had believed.

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Unfortunately a lot of religious people don't talk about it in a rational way. They present religion as a long list of things never to question, rather than as a complement to physical reality.

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I was raised up in a fundamentalist christian family. When I was little, just like every kid in the world, I was starving for knowledge. I kept asking my parents and other people the why, what, and how and the usually responses that I got was "goddunit."

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That's sad. I asked a lot of questions too but thankfully no one tried to shut me up like that.

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As you can imagine, growing up being exposed to nothing but "goddunit" as the answer to everything made me into a kind of person that always tried to shape the world and the evidence the way I wanted to make them fit my "goddunit" world view. I was completely oblivious to the vast knowledge that was out there waiting for me to learn them. Why? Because "goddunit" was always good enough. I even thought, for a very long time, that I knew better than most of my teachers and PhD people out there simply because I knew the "truth," that "goddunit."

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The dilemma comes in, in my opinion, because both religious people and anti-religious people present this as either/or. In other words, if natural processes were the cause, then God couldn't be involved at all, or if they use "Goddunit" for an explanation, then they're not interested in any further exploration, sort of like the people who were content to blame disease on evil spirits for so long.I believe God can work through natural processes, that it doesn't have to be dichotomy. This allows me to have faith and still pursue science materialistically as the scientific method requires.

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This is the reason why I resent religion so much nowadays. It did a lot of damage to me when I was younger. It took me years to get out of that mindset. This is also the reason why it bothers me so much when seeing people like the rat talking. Even though he's a lot older than me, he reminds me of me when I was younger, always trying to come up with fantastic explanations to try to support the "goddunit" theology.

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Unfortunately a lot of religious people never grow up, they never mature. They just stay stuck in the "Santa Claus" conception of God and never question anything or explore anything. Then they don't know how to answer their kids' questions so they just say "Goddunit" and can get upset if that answer isn't satisfying enough.Just know that not all religious people are that way.

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Actually, I think Bishop Sims (the Episcopal Bishop of the Atlanta Diocese) summed it up pretty well. Speaking specifically about the issue of Evolution vs the Genesis account of creation he said, "Insistence upon dated and partially contradictory statements of how as conditions for true belief in the why of creation cannot qualify either as faithful religion or as intelligent science."

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Sounds like a good quote. It just seems like this message doesn't get through to enough people. It's hard to be a theistic evolutionist because you get criticized from both sides.For accepting evolution, creationists have called me:1. Atheist
2. Satanist
3. Hellbound
4. Bad Christian
5. Materialist
6. Wolf in Sheep's clothing
7. Fence sitterFor believing in God, atheists have called me:1. Deluded
2. Irrational
3. Fundy
4. Sky Fairy believer
5. Insane
6. Ridiculous
7. Brain damagedIt's tough sometimes! I take these insults with a grain of salt though. I know that my views are at least consistent and I don't have to deny anything, either physical or supernatural, to hold them.

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Religion deal with the questions of WHY, not How. IMHO, religion and science are not mutually exclusive but rather support each other.

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Well I'd say science is pretty much neutral as far as religion in general goes, but I think that it's no threat to Christianity or to belief in God. I also think that on a personal level that believing in God can help add richness to learning in science, giving the world a more complete picture, but that when conducting science you must do so materialistically.

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The more we learn about the hows involved in this universe we live in, the more in awe of the GOD that created it I become.

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I always feel closest to God when I'm out in nature.

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I've gone from anti-evolutionist to neutral on the issue. I can now easily accept both evolution and my faith though there are still some kinks in both evolutionary and religious paradigms (such as the flood)that I haven't worked out.

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I'm still pondering a few things myself. As for the Flood I believe it probably occurred but was a local event. There's also a lot of symbolism injected into that story and there's some related stories in things like the Epic of Gilgamesh and at least one other ancient book that may have predated the recording in Genesis. I've thought maybe the existing story was taken and adapted a bit.Didn't Abraham come from Ur where he could have come into contact with that story?I've still got more to learn about that though.

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But like you said, it wasn't easy for me to be accepting. I always thought trusting in God on faith alone was kind of a cop out and that everyone should believe because there was all this evidence and the greatest piece of undeniable evidence was the creation.

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If there was absolute evidence though, there wouldn't need to be any faith. I think we see hints but nothing that would absolutely establish God as existing because God wants us to have faith.The creation itself is evidence of a sort, but since it was apparently created primarily if not completely through natural processes, it doesn't appear divine to those not theistically inclined.

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I said on this website a few months ago that if I accepted evolution I would quit believing in God. And I wasn't kidding.

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I grew up thinking it had to be one or the other. So many people do, that's one reason why people who make the transition are in such danger of being led astray.

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2 months ago I finally accepted evolution as a good possibility and consequently accepted the idea that God might not exist as a possibility. It was one of the most depressing times of my life.

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I know what you mean.

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I questioned everything I believed, which as you said, is a good thing. God sort of allowed my faith, which rested on human arguments to be completely destroyed and rebuilt in complete trust in Him. In the end I've come out of it with a much stronger faith than before, a more humble attitude about what I know, and a greater understanding of the life God has created for us to live.

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I'm grateful that you were able to make it through this period with your faith intact. I just wish everyone would.

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So for me, this experience like all others was good for me. But as you say, at the time when a person is questioning everything they can easily be led astray by arguments against God based on unprovable premises.

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Especially when there are people who make it their mission to destroy people's faith.

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One of my friends has become somewhat of an agnostic as a result of this. For her sake I'm glad I've had all these debates on here because I would never be able to understand her viewpoint otherwise.

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Pray for your friend that she'll come back and I will too. I think that truth can't be a bad thing, even if that means accepting evolution and having a temporary crisis of faith, but we believe that Christianity is also truth, yes? So hopefully she will come back, but she might be helped if you talked to her about the feelings you had, etc. if you haven't already.

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What has helped me is to go back and read through the Bible with evolution in mind and see what does and doesn't make sense. I've only found a couple of passages that don't make complete sense, but I've found many more that make much sense. Viewing ourselves in light of evolution is a very humbling thing to accept and helps us see the dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual. Science deals with the How of the physical things, but the Bible deals with the why and how of the eternal things. The Bible is not a science textbook, so any scientific information should only be there to prove its authenticity.

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One bad thing is that it's hard to get straight answers to questions about the Bible a lot of times because the vast majority of "apologists" seem to be creationists, so that won't help us reconcile with evolution, and most of the other Biblical critics/examiners are anti-Christian, so that doesn't help either.

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Its also helpful to look at the mistakes the religious establishment has made in the past. The Jewish establishment believed the prophecies of the first and second coming of Christ were one in the same. The Catholic church thought the earth was flat and the solar system geocentric... etc...

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I haven't studied too far into all of that but it does sound interesting.

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I feel like I'm rambling a bit... kinda tired, but I hope I made some sense.

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I've made massive posts before, so your small post doesn't look like rambling at all to me.

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ETA: there's a little book called The Luminous Web that I thought was really helpful. You might want to read it and recommend it to other Christians.

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Thanks. Could I get that at the library or do you think I'd need to look for it in a bookstore?

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There are many christians who try and trip up non-believers as well. They are called missionaries. Let's not pretend like it is only atheists trying to get people to change their mind.

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It's not so much that they're presenting their case to believers that bothers me, because I feel everyone has the right to decide for themselves what to believe or not to believe. What bothers me is that some try to take advantage of believers at this particularly vulnerable time when they're transitioning.

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Both atheists and missionaries think that they are providing a life changing experience.

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Yes, I understand that. What I think is a bit amusing is that I see both sides asking people to "Step into the light and out of darkness", speaking about each other as the "darkness."

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With all of that, if a person is familiar with science then they know that it can't be used to support either atheism or theism.

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Yes, but both sides are bad about not telling people that. The creationists will tell the person that if they accept evolution, they're basically spitting in God's face by rejecting his existence completely. The atheists will sometimes say that accepting science as a method to study nature automatically means one can't have any theistic personal beliefs, or that you can't believe in God and accept science without having MPD.Science is neutral. It focuses only on the material world, and is functionally "atheistic." What people don't always understand however is the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. Too many people on both sides equate the two.

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So perhaps we should blame scientific education and not the propensity for people to try and change other people's mind.

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That's a big part of it.

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I do understand why you are so hesitant to support evolution because you may cause other christians to stumble. Perhaps you should focus on educating christians in the sciences?

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That's basically what I deal with when I'm on message boards like this one anyway. There are a few people of other religions that come on to debate against evolutionists but it's mostly educating Christians.I'll give you an example of what bothers me. There's a particularly sleazy tactic that's used sometimes by atheists trying to get a creationist to become an atheist.First, they'll lure them over the bridge to accepting evolution by talking about theistic evolution, non-overlapping magisteria, why vs. how, etc. Then once they've gotten them to accept evolution and to begin questioning their beliefs, they'll slam them hard, switching tactics, asking difficult theological questions, ridiculing supernatural beliefs, etc.I've seen this happen before because people tried it on me.

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But, faith in gods/God does not ensure happiness, contentedness, better health, better relationships, etc., compared with not having faith, or being agnostic. In fact, there is good evidence that Athiests and Agnostics are happier in general and have better marriage relationship success that many Christian religious denominations.

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Religion isn't just about making your life better. If that was all it was about, then I don't think it would have lasted for as long as it has.I happen to think God really does exist, and I think it's a really sad thing when someone rejects Him.

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I did not shed my faith (I'm Agnostic) because of Evolution; I was raised a Catholic so there was never any conflict there.

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Ok.

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I am much more content, fulfilled, happy, loving and tolerant as a non-believer than I ever was as a believer.

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The assumption that those who believe are automatically happier or more fulfilled than non-believers is a baseless one.

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I don't make that assumption. In fact embracing religion can make someone's life a lot harder! People have this idea about Christianity that it's the easy religion to follow, and that's not really true.

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I understand what you are saying, and I do not condone what these Athiests have done, but I really do think that it's religious, particularly Christian, missionaries over many centuries which have done more to exploit vulnerability in individuals than the Athiests.

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Thanks for your opinion on that. You've given me a lot to think about here, which is good!

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My former best friend converted to Mormonism while we were roomates in college. At first, those nice, good-looking, kind, wholesome young men in suits were very reasonable, talking about God, and love, and fellowship, and family.

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Then, right before she was going to be baptized, my friend came to me, sobbing, because she just learned that none of here non-Mormon friends would be in heaven with her. She would be separated from her beloved grandparents, parents, and me, for eternity. I asked her why any god that loved her would force her to spend eternity apart from the people she loved the most? This got no response, and she went ahead and became a Mormon.

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Yuck. I'm sorry to hear that. If I were her, I'd be crying even harder about the fact they apparently believe that women will have babies for all eternity while men get their own planets according to that strange religion.

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Fast forward a few years, and she finds a nice Mormon man to marry. Guess what? None of her family is Mormon, so they are not allowed to attend the ceremony. They get to go to the reception.

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That's just awful. At least they got to go to the reception though. I think there are some cults that don't even allow contact with non-believing family members at all.

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The Mormons say they are all about "family", but what they really mean is "the only kind of family worth anything to Mormons is other Mormons."

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Anyway, I consider the Mormon Church, and other Christian sects, to be aggressively predatory towards young, vulnerable people in transitionary life stages.

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I really do not see, and never have seen, on any level, in any place, any comparable Athiest effort to recruit people.

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Ever go to a university?

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Perhaps you have come across some in your internet travels, but the big difference there is that you can turn off the computer, or just ignore the poster.

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If you're sincerely wanting to have a dialogue, you won't just turn it off.

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It's much harder to ignore a real, friendly person, especially when you are lonely.

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True.

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Have you had them knocking on your door, or do you walk by three or four of them on your way to every single class, or to work?

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I don't know, I don't go around polling people's religion or lack thereof, but I know what you mean.

Well I've been to college for two years and maybe the pressure was put on me differently than it was on some other people, but I noticed that almost every professor I had tried to drag Christianity through the mud.

Welcome back Monkey Boy. I hope you'll find as I have that faith ends up being stronger once it's been challenged.

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Well, religion is also about effective conveyance of cultural mores to large numbers of people, as well as being about very effective control of the behavior of large numbers of people.

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All cultures have mores and put controls on behavior.

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It's a very effective self-perpetuating social control institution, and that's the biggest reason it has lasted as long as it has.

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Or maybe, it actually has validity.

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However, anything that anybody has ever done, at any time in history, pretty much has to pass the "WIIFM" test.

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"What's In It For Me"?

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People don't do anything unless they get something out of it, real or imagined, or hoped for.

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What you would call "imagined" I'd probably call real in this case.

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If religion isn't about living a better life, what is it for?

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Having a relationship with God, seeking "enlightenment" through that.Making your life better doesn't really explain why some people have made enormous sacrifices, even died, for their faith. That's certainly not "making your life better."

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Well, OK, but why?

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It's sad because God wants to have relationship with people he created and they sometimes reject Him.

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Why is it important to believe in God?

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Not believing in God doesn't make Him go away. He's still there, and still wants to have relationships with people. Unfortunately some people just decide they don't need God and reject him.

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Hmm, well, Christianity might be "easy to follow" or it might not be, but the point I was making was about belief in God/the supernatural vs. non-belief or Agnosticism.

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Nonbelief isn't necessarily easy either, as I'm sure you well know. It does take much less effort philosophically though.

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I actually feel sorry for people like you, forever trapped in a delusional state of mind.

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Isn't this kinda what Rubystars has been talking about? Now you sound like the fundies you so hate. The "I feel sorry for you cuz yer going to hell" kinda thing.

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Yep.This message has been edited by Rubystars, 10-04-2004 12:56 PM