I'm not talking about formal training or education; I'm talking about at least looking into a subject enough to have a decent understanding of it before going around speaking as an authority. It's like someone never bothering to read the Bible, and then acting like they know anything about it. Do you think that's ok?
No, but again, my point is that both sides do this. Professional intellectuals like to discount the Bible on account of their perceptions on evolution, etc...even through they have little or no knowledge of the Bible. My point is this: I dont often find Christians in our universities saying, "The adaptation we see in the cell cannot be true, it goes against the Bible!" Rather, I see many (not all) Christians trying to honestly reconcile their faith with what is observed. They do this by looking at the same data and providing other possible explanations than sheer naturalism. This is not "anti-science," its providing different narratives for the same scientific discoveries. Yet, I do see many (not all) professional intellectuals saying, "We
know the earth is billions of years old and that we evolved from a single cell, therefore the Bible is fairy tales."
Again, according to science, "We know dead cells dont come back to life." That does not mean that something miraculous in the past could have taken place such that things are not always as they seem and the naturalists perspective could, on occasion, be inaccurate. So, I rarely see Christians attacking science, but I do often see intellectuals attacking Christianity because miracles and creation accounts do not conform to their naturalistic narrative. I see intellectuals claiming Christians cannot be scientific and I think that is wrong.
Try and understand that a statistical correlation does not necessitate a specific behavior. Just because Biblical literalism correlates with anti-science attitudes, it doesn't mean it has to. The results of this study indicate that there's a strong anti-science culture within conservative Christianity. That needs to change.
The implication there is pretty clear. The more "literally" (which begs definition) one takes the Bible, the less scientific they become. I think this is not only unverifiable (unless one defines "science" as embracing Darwinism) but purely agenda driven. Offering different meta-narratives to scientific discoveries is not being "anti-science." There may be some Christians who are anti-science in their demand to make the OT a science book, but its misleading to suggest that there is a direct correlation between one's hermeneutics and their disgust for science. Science began mostly with Christians who took the Bible "literally" (at least how many would define that word today). To suggest the too are generally antithetical is like saying that a tree is antithetical to its root.
I've got news for you. Women have been deliberately ending their pregnancies for thousands of years, so there's no need to act like abortion is a recent phenomenon. And yes, I prefer to live at a time when things like institutionalized racism, discrimination, misogyny, and such are on the decline rather than prominent institutional features
.
Yes, but 1) people were not doing such horrific things while claiming to be "Christian" and 2) we have never seen such practices embraced and celebrated by cultures and medical practices to the tune of 1.1 million per year in America alone. Also, lets not pretend that racism or misogymy were done away with as a result of people distancing themselves from the Bible. If anything, it was those committed to the Scriptures that were key catalysts to putting an end to such things, rather than the other way around. In sum, turning from the authority of the Bible has led to all kinds of moral decadance such as abortions and the celebration of all kinds of sexual impurity...and the acceptance of the Bible as the authority was the foundation of doing away with racism, discrimination and misogyny.
I've posted the survey data here several times that shows one of the factors driving youth out of Christianity is that they see the faith as "hostile to science". You can deny if you like, but that doesn't change reality.
Yeah, online surveys are a real depiction of "reality." Its funny that both Republicans and Democrats both use polls to show how the public favors them. I think the real factor that is driving people away from Christianity is the lack of authentic, committed Christians. I dont think the Gospel stands or falls based on our stance on Darwin or opinions on how old the earth is. I think the Kingdom of God is a bit bigger than that, myself.