His latest comment was particularly interesting and my response is too long to put in the comment section, so here we go...
Jeremy writes:
Forthekids wrote:I’m glad you brought this up, Jeremy. This is where our views differ considerably, and it’s still a bit unclear as to whether you completely understand my position.
"ID is something that all people of faith should embrace...I simply cannot understand why people of faith are so adamant to reject it".
Well, here is one of several reasons why I reject ID:
It is clear that many ID supporters are looking to science to validate their personal faith in God. In my view, this desire for scientific validation unnecessarily blurs the distinction between science and faith as two separate ways of understanding our world. Even worse, it encourages the subordination of faith to science because it makes science the ultimate authority in establishing the validity of faith.
I don’t “look to science to validate my faith”. For me, God comes first...“thou shalt have no other gods before me”.
Obvious to most, there had to be a first cause to our existence. Hence, everything we explore in our world can be viewed through the lens of what this creator had in mind for us and in turn what our purpose is within it’s creation.
Blind faith opens the door to anything. Blind faith will set a person square in the hands of an atheist agenda. Scientists who oppose those who believe there was a designer love the concept of “faith“.
From the Wired article I mentioned in a previous post:
The most active defender of faith among scientists right now is Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. In defiance of the title, Collins never attempts to show that science offers evidence for belief. Rather, he argues only that nothing in science prohibits belief. Unsolved problems in diverse fields, along with a skepticism about knowledge in general, are used to demonstrate that a deity might not be impossible. The problem with this, for defenders of faith, is that they've implicitly accepted science as the arbiter of what is real. This leaves the atheists with the upper hand.[my emphasis]
This is very true, Jeremy. Theist evolutionists are merely opening up the door to atheism. They are quite willing to allow for a complete “distinction between science and faith as two separate ways of understanding our world“. When science and theology converge or butt heads, theistic evolutionists will side with science every time. At that point they will always fall back on the idea that science and faith are two separate issues. This is nonsensical in my opinion.
I’ve read Ken Miller and Francis Collins' books, and they stand firmly with the consensus of the ~scientific community~ on every matter. Yet, they state that whereas many scientists reject a creator, they hold fast to their faith in God.
Why?
That’s the question I keep waiting for them to answer. Maybe some day they will write a book that gives us detail and insight as to ~why~ they have faith in God, and why choose Christianity in particular? From where I’m standing, they laud scientists who clearly reject God and seem to state that science trumps any belief in scripture or any other theological arguments.
If theistic evolutionists want us to embrace their views that science and faith are “two separate ways of understanding the world”, they will have to give us a better understanding of how this works and why they believe in God if those in the scientific world (who’s science they agree with) reject a Designer when discussions of origins converge between theology and science.
You wrote:
I know that you think your faith can be scientifically justified, but basing one's faith on "scientific" arguments only makes science, instead of God, the object of your faith. It essentially leads to a form of scientism, the belief that science alone has the power to establish ultimate truth. In my opinion, this is dangerous for both science and faith.
Here is where you are still misunderstanding me. Science cannot become the “object of my faith” or give the “power to establish ultimate truth”. Science is a tool in which to uncover the inner workings of the universe God created.
When discussing origins, both science and religious beliefs rely on “faith”. For instance, Dawkins states that science ~will~ find answers to describe the origin of the universe in purely physical terms, and he believes those answer are just around the corner. This type of supposition if referred to as ~faith~. Faith in science. Faith is not only found in theological suppositions, but in scientific ones as well.
You wrote:
Faith in God requires people to have hope, even in the face of evidence that might leave others hopeless. To truly be a "person of faith" requires courage in the face of doubt, not certitude.
So real faith is to believe in something that has been proven to be wrong by scientific evidence? In other words, the creator has set up a world in which His Word is in opposition to the world He created in order for us to have to rely strictly on faith in Him. How would one choose who or what to believe in terms of a Creator if the creator is tricking us at every turn? Why consider any particular religious belief at all? I would think that in this light, the only choice would be a form of deism.
After considering the insight which the Bible provides, I can no longer support the notion of some vague form of deism.
Personally, I believe that scripture provides tremendous insight into our creation and the creator. There are themes and threads that run throughout that cannot be reconciled as mere thoughts of man.
But, in the end I, like all people of various religious beliefs or non-beliefs, find that our faith is a variable in which we come to our conclusions about the world. I choose to put my faith in God and His Word. I don’t believe that “science alone has the power to establish ultimate truth“. I believe that men use a tool which they refer to as science in which they explore our surroundings which were established by the ultimate Designer.
There cannot be “two separate ways to view the world”. There can be only ~one way~ in which our universe was brought into existence. There cannot be two separate ways in which to view the world, because that clearly makes one of those ways incorrect.
One can make a choice between the two or consider the incredible way in which they overlap and support one another. The choice lies within each person as to where they are going to place their faith. And, it is a choice that everyone should be allowed to make based on all available evidence. I have no intention of ever insisting that Dawkins form of faith be relinquished from scientific thought, yet on the other hand I believe that IDists should have their clearly ~scientific~ inferences shared with students as well. Lay it all out on the table, don't teach science dogmatically.
