Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Anti-Science Christians Premise Filled With Flaws

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Mark Strauss, a writer at a website titled io9, began one of his articles with the statement, "The stereotype of Evangelical Christians is that they are anti-science, and therefore don't believe in climate change."

Christians are labeled anti-science, and therefore intolerant of any other consideration regarding science other than their biblical viewpoint, yet it is the Creationists that are banned from schools and it is the "theory" of evolution that is taught as fact without tolerance for any other opinion in the classroom.  Heck, Home School Families are even being forced to comply with newly mandated Common Core curriculum that supports the leftist viewpoint, without any consideration being allowed for dissent.

In other words, the tolerant progressives in our schools are intolerant of any other point of view, and are willing to use the law to force that opposition into silence.

"Fascinating," one would say from a purely logical point of view.

Lee Strobel, discussing a conversation with a Creationist in his book, The Case for A Creator, wrote, "Let me put it this way.  If Darwin's right, we're just sophisticated monkeys.  The Bible is wrong.  There is no God.  And without God there's no right or wrong.  We can just make up our morals as we go.  The basis for all we believe is destroyed.  And that's why this country is headed to hell in a handbasket. . . people have to choose between science and faith, between evolution and the Bible, between the Ten Commandments and make-'em-up-as-you-go ethics."

Strobel, a former atheist that accepted Christ during his journey to prove Jesus to be a myth, later shows the reader that the choice between science and religion is a flawed argument.  In fact, science and God go hand in hand.

The problem with man-made climate change, then, is not that it's science, therefore the idea that Christians automatically reject it because of its scientific foundation.  Modern science emerged largely because of Christianity.  Christians wanted to learn more about the world, and the universe, that God created for them.  Sir Isaac Newton was a staunch Christian, for example.  The unfortunate part was that a ruling class in the Roman Catholic Church had emerged that saw science as a threat to their power.  Remember, these were the same people that printed the Bible in Latin so that they could tell the people what Scripture said, without the people being able to verify it by reading the Bible for themselves.  Therefore, people like Newton had to hide from The Church, and feared being attacked as a heretic for his findings.  This was not a problem that was present because of Christianity as God provided to us through Christ, but the ruling class of a man-made religious sect that was fighting to keep their grip on their power.

The problem, then, was not belief in God, but statism within The Church.  Even in a religious setting, big government with a ruling elite in charge, interpreting the law as if they are above everyone else, can be a very dangerous thing. . . hence, the reason the framers of the Constitution with the First Amendment created the Establishment Clause.  It wasn't a fear of religion, but the greed of men seeking power in the name of religion, that alarmed the framers.

The difficulty conservative Christians have with the myth of man-made Climate Change is that it is based on a political agenda, and the science has been manipulated to fit the political agenda.  Science, real science, shows that global warming is a natural cycle, partly driven by the Sun, and more specifically, sunspot activity.  Conservative Christians do not support the idea of man-made Climate Change not because of their assumed prejudice against science, but because they believe the science involved with the man-made Climate Change movement to be flawed, and manipulated for political reasons. To say Christians disagree with the concept of man-made Climate Change because it is science is like saying opponents disagree with Obama because of racism. It is a flawed argument filled with an attempt to create a stereotype about conservative Christians that is patently false.

Interestingly, a Yale professor set out to prove Tea Party Conservatives, of which the accused Christians are largely a part of, are not so bright when it comes to science, and the issues. His study proved the opposite of his aim.

The finding in the study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea party members know more science than non-tea partiers.Yale law professor Dan Kahan posted on his blog that he analyzed the responses of a set of more than 2,000 American adults recruited for another study and found that, on average, people who leaned liberal were more science illiterate than those who leaned conservative.

Those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn’t, Kahan found. The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance, the professor said.

Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him. “I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.

“But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party,” he continued. “All my impressions come from watching cable tv — and I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”

Hmmmm, if that's the case, I wonder how that stereotype about conservative Christians being anti-science came about?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Here's What Happens When Evangelical Christians Debate Science - io9

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Teacher Fired For Promoting Creationism - Huffington Post

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