Biblical literalism and Science the ongoing war
As I tend to spend a considerable amount of time reading articles relating to the battle between some Christians over science, I thought I may start sharing one or two that I find particularly interesting.
I suspect the populace would view Christianity in general to be at war with science, however, this is most certainly not the case. It is in fact a particular, relatively new, strand of Christianity, which I term ‘Biblical literalism’, that is at war with science and then also at war with variant Christians.
The issue of science within the Christian community, specifically that pertaining to creation and the Genesis accounts, is cause for so much division within Christendom (especially in the US) that I find myself naturally drawn to investigate, even though a layman in all respects.
Anyway, two I found interesting today, if you like this kind of thing:
Tags: Christianity, Science & Medical, Theology Doctrine Philosophy
April 14th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
@webmaster: “I suspect the populace would view Christianity in general to be at war with science, however, this is most certainly not the case. It is in fact a particular, relatively new, strand of Christianity, which I term ‘Biblical literalism’, that is at war with science and then also at war with variant Christians.”
I’ve said this before, but I don’t think Biblical literalism is that common, at least round here. No one in real life has ever told me they believed in Creationism. Nor have I ever heard a sermon that promoted the idea. None of the Christians I know have any problems with evolution or science. I guess that’s one of the reasons I can’t be bothered debating it.
Christianity doesn’t ask that you leave your brain at the door, like some faiths. If it did, I’d walk away, because the demand that you cease to ask questions is one of the hallmarks of evil.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
@Sophie, I feel like I’m seeing Biblical literalism everywhere recently.
Admittedly I watch an awful lot of US activity online and I would guestimate that the majority of US Christians subscribe to Biblical literalism (I’ve no empirical data, more a hunch).
Now given that we seem to be witnessing a rise of US style Christianity in this country which is actively encouraged through media and books particularly, I personally think it important to address.
Over the last year I had contact with a couple of these “independent” “evangelical” churches and they were pretty much all literalists.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:13 am
@ Sophie, you might find this interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/15/humanists-accept-universe-is-unjust
Notice this bit especially:
Bunting does not make this mistake – but she makes the complementary mistake of believing that the sophisticated thinking of theologians like Paul Tillich is representative of popular religious belief. That’s quite untrue. Even in the supposedly secular UK, a ComRes poll published in January suggested that 51% thought that “evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things”, while 32% thought that “God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years”. It is because this mistake is made so widely that it remains necessary to resist it.
April 15th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
@ Webmaster: If you cruise the blogosphere you soon get the feeling that literalism is everywhere, but when I get downhearted I remind myself of my every day, flesh and blood experience. Were it not for the Internet I wouldn’t hear about Creationism from one year’s end to the next.
I particularly liked one of the BiolLogos links you posted the other day – Compromised Christians. It crystallised what I’ve been picking up on my Net travels.
“millions of conservative Christians in the United States read the Bible through a variety of American perspectives that are utterly foreign to the biblical text. And they read the Bible in this way because they so often identify the kingdom of God with the United States of America. Based on that conviction, many confuse the principles of the Bible with the principles of the Constitution, biblical morality with capitalism, defense of the Christian religion with militarism, and fidelity to the kingdom of God with patriotism.”
I find this American version of Christianity profoundly off-putting. However I can’t see it catching on in the UK. For a start, we don’t assume we’re the lords of creation.
Some people perceive the British as apathetic, weak. I see this as a strength: we’re a very old nation, with huge amounts of experience and not a lot of leg room. Tolerance is very British. Cults and religious extremists don’t do well here. We have long memories too. Bloody Mary has not been forgotten. We know where religious extremism can go.
In the US a lot of problems seem to stem from the protected freedom of religion. Just as one extreme example, there’s a church called Godhatesfags. These hateful nuts picket the funerals of gay people (or people they think are gay) haranguing the bereaved. They get away with this because of US laws protecting freedom of religion. Here they’d be done for Breach of the Peace. We have a lot to be grateful for, living in such a mature democracy.
And we’re one of the most inventive nations on Earth? We’re a very creative nation, and science matters to us. We’re great believers in the power of reason. It’s all that history…
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_country_has_produced_the_most_inventions
OTOH, most British people appear to believe in horoscopes, Mystic Meg and Jordan’s love life. So the idea that 51% of them think there’s an element of Intelligent Design isn’t that surprising.
What I do find surprising is that 32% think the Earth is only 10,000 years old. Given the huge popularity of dinosaurs on TV and with kids, this seems bizarre. There are so many dinosaur programmes – even dinosaur series – that you’d think they’d know the timing must be out. I wonder whether the answer differs with age? Whether younger people are more aware of how long it all took?