Does Christian apologetics encourage people to be dishonest ?

[RedTagAlan]

I think it does, certainly the US version anyway.

Apologetics trains people to ignore scientific evidence presented to them. To handwave it away, and to make contorted non logical arguments in support of their belief in the Bible. Because the Bible can't be wrong.

An example here.

Global Evidences of the Genesis Flood | Answers in Genesis

"Fossils are one of the best evidences of a global flood, especially where many fossils are found. For example, we don’t find marine creatures, such as fish, clams, and corals, buried and fossilized on the sea floor where they once lived. Instead, we find most of them buried in sedimentary rocks on the continents, even on high mountains. For that to happen, the ocean waters had to totally flood the continents. And that’s exactly what the Bible describes during the global flood."

The above quote from that site was written by a Dr Andrew Snelling. Who has a PHD in..... geology. Please read the article to get the full gist. Almost every logical fallacy is in there, including outright dishonesty.

This is a big industry, with colleges and university courses etc, and I think that ironically, teaching people to ignore evidence, and to use dishonest debate methods, is destructive to society. Because it teaches people to lie in support of their theology, and perhaps more importantly, it teaches them to ignore political lies at election time, and to vote for the candidate who says "God".

What do folk think ? Agree or disagree?

If it’s a UK stated funded school, evolution must be taught as a scientific fact. A theistic theory is not part of the national curriculum. (Ex school governor)

When someone says they don't see any relevance in the Bible for today, it tells me they haven't studied the Bible. Have a dip into Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and tell me there isn't some relevant and sage advice there.

No, you don't need to be religious or have a faith to be a good person [yawn]. No one is claiming you do. But maybe you've got a favourite poem or song that cheers you when you're low. Other people find that comfort in the Bible.

I haven’t read the Bible but looked up what you referred to it has no relevance unless you’re a Christian. I’m atheist and don’t believe in any god. I’m a follower of facts and evidence.

1. Relationship With God Gives Life Meaning. ...
2. Focus on God's Gifts. ...
3. The End Is More Important Than Life. ...
4. God Is in Control. ...
5. Follow God's Commandments.

Intrigued by the idea of theistic evolution, I had to go looking it up. Turns out it's the modern understanding of evolution - and the Big Bang, etc - with added god. Without staying up all night to delve into it, I've gathered that the evolution of universe, planet and life is taught the same to all children. God set it all in motion, and gives it meaning.

Schools are encouraged to teach evolution in tandem with Genesis, which sounds a bit challenging! I think this must mean children are told there's a choice of what to believe - can anyone with DC at a faith school confirm?

The Vatican, of course, is fantastic at apologetics. I particularly like Pope Francis saying "God is not a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything."

I read the catechism of the catholic church on the topic of creation. It basically says that god created the beginning of everything, suggests that he guides it, and goes big on god giving meaning to everything.

It also seems to view 'sin' as an intrinsic characteristic of all humans, inherited from Adam. There's a lot of discussion over this, mainly relating to some theologians' opinions that different types of human (read races) contain different levels of sin. That idea has been rightly shut down.

I still don't know how the church reckons evolution is real but we're all descended from one man. The full catechism is long and I haven't had dinner yet. I think they could wangle it, though, (maybe?) by linking it to 'Y-chromosome Adam' or 'Mitochondrial Eve' who, inconveniently, weren't a couple but were our last common ancestors. Each of them lived about 200,000 years ago.

I'll come back after dinner to see if any of our faithful friends have filled these matters out for us barbarians.

Theistic evolution is more commonly called " intelligent design". It's close to YEC.

Intelligent Design | The Definitive Source on ID

They also have big campaigns to have it taught in schools as fact.

This is what I was as a Christian. That somehow there was a "guiding hand".

In my view, and from what I now know. this is blooming dangerous too. I never done any evolution beyond David Attenborough, so I never really understood it. That effectively made me easy prey for "intelligent design".

And my understand now, is that a lot of the issues is the whole concept of "survival of the fittest". That's all I was taught about it at school, and I now know that is a ridiculous/ lazy and potentially misleading way to describe evolution. Because it leads one to believe there is a driving force to be the fittest. That this is the meaning.

My journey to being an atheist involved a lot of reading/ watching about how evolution really works. That it is small random changes that might give an advantage or disadvantage to an organism in an environment. And that the small advantage can passed on and amplified through generations. The key word being "can".

And Intelligent design (ID) is dangerous, because with disease, for example. it puts a God in the frame. So with Covid, although I am not a biologist, I understood the mechanisms for the new variants. If I had still been a Christian, I possibly would not have. And IMO by the way, many of the scientists I saw on media were TERRIBLE at explaining it.

I have studied the Bible. I have my Bibles in a drawer beside me, and I have a Bible app on the laptop I am typing this on. So while not the subject of this thread, I am happy to go on a tangent with you, because it is likely to become relevant to the subject being discussed.

So name your preferred Bible version, and post your chapter and verse numbers. We can have a look at this sage advice and discuss.

Quote : "There are many Christians who may believe in the global flood, but do not make claims with scientific evidence for the creation of the world."

That is what this thread is about. It is about if Apologetics teaches people to be dishonest, and a major part of that is YEC claims that they can prove the Bible WITH science.

They ARE claiming scientific evidence for the Bible, including Noahs flood. All of Genesis in fact, in the case of Answers in Genesis, an organization they claim science to prove all of the book of Genesis.

You are answering a post where I am directly trying to get your opinion on a scientific claim they are making. I am not asking about what other Christians think. These Christians ARE making these claims.

I looked at a Catholic school's description for how they teach their faith regarding the creation.

"What do Catholic schools teach about creation and evolution?
"Catholics teach that God is the creator of all things visible and invisible. By this we mean that everything that exists has its ultimate source and origin in God.
Catholic schools however are not “creationist”. A “creationist” is someone who believes that the theological truths expressed in the first books of Genesis are also literal scientific and historic descriptions of the beginnings of the world. Some creationists would also insist that the earth is only approximately 6000 years old. This is not the position of the Catholic Church which rejects the creationist interpretation of Genesis. That is, Catholic schools do not teach that God’s creation of the world implies anything about how this creation occurred. The Catholic Church is clear that evolution is currently the best explanation of the origin and diversity of life on earth and that the earth is as old as current scientific orthodoxy suggests (approximately 4.54 billion years old). The Church would say that the doctrine of creation expresses a theological truth – that all existence derives from and depends upon God, whilst evolution expresses scientific truths about the history of the physical universe".
...
Catholics believe that God created the human soul and they don’t state that humans evolved from another physical being. Some people who believe in evolution believe this that humans evolved from an pre-existing kind. To turn this around where is the concrete evidence for this latter. Some areas for evolution there is still no confirmed evidence. I am happy to believe that the Big Bang can be created by God and I thought that decades ago as well that Christianity is not incompatible with the Big bang theory and today that can happen to through cosmic inflation to support it.

It seems Creationism, although they have a right to believe what they want-trying to validate it all through confirmed science is causing division.
Orthodox Christianity encompasses scope for different theories.

“Diversity of Views: While some hold to a strict, literal interpretation of a six-day creation (sometimes associated with a young-earth perspective of 5,500 years from Adam to Christ), others do not see a conflict between Orthodox theology and an old-earth or evolutionary understanding.” It seems they are not involved in scientific studies to validate their faith.
https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/partone/sectiontwo/chapterone/article1/paragraph6man.html

https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/partone/sectiontwo/chapterone/article1/paragraph4thecreator.html

The Orthodox church does not align to a specific view on the age of the earth therefore allowing their believers to select what they feel they most align to as noted in the previous post. They believe that Gods ways are mysterious to us. They believe that humans souls are created at conception uniquely by God.
They believe the world was created out of nothing by God and not pre-existing matter.

They believe that humans physical bodies were created by dust as in Genesis but make no claims where this came from.

https://www.goarch.org/-/orthodox-perspectives-on-creation

@RedTagAlan

My understanding is that theistic evolution differs from intelligent design.

As I understand it, ID posits that certain biological features are too complicated to be the result of evolution alone and holds that there must have been some kind of direct intervention from a creator deity for some of them.

Theistic evolution accepts that biological science is correct about everything being the result of evolution and doesn't view evolution as containing any direct input from a deity. They see evolution as a method that was put in place by a creator deity, but they do not view the process of evolution itself as having any involvement from a deity.

it may seem like a small difference, but it's a significant one, IMO.

Sorry. I was wrong to say Theistic evolution is the same as intelligent design, I am a bit rusty with some of this. Apologies that I confused the 2.

I agree they are different, but they still both come down to God of the gaps.

And this quote from the source linked below does indicate a fair amount of overlap in the bolded part.

"One view of theistic evolution states that God set the creation of the universe in motion and then removed himself to let natural processes take over. Another credits God with miraculously influencing his creation at key points."

I am not posting that quote in argument against you. I happily concede to your point. I am just trying to recover a bit by indicating where I maybe got the 2 mixed up.

See this post @Justmerach. See how easy it is to admit a mistake :-)

Source for quote :

Theistic evolution | Religion and Philosophy | Research Starters | EBSCO Research

@RedTagAlan

I agree they are different, but they still both come down to God of the gaps.

I don't disagree there, but theistic evolution (at least the sort that doesn't credit any influence/intervention from a creator deity) is compatible with science in a way that ID is not.

I would also say that theistic evolutionists tend to accept, by and large, that their theistic views are not based in science, but in philosophy/metaphysics. They don't claim scientific support for theism, but ID does seem to attempt to.

I'm a theist and I happily accept that there's currently no scientific evidence for deities. I don't need there to be. I base my theistic beliefs on other forms of evidence which I personally find convincing.

Cool. I am atheist, you are a theist, and we can both respect science and get along perfectly well together :-)

I say that in a sincere way, and am mentioning it, because a significant part of YEC especially, but also a bit of DFI, is that atheists are "God haters". That is also a mistruth, because how can I hate something that does not exist.

Indeed, YEC makes a point of saying evolution is a religion. Another dishonest thing they say. And that is why I said "respect science" above. rather than "believe in science".

And I know I am likely preaching to the choir here wrt your good self. This post is really for some evangelicals who might be reading this thread.

@RedTagAlan

Like any group of people, atheists are not a monolith, so making any kind of overly generalised statement like that is intellectually thoughtless/ridiculous.

That is also a mistruth, because how can I hate something that does not exist.

Well, you could hate something as a concept, but a lot of people who claim that atheists are "God haters" seem to be using that phrase in a more personalised way, which wouldn't accurately cover hatred of deity as a concept.

Although atheists obviously don't believe any gods exist, they tend to have a particular idea of what they see a 'god' as entailing. And most atheists in the Western world have a definition/concept of deity that comes from monotheism (usually Christian monotheism) as that is the dominant theistic paradigm in the West, so it's the one that atheists get exposure to. (Polytheism, to which I hold, has a very different perspective on the nature of deities.)

So I would say that it is possible/probable that some atheists have a strong dislike for what they perceive of as the god associated with monotheism, and perhaps this dislike is what led them to atheism - but it doesn't necessarily inform their atheism. And even if it does, this only applies to some atheists, not all.

When I looked at this there is a lot of varition between creationism and YEC in what they believe and how they go about things-so labelling them all in one group is not good sense to me either like it may not be sensible to label all atheists either together. Some creationists may believe this but not argue scientifcally about this. Some anglicans will believe in creatonism and some the evolution theory. I stated that I don't see other than saying that science is not incompatbile with religion why they need to argue so strongly it being proven through science. This means to @RedTagAlan I don't agree with the need for creatiomism to agure it undisputably through science other with a belief which they are entitled to.

I myself like the description from the Orthodox church and although as I wrote I don't see the Big Bang theory/cosmic inflation being incompatbile with their being a creator.

This is what I found on the Anglican church- well you make your own mind up.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8511951.stm
www.christiantoday.com/news/science-and-religion-are-compatible-says-church-of-england

I’m an atheist and don’t believe in the existence of any god(s). I would need evidence to consider changing my views as none has been provided. So much of the bible can be proven to be false, incorrect or impossible. I don’t dislike any god - I can’t - they don’t exist.
As an atheist I don’t believe that anything negative will happen to me as a non believer. I can’t be hurt by something I don’t believe exists.

@Parker231

As a theist, I also don't believe that anything negative will happen to atheists. As I see it, the gods and goddesses don't mind if people don't believe they exist.

The only deity who seems to get his knickers in a twist over it is Yahweh.

I don’t believe in heaven or hell so won’t be going anywhere regardless of my ‘behaviour’!
I believe these are concepts to force people to behave in a certain manner.

@Parker231

I don't believe in heaven or hell either - I do believe there is an afterlife, though. I don't believe that the afterlife, and one's experience of it, is predicated on any beliefs or ethics.

My point is that I, as a theist, am in complete agreement that atheists will not in any way suffer due to non-belief.

You say this : "Like any group of people, atheists are not a monolith, so making any kind of overly generalised statement like that is intellectually thoughtless/ridiculous.", then you go on to say this: "And most atheists in the Western world have a definition/concept of deity that comes from monotheism ...", in the same post. "

Replying to me saying this :"That is also a mistruth, because how can I hate something that does not exist."

I was talking about how creationism teaches atheists to be God haters. And I said how can I hate etc.

Atheists are a monolith in definition. They all do not believe in gods. It's the definition. No matter if it is Yahweh, Allah, Thor or even the spaghetti monster, If anyone believes in any god, then they are not atheist. That even applies to cultures where ancestor worship is the thing.

Reminds me of " an atheist just believes in one less god than most theists".

The key word being most. Because someone who believes in multiple Gods, say earth wind water and fire, can drop one or more, and so long as they still believe in just one, they are still a theist.

Hating religion is a different beast from hating a god, or gods.

The Bible as we know it is composed of books that were written by different people at different times. There are quite a few stories missing.
Development and understanding of topics like Plate Tectonics are quite recent I think. Mid 20 Century?
Science changes, it develops it moves on.

@RedTagAlan

You say this : "Like any group of people, atheists are not a monolith, so making any kind of overly generalised statement like that is intellectually thoughtless/ridiculous.", then you go on to say this: "And most atheists in the Western world have a definition/concept of deity that comes from monotheism ...", in the same post. "

I don't think that's a contradiction, because the second quote is not a generalised statement about all atheists. It specifies that I'm talking about most (not all) atheists in Western countries, rather than atheists as a whole. The second quote is specific rather than overly generalised.

Atheists are a monolith in definition.

Atheists are a monolith in that they don't believe in any deities, yes. What I meant was that they are not a monolith in terms of the reasons for their atheism or what drew them to atheism. Some atheists have never had an active belief in any deities, others used to be theists, etc. They are not a monolith in terms of their personalities or any personal opinions/thoughts away from atheism.

My position is that reasons do not matter.

For example. If I go to a wedding in rural China where they set a table for ancestor worship. and someone stands aside and mutters " I don't believe in any of that", then that person's atheism is really no different to a western Christian apostate who reads every book about atheism can find.

At definition level it is binary.

@RedTagAlan

Atheism doesn't automatically entail rejection of ancestor worship, because the ancestors are not gods. They are the spirits of deceased humans who are venerated. Since atheism equates to non-belief in gods, but not non-belief in other spiritual concepts/entities, including spirits and an afterlife, atheism cannot a priori be taken to mean rejection of spirits as whole.

I accept that many, if not most atheists, probably also don't believe in spirits/an afterlife, but that's in addition to their atheism. Atheism just means non-belief in deities, it doesn't cover non-belief in anything else. There are atheists who do believe in spirits and the afterlife (I've personally met a couple) as well as atheists who practice witchcraft.