Teach what science is: That would help evolution disputes subside (Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon)

The discussion that I mentioned here continues, and the person with whom I’m discussing these things seems to fall under the common belief that science and religion are somehow mutually exclusive.

I’m trained as an engineer, though my current job isn’t really an engineering job. Being an engineer isn’t nearly the same thing as being a scientist; I’ve heard it described that scientists learn new things while engineers implement them. Still, most engineers have a certain amount of respect about what science is and how it is studied.

I don’t find that my religious beliefs, which cover things that cannot be proven scientifically, are somehow contradictory to my strong interest in science. No branch of science is going to be able to tell us definitively that there is no God. I don’t expect any branch of science to prove that there is a God, either, though. God’s existence is such that it can’t be proven using physical facts — that’s why we rely on faith, after all.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
[1 Corinthians 1:27]

The wisest of the wise men of this world will never prove God’s existence. Many of those who study science will see anyone who believes in something as fundamentally unprovable as God as utter fools. I pray that God will help me to be humble, because I tend to be prideful in matters of intelligence. I pray that He will help me to reflect his light into the world. I pray that He will help me to know when I should speak up to spread His Word and when I should learn that continuing to argue is as constructive as banging my head on a wall. When it is time to speak, I pray He will give me courage and wisdom to speak the words that need spoken.

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An update to this post requesting prayers. Phil Dillon says his daughter-in-law is doing well.

Also, a friend of my sister’s has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I’m reasonably certain that they said it was inoperable. She and her family could definitely use your prayers. I’m not going to give her name here, but part of the wonder of God is that I don’t need to. He knows who you’re talking about.

“Kansas board looks at class on religion” (Kansas City Star) Reg. Req.

The state already has science standards, and the board is expected to begin a review of them soon. But it has no such standards for teaching religion, a subject most public schools in the nation shy away from.

Public schools have been uncomfortable about teaching religion, Wagnon said, because of the restrictions imposed by the First Amendment. But schools might be interested in offering a class on the history of religion, for example, if the state provided them with guidelines on how to go about doing so, he said.

I think this is actually a good idea. It would do children a lot of good to understand belief systems other than the secular humanism that so many of them seem to pick up in schools today, if for no other reason than to help make those of other faiths seem less alien.
Teachers would have to be very careful, though, to teach Christianity without letting the anti-Christian bias that seems to seep into so much in today’s society affect the way that the history and culture of Christianity is presented. Teaching more people to believe the lie that Christians are evil warmongerers equivalent to those who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the pentagon would be a travesty. Especially if it’s taught in an official capacity.

A trial under way in U.S. District Court in Atlanta is weighing a lawsuit that challenges a decision in Cobb County, Ga., to place stickers that say evolution is “a theory, not a fact” in science books.

School officials decided to include the stickers two years ago after parents complained the books presented evolution as a fact without mentioning rival ideas about the origin of life, namely creationism.

A group of parents and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit challenging the stickers as a violation of the First Amendment. The trial, to be decided by a judge, is expected to last several days.

Evolution, on the micro scale, is a fact. Evolution as an origin of species, however, is a theory that has no more evidence than Creationism as an origin of species. I understand why a teacher explaining creationism could be construed as a violation of the Establishment Clause (though I disagree — especially if it’s just listed as an alternate belief). I don’t understand why teaching the theory of evolution should be taught as fact when it’s a theory!

I was raised in a Christian home. I have believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that he made the ultimate sacrifice by coming to Earth and dying for my sins for a very long time. I had a crisis of faith for a brief time while I was in college, but in the end, I came back to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ was.

However, knowing that Christ was the Son of God, knowing that He’d died for me, and asking Him to clean my record so that I could be eternally saved didn’t mean I was living a Christian life. Whether it was the pursuit of carnal pleasures or my geekdom, I let other things come between me and the Lord.

I don’t even remember, now, what made me realize exactly how off course I was. A couple of months ago, though, I realized that, while I knew Jesus Christ, I was treating him like an extended family member, someone to visit on Sunday mornings and to put on the back of my mind for the rest of the week.

When I realized exactly how I was living, I fell down and begged Him to forgive me. I asked that he would use me, use the single-mindedness that I’ve always used for enjoying various science fiction or fantasy universes, and let me serve Him. I praise Him that, while I still enjoy those things, He is no longer on the back of my mind all the time; He is in the forefront of my mind.

Obviously, I’m not perfect. While I’m keeping my heart and mind on Christ much more than I ever have before, I still occasionally find myself struggling with other things. I am learning, though, to be a “Geek for God,” and I thank Him for all the patience He has shown for me in my life.

I pray that he will continue to help me learn to focus all of the passion that I’ve had for all of my geek-ish pursuits on serving Him. Anyone who’s gotten me started on any of my geekish interests knows that once I start, you can’t shut me up. I need to be like that for Christ, and I need prayers to get there.

Finally, I plan to add a new category of posts soon, on my Bible readings. I usually read one or two chapters a night in a regular Bible reading (moving linearly through the Bible), and I supplement that most nights with a short passage from elsewhere in the Bible on a topic that I feel a need to read about (passages found using the references in the back of my Bible). As I read and find things I’d like to comment on, I’ll probably post the passages and my thoughts.

The Bible’s truth doesn’t really need commentary, and it definitely deserves better than any commentary that I can provide. I’m not a Bible scholar, and though I’ve believed in Christ for several years, I’ve never given the Bible nearly as much study as I should have. I encourage anyone who has more insight into these passages to leave a comment, and hopefully, this will help me (and possibly others, if they stumble across my little blog) in finding a closer walk with Jesus Christ.

La Shawn is back, and she’s got an interesting post up titled: “A Christian or a Liberal?“. It’s a response to Doug Giles’ article A Christian Can Be a Christian or a Liberal, But He Can’t Be Both.

Mr. Giles’ article seems to focus mainly on the idea that the Left is waging a war on Christianity, slowly relegating our faith to a “behind closed doors” type of thing. It seems funny to me that, while the Left would have us believe that homosexuality is something that’s neither sinful nor private (Witness Gay Pride parades and the like), they believe that Faith is something that we should hide, as though we’re ashamed of it.

La Shawn’s response is fairly short, but the comments section seems to be worried less about the liberal tendency to support “religious tolerance except for Christians” and more about the ethical dilemmas faced by a Christian who supports a party that advocates sin. When an openly gay feminist calls you out for assaulting our culture and our values, something is wrong.

I think both criticisms of the obvious discordance involved in being a “Liberal Christian” are valid. Because of the current interpretation of the word “liberal,” I can’t see a way to be a liberal and be true to your faith.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe a Christian can never register or vote Democrat. Both parties have their issues, and there are going to be situations where both candidates are the wrong choice (many people think that’s the case this year, in fact), and we, as citizens of the United States, must do the best we can with the choices we’re given.

If you’re reading this and you identify as both are a Christian and a Liberal, please take a few minutes to think about your faith and what it means in your life. Sit down with a Bible, study God’s Word, and pray about it. Consider what God would think about abortion, barring those instances where the mother’s life is in danger. Consider what God says about homosexuality, and what He says about, well, everything.

The world tells us that Tolerance is key to everything, and in fact, the Christian faith does demand that we love our fellow man. But, exortations to give to the needy don’t mean that we should steal from the rich to do so — we should give freely from our own pockets. Similarly, commandments to love our brethren don’t extend to walking along side them as they brag about their sins. As long as their sexual choices don’t interfere in the job (as they would, in my opinion, in the case of a Boy Scout Troop Leader), I see no problem with guaranteeing that we don’t discriminate against someone based on that choice. I do see a problem with trying to force society as a whole to embrace their choices.

There are things in my life that I struggle with daily. As much as I would love to be perfect, as much as I try to be perfect, I know that I’m not. I can’t be. If I leaned on the Holy Spirit all the time, I could be, but even with him right beside me, I sometimes get sidetracked. I know I’m not perfect, and I wouldn’t dare condemn someone else for their mistakes. However, as a Christian, I’m obligated not to help them wallow in their sins, but to encourage them to look to Christ for guidance and strength as they try to lead a godly life.

The Liberal agenda centers around moral relativism, and as Christians, we need to see relativism for the sinful belief that it is. As I sometimes fall into that trap myself, thanks to the bombardment that our culture gives us to accept people for their own beliefs and their choices, I ask that you pray for me, and I’ll do the same for you.

[Note: The good thing about having no readers is that I could've made the changes above without showing them, but I prefer to be honest about it. I realize that, whether you're liberal or conservative, you should be praying about your beliefs, and changed the text to match that.]

Last Wednesday, La Shawn Barber announced she was taking a few days off from her blog to Retreat and Evaluate how her blog fit in with her Christian life. It’s something that I think every Christian blogger should consider. She wrote:

I want that peace, but right now I don’t have it as far as the blog is concerned. I’m not tired of it. I’ve just had doubts lately about why I’m doing this. Am I glorifying God or myself?

I can’t speak for all bloggers. My experience with blogging may or may not be typical. I may or may not be typical. I can only speak for myself. I know that I worry far too much about who’s reading, whether they comment, and any number of other things.

Before Church started this evening, I was asked if I was going to stand up and sing. I love to sing, though I’m usually reluctant to do so when anyone can hear me beyond my immediate family. I told her that I’d think about it, but in the end, I chose not to stand. I just didn’t have a song that seemed right.

I’ve stood to sing in Church before. Though I don’t think much of my singing voice, other people at our church seem to. This means one of two things. Either (a) most of the people at our church are losing their hearing (most of them are older people) or (b) they’re reacting more to what I’m singing than to how I’m singing it. I prefer to think it’s the latter, honestly.

Either way, I usually get a few compliments when I stand to sing during our service, and I won’t deny that the compliments are a good feeling. Still, it’s nothing compared to the joy that washes over me while I’m singing His praise. Ultimately, tonight, when I thought about singing, it felt more like I was thinking about it because I wanted the compliments than because I had a song that I felt He wanted me to sing in His name. It would’ve been selfish and sinful for me to sing under those circumstances, so I chose not to sing. It was that simple.

Christian bloggers need to make that same distinction. When we write a post, whether it’s on politics, or movies, or our faith, are we writing because we need to say what we’re saying, or are we writing for the possibility of getting trackbacks and comments?