We often see creationists declare that it takes more faith to believe the conclusions of modern science than it does to believe that some unknown entity used unknown abilities to create some unknown thing an unknown time ago. I think this is a silly statement for several reasons.
- Faith is belief in the absence of evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary. As Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (NRSV)” It is a significant stretch to argue that something that is evidence-based (science) takes more faith than something that is faith-based (religion).
- Faith is supposed to be something that is very important to Christian theology, especially Protestant theology. It seems very odd then that religious people would use it as a negative.
- To objectively say that something takes more faith than something else requires some sort of way to measure and quantify faith. I can think of no way that this can be done.
The last point is probably the most interesting. Can we come up with a way to measure faith that distinguishes faith from other ways of assurance? Would it be on and absolute or relative scale? What would the unit of measure be? Hebrews?
I think you’ll find that some Creationists 1) Deny the scientific evidence supporting evolution and 2) Claim evidence supporting their own position.
First, I am in agreement in not thinking the “it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation” statement. I think it puts up defenses and stifles debate.
Also, I disagree that faith is a belief against or with a lack of evidence. Classical Christian theology understands faith as an act of trust. For example, if your wife comes home late and says she was working, you choose to trust her. This is probably done on evidence of her character. Likewise, Christians think that there is reason to trust what Jesus said, and so choose based on that evidence to trust him. The conviction of things not seen in the Hebrews passage refers to things that cannot be demonstrated or known without special revelation like the trinity or incarnation. To your second point, I think faith here is being used in the modern sense which you described in point one. But I think your point is well taken. To your third point, I think it’s probably a category mistake to quantify the quality of a choice. But if you take faith in the “belief despite the evidence” sense, then whichever proposition has more evidence would require less faith. So the measurement would need to be a measurement of evidence.
Sorry, this will teach me to read through my posts before I post them. Add to my first sentence, “is a productive thing to say.”
From your second point.
“Faith is supposed to be something that is very important to Christian theology, especially Protestant theology. It seems very odd then that religious people would use it as a negative.”
Fundamentalists are certainly skilled at holding contradictory viewpoints in mind at the same time, so this is not a surprise. Sincerely, Paul
Paul-
Would you mind backing up your rather strong claim?
Thanks, bd
I’m not Paul, but I think some examples you might be looking for are:
Anti-abortion fundamentalists who call themselves “pro-life” but are also in favor of capital punishment (even of juveniles!), OR
Religious right groups who scream about the “sanctity of marriage” when it comes to gay rights, but then protest and ask the gov’t to interfere when a husband says he knows what his wife would want and decides to take her off life support.
Those things seem awfully contradictory to me.
Mandi-
A contradiction is affirming and negating the same thing in the same respect. Clearly thinking innocent deserve to live and guilty (of certain crimes) deserve to die does not fit this. This seems like saying that non fundamentalists hold contradictory viewpoints for thinking some people should be free and not other people, which most do. They think innocent, law abiding citezens should be free and criminals (again of certain crimes) should not be free. We could debate each side of both of these issues, but at lesat they aren’t contradictory. Also, doesn’t it seem reasonable to think that marriage is sacred but so is life. Most “fundamentalists” would probably hold that I do not have the authority to take even my own life, so even if I tell my husband (which in the case I’m assuming your talking about isn’t clearly the case) to kill me, it’s not my right. Again, we could debate this, but calling it a contradiction shows a lack of effort to understand the other side’s reasoning. Thanks for answering the question though. b
Law abiding citizens should be free? But not women who choose to end pregnancies, or people who choose not to live hooked up to machines (or choose not to live at all), or gay people who choose to get married or raise children.…
And I really can’t understand how “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Execution” are consistent. You say that unborn babies are innocent, but at least according to Catholicism, that is not true as they are born with “original sin.” But even disregarding that, when you really think about it, children who are born of parents that didn’t want them are most likely to commit crimes (or suicide which apparently is also criminal) as they age, so it seems that they are preventing abortions simply so they can execute later. Doesn’t make much sense to me. But then again, I’m a heethen and should probably be put to death, or at least have the radical right agenda forced down my throat like a bad home movie.
Mandi-
I like the discussion but it seems strange to me that you feel you must add things like having the ‘radical right agenda’ forced down your throat. I’m trying to give you arguments against certain viewpoints being contradictory. I don’t think this is anything like shoving my viewpoint down your throat. You’re point about no one being innocent is a good one, but we are talking about different kinds of innocence. When I said the unborn humans were innocent, I meant legally innocent while you are talking of a kind of theological guilt. Murderers are not legally innocent and deserved to be punished. We can debate about what the right kind of punishment is, but there is a substantive difference between an innocent person and a murderer. I’m not really sure what principle you are operating under for your second point. It seems to be something like, “if someone is probably going to have a bad life we should kill them.” This seems obviously false and severely immoral. It also seems to deny that people have the free choice to rise above their circumstances. But if you are denying free choice, then why are you mad at the ‘radical right’ for what they do? They can’t help it. Also, there are many examples of people who have risen above the undesirable circumstances which they were born into. And who says not living is better than having a hard life? Also, your attack on the ‘radical right’ for wanting to prevent abortions so they could kill the person later is unwarranted and mean. The ‘radical right’ could turn the situation to say that they want to give the person a chance while the ‘looney left’ just wants to kill every helpless person they can. I wouldn’t use this argument against pro-abortionists because it puts up defenses and stifles debate. Finally, I’m sorry you’re a heathen, but you seem to know the consequences of your choice. b
I never said people aren’t capable of free choice, I’m simply stating the fact that a bad childhood is own of the major precursors of criminal behavior. I’m wondering if you ever met anyone whose mother had them only because she was prevented from aborting them. I have. Every morning her mother said “I wish I had aborted you.” That girl is dead now, she killed herself. She did think that no life was better than that miserable life. Charles Manson’s mother wanted to abort him, and I bet the families of his victims (both his murder victims and those drawn into his cult) would have preferred she be allowed to do just that. Instead, she had him, subjected him to a lifetime of unspeakable horrors and he became psychotic. The point is that when you force people to have children and then walk away, you have no idea what you have just done, you have no idea what that will do to the child, the mother, and society as a whole. It doesn’t turn out like it does in the happy little “choose life” commercials where the kid in the red hooded sweatshirt is running in the park and his parents are all happy and laughing. Many of those kids end up being abused or neglected and then grow up to abuse and neglect others. So yes, on this planet that is over-populated and over-violent, I would rather stop it before it starts when we can. When a woman is mature enough to know that she can’t be a good mother, I think we should believe her and not force the role on her, I know I wouldn’t want a mother who didn’t want me.
Also, you really shouldn’t take things so personally. I never said YOU were shoving the radical right down my throat, I don’t know you and I don’t know if you are a member of the radical right or not. But I do know that this country as a whole is currently shoving that agenda down everyone’s throat. I look at the way public schools are now, compared to how they were just 7 years ago, and it is clear. Looking at the media, the floor of the Senate, and the White House press room shows the same thing. It seems to me that the religious fanatics in this country are so insecure in their beliefs that they believe that unless their religious laws have the force of the state behind them their religions and their faith will parish. And frankly, those of us who are more secure in our spirituality are sick of the whining.
Mandi-
I assumed that since you were responding to my post you were taking a shot at me, my bad. What should the mother who realizes she can’t be a good mother after her child is two do? Should she be allowed to kill the child so the child doesn’t have a miserable life? Of course not, she should put the child up for adoption. Just like the woman who doesn’t have the adoption should do if she doesn’t want the child. Not wanting to raise someone isn’t grounds for killing them. Also, I disagree that the woman who told her child everyday “I wish I could have aborted you” should be called mature in her decision making. Clearly she is a selfish and disgusting person. I don’t want to get into the religion in the media and schools debate, but I think it’s interesting that both sides of the aisle think the other side is forcing their beliefs upon them. Last, what principles do you use to decide who gets to be born and who should die. If killing innocent persons is okay in order to control population and amount of violence, who do we decide to kill? Thanks for the discussion. b
A mass of cells attached to a uterus is not a person. People are born, that is why we have birth certificates and celebrate birthdays, to recognize the point at which a person came into being, we don’t have annual parties to celebrate conception, you don’t get your driver’s license 16 years after you became a zygote. I really don’t know how we correct this misperception, but I will say this: as long as something needs to be attached to my body to survive I get to decide if it does or not. And if I’m barred from legally and safely removing it, well, then we are back to the gold ol’ days of wire hanger abortions. Those were some fun times.
You also miss the point that my friend’s mother didn’t decide not to have an abortion, she was prevented from having one, so there was no decision on her part to be mature or immature. And adoption is not as easy as you must think. Not all kids that are “put up for adoption” get adopted. People are too interested in having kids that look like them, they would rather spend half a million dollars on in vitro than adopt another person’s child. So preventing abortion just increases an already too high population and fills juvenile homes with children who have no parents. Those children spend their lives trying to “sell themselves” at adoption fairs, and beat themselves up afterwards when they aren’t chosen. Then they turn 18 and are released into society in the same way prisoners are, except that prisoners usually are given at least $25. Not foster kids. Nope, they have no family and no friends to depend on, no real world work experiences, no resume, no money for a deposit on an apartment, they have nothing. So then they turn to prostitution, drugs, and larceny. They end up strung out and desparate, and then, you guessed it! They either kill themselves or go become criminals! Yeah, it’s a fantastic system, really. That’s the funny thing about those people who stand outside abortion clinics with those signs. Maybe if they spent that time actually helping children that already exist and need help the world would be a better place. But it is much easier to comment than to participate. Really, it would do you good to go to an adoption fair one day, to look in these kids’ eyes and see their desperation, to see how they perform for you, how hard they try to be perfect, to hear them say that they won’t make a mess or be loud, that they will do chores and get good grades, and that they can sing and dance. You may think twice before you say “just put it up for adoption!” again.
Clearly you have a better understanding of the in’s and out’s of adoption than me. And I am impressed by your passion for the welfare of these kids. I agree that people who say they are concerned for life and children should act to help life and children. But I also have some disagreements with you. Because you seem to have compassion for these kids, your solution is surprising- just kill them. We don’t want them, so kill them. They have a high probability of being criminals, so kill them. How does this make sense? Instead, how about we both protect life and help life. Let’s keep the unborn from being killed and help them once they are born. This isn’t the easiest way, but difficulty isn’t an excuse for killing an innocent person. Your criteria for life (I’m assuming that we agree the unborn is alive) being valuable are it’s location and kind of dependency. If it’s outside the woman it’s valuable, but if it’s inside the woman its not. Why would we think that the location of a person determines his or her value? If it is directly dependent on another person then it not valuable. If it is indirectly dependent on another person (like almost all of us are), then it is valuable. This kind of distinction needs very strong arguments. You say that “as long as something needs to be attached to my body to survive I get to decide if it does or not.” This is an application of your dependence claim. It’s not clear to me how dependence on another person reduces one’s value. Persons have obligations to other persons. And certain relationships, like mother to child and strong to weak, have even deeper obligations. I think the coat hanger argument is one of the worst arguments for the pro-abortion position. If the unborn is a valuable life then it should be wrong to kill it. We don’t make murder legal because murderers often get injured during their acts. So the question is whether or not abortion is murder or not. If so, it can’t be okay. If the unborn is not valuable, then no excuse is needed to kill it. The real issue in this debate is whether or not the unborn is a valuable life or not. If you think the six month old is valuable and the unborn is not, then you must base this on some kind of principle. The principles you have offered are dependence and location. But it seems clear that these don’t affect the value of a person. So you need to either make a better argument for these or offer another principle. b
No, we don’t agree that the unborn are alive. You are not alive until you are born are you cannot be killed unless you are alive.
Mandi-
So the group of unborn cells with unique DNA growing into a fetus which continues into a child etc.. is dead?
Life begins at birth. You cannot be dead if you have never been alive, and not alive if you have never been born. Things can grow and develop without being “life”, like your hair. But even if you want to call that mass of cells “alive” then so is a cancerous tumor, plants, flowers, weeds, ants, mosquitoes, skin, nails, the list goes on.
Good point. So the question isn’t whether it’s alive, it’s whether it’s a life. And I think the burden of proof is on you to give a principled argument for it not being a life. I don’t see the moral significance of going from location A to location B. Why is it not valuable in location A, the womb, but is valuable in location B, anywhere eles but the womb? Why is it not valuable when it is directly dependent on one woman (the mother) and indirectly dependent on many others (whoever the mother is dependent upon) and valuable when it is directly dependent on many people (parents, doctors, nurses, etc.) and still indirectly dependent on many others(whoever those people are dependent upon). Since these issues seem to be morally irrelevent, you must find some other moral difference that occurs between unborn and born. Location and dependency don’t give or take away value.
As a biologist, my professional opinion is that life begins approximately 3.6 billion years ago.
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