Thought Experiment

[quetzalphoenix]

You are a high school student. In school, you attend biology class where you are taught modern evolutionary theory. On Sunday, you go to church, where you hear the story of creation from a fundamentalist preacher. Then you go to college and hear a liberal professor-theologian who teaches a class on Science and the World's Great Religions.

You speak to the professor-theologian about the dispute between the preacher and the biology teacher. The professor-theologian smiles and says: Both are right. Genesis is a mythical account of the origin of the Cosmos, the origin of life, and the origin of man. There is a certain truth in this myth. There are other cosmological myths, each valid in its own way. There is such a thing as mythical truth. Indeed, the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution through mutations and natural selection is in fact more impressive evidence of God's majesty than the notion that God created the millions of species by separate and arbitrary acts of creation like a child modeling a menagerie out of clay.

The student says: None of you is satisfactory. All of you are unconvincing--and you, the professor-theologian, may be the worst of the lot, satisfying nobody and papering over everything in the name of nothing. How can a myth which you say is untrue in the scientific sense be true in another sense? What is the truth?

What I want to know is this, and it doesn't seem to be too much to ask: whatever the time and palce of the appearanc eof man, whether it was the Late Pleistocene, the Upper Paleolithic, whether in the caves of the Dordogne or the Neander River--please tell me, leaving God aside, apart from Darwin and Wallce, please telle me, not in detail, but only in the most general and schematic way--please tell me how it came to pass that matter in interaction, a sequence of energy exchanges, neurones firing other neurones like a binary computer, can result in my being conscious, having a self, being able to utter sentences which are more or less true and which you can understand.

or just tell me in principle how this could happen. Or if there is a soul, please tell me what evidence there is that it exists, and if it does, how it is connected with this compact mass of billions of neurones whcih is my brain.

How do you think his three elders, the scientist, the preacher, the professor-theologian, each of whom claims knowledge of a certain species of truth, would answer him?

How would you answer him? (See poll)

Taken from Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983), 165-66.

[Socratism]

I would answer him thusly:

Science is a wonderful process for finding out how things work on the Earth, but when it comes to finding out what happened in the past it sucks.

Better bet on the Bible for your knowledge about the ancient past, because time and time again it has triumphed over the silly prognostications of men.

[Socrates]

And I would want to know why Christian parents were sending their kids to the anti-God public school system in the first place. It's like the Israelites sending their kids to the Canaanites to be educated.

Socratism is certainly right. The compromiser is breaking the Law of Non-contradiction -- the Biblical and evolutionary accounts cannot both be right.

[Sher]

nothing insightful to add ... just a ditto ("yeah, what they said" :wink:)

[wienerdog]

Today @ 05:11 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119046#post119046)
Socrates:

And I would want to know why Christian parents were sending their kids to the anti-God public school system in the first place. It's like the Israelites sending their kids to the Canaanites to be educated.
I disagree. If all the Christian parents took their Christian children out of the public schools, there wouldn't be any Christians in the public schools.

[Sher]

Today @ 12:43 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119062#post119062)
wienerdog:

I disagree. If all the Christian parents took their Christian children out of the public schools, there wouldn't be any Christians in the public schools.

As my teen would say :shrug: ... so?

[quetzalphoenix]

I think Walker Percy is making the point that none of the answers are entirely sufficient... I just discovered his book--which is hysterical and thought provoking at the same time--and it made me look at science/faith again in a new way.

One of his major points is that we are the only alien creatures in the cosmos--the only ones who spend much of their energy trying to be the same as all of the other organisms when we are not.

To say that "everything else follows" from believing the Bible and that it is "above" science is a pretty big statement, I'd say. Naive, perhaps? Not that God's revelation isn't over science...just not in an either/or antagonistic manner.

(Oh, and I'd have to say that Daniel turned out OK while educated by the pagans in captivity...so it's not an entirely black/white issue...but I digress... :poke: )

Anyway--other thoughts about the strangeness of human consciousness and evolutionary attempts to explain it?

[Socrates]

Today @ 04:11 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119076#post119076)
quetzalphoenix:

I think Walker Percy is making the point that none of the answers are entirely sufficient... I just discovered his book--which is hysterical and thought provoking at the same time--and it made me look at science/faith again in a new way.

One should never place Scripture under a so-called "scientific" theory about the past that presupposes naturalism, as all long-age/evolutionary views do.

To say that "everything else follows" from believing the Bible and that it is "above" science is a pretty big statement, I'd say. Naive, perhaps? Not that God's revelation isn't over science...just not in an either/or antagonistic manner.

True science and the Bible don't conflict.

(Oh, and I'd have to say that Daniel turned out OK while educated by the pagans in captivity...so it's not an entirely black/white issue...but I digress... :poke: )

Daniel didn't exactly have a choice, and it was clearly in spite of, not because of his pagan education.

[quetzalphoenix]

Today @ 12:19 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119174#post119174)
Socrates:

One should never place Scripture under a so-called "scientific" theory about the past that presupposes naturalism, as all long-age/evolutionary views do.



Right--I guess I'm just thinking that often we place Scripture under our own rational systems... the biggest revelation to me over the past few years has been that the "objectivist" model that science claims for itself is really not such an animal after all. See, for example, Michael Polanyi's "Personal Knowlege" (and to a lesser extent, Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shifts).


Daniel didn't exactly have a choice, and it was clearly in spite of, not because of his pagan education.

Yes...and many people today do not have a choice (but this is yet another digression from the thread)

[wienerdog]

As my teen would say :shrug: ... so?
So then there wouldn't be any Christian witness in the public schools. My concern is for the non-Christian students.

One of his major points is that we are the only alien creatures in the cosmos--the only ones who spend much of their energy trying to be the same as all of the other organisms when we are not.
I love this. More evidence that we are not merely animals.

One should never place Scripture under a so-called "scientific" theory about the past that presupposes naturalism, as all long-age/evolutionary views do.
I'm sure you will have guessed this already, but I disagree. I don't think old-age views presuppose naturalism, but I also don't think evolutionary views do necessarily. (Although, I agree that they do so de facto.)

True science and the Bible don't conflict.
Agreed, although I suspect we differ on the definition of what constitutes true science.

[wienerdog]

But of course I agree that we shouldn't put Scripture under the thumb of unscriptural worldviews, i.e. naturalism.

[Socrates]

Today @ 04:48 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119421#post119421)
wienerdog:

So then there wouldn't be any Christian witness in the public schools. My concern is for the non-Christian students.

Ah yes, the most common rationalization for Christian parents to abdicate their responsibility to educate their own children, or to make sure that they are educated in a system where the "fear of the LORD" is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

But children are not miniature adults -- there's no point sending the lambs out to the wolves to be "salt" when they have no salt in themselves yet. This requires the parents to have trained them, or at least allowed other godly people to do so.

Further, the teachers have in loco parentis authority. Yet in public schools, they are teaching kids, at least impliticitly and probably explicitly, that the Bible is wrong about history and morality, or at least unimportant. Quetzal's question is a perfect example of this.

This happens for 6 hours per day and 5 days per week, and naive parents think that they can undo this with a relatively limited time at home and one hour per week at Sunday school.

And witnessing goes both ways, and it's easier to be dragged down than pulled up. Let's face it -- when kids from Christian homes go to the godless public schools, what usually happens? Do the kids from godless homes take home the Bible verses, or do the kids from Christian homes take home the swear words and dirty jokes.

So SherBear is right. Parents have a duty to their own kids well above any supposed duty to other kids. Therefore the duty to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4) overrides any alleged duty to witness to the pagan kids. Paul even said that those who don't provide for their own families are worse than unbelievers (1 Timothy 5:8).

I'm sure you will have guessed this already, but I disagree. I don't think old-age views presuppose naturalism, but I also don't think evolutionary views do necessarily. (Although, I agree that they do so de facto.)

And that's all that matters. It is an exclusion of God from what they claim is the real world. That's precisely why Darwin invented his theory, according to Gould. See Darwin’s real message: have you missed it? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1347.asp)

[dizzle]

Yesterday @ 12:43 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119062#post119062)
wienerdog:


I disagree. If all the Christian parents took their Christian children out of the public schools, there wouldn't be any Christians in the public schools.

Exactly, and then maybe when they are adults we will actually have an impact on the world.

[Sher]

Today @ 04:54 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120037#post120037)
Dee Dee Warren:

Exactly, and then maybe when they are adults we will actually have an impact on the world.

I disagree. I think that it is up to the Christian parents to teach their children. Forced into age-bracketed groups of children, where a large precentage of them are not Christian, only causes extreme peer pressure ... to make the Christian children conform to the secular world of the schools ... especially where apathetic school systems inhibit the spread of the Christian message and do nothing to prevent the spread of blasphemy and untruthful information.

The Christian kids don't get the message out ... they usually wind up educated in secular things long before they are mature enough to learn them ... and it has been shown, to me, that it has effected children enough to rebell and "lose faith" later in life.

But if Christian parents do everything they can, in conjunction with the churches, to train their children ... then they will be prepared ... properly ... to "have an impact on the world".

[dizzle]

Eeek!!! I think you misunderstood me.... I was disagreeing with Wienerdog. I am opposed to sending Christian children to public schools. I am agreeing with you. If we train them up properly and not put a burden on them that is not theirs, then maybe when they are adults, they will actually be witnesses rather than being conformed to the world.

Ken Ham did a great tape on this, and though the analogy is strong, he spoke about how we do not sacrifice our children to pagan gods.

[Sher]

Today @ 05:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120056#post120056)
Dee Dee Warren:

Eeek!!! I think you misunderstood me....

DD's face ==> :eek:

Sorry Dee Dee ... :bow:



Heh ... can you tell I feel strongly on the subject? :lol:


(P.S. The poll is slightly skewed now :frown:)

[Socrates]

:idea: Yeah, I thought that DeeDee and Sherbear were on the same side, with some wires crossed somewhere :cheers:

i fail to see the attraction of sending kids to public schools, where the quasi-parental authority figures (teachers) are largely anti-biblical. This kids have hardly been trained to use their spiritual weapons (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) against a powerful enemy that is in authority over them. It's like a sending raw recruit against a well-trained and heavily armed platoon with a weapon he was never taught how to use.

[Sher]

Today @ 07:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120090#post120090)
Socrates:

It's like a sending raw recruit against a well-trained and heavily armed platoon with a weapon he was never taught how to use.

You aren't kidding here! You should hear some of the answers my son (who started off in public schools) gave my husband and me the other day in a conversation we were having :doh:

I already have some work to do to reverse the misinformation he was given :hrm:

Sher

[wienerdog]

I guess I don't recognize that children, by nature of being children, are immature in their walk with the Lord. I don't see the danger of them being exposed to anti-Christian teachings as more dangerous than adults being so exposed. I would want them to be a light in the world, rather than remove them from the world until I decide its safe for them to go out into it--the problem being that I would never think it's safe.

Having said all this, my wife and I don't have any kids yet, and we haven't decided whether to home school 'em, private Christian school 'em, or public school 'em, or some combination thereof. I'm kind of playing the devil's advocate to see if you guys can convince me (you haven't yet--nyahh!). We heard that the average couple has 2.3 children, so we got a headstart on the .3 (our wienerdog and wienercat).

[Captain Ochre]

06-10-2003 @ 03:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118992#post118992)
quetzalphoenix:

What I want to know is this, and it doesn't seem to be too much to ask: whatever the time and palce of the appearanc eof man, whether it was the Late Pleistocene, the Upper Paleolithic, whether in the caves of the Dordogne or the Neander River--please tell me, leaving God aside, apart from Darwin and Wallce, please telle me, not in detail, but only in the most general and schematic way--please tell me how it came to pass that matter in interaction, a sequence of energy exchanges, neurones firing other neurones like a binary computer, can result in my being conscious, having a self, being able to utter sentences which are more or less true and which you can understand.

or just tell me in principle how this could happen. Or if there is a soul, please tell me what evidence there is that it exists, and if it does, how it is connected with this compact mass of billions of neurones whcih is my brain.


Apologies if this has already been said, but I want to know how, especially considering Darwin and Wallace how it came to pass that matter in interaction, a series of energy exchanges, neurons firing other neurons like a binary computer, can result in your eing conscious, having a self, and being able to utter sentences which are more or less true and which we can understand.

Seem to me that one view is getting a free pass in this test.

[quetzalphoenix]

Today @ 08:54 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121049#post121049)
Captain Ochre:

Apologies if this has already been said, but I want to know how, especially considering Darwin and Wallace how it came to pass that matter in interaction, a series of energy exchanges, neurons firing other neurons like a binary computer, can result in your eing conscious, having a self, and being able to utter sentences which are more or less true and which we can understand.

Seem to me that one view is getting a free pass in this test.

True, and that's because of the context that I ripped the quote from. Percy's book is discussing how we are the "only aliens in the cosmos" by virtue of our self-reflectedness and our attempts (according to him) via evolutionary/naturalistic theory to make ourselves fit in with the rest of the organisms in the environment.

I guess you could rephrase the question...how, especially considering Hitler and Stalin, how it came to pass that creatures made in God's image, created entirely good and for the purpose of presenting his nature to the world, can become animals, having no qualms about destroying their habitation and systematically killing their fellow creatures.

Any better? (My prejudice shows in the rewrite--add your own...)

On second thought--did you mean one view, i.e. Darwin/Wallace being presented in a slanted way? Or something else....

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 04:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121201#post121201)
quetzalphoenix:



True, and that's because of the context that I ripped the quote from. Percy's book is discussing how we are the "only aliens in the cosmos" by virtue of our self-reflectedness and our attempts (according to him) via evolutionary/naturalistic theory to make ourselves fit in with the rest of the organisms in the environment.


Did he consider the appeal of de Sade's solution? Don't worry about it: Whatever is, is right.


I guess you could rephrase the question...how, especially considering Hitler and Stalin, how it came to pass that creatures made in God's image, created entirely good and for the purpose of presenting his nature to the world, can become animals, having no qualms about destroying their habitation and systematically killing their fellow creatures.


Seems to me that the second chapter of Genesis picks up with an explanation.
To me, it's extremely difficult to see how consciousness and free will could evolve from purposeless interactions of chemicals. If I were an atheist, I think I'd find the illusion of free will a manifestation of absurdity, a aberration in a universe that otherwise (in the common atheist view) manifests Ockhamish parsimony at every turn.


Any better? (My prejudice shows in the rewrite--add your own...)


Wha?
I'm totally objective. :wink:


On second thought--did you mean one view, i.e. Darwin/Wallace being presented in a slanted way? Or something else....


You got it either right or close enough on the first try, afaics, but I appreciate your ability to consider the possibility that you hadn't. That's an excellent trait in forums such as this.

[quetzalphoenix]

I guess you could rephrase the question...how, especially considering Hitler and Stalin, how it came to pass that creatures made in God's image, created entirely good and for the purpose of presenting his nature to the world, can become animals, having no qualms about destroying their habitation and systematically killing their fellow creatures.


Seems to me that the second chapter of Genesis picks up with an explanation.
To me, it's extremely difficult to see how consciousness and free will could evolve from purposeless interactions of chemicals. If I were an atheist, I think I'd find the illusion of free will a manifestation of absurdity, a aberration in a universe that otherwise (in the common atheist view) manifests Ockhamish parsimony at every turn.



Captain Ochre--you're right about Genesis. I was just trying hard to think from an evolutionary point of view and write a similar question... problem is, I naturally came up with a moral problem which not all of those holding to a naturalist framework might find problematic.

Yes, free will, consciousness, etc. are difficult for me to see as illusory--maybe it's because I'm a Westerner, but humans are just different in a way that is impossible to reduce to biology. There's something else which we can approach, but never systematize, that marks us.

[Socratism]

Does anyone here believe (as I am beginning to) that there is something diabolically clever about what has been going on in society in the last hundred years or so?

The feminist movement has seemed to have led to the two parent wage earner phenomenon, which in turn has made it extremely difficult for parents to believe that they could actually homeschool.

Children are now increasingly exposed to evolutionary ideas at an early age: something that previously only happened in college at a time when fewer people went to college. Museums, TV and even zoos teach the mantra that people developed from apes.

I admire homeschoolers, but the world seems to be winning the majority to their side, which I suppose we should expect since Jesus told us it would be the case.

[Socrates]

06-12-2003 @ 05:35 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=121045#post121045)
wienerdog:

I guess I don't recognize that children, by nature of being children, are immature in their walk with the Lord.

Paul did in 1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

WD continueth:

I don't see the danger of them being exposed to anti-Christian teachings as more dangerous than adults being so exposed.

Paul did in Ephesians 4:14

So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.

I would want them to be a light in the world, rather than remove them from the world until I decide its safe for them to go out into it--the problem being that I would never think it's safe.

How can young children be salt when they have yet to have salt poured into them? Paul is clear in Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Public school advocates would have to paraphrase this as

Fathers, send your kids out to anti-God teachers to teach them that God doesn't matter for education.

That's a huge problem that WD still doesn't realize -- school teachers are in loco parentis. Therefore Christians are sending kids to places where the quasi-parental figure is likely to be programming the kids that the Bible is myth and that sexual activity is OK outside wedlock.

Having said all this, my wife and I don't have any kids yet, and we haven't decided whether to home school 'em, private Christian school 'em, or public school 'em, or some combination thereof. I'm kind of playing the devil's advocate to see if you guys can convince me (you haven't yet--nyahh!). We heard that the average couple has 2.3 children, so we got a headstart on the .3 (our wienerdog and wienercat).

I don't know if I could convince you unless we had the same authority, i.e. Scripture. But we have already seen that, in effect, Scripture is not your final authority for the history of Earth and life on it, but so-called scientific ideas about the past is. I note that WD in another thread asked for some problems of accepting evolution, and I pointed out the harmful effects on other doctrines and practices. This thread is an example of how it has spilled over into denying that Scripture, not the world, should be the final authority on raising children.

[Sher]

06-13-2003 @ 06:08 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122445#post122445)
Socratism:

Does anyone here believe (as I am beginning to) that there is something diabolically clever about what has been going on in society in the last hundred years or so?

I wouldn't assign a conspiracy theory mindset to it (:teeth:), but yeah, I think that the world is definitely heading toward more secular pressures to conform to secular mindsets.

The feminist movement has seemed to have led to the two parent wage earner phenomenon, which in turn has made it extremely difficult for parents to believe that they could actually homeschool.

Exactly ... and this phenomenon has caused, I believe, a decline not only in the economy, but in the quality of life because most children are goat-herded into compartmentalized age-groups and taught the "party line" as a result.

It takes a lot of backbone ... and great support from peers ... to continue home educating sometimes. It's hard, also, when you see those two parent wage-earners being able to splurge on the "extras" ... as your family sits back in the clothing styles of several years ago, and you are trying hard to repent for breaking the 10th Commandment :help:

Children are now increasingly exposed to evolutionary ideas at an early age: something that previously only happened in college at a time when fewer people went to college. Museums, TV and even zoos teach the mantra that people developed from apes.

But this is what makes it all worthwhile, in my experience. We have this opportunity/responsiblity to counteract this mindset ... getting the kids interested in being the salt.

I admire homeschoolers, but the world seems to be winning the majority to their side, which I suppose we should expect since Jesus told us it would be the case.

We do expect it ... but that doesn't mean we sit back and accept it. It is difficult. I'll never lie about it. But when I see the difference in how my son is learning ... in how much better it is now ... it makes all the headaches, burn-out, and frustrations worth it ... more than worth it.

These children are the future ... as cliché as that sounds ... and our responsiblity lies in preparing them to take over for us and continue to "fight the good fight". :smile:

[Sher]

I've edited the poll to remove the entries from people who are not supposed to post in this area ... people who think it is humorous, evidently, to respond in the poll as if we cannot see who they are .... Tsk, tsk ... your insolence is duly noted