Re: [asa] Sins of pseudoscience

Perhaps I could respond briefly to one impression I'm getting from your
post, which is otherwise thoughtful.

The impression from your post is that people who have the "coping strategy"
of YEC are perhaps immature in their faith and need to be helped to grow
up. Yet there are quite a number of YEC friends that I've studied scripture
with, who I would have said were very mature, and from whom I've learnt a
great deal (provided we don't get on to the vexed topic of evol....).

Iain

On Jan 21, 2008 10:22 PM, <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:

> Quoting Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>:
>
> >
> > I've a friend who believes she is sensitive to just about all kinds of
> > electromagnetic fields, from mobile phone radiation right down to the
> mains
> > .... My wife and I
> > have had to bail her out on occasion when she was on the brink of
> suicide;
> > but now all that is put down to the effect of EMF's. It is a coping
> > strategy.
> >
> > Likewise, the YEC David Anderson I wrote about earlier told me "if I
> > believed, as you do, that the earth is billions of years old, I would
> give
> > up my faith and become an atheist". What is one to do? Be responsible
> for
> > the collapse of someone's faith? Or is it better to be an atheist than
> to
> > base one's faith on a lie? If someone's faith cannot survive at the
> same
> > time as accepting billions of years/common ancestry etc, is one to say
> that
> > this faith is worthless?
> >
> > I kind of think not - if you examined what we all thought and believed,
> > there is probably some bit of irrational dishonesty that we all cling on
> to
> > for dear life. >
> > Iain
>
> I can understand the sympathy we can have towards our coping mechanisms --
> but
> Christianity is so easily reduced to just such a phenomenon by those
> outside the
> faith. "It's our delusional way of coping." While we don't want to be
> "trigger-pullers" towards a brother's fragile faith, I don't think we do
> him any
> favors by patting him on the back and letting him go either. Hebrews 5
> may be
> relevant to this: a person of fragile faith needing the "milk" of
> reassurance
> on the basic foundations of his faith; he needs to see some answered
> prayer,
> hear some glowing testimonies, "feel" a presence of God and so on. I
> think God
> actually provides this as needed for a "babe" who needs it. But to think
> that
> an immature death-grip on a certain fallacious view of Scripture can be
> included in this, is, I think, dangerous for the infant --who needs more
> than
> anything to grow up.
> A more mature believer, however, may get his boat rocked a bit more
> without
> his foundations getting blown apart. He can handle the night times of the
> soul,
> the desert wastes encountered in life; and while he is shaken -- he still
> recognizes the Rock. I think Paul demonstrates a commitment to Truth
> above all
> when he says in I Cor. 15, if these things are not so, then we are found
> to be
> false witnesses -- and indeed our whole faith is a most pathetic affair if
> Christ was not really raised from the dead. No sympathetic word here
> about how
> it still might all be a nice coping mechanism.
>
> I don't have a good answer for you Iain about how to handle some of these.
> You
> obviously have a bit of experience. But if we don't somehow gently pry
> these
> "time-bomb falsehoods" away from a friend, then someone else later may be
> happy
> to pull their trigger, and you may not be around at that point to help
> pick up
> pieces.
>
> --Merv
>
> p.s. I think the question has been asked: If you had to choose between
> happiness or knowing the truth, which would you want? Our Christian faith
> leads
> us to see that as a false dichotomy. But in the meanwhile, Truth would
> seem
> the more paramount of the two, I think. Happiness built on falsehood is
> to be
> on stormy seas in a cardboard boat. And we don't do our Christian
> witness any
> favor when it becomes apparent that our commitment to truth is not
> preeminent in
> our theology.
>
>
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