I felt like I could have stood beside Dawkins as he defended science (not evolutionary science). I applauded when I saw Deepak Chopra on the table. But the problem Dawkins has is that he promotes Christianity like it sits in the pile with Spiritualism, Post-modernism, New-Ageism, Illusionists, Psychics, homoeopathy and all superstitious beliefs, and making it look like Christianity is against science.
As if we were afraid of walking under a ladder or a black cat running across your path, this is the type of person Richard Dawkins sees the Christian as; a superstitious, ignorant bafoon. I can see how someone like Dawkins can believe this. There are many so-called Christians who have religion and take it a step further into superstitious beliefs like praying to angels, talking to dead people and worshipping tree knots. There are a lot of coo-coos out there, that's for sure!
I too, am outraged that people are attacking science as the enemy. Real Christians are not angry against science. We promote science. The foundation of modern science came from Bible-believing men. If anything, Christians are attacking the Evolutionary theory, not science. Science can exist without having a presupposition of evolution. The first fathers of science wanted to learn more about the world of their Creator. There is an interest to learn more about it since there is reason to look. An evolutionist's motive is curiosity of how the world came into existence. Dawkins believes that Christians are ignorant of science, like germ theory, and deny evidence of the real world.
Michael Faraday, founder of the induction of electric current, belonged to a group whose position was: “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.” James Maxwell, who like Faraday, worked with electricity, was also a believer in a personal God. Indeed, the majority of those who founded modern science, from Copernicus to Newton to Maxwell, were functioning on a Christian base. Many of them were personally Christians, but even those who were not, were living within the thought forms brought forth by Christianity, especially the belief that God as the Creator and Lawgiver has implanted laws in his creation which man can discover.
Even Richard Dawkins, leading Neo-Darwinist, claims that the U.S. “is originally a Christian country.”
On the Christian base, one could expect to find out something true about the universe by reason. There were certain other results of the Christian world view. For example, there was the certainty of something “there”--an objective reality--for science to examine. What we seem to observe is not just an extension of the essence of God, as Hindu and Buddhist thinking would have it. The Christian worldview gives us a real world which is there to study objectively. Another result of the Christian base was that the world was worth finding out about, for in doing so one was investigating God’s creation. And people were free to investigate nature, for nature was not seen as full of gods and therefore taboo. All things were created by God and are open for people’s investigation.
The Greeks, the Muslims, and the Chinese eventually lost interest in science. The Chinese had an early and profound knowledge of the world. Joseph Needham explains why this never developed into a full-fledged science: “There was no confidence that the code of Nature’s law could ever be unveiled and read, because there was no assurance that a divine being, even more rational than ourselves, had ever formulated such a code capable of being read.” But for the scientists who were functioning on a Christian base, there was an incentive to continue searching for the objective truth which they had good reason to know was there. Then, too, with the biblical emphasis on the rightness of work and the dignity of all vocations, it was natural that the things which were learned should flow over into the practical side and not remain a matter of mere intellectual curiosity and that, in other words, technology, in the beneficial sense, should be born. The Christian worldview later came to China, India, Japan and south-east Asia when Britain made colonies in the pacific region.
What was the view of these modern scientists on a Christian base? As Francis Schaeffer would put it, “They held to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in an open system, or, as it may also be expressed, the uniformity of natural causes in a limited time span. God has made a cause-and-effect universe; therefore we can find out something about the causes from the effects. But it is an open universe because God and man are outside of the uniformity of natural causes. In other words, all that exists is not one big cosmic machine which includes everything. Of course, if a person steps in front of a moving auto, the cause-and-effect universe functions upon him; but God and people are not a part of a total cosmic machine. Things go on in a cause-and-effect sequence, but at a point in time the direction may be changed by God or by people. Consequently, there is a place for God, but there is also a proper place for man.
This carries with is something profound--that the machine whether the cosmic machine or the machines which people make, is neither a master nor a threat--because the machine does not include everything. There is something which is “outside” of the cosmic machine, and there is a place for man to be man.”
Even Richard Dawkins, leading Neo-Darwinist, claims that the U.S. “is originally a Christian country.”
On the Christian base, one could expect to find out something true about the universe by reason. There were certain other results of the Christian world view. For example, there was the certainty of something “there”--an objective reality--for science to examine. What we seem to observe is not just an extension of the essence of God, as Hindu and Buddhist thinking would have it. The Christian worldview gives us a real world which is there to study objectively. Another result of the Christian base was that the world was worth finding out about, for in doing so one was investigating God’s creation. And people were free to investigate nature, for nature was not seen as full of gods and therefore taboo. All things were created by God and are open for people’s investigation.
The Greeks, the Muslims, and the Chinese eventually lost interest in science. The Chinese had an early and profound knowledge of the world. Joseph Needham explains why this never developed into a full-fledged science: “There was no confidence that the code of Nature’s law could ever be unveiled and read, because there was no assurance that a divine being, even more rational than ourselves, had ever formulated such a code capable of being read.” But for the scientists who were functioning on a Christian base, there was an incentive to continue searching for the objective truth which they had good reason to know was there. Then, too, with the biblical emphasis on the rightness of work and the dignity of all vocations, it was natural that the things which were learned should flow over into the practical side and not remain a matter of mere intellectual curiosity and that, in other words, technology, in the beneficial sense, should be born. The Christian worldview later came to China, India, Japan and south-east Asia when Britain made colonies in the pacific region.
What was the view of these modern scientists on a Christian base? As Francis Schaeffer would put it, “They held to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in an open system, or, as it may also be expressed, the uniformity of natural causes in a limited time span. God has made a cause-and-effect universe; therefore we can find out something about the causes from the effects. But it is an open universe because God and man are outside of the uniformity of natural causes. In other words, all that exists is not one big cosmic machine which includes everything. Of course, if a person steps in front of a moving auto, the cause-and-effect universe functions upon him; but God and people are not a part of a total cosmic machine. Things go on in a cause-and-effect sequence, but at a point in time the direction may be changed by God or by people. Consequently, there is a place for God, but there is also a proper place for man.
This carries with is something profound--that the machine whether the cosmic machine or the machines which people make, is neither a master nor a threat--because the machine does not include everything. There is something which is “outside” of the cosmic machine, and there is a place for man to be man.”
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