Debunking Christianity: Scientists to Theologians: Put Up Or Shut Up!

John Loftus has posted the following thoughts and I thought it would be worth responding by annotating his brief comments with my own in bold.

Christian theists love to point out the limits of science, and it does have some.

Alright! We have a consensus!!!!

But to focus on them to the exclusion of the massive amount of information we have acquired from science is being extremely ungrateful for what it has achieved. To me that is one aspect of the denigration of science.

Agreed some fundamental Christians do so, but I think to claim that all theists exclude evidence because it does not support what they think is true is highly unfair and is not correct.

The limits of science are based in 1) the limits of human imagination, and 2) the limits of that which we can detect. That which is undetectable does not fall within the realm of science, although, with further advances in our scientific instruments we can detect things that were previously thought undetectable.

Interesting. Another consensus. The Bible says the same thing.

¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
 ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.- Ephesians 3:16-21

The Bible is real clear. It states that to know reality we need to know God. Our limited and fallible imaginations are not an issue because God is greater than our imagination and we can have his power at work within us. We don't need to depend on our own abilities or solely on our own intellect. God levels he playing field.

If science does reach its limits in the future, there won't be any cause for theistic celebration because scientists may not know they have reached its limits, and because there are probably some things they might never know.

I agree with this statement too. Scary. The one thing I would add that theist (rational ones anyway) are not praying for the failure of science or scientists. Science is a worthy endeavor that God raises up people to do and even though atheist and agnostics don't see it, Science helps us understand God better because it is through the created reality God has chosen as one of the ways he has revealed Himself to us.

Why should that conclusion, if they reach it, be preferred to an evolving God concept in a sea of god-concepts without any means to settle which one is to be preferred as the best explanation of the same data? What is the theistic alternative method for squeezing the truth out of the universe? What is it? Until theists can propose a better method than science to learn about the universe, then they should just shut up!

And here is where John Loftus goes off the rails. The Bible does not present an "evolving god concept in a sea of god-concepts without any mean to settle which one to be preferred." True enough God has revealed Himself to us - in His own way and under His own terms. Only a moron would say that science is not a viable way of discovering truth in the universe. It's also equally stupid to think that science is the only way in discovering truth given the acknowledged limitations of science. Does theism propose a better method to learn about the universe and your place in it? Christianity gives you the best option: relationship with the creator. We didn't come with an exhaustive instruction manual. If you want to know the proper purpose and use of a thing, you ask the one who made it because the one who made it knows what the design specs are and what the purpose of the design was. Science is one of the things that God gave us an aid in that search but not as a replacement for knowing Him, reconciled through Jesus Christ. Notice that John Loftus and many atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins say: "I will not serve a God like that. Such a God could not reasonably exist." They say that while at the same time admitting that their reason is flawed and can't possibly be complete yet they refuse the help of God to correct it. It's like watching a man drowning but instead of clutching at the life preserver - the only flotation device available for rescue -he chucks it away because he wants a different preserver, preferring to clutch the anvil tied to chained around his neck that's dragging him down towards death to having the anvil's chain's broken. No one figures out the difference between the anvil and life preserver on their own. Some one has to point it out to us and some people who refuse to listen. It's not a perfect analogy but it's close. We must pray for them and thank God for the life preserver He gave us - Jesus.

Debunking Christianity: Scientists to Theologians: Put Up Or Shut Up!

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My Common Sense is Tingling - Debunking Christianity: Can You Not See What It Takes to Believe? You Must Bash Science!

John Loftus has posted another mind bending affront to common sense...correction he quotes some mind bending affront to common sense and agrees to it.

Yep, that what Vic Reppert and gang must do, and Vic is supposedly an intellectual whom Christians say stands head over heels above me! lol Is this not completely and utterly ignorant? This is why I cannot believe. To do so you must be ignorant! I need not even respond since someone named Doctor Logic already did. See below:

This letter smacks of "scorched earth", postmodernist anti-intellectualism.

What disgusts me about the sort of rhetoric here is the suggestion that science doesn't advance, or that science is a form of pop cultural entertainment that doesn't deserve our trust.

99% of our knowledge about the world comes from science. The most reliable knowledge we have is scientific. Did a modicum of trust get us to the Moon or eliminate smallpox?!

Science has vastly improved our lives. The Bible never taught us a damn thing.

Christian apologists are more than happy to throw science under the bus if it will save their religion by making scientific inquiry look as arbitrary as the spiritual prejudice that lies at the core of their worldview.

Oh, if only science could be reduced to mere recordkeeping and endless data gathering like in the good old days of the scholastics. Then, there would indeed be no conflict between science and religion. This is what Bob really meant when he said there was no conflict, but, Bob, data collecting isn't science! There is a real conflict between real science and religion.

Science is about control and the elimination of bias, so we can see the world as it really is. Religion is the opposite: it's about the maximization of bias and amplification of prejudiuce and preconception. Science and religion are mortal enemies.

I've read Dr. Victor Reppert's post I can find no "science bashing" in it. Atheists like John Loftus are so quick to label theists as people who hate science - as if there are no scientists who are also theists. Really, really, an affront to common sense. They also will cry foul. All I see that Reppert do in his post is describe the limits of science and why it's not a smart thing to put all of your eggs into its basket if you want to know what reality is. What is wrong with that? Loftus sounds like a religious person who just had his idol spit on. Loftus basically attempts to respond to Reppert's post by quoting a comment by "Dr. Logic". I think to anyone who read this thread should go and see the original post and comments. I think that Bob Prokop's comments bear reading.

"Dr. Logic",

I still fail to understand how you can employ that moniker with a straight face. Everything you wrote in your comment does nothing more than provide yet more evidence for my thesis. You obviously read the posting, but brought along with you your own prejudices and blinders, and saw only what you wanted (or perhaps expected) to see.

Of course science does not "deserve" our trust, any more than our government or my church does. We are dealing with human beings here, who have the same weaknesses and failings that I can so easily see in myself.

(Warning: I'm going to ramble a bit here, but I want to get a lot of points in with my morning coffee.)

As a professional analyst of the Soviet Union for some decades, I learned extensively about the history of scientific research in that country, to include the infamous Lysenko period, where no conclusions were allowed to be drawn in genetics that might conflict with the party line. And you don't have to look to totalitarian societies to see the same dynamics at work. In our own country, the Bush administration routinely manipulated, suppressed, and spun data to push its own line on (i.e., against) global climate change. Corporations such as oil companies brazenly distort data to hide the ecological damage their activities are causing. And don't get me started on the food industry, which does everything in its power to selectively use data to promote its "health" messages.

So no, even the data itself does not exist in some idealistic values-free Zone of Objectivity. Quite often, we have to consider the source.

But when it comes to big-picture conclusions drawn from that data, now we are entirely within the realm of the greater environment (spanning everything from the small scale of the interpersonal dynamics withing the individual research unit to contemporary culture as a whole). There's just no escaping it. This is neither a bad nor a good thing - it just is!

Now my own expertise happens to be in astronomy, so forgive me for using a lot of examples from that field. Might I suggest reading the (short) book "How I killed Pluto, and Why it had it Coming" by Mike Brown, a quite readable and frankly hilarious account of the politics, personalities, shenanigans, skullduggery, and at times even borderline criminality that surrounded the decision to demote Pluto from the status of "planet". This is a perfect example of how, even when absolutely no one contests the actual data involved, the issues of "World View" that might be affected by such information are the furthest thing possible from objectivity.

I could go on, but this post is getting too long as it is. My point is in no way to denigrate science. (I love my healthy teeth, thanks to the science of dentistry!) But let's not endow it with properties (such as objectivity) which it does not deserve.

Debunking Christianity: Can You Not See What It Takes to Believe? You Must Bash Science!