Re: [Phys-l] Richard Dawkins Answers Reddit Questions

["Dr. Keith S. Taber" <kst24@cam.ac.uk>]

Hi Bob

At 08:17 -0500 21/11/10, Spinozalens@aol.com wrote:
> According the Bible the earth the Sun goes around the earth pi equals 3, 
> and the everything was created in six days is a rather perverse order. I
> think  these assertions  are in some 
> disagreement with modern science. I know of
>  course that liberal religionist skirt these issues with a very loose
> reading of  the Bible, but I don't think it's 
> intellectually honest to do this.

Why?

These things were written at a time when this is 
what people thought. I'm sure there are things in 
Homer that were scientifically dubious, but that 
has not been used to deny it as good literature. 
There are wonderful old paintings which show no 
sense of perspective and distort proportions - 
but they can be good art. If the Bible was 
intended as a science text, it would be fair to 
say it is now outdated. However that was never 
how it was understood.

My point is that you have to see how these things 
are understood within a tradition. In the 
mainstream Christian tradition the Bible has not 
been seen as book of literal knowledge claims 
about the physical world.  Only in the past 
Century or so has this view suddenly come to 
prominence in some communities - it is not the 
traditional Christian view. (Look at the 
contemporary reception of Darwin's ideas. Yes 
there was fuss, and strong objections from some 
churchmen - but despite what some people seem to 
think, there was not a widespread rejection by 
the Church en masse. Let's face it, Darwin became 
increasingly atheistic in his  outlook, but the 
Church still let him be buried in Westminster 
Abbey!)

1600 years later, Augustine's warning is still valid:

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something 
about the earth, the heavens, and the other 
elements of this world, about the motion and 
orbit of the stars and even their size and 
relative positions, about the predictable 
eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the 
years and the seasons, about the kinds of 
animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this 
knowledge he holds to as being certain from 
reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful 
and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a 
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy 
Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and 
we should take all means to prevent such an 
embarrassing situation, in which people show up 
vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to 
scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant 
individual is derided, but that people outside 
the household of faith think our sacred writers 
held such opinions, and, to the great loss of 
those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of 
our Scripture are criticized and rejected as 
unlearned men."

Some have not learnt this lesson!

> As for
> moral teachings  the Bible is a mixed bag. While there are some proscriptions
> that any decent  person cannot quarrel with, there are also appalling
> things which reflect  their origin, a primitive tribal culture. So using the
> Bible as a source to  ground our moral teachings let alone inform us about the
> nature of reality seems  problematic to me.


I agree of course. But I was not defending the 
Bible per se as a moral guide (my small army can 
kill your big army simply because we've prayed to 
the true God, etc, etc), but of course much of 
the Bible is only the pre-Christian context for 
Jesus' life and teachings. But Christians do not 
draw upon that for moral guidance, but from the 
teachings of Christ: love one another,  turn the 
other cheek, be a good neighbour, show 
forgiveness etc, etc. Quite how the Revelation 
fits in all that, I agree is something of a 
mystery to me!

My point was that it is not Christian religion 
that is the problem, in terms of beliefs and 
teachings (I guess I'd see your 'liberals' as 
following this path), but political groups who 
may consider they are being fundamentalist 
Christians. If they really were fundamentalists 
in a literal sense they would follow Christ's two 
commandments and see the rest as mere context.



--
Dr. Keith S. Taber

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Author: Progressing Science Education - 
Constructing the Scientific Research Programme 
into the Contingent Nature of Learning Science 
(Springer: 2009)

University Senior Lecturer in Science Education

Science Education Centre
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
184 Hills Road
Cambridge CB2 8PQ
United Kingdom

to join an electronic discussion list on
learning in science
please visit
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/learning-science-concepts