Disillusionment

When Young Earth Creationist Christians discover the overwhelming evidence for evolution, it can result in a crisis of faith. This sad reality is not the fault of good science. It is the fault of an illusion of reality fostered by YEC teaching. 

Merrium-Webster defines Disillusion as "to free from illusion; also, to cause to lose naive faith and trust." Such disillusionment is the experience of many believers as they come to accept evolution. YEC teachers emphatically claim their teaching to be absolutely essential and foundational to Christianity; thus it is not surprising that stepping away from it can feel so perilous. 

 

Earlier this week, a former Young Earth Creationist (whom I've never met) sent an email briefly describing his faith struggle. Because I thought other readers may deal with similar issues, I asked for and he granted permission for me to post our email exchange, which follows:

Hi Cliff, 

I was young earth creationist and I had couple questions about how you deal with certain issues. If nature can prove everything, morality, existence, and things like religion are we just being delusional believing in God?  We could just be lucky SOB's.  I hope not because frankly belief in God is the only thing keeping me from nihilism.  I want desperately to believe in God, but if nature doesn't point to God then I'm having a hard time believing.

  

Anyway, thanks for your time

Nate

Nate,

I am with you ... without God in my reality, nihilism is the only alternative. But God is very much at the center of my worldview. My view of reality would take way too much time and space for an email response. But I'll try to give you a taste. You can find fuller explanations in the various articles on my blog. 

I do believe that nature can explain most of our reality. I believe that God is generally non-interventionist, because his purposes are being fulfilled as nature plays out its course. His intervention in the affairs of men are in response to people of faith, who invite it. That is the essence of the prayer Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount. 

While I agree that there are evidences that altruism and some morality have developed through evolution, Dawkins is far too overreaching in his optimism that evolution will explain all. You mentioned nature explaining existence. In my view, it does not. I see no way that evolution will ever answer the ultimate question of why anything exists at all. "Why is there something instead of nothing?" is a question that for me only has one answer: a Creator God! 

On my blog you can find a post entitled "Reasons for My Belief (full essay)" (Scroll down to "OTHER POSTS OF INTEREST" and you will find the link about midway in the list.) I offer five of the most compelling reasons for my faith in God. Perhaps you will find them helpful.

Nate, I must tell you that since I accepted the findings of science in regard to cosmic and biological evolution, I have found many answers to difficult questions about God and reality. The truths revealed in the cosmos, the fossil record, and our own DNA may at first be jarring to Christian faith. But when we stop resisting these truths, and begin the work of combining them with the revealed truths in the Bible, the exciting journey toward a fuller understanding of truth begins. And I am jazzed about that journey. Life and reality have never made more sense to me than they do now! I encourage you to keep asking questions, keep searching for truth, and do not abandon you belief in God! You will be rewarded!

Stay in touch!

Cliff 

Cliff,

Thanks for your time. I will read your more of your stuff.  I just needed some encouragement to keep going in my faith. 

thanks

Nate

“The Ancient Sage”

We host an every-other-week gathering in our home, which we simply call "Sunday Breakfast". As the name would imply, we serve breakfast to our guests, after which we gather in the living room for worship, Bible study, and discussion. We usually have a "questions that skeptics ask" segment in which we pose some of the difficult questions that skeptics ask us, or that our own "skeptic within" might raise. Tomorrow, we will be asking some difficult "why" questions. I plan to use the following poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in our discussion. It was written in 1885, late in the life of the poet. Because this site often considers evidence for and against faith, I am sharing the poem with my readers. Tennyson shares insights he gained over a lifetime about faith and hope, urging caution against certitude, and healthy humility for all who pursue truth. Feel free to offer your comments!

"The Ancient Sage"

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

If thou would’st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive
  Into the Temple-cave of thine own self,
There, brooding by the central altar, thou
May’st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice,
By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise,
As if thou knewest, tho’ thou canst not know;
For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm,
The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within
The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth,
And in the million-millionth of a grain
Which cleft and cleft again for evermore,
And ever vanishing, never vanishes,
To me, my son, more mystic than myself,
Or even than the Nameless is to me.
  And when thou sendest thy free soul thro’ heaven,
Nor understandest bound nor boundlessness,
Thou seest the Nameless of the hundred names.
  And if the Nameless should withdraw from all
Thy frailty counts most real, all thy world
Might vanish like thy shadow in the dark.

‘And since—from when this earth began—
  The Nameless never came
Among us, never spake with man,
  And never named the Name’—
 
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’,
She sees the Best that glimmers thro’ the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro’ the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail’d ‘Mirage’!

Check your brain at the door, please ... (Part 3)

One of the comments on the previous post prompted me to continue this "church sign" series on faith and reason. My friend, Psi, questions whether there can be any rational discussion of a linkage between faith and reason. Following is his question, and my response. 

Sorry Folks,

I am lost right at the beginning. I can't see any kind of mechanism or logical way in which faith can be a passing acquaintance with reason let alone a friend. Simply stating that it is a foundation simply seems to replace the word friend with the word foundation without explaining anything. Any chance of a 101 remedial class on this one for me?

Regards,

Psi

Hi Psi,

I'll try. When I used friend, I had in mind the third or fourth dictionary definition, "a familiar or helpful thing.” So the question is, might faith be something helpful to reason? Thus, it was no great leap to move from "friend" to "foundation". Certainly a foundation is a very "helpful thing."

Now, the first definition of faith is "complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” In that sense of the word, we all exercise faith every day of our lives. And without faith, our ability to reason would be quite limited. If I did not trust the findings of Einstein and Hubble, for instance, I would have no basis for the reasoned assumption that a Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. If I did not exercise faith in history books and science, I would have no reason to believe anything happened prior to the year I was born and started taking my own notes. Faith is an absolutely essential stepping stone all along the pathway of reason.

Of course, I had in mind something more like the second definition of faith, "strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof”. The rest of the post (and the WSJ essay) merely presented some evidence to suppose that faith is helpful to reason without attempting to establish a logical link. Apparently, the study cited demonstrated that people of faith are less likely to believe in superstitious and paranormal phenomena than the general public. On the face of it, that might suggest a more reality-based outlook, something I think we could agree is reasonable. (Tom, and others, have here suggested other valid explanations for this statistical trend. But also, in the comments, some suggested reasons why Christian faith might be helpful to reason.)

But let me pose this question to you: Assume (just for a moment!) that in back of this vast cosmos is an intelligent, personal, powerful being, God. If there is such a being, and I base my worldview upon the correct assumption that he exists, and you base your worldview upon the mistaken assumption that he does not, which of us will have the more "reasoned" approach to life and understanding.

Assuming it were true, believing in God could hardly be less reasonable than not believing. One person looks at certain evidence and draws the conclusion that there is a God, a step involving faith. Another person looks at the same evidence and draws the conclusion that are billions of universes, a step involving faith. 

For the sake of the discussion, let's assume this definition for reason from my dictionary, "what is right, practical, or possible; common sense.” If person A draws a correct conclusion, and person B draws an incorrect conclusion, who has the foundation to exercise better reason? (I realize this entire argument can be turned around)

Comments, anyone?

Check your brain at the door, please ... (Part 2)

Okay, so I made my own church sign reader board message; a twist on the Luther quote appearing on yesterday’s post. The impetus for this new reader board message was my fascination with Look Who’s Irrational Now, an article by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 19. (Hats off to Bradford over at Telic Thoughts for posting on this article Friday.) As Hemmingway reports it, Baylor University recently contracted with Gallup to do a poll on “What Americans Really Believe.” The results were quite interesting, and no doubt counter-intuitive for some. It seems that the stronger one’s Christian faith, the less likely one is to believe in such paranormal phenomena as palm reading, astrology, Atlantis, haunted houses, or Bigfoot. Other studies sited in the article suggest a positive correlation between education and some superstitions. It turns out that faith is a better safeguard against superstitious beliefs than education. Some will no doubt object that faith itself is superstition. On the other hand, perhaps G.K. Chesterton had it right when he said (through his fictional character Father Brown), "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."

Let’s continue this discussion of the relationship between faith and reason: could it be that faith actually grounds its possessor in reality? Far from reason being the enemy of faith, these studies suggest that faith is the friend of reason.

I consider myself to be a “believing skeptic”. Is that a hopeless oxymoron? Or does my faith in God serve as stable foundation for healthy skepticism? So ...

"Faith is the greatest friend that reason has."

AGREE ~ DISAGREE ??

I am anxious to read your comments....

Check your brain at the door, please ... (Part 1)

Its been nearly a month since my last post. The next two posts I am planning (a review of The Design Matrix by Mike Gene, and a post I’ve promised to my atheist friend Psiloiordinary on “My Reasons for Belief”), are both a bit daunting, for some reason. As I continue to work on them, here is a “filler” discussion starter ...

_________________________________________

I found the church reader board at right on at this site where you can compose your own message (its actually quite fun, especially if you are as cynical as I am about church reader boards ... yuk!), but I understand that this message was for real. It expresses a sentiment which has been directed against me and this blog site by some of my own friends. Anyone care to defend this point of view? It is quite common in some conservative evangelical circles. So ...

“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has.”

AGREE ~ DISAGREE ??