The Napoleon of Thought Crime ([info]darthbeckman) wrote,
@ 2008-08-02 11:51:00
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Entry tags:religion

Ah ha ha ha ha
I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing that ever has been or ever will be discovered by the light of science that can contradict the truths of the Christian faith. Anyone who says otherwise either:

1) Doesn't understand the science
2) Doesn't understand the faith
3) Is selling a book

I've never understood the belief prevalent in some atheist circles that the discovery of extraterrestrial life - or even something as simple as water on Mars - would prove devastating to the faith. Angels and demons, hello? All non-heretical Christians already acknowledge the existence of intelligent, non-human life in the universe. The implications of the existence of extraterrestrial life for Christianity has already been explored at length by C.S. Lewis, among other writers, thinkers, and theologians. Even granting that aliens exist - and there is no evidence that they do - truth cannot contradict truth.

I guess one can't be too careful in what one reads if one is committed to "antitheism."


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[info]ikilled007
2008-08-02 08:02 pm UTC (link)
Well it's good that the Christian faith is willing to evolve as science bashes through its ignorance. For instance, when it was proved that the eucharist was indeed, still bread and not flesh, doctrine changed about what transubstantiation means. And of course, now that we know Hell does not exist in the bowels of the Earth, the Church has developed a more sophisticated view, that being Hell is no longer a place but a state of not being united with God. And of course, Galileo and others have helped the Church change its eternal truths and get with the times.

So let's face it, if you read Genesis, it doesn't talk about about the 6th and 1/2 day where God created other intelligent being in or not in his image in other places than Earth. In the old days that meant the Church truth was we're all alone. Now, of course, since many in the Church are convinced it's likely there's intelligent life elsewhere (I am not, by the way), the Church's position is somewhat akin to that part of the US Consititution which states those powers not granted to the government belong to the states or the people; that is, just because God forgot to tell the authors of the Bible that there is intelligent life elsewhere doesn't mean there isn't.

So, as you can see, nothing science does can contradict the Church truths since the Church is wise enough to be vague, nebulous, and malleable, having learned hard lessons from its early history. Too bad Islam can't learn those same lessons.

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[info]solaecclesia
2008-08-02 11:25 pm UTC (link)
I wonder if you can articulate the distinction b/w dogma and every other type of knowledge. For example, what authoritative document ever taught hell was in under the earth? And I'd like to know what eternal truths Galileo changed, since apparently I missed that part in the creeds of Nicea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon that mentions the earth's revolution as a dogmatic truth.

Now granted, certain members of the Church may have taught some of these things (you mysteriously fail to point towards any theologian or Church Father, saint or doctor), but certain people within groups can teach differing things, it seems hardly sensible to extend their individual beliefs to that of the whole.

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[info]darthbeckman
2008-08-02 11:47 pm UTC (link)
Galileo and others have helped the Church change its eternal truths and get with the times.

This is one of my pet peeves. Galileo never could prove that the earth revolved around the sun; he was never able to explain or demonstrate why, if the earth revolved around the sun, we do not observe parallax movement in the stars. It wasn't heliocentrism per se the Church objected to at the time, but 1) Galileo's insistence on teaching what was at the time an unproven hypothesis as the truth, and 2) Galileo's general assholery. Most of what the general public knows about the Galileo affair is Enlightenment-era propaganda.

Doctrine does not and cannot change. As I've said to you before, and as [info]solaecclesia said earlier today, there is a difference between doctrine/dogma and noninfallible judgment calls about the natural world based on prudential evaluations of the facts available at the time, within their historic context.

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