format_quote Originally Posted by
Al Sultan
Although are you anti- intellectual? or anti-science? if not, then i don't think it's a problem (for you)
I'm not either of those things, so it's not a problem for me personally, but it's a problem for people that I'm closely associated with. And if you look at it from the perspective of a man like the professor of history that I referenced previously, he's not personally anti-intellectual either, and yet he found himself teaching at an undergrad level for quite some time when he really should have been a graduate professor, and then he winds up being an Evangelical prof at a Catholic grad program. And it's nice that Evangelicals and Catholics are getting along, it's nice that they can work well together, but it's not so nice that there is no Evangelical school with a grad program at the level where he belongs. This is one of those situations where someone else's problem becomes a bit of a problem for him.
May i ask why some Christians are Anti-intellectual, or Anti-science?
Fideism is an epistemological theory which states that knowledge should be based on faith and not on reason, viewing faith and reason as mutually exclusive (to varying extents). "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" is the rhetorical question that acts as shorthand for this mindset. Here's the page on that from the Stanford Philosophy thing.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/
Compared to other types of Christians, the Catholic Church has gone on record in pretty specific opposition to fideism, while my type of Christian- the Evangelicals- have been more inconsistent, but with some notable leans in the direction of fideism. The usual outcome of this mindset goes something like this- you can either be wholly faithful to your church thing, or you can take your thing in the hard sciences (and certain other fields that are also treated with some suspicion) to the highest level that there is, because if you do the latter, you're sure to compromise something of the former. That's not a hard and fast universal, but it is a measurable trend that leads to some disappointing outcomes.
Darwin, the theory of evolution, and the entire controversy really had a lot to do with my people too, from its beginning right up to the present day. The Christians who pushed back hardest against that were very much my people, in the most specific sense.
Cant you guys, just like, sit together and talk about it? think about ways to improve your performances from step by step? that's the best way to start, or just suggest that, we should work on improving our performances in Math, Science, etc.
That is an excellent idea, and it really should be so simple. Part of the trouble, however, is that there are a fair number of influential and charismatic people that are talking entirely in the other direction, which is to say in the direction of suspicion- suspicion of scientists, of the academic elite, of public universities in general and of professors who wish to corrupt young minds. They are pretty good at persuading people to believe this is a reasonable suspicion in its entirety, they get their message across despite having virtually no mass media presence, and there is a bit of a void on the other side of this issue. There are some Evangelicals that are doing impressive things in various types of academia, but their stories aren't well known and their skill set tends to be limited to the things they actually do; they're not likely to be just as good at self-promotion. What it really comes down to is getting more public relations people on the right side of this, people who aren't necessarily the highest achievers in any of the targeted fields but are still really good at speaking on behalf of them.
But i want to ask you something, isn't worshipping God, doing good deeds and teaching young kids to do good deeds, and treat everyone with mercy and respect, better?
Those are really good things, and we should definitely do those. And we should also take all that other stuff a bit more seriously than we currently do- it's both and, not either or, and kids who like the hard sciences (for example) shouldn't feel like they have to pick between that and being a good Christian. Be a scientist, study the origins of the universe, also worship God do good deeds and teach kids to do the same. That's discouraged- the scientist part, anyway, provided that the other stuff is expected of someone.
About Evolution by the way, A Christian (on this website) said *and I quote* "It doesn't matter to me if Evolution is true or not, I do believe it occurred with god's permission" what do you think about this statement?
I'm good with that. Personally, I was raised in a family where young earth creationism was a matter of importance and emphasis, and I needed some help slightly later in life in order to get to that kind of place. It was a rather difficult thing to work through, and I was doing that alongside classmates in somewhat similar situations who didn't always wind up at the same place in the end, so this is something that I've taken a hard look at from a few different angles. One of the most important issues to address upfront is this, and it goes for just about anyone- is evolution necessarily a threat to your faith? It's the whole fideism thing. If you wind up concluding that the issue of evolution doesn't make any real difference to your faith, and that's going to be pretty solid either way, that tends to be a good starting point. I think so, anyway, based on what I've been able to see. So I think this other Christian you were talking to has a good mentality coming into it that allows for a well reasoned examination of the issues without making anyone think they're being personally attacked, that really helps a lot.
Really interesting, so he's a devout Christian, i can say that?
I believe you can. And more significantly, the Russian Orthodox Church is happy to give an affirmative to that as well. He really is their guy. His personality and some of his political habits make it seem a bit counter-intuitive, but when it comes to religious observance, devotion, and the favor and deference that he specifically shows to the national church of Russia, that's his church and he's very much their guy. Sometimes it seems like they give him a pass on political and diplomatic criticism because of the specifically religious favor- for example, you'll have a hard time finding a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church that criticizes Putin for the Crimea thing, or for everything in Syria, or for questionable election results. He's their guy, in a more strictly religious sense, and in a way that has not been common for Russian political figures in quite some time.
Oh, right, and it's worth noting that Putin has been instrumental in the literal rebuilding of Russian Orthodox churches is Russia. Using broad figures and terms, a ton of them were destroyed during the Soviet era, and over the past 15 years or so Putin has directed his oligarchs (most of them supportive of the ROC anyway) and state-owned energy firms to contribute billions (in any currency) to the construction of roughly 25,000 Russian Orthodox churches. They never would have rebuilt like that on their own.
I cant understand why they're so anti-religion...
that's horrific...
They must be thinking that any religion would be a terrible threat to their power influence and stability. I've actually never spoken to anyone on the other side of his issue in great detail, and I wish that I had at some point. I'd be curious to find out exactly what they think is the worst that could happen. Some sort of nationalist/separatist movement, maybe? Buddhism and Confucianism has the longest history there, but it seems like they're more worried about Christianity than anything else. From what I can tell.
WHAT????? I cant believe i read that, are they really this mental?... that makes me scarred man.. (such claims made by atheists lol)
I feel sorry for these Korean children.....
It's a tough situation, the type of socialist paradise where 17 million people have less than nothing and about 3 million people have things if the state likes them a lot. Just about all housing that's worth having is allocated by the state, for example. Things that are normally bought and sold, are earned instead by making the state happy. So the state gets to create whatever hoops it wants people to jump through. The state is basically the employer of everyone that's able to have a worthwhile job.