Live Q&As

You sagely do what so few do, especially when it comes to this particular debate.  You idnetify the larger intellectual challenge of well-meaning but dogmatic thinking, which can be found in many segments of our culture.  That said, the idea that issues of identity, sexuality, and pretty much everything else, are a blend of social and biological influences should not be desparaged, as you seem to.  In fact, your own objections point to MY conclusion! 

You are upset by the notion that gender and race are social (presumambly because you think they are biological), but refuse to acknowlewdge anything biologically determined about homosexuality (presumably because you think it is social).  So, you actually admit that both forces are at work, you just don't like how some people weight the influences.  Well and good, but don't pretend that even you see them as being both real and active.

In terms of teaching Creationism is school, I favor it, AS LONG AS IT IS TAUGHT IN SOCIAL STUDIES, HISTORY OF RELIGION OR CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.  It is a real belief and actually is an approach which raises valuable issues, BUT IT"S NOT SCIENCE.

Because, when you come off your high horse, you might see that almost half of Americans believe this "bogus stuff", and the debate around it continues to shape our culture and many major issues of public policy.  You can curse the darkness, as you seem to enjoy, or light a candle, as we are trying to do here.

Also, have you had much success helping people to more deeply appreciate the value and necessity of science and evolution by desparaging those very people's beliefs?  I don't mean to be rough on you, but as a believer in both God and the Bible, who also rejects the notion of a 6,000 year old world, I have a ring-side seat at this ongoing battle and it just hurts when people as intelligent and rational as you must be, allow themselves to get so unhelpfully bent out of shape.

We agree about the possibility of science and religion co-exisitng.  In fact, both are necessary to our culture, if not to our individual lives.  Well, science actually is necessary for all of our lives, but religion is not.  Though to be clear, it does add things of value that no other system can.

Where we disagree is imagining that your offered solution to integrating the science and religion will work.  Don't get me wrong, I find it both beautiful and sophisitcated, but for many believers it undermines their most deeply help beliefs.

I think we do owe biblical literalists respect, but only to the extent that they respect the difference between faith and fact in the public domain.

You are certainly correct that all people who see scripture -- any scripture -- as a product of human minds, will have no problems with reading sacred text non-literally.  And to be clear, thousands of years of Jews and Catholics, who still believed in the Bible as a revealed text, also maintained a tradition of commentary which could lift the text out of a purely literal reading.  The issue is less one of human text vs revealed text, than it is one of assuming a finite text with limited meaning, and an infinite text with endless meaning.

And while you are right about much of the current religion-inspired violence in the world today being sourced in one particular tradtion, it would take Islam 1,000 years to catch up with the body count for which Christianity was the inspiration.  Not to mention that religious fanaticism is present all monotheistic faiths at least, and all still have their killers thumping their respective holy books.

You had a wise teacher.  That answer has roots going back to the 7th century at least, in Jewish thought, and I don't know how far back in Catholic teaching.  But your point, and your teacher's is a good one.  It is also not helpful for those who don't share those tradtions.

At the end of the day, we have to decide that science has value even when it cannot be squared with whatever faith we hold.  I am not suggesting that it must always trump our faith, but if it cannot at least be protected from those who would use faith to destroy science, we are all going to suffer what me be called problems of biblical proportions.

I think you are right.  Science and technology are pushing ahead, as they should.  I do worry though about the wall of isolation between many of those who think about the ethical and human challenges created by science and technology, from our most brilliant and creative scientists and technologists.

For the first time in human history, the challenge is less how to get the technology we need to survive, and more how to use what we have, in wise and ethical ways.  In many ways, this is an age in which science and religion/ethics need each other more than ever, so we need people on each side who can learn from the other, not simply try to vanquish each other.

Nicely put.  The fight about facticity actually undermines the claim that something is a faith!  But I know, even as I write those words, that they will do nothing to convince the absolute literalists.  So, what to do?

We need to agree that people should teach whatever faith (or faithlessness) they want to their kids, and also agree that w/o a robust committment to science, we are all going to suffer.  Given that, no matter what one believes about the origins of the world, let's be honest about what is and is not science, respect it for what it is, and offer some respect to those ideas which are not -- even if we don't like them -- as long as they don't pretend to be science.

You are not wrong at all -- but yes, it does sound a bit flip.  That's because Greek cults are not the living faith and practice of any significant number of contemporary Americans.  We need to find a way to do exactly what you suggested: teach these deeply-held, but non-scientific ideas in classes where they belong, and do so with the respect that they deserve.  Respect which is not a function of how accurate the beliefs are, but because the accurately relfect the lived lives of almost half of American citizens.

You raise a valuable and important question.  Parenting is very much about passing on your beliefs to your kids.  The only difference on this score is that typically, conservatives celebrate that part of parenting whereas liberals decry it.  Either way, if they are involved parents, they are doing it!  But that is a different discussion.

What I think creationis parents can do, is take full responsibility for what they are teaching.  They need to accept the cost of teaching that doctrine must always win over evidence and experience.  They must admit that they and their children are the beneficiaries of many people who only accomplished what they did because they were scientists, not creationists.  In other words, if people want to teach the most absolute and literalist forms of creationsm to their kids, fine.  But at least do so with eyes wide open, a measure of humility, and genuine appreciation for those whose views they do not share.

You are asking huge and hugely important questions.  All of whcih is to say that we cannot address them here, at least not with the depth which they deserve.

What I can say is that any faith which has easy answers to the questions you raise, and the human suffering which lies behind them, is not a faith to be trusted.  And any ideology which seeks to denigrate faith by raising such questions, is not an ideology to be respected.  Each is looking to avoid the reality of our own finitude and the ongoing human search for purpose, meaning, and love.

Show me any system which aids in our pursuit of those three -- and does so with enough humility to admit that no one answer or understranding can do it alone, and I will show you a system deserving of both our attention and our respect.

You almost had me there.  So much of what you wrote is true and helpful.  But to assume that we know how things "actually work" -- that we possess a full understanding of all of the forces and dynamics at work in our universe , that's where you lost me, and probably everyone else who knows that that isn't possible.  Not to mention that there has been no force greater than contemporary science, in helping us to appreciate that the purely mechanistic model you suggest is almost certainly wrong.

Also, as our time for this week is nearing an end, I should point out that your lumping all Creationsists into one big basket is actually not helpful.  And to be clear, I say that as a non-literal creationist.  That means that I believe in a God who shaped the universe as we know it, and it means that I am at least as certain that it didn't happen in 7 days a bit less than6,000 years ago!  It means that I apprecaite the difference between claims based on faith and those based on physical evidence, and cannot imagine my life without them both.

To be clear, that does NOT mean that I call intelligent design science.  Science delights in being wrong, it grows from such discoveries and ambraces them as a necessary part of the path to progress.  I think that religion should do the same, and for many people it does, but for the ID crowd it does not.  That's why they have no place in a science classroom, but I am moved by parts of what they say about the limits of scientific knowing.  Of course, those parts are equally embraced by the most sophisiticated secular scientists as well, so make of it what you will.