I have at times found myself questioning my religious faith. Unlike some, it has not always been solid and firm as a rock. But like Saint Peter, Thomas, James, etc. especially during their early days, it has its ups and downs. Especially when going through challenges in life, like young people close to me dying, seeing evil people prosper, good people suffer, seeing injustice and on a massive scale, etc. But I am rest assured that things will work out in the end and from personal experience, things have worked out in the end and kind of justify my faith. And become like the Bereans in the book of Acts searching the scriptures, in some cases using the Amplified Bible as to fully understand what I was reading. Fighting sometimes with whether the Bible is talking literally or metaphorically, but that is another topic (e.g. Joshua 10:3 - “ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed”, as what is known today that the earth’s rotation stopped temporary - as the sun and moon in relation to the earth in this instance can be said to be stationary). And been unlike Job, who despite losing all his children and wealth was still able to say “the Lord gives, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord”, In short, my Christian faith has been a battle.
From history, it was widely believed by some that science was in a battle with religion. As with science, you must have facts and evidence. Scientists are taught to be skeptics on almost everything always asking for proof and evidence. But in Christianity, faith is the bedrock, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” - Hebrews 11:1. You must have to develop your faith and belief without any physical evidence but your trust and experience in God, and conviction by the Holy Spirit. This is another problem as the Holy Spirit as part of the God's head, it can be quite and distant, and unless you open your heart will not be invited. In the western world, it seems that there was a time that science took a specific battle with religion and won, with Nicolaus Copernicus believing in the heliocentric solar system i.e. sun center as opposed to the earth centered (geocentrism) solar system. Galileo saw the movements of the planets but was forced to recant by the religious authorities of the day, persecuted and accused of heresy. But with overwhelming evidence, the church was forced acknowledge the contribution of such scientist and in 1992, 350 years after Galileo death, John Paul II indicated that Galileo suffered unjustly at the hands of the Church and praised Galileo's religiousness and his views and behaviors regarding the relationship between science and religion. It better later than never!!
In Christianity, we are taught to circumvent evidence and based our actions on our faith. A fact that a lot of con Pastors are more than willing to exploit and able to accuse well-educated individuals as going by sight and not by faith. Accusing them of being worldly, materialistic, being misled by the earthly world or spiritually blind. They offer to retrain them in spiritual matters. Hence, after deconstructing them they build them up giving them a false hope and making them more gullible or malleable (it is seen as a form of psychological brain washing). Also, because the Holy Spirit, cannot be physically defined, they can claim to be filled with it and the only way you can know is by having the spirit. And if your Spirit disagrees with them, you might have the wrong type of Spirit. With a seductive message of massive riches and great health if you are faithful i.e. continually pay your tithes and “sow into the kingdom”. Some of the pastors say you should test God with a huge donation. They give examples of people who sowed their whole salary into the kingdom. I heard a person say that the tithe was supposed to be on your net salary i.e. hence with 40% tax, you will pay like 40% increase in the amount already offered. It seems their God is also an accountant and it is better they are not living in a country where there is 60% or higher tax. People who should know better have stopped antiviral HIV medication or withdrawn from anti-cancer therapy as they had believed they were cured and them continuing therapy is an indication of their unbelief. Made important career changes, left partners and marry people whom they would not have just because their pastor said so.
As in science, we are taught to question everything and demand evidence, experiment and search for confirmation and not based our deductions on feelings or just because a pastor told us so. The scientific thought process involves, initially coming out with a hypothesis which is based on prior knowledge and observation. A hypothesis is mostly something new which cannot be explained or supported by current scientific theory. For a hypothesis to be accepted it should be formatted in a way that it could be tested. Hypothesis testing involves 5 steps:
1. Making assumptions (based on scientific facts – that need to be tested)
2. Stating the research and null hypotheses and selecting (setting) alpha (this is to contradict or research, as to show it was not due to a fluke, or a mistake)
3. Selecting the sampling distribution and specifying the test statistic (selecting a sample that is truly representative of our population)
4. Computing the test statistic
5. Deciding and interpreting the results.
Then the next step is it becoming a theory, a theory is the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon. Theories may change, or the way that they are interpreted may change, but the facts themselves don’t change. The non-scientific definition of a theory is something that is not accepted or an idea of explaining things which has not been tested. But a scientific theory has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. What am I saying is that a scientific theory has lots of proof and facts behind it. Scientific thinking and methodology is not that common and it is complex but has been moving us forward. A theory that we were taught in secondary school “Dalton’s Atomic Theory” starts like this, All matter is made of atoms. Atoms are indivisible and indestructible. We have since found out that atoms are divisible and destructible. And there are 4 other rules of atoms which appear to have been broken. As a matter of fact, all of the theory is now wrong, but the basics are the same. From the discovery of stars and galaxies millions of light years away, and the study of waves from them by the Hubble telescope in space. The universe is billions of years old as compared to 6,000 years old, and it is expanding. To the study of atoms, proton, photons, quarks, antimatter, by the Large Hadron Collider and the measuring of the Higgs boson particle. Man is continually studying the universe and its contents. Hence developing theories and hypothesis explaining and trying to understand the nature of our universe.
In the age of Trump where feelings and not evidence is the order of the day, and professionals, experts, and specialists in the various fields of expertise are seen as being out of touch and not updated. Maybe a huge thing has to say for the state that provides free education for the masses, hence this will provide a populace that will scrutinize and reexamine, statements and policies of its leaders. As democracy is wonderful but a mob is terrible. That a huge portion of the population is seen as making decisions on what feels right or what they believe to be wrong. Hence, throwing years of scientific research, education, and investigations out of the window. Will not be a knowledge based society and may regress. Although he is already changing his tune, and he may leave a lot of disappointed people out there. But I believe that things may be difficult for President Trump if he tries to implement any of his contra productive policies which are not based on facts. Already the President is under pressure as regards the simple issue of numbers that were at his inauguration and his. His counselor Kellyanne Conway was wrong to use a term which that proved popular - “Alternative Facts”. Which is essentially lies by the government and not based on facts at all?
Comments
Post a Comment