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From youth group to agnosticism – Part 1
Why do many conservative evangelical kids walk away from Christianity altogether in their 20s? This is the question a friend and I were discussing last night as we swapped stories of 20-somethings we now know who were “on fire for the Lord” as teens but now have an angry disposition toward the church and are agnostic. These are women and men who grew up in church-going, two-parent families in conservative, Republican-loving, Bible-teaching, evangelical churches with well-intended adults loving them the best way they could.
A few days ago, I ran int0 a 29-year-old man who many expected to be an amazing youth pastor some day. I was his counselor 15 years ago at a leadership camp at Covenant College. He was one of those youth group kids who was “on fire” for the Lord. He wore Christian T-shirts and bracelets, was a fan of abstinence, didn’t hang around non-Christians or drink or smoke or drive fast. I’m pretty sure he wore a purity ring too. He had great grades, led groups at church, had opportunities to teach, and so on. He actually rebuked me once for doing one of those youth group type icebreakers that wasn’t godly. Today he’s agnostic.
My friend and I have both been involved in youth ministry for years. I have spent 15 years as a youth worker at several churches around the country and three years as a Christian school teacher and administrator. My friend was a youth director in a very large conservative Reformed Presbyterian church for over seven years. Here are common “straws that break the camel’s back” in young adulthood, as we follow up with these formally “on fire future leaders of the church” who have now walked away completely.
(1) Victims of formulaic parenting: All of these young adults were victims of the evangelical idea that if you put your children in the right program “X” they will turn out to be like “Y.” Strangely, adults seemed to be puzzled when their adult children walk away from Christianity because “they were so involved in youth group” and “went to Sunday school” every Sunday. Many evangelical parents will even “church hop” to find the perfect youth programs to plug their kids into as if church programs alone magically produce long-term followers of Christ. As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure “youth pastor” can be biblically defended.
(2) Confusing doctrinal and biblical knowledge with true spirituality: As youth leaders, we all made the mistake of assuming that because these teens had good doctrine that they actually were developing a heart-driven affection for Jesus. Not surprisingly, most of these kids grew up in churches that elevate religious knowledge over religious experience and spirituality. Spirituality is assumed evident because they can recite Bible verses and answer theological questions while viewing religious experience and emotions as practices of the theologically unsophisticated.
(3) Controlling friendships out of fear: These young adults were also in contexts where they were quarantined from two groups of peers: (1) non-Christians and (2) Christians not having the “right” theology. Friends as seen as potential threats and bad influences. What happens, then, when these kids leave high school and meet “non-Christians” and others who are actually more caring, socially concerned, and generous, and so on, than many Christians they know? Anger and resentment at the church. These young adults were raised to believe that the only loving, caring, “nice” people on earth are Christians and the rest are demons just waiting to pounce. These young adults have no answer when confronted with the fact that you don’t have to be a Christian to be faithful to your spouse, love your children, care for homeless people, take in strangers, and the like. Maybe, then, Christianity is not as unique as many were led to believe.
This is only the beginning of what we have discovered. It really breaks my heart to see these young adults walk away and I am hopeful, because of the promises of God, that their departure is only temporary. Stay tuned. . .
back to top217 Comments to “From youth group to agnosticism – Part 1”
Anthony,
Excellent post and I look forward to Part 2. I agree with you that I’m not sure Youth pastors are biblical. When youth have there own programs and own buildings they get separated from the church at large. When youth are segregated they don’t benefit from the wisdom of the older people at church. Youth group is fun and going to Adult Sunday school is “boring”. My sense is youth programs do not have enough substance. Also, it is as if we (adults) are afraid to confront youth and challenge them for fear they will leave the youth group. Something I have told my children recently is they cannot borrow my faith. Their faith has to become their own. My fear is too many youth borrow their parent’s faith and then do not mature. I also agree it breaks my heart to see young adults walk away. Something has to change and are we as adults willing to make the hard choices to lead the change?
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So far, I vote for #3 as the only relevant factor. Too much program and too much Bible aren’t relevant unless there is something wrong with the programs or the doctrine–which, of course, could easily be the case but which isn’t addressed in this article.
“Quarrantining”, though, is rampant and wrong. I coordinate both a men’s group and a student group in which our primary goal is to “intentionally” connect with unbelievers as well as believers from other churches. And we are training ourselves to NOT witness until we establish genuine friendship (which take weeks to develop). In fact, I view these contacts more as opportunities where our faith can and must be put into action than as fields of potential converts waiting for harvest. (For the record, I’m as much of a Plymouth Brethren style Bible-thumper as any, so maybe my current strategy is just self-proscribed therapy.)
My daughter, now married and currently active in youth work, was a parent’s nightmare if what counts is the kinds of friends she had in school. My son, older and also marriend but currently non-practicing and dubious, had the same kind of mixed friends but much less Bible training than my daughter (my fault). But he definitely isn’t resentful, so there are other categories of possible outcomes.
I’d be intersted in experiences from others regarding this article’s topics. Thanks, Anthony, for bringing them up.
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I will break my self-imposed hiatus to answer this one because it’s something I’ve thought about a lot, having been close enough to being one of the people Anthony describes.
What I remember most about my church youth activities is that they were fun. Pizza parties, movie nights (duly chaperoned), canoeing trips, etc. It was all wholesome and all-American fun, but that’s all it was .. fun.
So church activities came to seem to my teenaged self to be just another social option. Our church youth group didn’t go do things to serve others, at least not as far as I remember. We didn’t learn about being salt and light or ministers of grace. The whole theme was to give us kids things to do that didn’t involve sex or alcohol/drugs … which is certainly a fine motive as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go that far.
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I wonder if SteveG has not hit on something important? Sometimes, teens are given the idea that Christianity if about morals instead of the whole relationship it is. I think many of the rules are also going beyond what the bible really says; in a sense, adding to scripture. When the young people find out that those things are not necessarily true, they tend to reject all of the scripture.
I found the article interesting and look forward to the next installment also.
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Nice to see you, Steve.
I think fear-based is part of the answer, Anthony–parents are afraid of what will happen to their children if they are allowed to become whomever they are. I’ve told my own kids (17-29) that I’d like to put them in boxes and set them on the shelf to admire, where they would be safe and not get into trouble. But that wouldn’t be much of a life for them, and would defeat the purpose of raising them in the first place.
So, we send them out with training, experiences, Biblical knowledge, prayers and hope–hoping we’ve been a good enough example of a full and rich Christian life that they’ll want to investigate and live more fully themselves.
But I continue to pray.
We actually gave our last child the opportunity to church hop to a good youth group when the one at our Missouri Synod Lutheran Church stuttered to a tiny stand still. She looked around at a congregation of older people who loved her and appreciated her for who she is, and said, “no thanks, this is my church.”
My husband tackles all her tricky questions with aplomb and we wait to see who she will grow into and how God will use her. And we welcome all her friends–most of whom are not Christians–into our home with pleasure.
And I regularly confess my sins, but that’s another story . . .
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Steveg – 3
Steve, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you once more on the blog – I’m praying for you my friend.
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SteveG, you are one of the chosen few I always benefit from reading.
This is an interesting trend. I was dating a gal who was moving toward cynicism/agnosticism at the very time I was drifting back to re-ignite my commitmt to the Lord and his word. Maybe church youth group as mass infotainmt bereft of any service component gets a lot of the blame.
I think back to the church secretary Jessica Hahn who became a grade B porn star. At the very time she was walking away from a life lived for Christ, another woman named Denise was moving toward serving the Lord from a life lived apart from Him and his church. Denise had been a backup singer/girlfriend with benefits to the 80s superstar, Prince. Denise let her life be consumed by dope and booze. At one point she was told her liver was dying from her wild heedless intake of booze/dope. But she didnt die. She gives the Lord the glory and is actively involved in ministry.
The teen years where I should have been a regular church attender I wasnt. In those years I was determined to be a “self-made man” so that often entailed jobs on Sat and Sunday. But I never let lose of what I knew to be true. And could it be that the teens saw up close and personal examples of hypocrisy, as my wife did? At her church on Long Island a couple that did youth group wound up splitting up. The wife aspired to a singing career and pursued that along with a relationship with her new boyfriend (to whom she married later but left after that).
Such instances erode the “on fire enthusiasm” of young folks. And with this erosion they youngsters are more susceptible to accepting rather than challenging the assumptions of the society at large.
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Anthony, the wild-eyed, fire-in-the-belly zealots are often later disillusioned. We know that now. We need to be on continual watch to see that they arent shattered by events outside the youth ministry (parent divorce, etc).
I have found a great ministry called the Youth Transition Network. YTN exists to keep “church kids” connected or plugged into real fellowship of Christians when they are packed off to college or university. In many instances, YTN efforts help to search out and bring the lost back to the fold before they’re gone forever.
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Many times youth pastor’s don’t have the experience, they are young, often times married with little ones of their own. Youth ministry is so important, it takes a very mature adult to lead the kids.
When I was in H.S. those in charge were in their mid 40’s plus, they were equipped to handle kids because they had kids the same age.
There are so many young people who come from dysfunctional homes, (sometimes within the church) it takes time to know them, understand their unique situations which might not show, or hidden from their friends and other adults. Being in youth ministry is a delicate balance – the kids are there either because their parents send them, others bring them, OR they have sought refuge where it appears to be safe. I believe that other adults should take part in these ministries, people who can be trusted both morally and spiritually.
The young people I have witnessed turn away from Church, and importantly from the LORD weren’t always nurtured, they were hurting for one reason or another and no one took the time to question their pain, maybe inviting them to spend time with ‘their family’ – I’m not blaming the church or parents completely, but it is important to consider.
Teaching the Scriptures and applying them to ones life in a real way is imperative – Steve makes a good point in post #3 – - “Our church youth group didn’t go do things to serve others, at least not as far as I remember. We didn’t learn about being salt and light or ministers of grace. The whole theme was to give us kids things to do that didn’t involve sex or alcohol/drugs … which is certainly a fine motive as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go that far.” - –
Serving others teaches young people so much – We as a group would host dinners to raise money for something the church needed, but we didn’t work as a group to help those in need. I think of that now after reading Steve’s post – we could have helped those who were elderly with their gardens, those who were sick and needed their homes cleaned, or going to the market, maybe playing a board game with them which they enjoyed – lets face it, there are lots of older people who are lonely and unable to get out all the time. All I can see now is a “what are we going to do to entertain ourselves” that was our theme. Steve’s comments make a lot of sense, hitting the mark -
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Another reason that we should consider is that there is not only a gap between biblical knowledge and spirituality, but there is also a huge gap between Christian morality and true spirituality. Many of our kids have been fed a steady diet of behavior modification rather than having someone reaching into their hearts with the beauty of the Gospel. The Gospel is to get them “saved” and protect them from the fires of hell, but it does not mean much beyond that. It is very easy to become disillusioned over a religion that is no more attractive than that. It would be so much better if we focused less on shaping them into polite sweet church kids and more on introducing them to the glorious beauty of Jesus. Behavior will follow that naturally, but with substance and internal motivation.
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This is an important thread for me. I worry about teenagers who are on the threshold of college and unabashed skepticism and moral equivalency. The churches I’ve attended have been short on apologetics instruction, which even most adults find boring. This is why I enjoyed flaying about with Erasmus, Spinoza, Musing, and SteveG on evolution and biblical inerrancy threads (anyone notice the paucity of that subject lately?). I’ve finally found a church with an adult apologetics class, which I really enjoy. I even participate. But there’s only a half dozen attendees out of a church with Sunday attendance approaching 2,000. I wonder how a youth class featuring Christian apologetics and well-defended, heterodox view points would go over. Risky maybe, but teenagers may find a no-spin presentation interesting and even compelling.
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Just time for a quick comment…
I read a review yesterday for a book titled “Already Gone” which includes survey results showing that 40% of the kids in church youth groups are developing the seeds of doubts during their Middle School years. Some points from the review were:
>> that kids being taught “Bible stories” see “stories” as fictional accounts when confronted by “history” or “science”. Do you refer Matthew, or Daniel, or Genesis as history or metaphor?
>> if your church teaches doctrine and spirituality to its Jr. High and High School students, is there a wall of separation set up between “church” and the rest of the week?
I already teach my Jr. High students at church that they can trust the historical accounts in Scripture, but I want to get this book and see what it really says.
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Maybe it will be covered in part 2, but #1, 2, 3 are all man-focused. The Church always will and has been in the position of not doing ’something right’. My initial reaction is so what? This list of three is not definitive. Others have studied and researched this and have different lists. So what?
These young adults are not victims, as #1, 2, 3 might imply. They are responsible for their choice. I’d argue this is age indifferent.
How many churches have membership lists? I’ve looked at the ‘books’. Sure were a lot of those classified as ‘inactive’. What we are looking at is not a new phenomenon, but it is part of the sad history of the Church. There are sheep and their are goats. There is wheat. There are tares.
Lest I be thought of as cold and unfeeling, my heart breaks for a college-age son who is one of those who has ‘wandered’.
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Perhaps I can help with my own list;
1) confusion between culture and religion. First and second generation immigrant kids are often taught that “Canadians” or “Americans” are not true Christians or secular and thus its better to stay within the immigrant community. When kids (as teens or adults) move outside the community for school or work and wish to integrate into mainstream North America, they often perceive they need to drop their religion along with their parent’s heritage. In part this is similar to #3 in the initial post — fear of the unknown on the parent’s part.
2) lack of ritual/rite/rote. You may disdain this as Catholic idolatry but it does work. Catholics have plenty of ethnic churches — Italian, Polish, German — with the “North America” Catholic being an Irish/French mix but when youth leave their ethnic Catholic church the need for the ritual/rite/rote brings them back. Tradition and routine does work. Even I, considered a cynic and as Random once said a radical agnostic, enjoy midnight Christmas mass.
3) the demise of the initial adrenaline high. Unlike the previous two, this didn’t affect me but I do see and hear of people trying to get that initial kick back — trying to feel alive. After the euphoria wears off they go elsewhere searching for euphoria indicative of highly addictive personalities.
4) Confusion over literal and metaphor. Some philosophers, theologians, etc argue that the main religions of today were formed in a society in which myth, legends, stories were common place and were understood to be such whereas today in a post-scientific revolution world we demand the literal and value the literal. Thus, religious literature is an ill-fit in a world that demands that Truth be represented literally and not in metaphor. To admit that Genesis is metaphorical is seen today as lowering its value as we prefer the literal. However, in the past myths and legends — metaphors — were highly valued and the literal was viewed as commonplace, almost contaminated.
5) or evangelical Christian might just be wrong and people leave when they see the light.
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and vice versa, with less regularity.
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In my opinion the first reason believers choose to walk away from Christ is not anyone else’s fault but their own. James tells us:
James 1:14, 15 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
Teenagers and young adults are accountable for their own bad choices. It is a philosophy of liberalism to blame the environment and deny the power of sin in each persons life.
I am possibly able to produce a longer list than most of the problems of institutionalized church which could be said to be a cause, most of which are direct contradictions to the Word. But still with all the garbage in the system, each teen’s heart is the foundational source of the apostasy. Satan is very clever and subtle. Most believers with institutionalized faith are not aware of his ploys in so many areas.
HRW
Helping young folks repeat a rosary and genuflect before images of Mary will help? That is one of many other traps that Satan uses to lure people away from a simple faith in Christ. Evangelicalism is too much like the Catholic routines – pyramid /non-reproductive leadership, holy place oriented worship, spectator oriented gatherings, believers consuming a large percentage of their “giving” to buy services for themselves, etc.
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(4) Evangelical teachings are full of easily exposed lies.
That’s what did it for me!
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The more fundamental question to me is – Why do some adults remain in the cult of evangelical Christianity?
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Tima – 16
YOU WRITE: …. “Evangelicalism is too much like the Catholic routines – pyramid /non-reproductive leadership, holy place oriented worship, spectator oriented gatherings, believers consuming a large percentage of their “giving” to buy services for themselves, etc.”
Tima,…….. BEFORE, you start this same refrain, please give thought to your PROOF. Be careful Tima, calling those who work in the church, who follow the LORD as “pyramid /non-reproductive leadership” – Try posting WITHOUT lashing out at Evangelicalism as though its a dirty word. You might as well dump the “giving” idea, its not true, nor is it applicable. Your constant definition of any church which you aren’t affiliated with is categorically wrong.
When you speak against Evangelicalism you never name the churches, or where they are located – you give these churches a sweeping brush which you use with great self-confidence, but you aren’t able to name them, they are just numbers in your book of numbers, all listed in orderly fashion as not getting it right – WHO are ‘THEY’ who are the ones you find fault with, not the nameless variety you speak of?
Why don’t you explain to all of us how your plan has worked for the past 15 years.
Tima, faith in Jesus Christ as Savior is not “institutionalized faith” – there is no such thing, one either has faith in Christ as Savior or they don’t -
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We have seven children and my comment would center on how much of Christian “parenting” today is 1) about changing behavior and not about reaching the heart, and 2) being conveyed by parents who are themselves feeling like they’re somehow missing it in their “personal walks” with Christ yet who want more for their kids.
For us, the main goal of our parenting has been keeping the hearts of our kids. In our home this has meant spending most of their waking hours with them (homeschooling), relating to them regularly with joy and love (lots of great fun and memories, as well as support, encouragement, faith and trust in the harder times), and not succumbing to the unhealthy culture that goes with “adolescence” (we don’t believe in adolescence, LOL).
We know that formulas don’t work — but respecting the unique people they are and reaching their hearts in love seems to do pretty well.
= = =
As to evangelicalism, I would recommend the book Evangelical Is Not Enough: Worship of God in Liturgy and Sacrament by Thomas Howard for anyone interested. This was one of the books we read before we left the evangelical church. (Howard eventually becomes Roman Catholic, while we have chosen Eastern Orthodoxy.) In addition to reaching our kids’ hearts and respecting who they are, being sensitive to ours/their longings in relation to our Creator has gone a long way as well.
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I did not grow up in the church, so I have no first hand experience being in a youth group. However, as a mother of teens, I can say that SteveG’s comments ring true. I’m afraid that after playing games and eating snack, kids find that regular church services are not as exciting. When my kids do serve, older people often give them cupcakes, candy bars, ice cream (sometimes all three). I know that they mean well. They are trying to encourage the girls to keep serving. They are trying to show appreciation. But, when they’re in their twenties and no one is giving them ice cream, will they still serve?
Perhaps the simple answer is that the kids who leave were never really part of the church, anyway. Those filled with the Spirit will want to participate.
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Christine, this is one of the many reasons we’ve never regularly participated in Sunday School, Children’s Church or Youth Group. We personally don’t feel like what happens “downstairs” is “real” church, if that makes sense. Nowhere in scripture (or Holy Tradition, if you put any stock in that) are children of any age segregated off to get teaching “on their level.” We desire that our children are with us, where the Church as a whole is worshiping God.
In the church we attend now, we stand for almost the entire service and the kids do too. Sure some of them sit down sometimes (I do too), but we’re (all) learning to stand in the presence of our King during the services. Some would say this would turn kids off — or be too hard — but we’re not finding that to be so. In fact, they love the change we’ve chosen! We do our family/evening prayers this way at home, too, and again we have happy, interested participants. It’s such a treat.
I saw it happen a lot in some of the other churches we attended — kids “downstairs” learned to expect pizazz and treats for their participation. I’ve seen two things typically happen — either they get bored when they have to be “upstairs,” or the church itself is one that goes for pizazz and treats (on an adult level) and so they may adjust well in the adult worship service but they’re attending church for the emotional high they might get out of it, or for some other temporal benefit.
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Sorry, I should have capitalized “Scripture” above.
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Victoria -19-
Now wait a sec. The other day in a couple Calvin threads, I asked you repeatedly for the same kind of evidence you’re requesting of Tima, though regarding a different offense–to name some churches and denominations guilty of the Calvinist elitism you decried. You never provided it.
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Endyblue
YOU WRITE:…… “I saw it happen a lot in some of the other churches we attended — kids “downstairs” learned to expect pizazz and treats for their participation. I’ve seen two things typically happen — either they get bored when they have to be “upstairs,” or the church itself is one that goes for pizazz and treats (on an adult level) and so they may adjust well in the adult worship service but they’re attending church for the emotional high they might get out of it, or for some other temporal benefit.”
Youmg people attend Sunday school and Worship service with their parents. The younger children, pre-teen, teen and college youth groups are an entirely different time, which is held in the evening – sometimes on Sunday night, or another night of the week.
There is nothing wrong with kids having treats and ‘fellowship’ with other young people – fellowship is an important part of Christians young people being together.
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MacRutabaga – 25
You can drag whatever you are complaining of on this thread, but it isn’t relative to the discussion – I am not going to discuss predestination or its components on this thread or any another, you might as well get used to it.
Enough said!
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Victoria, I agree/realize that that may happen in some churches (that the services for the kids, youth, etc are held at other times). But it’s pretty rare in my experience. In fact I can’t think of one church I’ve attended or known of personally in the 23 years I’ve been following Jesus that that’s true; we’ve gotten the raised eyebrows more times than I can count for keeping our kids with us even though all the others are heading downstairs. My experience has been that the kids go to another room during the regular worship service and have their own service. So what I describe above is with that in mind.
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Part of the problem, which has been pointed out by others, is a lack of serious training in apologetics.
A related problem is bad apologetics. Many kids raised on young-Earth creationism will some day figure out that it just ain’t so, and will throw out their Dr. Dino/Ken Ham DVDs along with their Christianity.
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Endyblue – 28
I have only attended two churches which children under 10 or 12 attended ‘childrens Church’ or they were in the nursery – other than that, including the Churches my father pastored, all the children were in the Sanctuary, unless a mother decided to take her baby in the nursery.
The youth groups I’m talking about are held at a different time than Worship service, they are especially made to reach kids in the area who might not go to church at all ….. and than of course the kids who attended Worship service on Sunday morning and evening. I have never attended a church which didn’t have groups which met apart from Worship service – the fellowship offers so much.
Do your children belong to any childrens groups at church? Do they attend Christian summer and winter camps from your church?
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Kevin N – 29
Our Church has special nights that young-Earth creationism is taught – it’s for the whole body -
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Victoria, there aren’t any childrens/yough groups at our church — everything is everyone all together (Divine Liturgy, weeknight Vespers, the weekly catechism class, etc.). They have friends there, though, and they hang out after the service during the post-liturgy agape lunch. They have a great time.
As for camp, last year at the evangelical church we were attending the four olders went to a weekend camp. This year our 13yod just got back from a 6-day camp at the nearby monastery (sisters/nuns) with 24 or so other girls from all over the West. It was a very good experience for her. Our oldest, a 15yob, wanted to go to a mixed-gender Orthodox camp about 3 hours away, but it was full by the time he inquired. Next year!
Since our kids aren’t getting immersed in “youth culture” at church, we’re okay with them developing friendships and having experiences such as this as a special treat.
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Kevin N
You bet, brother. I teach history and English at a small Christian school in Texas. We have a small student body and yet in my 6th through 8th grade classes, not one of them had read the Bible all the way through.
They found it to be an odious chore, most of them, to think biblically. One of my 7th grade girls told me life would be boring without sin because we’d all just be sitting around being good!
I know of two youth pastors who, in the last year, have watched their youth group virtually disappear. Never having attended their youth nights, but often hearing about them, much of what they did was “fun”. Paintball, concerts, movies, lock ins, game nights, etc.
I see it in school. Much of our youth is intellectually unprepared to deal with the assaults which come from atheistic and agnostic presuppositions in academia.They want to have “fun” but they do not want to think. A few do, but its hardly enough.
OH
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Victoria
I know you don’t agree with me, nor the scripture I have shared. At any time, you could share how your pastor has reproduced himself into others so they can do what he does (Luke 6:40), at any time you could show how all the “giving” in your church never buy’s services to benefit the “givers” themselves(2Cor. 8 & 9). At any time you could share how the saints around you are so enjoying 24/7 worship that they would never think of 2 hours a week that they call a “worship service” (1 Cor. 15:58; Col. 3:17, 23,24). But you won’t. These bad substitutions for God’s design have many tragic side affects on God’s people. Some walk away from the system and from Christ because they have no idea they can follow Christ without the system. A bad church system is no excuse, however.
The point of this blog is why some young folks abandon their faith. Regardless of whether we are raised with a Bible in our lap every Sunday or raised where we would be killed by our parents for converting to Christ, we are individually responsible for our response to the creator God. God has declared that He has done due diligence in showing us ALL enough truth about Himself so that none are without excuse. There is no brand or kind of church anywhere such that anyone is exempt from being suckered to walk away from Christ. Is there a kind of church anywhere that can guarantee every believer will be wearing the full armor of God at all times?
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Tima – 34
What do you know of my church, other than what you have made up? We’ve had many discussion regarding ‘my church’ however, no matter what I tell you about it, you insist that it isn’t doing it’s job –
What sin has my church committed which would lead you to believe it is NOT serving the LORD?
Have you ever been to my church?
How has my church offended you or the LORD?
How has my church not given to the poor?
How has my church not supported mission? – do you have any idea how many missionaries or churches have been started from my church? –
What is your evidence that those who have come to Christ through faith, Salvation are not serving the Church, body of Christ or going out to minister to the lost?
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Helping young folks repeat a rosary and genuflect before images of Mary will help?
As strange as this sounds, yes. Children love routine and culture is about routine otherwise known as tradition. Overtime customs and traditions get refined and maintain their appeal. Catholics and Orthodox rarely have a separate youth program or even a nursery, yet their retention rate is much higher than most Protestant denominations.
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Victoria (#31)
With respect, I think if your church is teaching young-Earth creationism, you are setting your youth up for a fall. This is especially true if it is being taught as the only way for Christians to believe. There are a lot more scientific and Biblical problems with young-Earth creationism than most people in our churches realize, and a lot of our kids are going to figure that out some day.
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Tima – 34
You cite Luke 6:4 – however you don’t go far enough into this passage, take a LOOK at 41 and 42. It’s that mote Tima that causes trouble – better to examine the other verses then to leave them out.
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Oldhickory68 (#33)
I was a visiting missionary at a church missions conference a few years back. A friend of mine had the privilege of speaking before the youth Sunday school class. Before my friend spoke, the youth pastor gave the announcements: “We’re going to have a fund-raising carwash, and it’s going to be fun.” “We’re going to have such-and-such outreach, and it’s going to be fun.” And so on.
When it was my friend’s turn, he started with, “Before I was a Christian, I had a lot of fun. Now I have Christ.” He went on to explain how the “fun” he once had led to a lot of heartache and pain, but how having Christ was better than any “fun” the world has to offer.
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Kevin – 39
I’m not big on ‘car washes’ but there is nothing wrong with it, and it can be fun – some of the kids in churches do it to raise money to go to summer camp. Car washes aren’t the problem, and the problem isn’t with having FUN –
Christ and the gospel come first, however kids do need to do things together, it pulls lots of kids into a group who might never hear the gospel. You need to remember, kids have a lot of energy, when they see a chance to do something that might benefit not only themselves but their unsaved friends (going to camp) it’s a PLUS all the way -
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17-18 Spinoza,
Your list (lies and why) is certainly correct in that those reasons are given by many who grow up and leave “the church”. Hypocrisy is another. We wait for Anthony to finish his list.
I think it is interesting that you, an atheist (is that what you are?), sees the topic clearly while others (people I would likely be close friends with) focus more on details that influence whether kids “like” to attend church or youth groups while they are still kids.
I am relatively certain that if you came to my classes and men’s or college students’ meetings that you would not find anything that you would be inclined to label as “lies”. Certainly, there may be churches where you would feel the word applies; but not mine nor the couple dozen evangelical churches I visited in the last 24 months prior to moving from CA to WA. I wanted to test the health of such churches prior to getting immersed in my own church again after moving.
As for “why” anyone feels a need to “go to church”, that is much discussed in “church growth” planning meetings. I myself don’t feel any need to “go to church”. The real question is why anyone feels a need to “get right with God”. If there isn’t a God, then such a goal is foolishness–as even the Bible says wouth be the case about the faith. If there is a God, then the goal any person would have would be to “seek” God so as to draw close to Him.
I find that the Bible is reliable–I learned Greek and Hebrew and spent thousands of hours studying it in order to decide whether or not I believed it to be reliable. Others find other books reliable. But I do not find “churches” to be reliable. They are just different groups of people doing the best they can–sometimes with dismal results. But many churches do in fact help their members learn the Bible and grow spiritually (whatever that means). Any other reason to “go to church” is not answerable in a generalization like yours. Some people reach their goals by going to church, others do not. Each case is unique.
But not everyone who attends church actually perceives what is going on correctly. Some of these young adults get bitter and turn away with a vengeance. These are the ones who agree with you about the “lies” and “why bothers”. And if I had been a fly on their shoulder as they grew up, I would probably agree with them.
If any of them came to my classes, they might very well turn to atheism or agnosticism anyway. But I gaurantee you that they would still be my friends and they wouldn’t say I’m duped by lies, spreading lies or just a silly religious guy.
Note: All I do differently in my classes is do what the Bible teaches. No tricks or gimmicks or new-style homiletics. And that’s what I found that most evangelical Bible teachers do. But 51% qualifies as “most” and I grant you that it may be a 50/50 chance if you decide to “test” out any given church.
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KN
I think evangelicals at some point in the not-too-distant past somehow latched onto the notion of what I call “evangotainment.” My hypothesis is that when we lost the culture wars at the political level and the “Moral Majority” fizzled out and when multiple Republican Presidents didn’t usher in some sort of evangotopia, we rode the pendulum in the opposite direction. Instead of being thoughtful and serious, we went out and out goofy.
Soon there was this demand almost for “wholesome Christian ENTERTAINMENT” and boy did we get what we asked for.
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Captain Faris, what do you do when you’ve studied a Biblical issue in detail (word by word with study tools nearby) and come to a conclusion — and then found out that someone else has studied that exact same issue in detail, but and they came to a very different conclusion (even a completely opposite conclusion)? I’ve had this happen — and have seen it happen over and over again — and it’s really confusing.
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Victoria (#40)
I agree — car washes are fun. So are other activities I’ve done with our youth group lately, such as white water rafting and camping. My problem is with what Oldhickory68 (#42) calls “evangotainment.” This is the constant need for fun fun fun when our kids are facing plenty of issues in their lives that aren’t so fun. Sometimes these kids (and their youth leaders) need to do some plain old hard work, such as serious thinking about theology and apologetics, as well as the hard work of manning a soup line.
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Keven – 44
So “white water rafting and camping” are OK – but “car washes” are OUT –
What makes you think…… “Sometimes these kids (and their youth leaders) need to do some plain old hard work, such as serious thinking about theology and apologetics, as well as the hard work of manning a soup line.”…….. they aren’t doing these things as well?
YOU WROTE:….. “My problem is with what Oldhickory68 (#42) calls “evangotainment.” This is the constant need for fun fun fun when our kids are facing plenty of issues in their lives that aren’t so fun.”
I don’t know what kind of church you are affliated with, but ours doesn’t do the “fun fun fun” thing as though that’s the reason for attending church, or youth groups -
“Evangotainment” – if that’s what your church or Oldhickory68 church is doing, I would try and change the direction, if that wasn’t possible I would take the kids and find another chuch. The word “Evangotainment” isn’t very nice, especially if you don’t know what the other persons’s church is doing.
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EndyBlue,
Yes; different exegetical students sometimes come to different interpretations of the same passage. Rarely, if ever, does this happen on a “doctrine”. The few times that it does usally is related to some Calvinist concept or the opposite. OSAS, as Victoria likes to desparage it. (Hi, Vicky.)
Very often, though, different exegetes (what we call ourselves) think a specific passage is primarily teaching one thing or another thing–but both things are in the list of “things” that elsewhere the Bible teaches fairly clearly. So this isn’t a disagreement but only a variance. Hebrews 6 is an example. Even if one isn’t 5-point Calvinist (I’m not), there are two optional readings of the “impossible to renew again” phrase that are both compatible with “most” evangelical doctrine. There are also two other “wrong” interpretations that one can only conclude if one is convinced (from other passages) that Arminianism is sound doctrine.
More often the different interpretations don’t even come close to influencing a “doctrinal” point.
But your question referred to “diligent exegetes” coming to different conclusions; that isn’t much of a problem. What IS a problem is pontificators with chips on their shoulders trying to debate publically (or in a thread here) and they all throw out the international standards of critical thinking and throw down the gloves and turn to ad hominem attacks.
My own excitement about the original languages, though, is not in whether or not they clarify some disputed text. It lies in the way language is used and in the really cool artistic things God has inspired men to do with words. Clicking on my name at the top of my posts links to a semi-daily devotional I write. My goal is not to give warm fuzzies to believers; it’s to stimulate interest in the Word and “words” of God.
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Victoria (#45)
I didn’t say car washes are out. Re-read what I wrote.
I wasn’t writing about your church, which I know nothing about. I’ve seen plenty of “fun fun fun” in youth groups with the more “serious” time devoted to relationships, with little attempt on getting deep into the Word.
I’ve heard of pastors taking kids through Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and the kids loved it. Not for everyone, but it can be done.
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Captain Faris – 46
YOU WRITE: ….. “Yes; different exegetical students sometimes come to different interpretations of the same passage. Rarely, if ever, does this happen on a “doctrine”. The few times that it does usally is related to some Calvinist concept or the opposite. OSAS, as Victoria likes to desparage it. (Hi, Vicky.)”
Captain Faris, I have always been respectful of your name – mine is Victoria.
Disparage is spelled with an “i” – its definition is not very thoughtful just because I do not believe in Eternal Security (OSAS) – the definition of disparage is: criticize: to refer disapprovingly or contemptuously to somebody or something –
My beliefs regarding Eternal Security are not part of this thread, however, if you find that making contemptuous remarks regarding OSAS and my name serve your purpose, I would wonder why you would take this opportunity to show such lack of respect-
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Sorry for all the BOLD – I didn’t turn off the code.
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Kevin,
Yes, you’re right – I didn’t read it right. I’m sure we would both agree on some of the Churches which have made FUN the center, leaving out the Gospel. I can think of a number of famous churches, but I doubt naming them is fair.
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Victoria (#50):
I think we are in complete agreement about FUN.
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Hi Victoria -27-
Wasn’t trying to drag anything anywhere. Just pointing out your inconsistency in demanding the same kind of evidence from Tima that you were unwilling to give elsewhere. No big whoop.
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Kevin N – 51
We sure are – GOD bless you my friend!
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MacRutabaga – 52
The conversation was over a few days ago, and this one never started.
Have a nice evening.
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Kevin – 39
You mentioned that “I was a visiting missionary at a church missions conference a few years back.” ….. what country or countries have you served in? I’m always interested in the work which is done abroad.
Some of my best memories are that of missionaries. One was older then my mother, but I loved her so much – when she came home from the African Congo, I gave her a huge shower in another church other than my dads church (Papa was a preacher)after I married and moved north – She was a single woman, but had nothing when she retired, I gave her what can only be called a ‘bridel shower’ she needed everything….. it was one of the best parties I have ever hosted – most all of the women and those who knew her attended, it was thrilling – she was a wise woman, someone whom I loved dearly – when my father died she spent almost an hour listening to me sob over his death which had tranpired only hours earlier…. she had the heart of a saint, a true Believer, someone who could comfort a broken heart.
Sorry Kevin I got carried away……….
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Sorry bridal was spelled wrong -
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Thanks, Victoria, and it has been a pleasant evening. Nice, mild Colorado night. Oh, and you demanded something from Tima that you were unwilling to provide yourself.
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Victoria
Nice try with the beam and mote thing. Actually I had a beam in my eye, just like most men in the institutionalized perpetual dependency version of pastoring. I got a degree to be one of them. Praise God he helped me see His design for pastoring was reproduction rather than dependency. (In this specific concept it is identical to the priesthood in the Catholic church.) The beam is out. I gave up the system that leads believers believers to think they must be “fed the Word” by sitting in a pew at least once a week, and to not forsake it lest you go astray. As a pastor-teacher I can now “fully train” or “perfect” (KJV) others to be like me – they can do what I do. I can even do it for free, like the apostle Paul. Ministry free of charge has special freedoms and rewards. 1 Cor. 9. There is a “blessing ” from God when you give and not receive. (Acts 20 – Paul meeting his own needs and the needs of his companions). I would like to help you get the beam out of your eye, but your arguments reflect that you have not understood what I wrote. There is something in your eye that hinders you from understanding even the text. You completely ignored the HUGE significance of Luke 6:40 because you just had to ignore it and accuse me of having a beam in my eye. I prayed for you tonight.
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Sitting in a pew, a couch, floor, chair or standing has nothing to do with it – you have made a thing about pews on many threads – however it matters little where a person stands or sits. As far as the beam, check it out before you look for the beam in anyone elses eye, there maybe more than the one in yours.
Does that mean anyone listening to you can’t sit in a pew? – are you promoting yourself or CHRIST?
You do have it mixed up Tima – You have no idea regarding my church but yet you shriek about the beam in my eye, that’s pitiful.
I can use all the prayer I can get, but I would advise you to pray for yourself as well.
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#36 (HRW) – Children love routine and culture is about routine otherwise known as tradition. Overtime customs and traditions get refined and maintain their appeal. Catholics and Orthodox rarely have a separate youth program or even a nursery, yet their retention rate is much higher than most Protestant denominations.
I agree; we have been seeing this play out with our children in the Orthodox church we attend; they love the historical culture they are experiencing; much more than the modern culture that seems to be focused on entertaining children. Now instead of being offered a dumbed-down lesson, crayons and copied coloring pages, silly games and goldfish crackers (had they gone “downstairs”), they are hearing a liturgy that’s been served for more than a thousand years and they participate by lighting candles, crossing themselves, chanting the traditional responses to the prayers of the priest, using a “prayer rope” to stay focused, bowing when the incense is offered, etc. Given the choice, I know for a fact, without a doubt, they would choose this over the other.
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I meant to address the blog subject, as well (although I did a bit in talking about our kids) — I spoke earlier about reaching their hearts. Seeking God with all our hearts speaks to their hearts. Their seeing their parents willing to let go of something familiar that doesn’t seem to be working for something “foreign” but more effective [it's 1 a.m., not sure on my choice of word there] tells them we’re willing to do what it takes to lead them to God — which shows them we love them. And kids respond well to this type of love.
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Victory –
Sorry if “evangotainment” didn’t sound very “nice”. It’s just a term I’ve used to sort of categorize the literal obsession many evangelicals have demonstrated with wanting to be properly entertained.
What else might one say? I don’t know. It’s an issue.
Thanks for the reminder nonetheless. I can be not-so-nice sometimes.
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evangotainment! that’s a good word dude. sometimes its just too accurate for some to take. don’t sweat the small stuff.
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As I look up over the posts here, I feel like there is so much good happening in the world. I see a debate where an issue is being hashed out. There are of course emotions involved as the topic itself is important. Why do kids fall away? A good topic and it is getting some attention. I was not aware that Faris (since I don’t know where the ‘captain’ title comes from) had studied NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. I am looking forward to robust discussions. I firmly believe that the five years I spent in intensive course work in new testament greek to be a most worth while part of my Christian education. Of course my Christian education continues to this day. And shall continue until the Lord calls me home.
But back to the topic. Why do kids fall away? Of course one reason would be chemical. We all experience growing pains (pangs) as we pass through teenage years and into early adulthood. So there is stress. The first sermon I heard from one particular pastor was on the three choices in life. Which job? Who will you marry? And who will you follow? Each of these necessary questions adds more stress. Each has application to our topic. Will you work for a boss that makes you do unchristian things? Will you fall in love with a non Christian and be unequally yoked? Will you know what to say when your faith is challenged?
An immature person has trouble with these stresses. And a young adult is often quite immature in at least some aspects. And the world (read Satan’s attempt) wants to challenge every Christian, time and time again.
Mark 13:22 for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.. (Also Matthew 24:24)
But enough of this. In my next post I shall take a different tack.
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Take this topic and turn it around….. why do kids stay? Certainly a lot of the world is challenging. How is it that some kids mature through the challenges? How can we help?
We all most likely feel we want to help the kids. Hopefully more than just the kids but our kids are a good starting point. So what should we be doing with the kids? Do they see you praying? Do they see you praying for them? Do they see you reading from the Bible and asking reasonable questions? Do they see you researching a question? Thinking about it? Praying about it?
Do they see you taking steps out unto faith? Trusting God for things? Praising Him no matter what happens? Being grateful and thanking God? Do you talk with your children in one on one terms about things? Do you ask for their insights? Do you sometimes just listen?
What are your records? By that I mean what is the longest time you have spent on your knees thanking God for your children? Do you pray about them before they get into trouble?
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Do you wash your own car with them? How about the car of the elderly neighbor down the block?
Do you prepare a Sunday school lesson even if you are not teaching the class? Just so you can be ready? To show yourself approved? Do you read your homework in preparation for the classes you are taking? Do you pray about the class you are going to be taking on Sunday? Do you take time to just rest easy with them?
I am praying that you do all the above. In fact I am praying about it right now, and I am naming names.
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“I’ve heard of pastors taking kids through Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and the kids loved it. Not for everyone, but it can be done.”
Excellent. We need to introduce and expose our kids to theology and controversy (young earth, inerrancy, evolution) and help them to begin to think critically about their childhood faith so they put legs on it.
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Everyone in this post has just been prayed over. By name.
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That includes Anthony Bradley.
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This concept of Evangotainmt as elucidated by Kevin N… please develop it more. We need to expose and purge it as much as possible. I agree with KN about apologetics and the hard work of serving in soup lines.
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MFW: The point about chemicals — ok, hormones — strikes me as being signficant. I suspect that some aspect of this is developmental, and perhaps the societal extension of adolescence.
One of the core issues for young adults is establishing this adult persona. That is, who am I in this world, how do I relate? We take our family/household with us, but we also want to — need to separate. So my brother (now an evangelical minister), brought up in liberal Ann Arbor, decides to join ROTC. Youthful rebellion.
So our kids are stuck between this mix-master of a society that sort of extends adolescence (particularly if you’re a guy) and at the same time a desire to stand apart. Add in mobility, the moving away from home, and it is all too easy to see how we lose touch with who we once were, or how we come to imagine that we are “growing.”
And that hormone thing — one of the big adult tasks is this establishment of a household: who with, how etc. The gift of our biology pushes us on a mate-search.
As to solutions … I suspect that two sorts of relations need to be developed. One with the church itself, its life (HRW seemed to capture that speaking of liturgical churches): kids will need to feel part of the adult church, initially most by way of spectator, as this is after all, where the folks go. Quality of church matters, of course. Second, there is the avenue of relationships, we may want to think of mentoring as something that extends past the high school. The adult friend who is not a parent can be a real help.
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Does anyone ever lose their faith? Didn’t Jesus say that He hasn’t lost any whom the Father gave him? Perhaps the disconnect here is that children who grow up in Christian homes are automatically considered saved and when it turns out that they aren’t they’re considered “fallen away?” Have we lost sight of the fact that it is God who does the saving and He doesn’t let them fall away?
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My apologies.
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Mommy (72): Well said.
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the youth leaders are false leaders, for starters,
sounds like you have described an absence of true love in these children’s lives…
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as people mature, they need guidance balancing “opposite” truths, such as the sovereignty of God and their own responsibility before Him, worldly peers and godly ones, serving the poor and entertaining themselves, this all takes EFFORT and LOVE and is NOT a PROGRAM, and needs to be done in a PERSONAL way as only parents or caring others can do, but not in a mass instructive sort of way, with rules, etc. that supposedly apply to all situations that you encounter…
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makes me wonder about John Gatto’s new book, The Weapons of Mass Instruction
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“Our Church has special nights that young-Earth creationism is taught – it’s for the whole body”
This attempt at indoctrination will backfire for members with a modicum of intelligence and education. Why do so many young people leave churches like this? Because they’re not completely stupid.
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Spinoza, My IQ is measured at fairly close to genius (a modicum of intelligence), I have a college degree and I maintained honors grades in addition to putting myself through school (a modicum of education). And I’m rather well read (50 to 100 books a year, many of them fairly deep). I don’t say any of that to brag, but to point out that people really can have a modicum of intelligence and education and still believe that God is smarter than they are, and that the truths of the Bible remain true in an age that has educated itself into stupidity. I’m not willing to argue with you, but I’m simply addressing your stereotypes. I’m not embarrassed to call God my Creator, because He is.
I read this thread last night but it was too late in the evening for me to participate. But my experience in youth groups (being part of one for two years when I was young, and knowing about what happens in others) is that they are dating games, cliques, never-ending parties that do little for kids’ spiritual lives even if they do offer some solid teaching, not well connected to the rest of the church, and generally led by men too young to lead them and (often) basically too immature and rebellious to lead well anyway.
That’s all generalization, but youth groups have been “proven” statistically not to be an asset to their churches, in the long run. The more kids are involved in the youth group, the less they are involved in the wider church, and the more likely they are to drop out of church itself when they grow old enough to “graduate” from the youth group. The one fact that when a youth pastor leaves the church and there is no immediate replacement, the youth usually leave and scatter to other churches should show that something is amiss here. The number of pregnancies or sexually active couples in the average youth group should be another definite warning sign. It’s the older men and women of the church who are supposed to be training our youth, alongside their parents, not some paid post-adolescent youth who does youth ministry because he loves the crazy things he can do and call it work.
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Where is Barna when we need him, Cheryl. It’s hard to tell how many churches and youth groups are guilty without the stats. I’m with you, though, on the weaknesses of too-young youth leaders.
And Spinoza’s regard for Creationists’ IQs is just boilerplate ad hominem, something like Al Jazeera for Agnostics might distribute. (I’m an expert in inadvertant ad hominem, however.)
His allegation, however, that Youth Earth teaching is something that puts young Christians in a bind when they get to secular college is probably on target. There are lots of different ways to teach that material and much of it is too superficial to equip young believers for the hornests nest.
I’m guessing, though, that the teaching you exterienced was better than most and pointed everyone to good sources for further study (not indoctrination, Spinoza).
Regarding youth groups as a concept, a missionary working in Austria told me last week that their use of youth group social events was instrumental in their successful work. Young atheistic Austrians would visit and find that they finally had a place where they were respected and where everyone treated each other well. He said the majority of those who were reached that way 20 years ago are now leaders within the church. Incidentally, that youth group was featured on Austrian national TV for their open discussion of sex and marriage–because those discussions successfully led the young people to “wait” until marriage.
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(2) Confusing doctrinal and biblical knowledge with true spirituality.
Never happens. There’s no confusion. One thing Evangelicals are fantastic at is defining the difference between separate categories of meaning. Their youths is smarter because of it.
KEN N’s apologetics lessons about the categories of absolute truth and logic are actually prerequisites and essential to not flunking out of a Yale seminar in post-modern criticism.
I imagine Ken foisting Francis Schaeffer on his youths. Big mistake! Make them read Derrida, and they’ll be down front in tears at each altar call.
I’m wondering why Anthony Bradley is not thrilled when his youths walk away from ersatz spirituality, if that’s what’s causing them to leave. Anthony should check out the masochism in the opening passages of David Brainard’s autobiography. Sane readers beg the man to take passage to Tahiti rather than take his tortured gospel to the Injuns.
I have a contrary theory. Some youths leave Evangelicalism because they indeed have had a genuine and sincere experience with true spirituality and realize it’s as good as it gets, but they are none the better for it.
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scripture says that if you raise a child up in the way he should go when he is old he will not depart from it, and this tends to be true. that’s why many leave in their youth and come back again later in life. kind of like the prodigal son. and some come back at the very end of life.
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#79 – Cheryl D – you are reasonably smart and generally educated; based on your other posts, however, I feel strongly that your scientific understanding is poor and sub-literate at the college level.
Now there are a few people that believe in young earth creationism despite intelligence and education (e.g., Kurt Wise), but they are exceptions that prove a more general rule exists. And that rule is simply that, when intelligent young people raised on fairy tales are presented with evidence that shows the fables to be literally untrue, the vast majority of them give up the fairy tale. For these people, the more you try to indoctrinate them in a young-earth lie, the more you give them cause to reject your opinion on any and all matters whatsoever.
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p.s. None of this negates Cheryl’s other point – which is that many young people who may be neither intelligent or particularly educated rejected evangelicalism as a matter of convenience, because their “youth group” experience provided an insufficient doctrinal brainwashing.
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“… many young people (,) who may be neither intelligent or particularly educated (,) rejected evangelicalism as a matter of convenience, because their “youth group” experience provided an insufficient doctrinal brainwashing.”
You limited this population with the qualifier “many”, but are you suggesting that young people – who hold their faith beyond college – have greater sensitivity to brainwashing? Or are you saying that all people are sensitive to brainwashing and that the faithful belong to a minority of churches who sufficiently brainwash their parishioners? And if the latter, are all deeply held beliefs sourced from some form of sufficient brainwashing?
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Norm P. “are you suggesting that young people – who hold their faith beyond college – have greater sensitivity to brainwashing?”
I think that’s true in many instances.
“Or are you saying that all people are sensitive to brainwashing…”
Certainly
“and that the faithful belong to a minority of churches who sufficiently brainwash their parishioners?”
Mostly true, I think
“And if the latter, are all deeply held beliefs sourced from some form of sufficient brainwashing?”
Not all, but some – especially those delusions which are often stringently maintained inspite of evidence to the contrary.
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I appreciate this post and look forward to the one to come.
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I think HRW pretty well answered Bradley’s question in #14.
I was on fire for Jesus from 14 to about 21, a real Jesus freak, and remained a serious, devout Christian for more than ten years after that.
I became an apostate very gradually; it’s only in the last couple of years that I finally admitted to myself that I no longer believe. Although, to be honest, deep down I knew several years ago, probably going back to at least 2000, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit it, because my faith had been everything to me for pretty much my whole life.
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I think that’s part of the reason I find it so difficult to quit coming back to WMB. I’m just so used to the Christian worldview, and interacting with Christians, that it just seems strange when they play no part in my world whatsoever. Maybe one of these days I’ll finally kick the habit.
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Oh, Spinoza, you’re cute. I’m no scientist, true. But I think I’d rank fairly high in a standardized test on the subject, if such a thing were available. Basically you disagree with my worldview, and that’s the issue. My starting point is that God made it; your starting point is that He did not. That has nothing whatsoever to do with science, since neither is a scientific pronouncement. But in science itself, I have enough of an understanding that I believe I would rank fairly high, probably in the 90s, tested against other adults, as long as I wasn’t limited to testing against other adults who actually majored in science (since I myself did not).
Night Train, may you someday see that life without Christ truly is life without a foundation, and return. I truly am sorry to see your story, and I’m sorry I’ve been negligent in praying for you.
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Great post Anthony. I agree with all three of your points.
Our kids grew up in a strict fundamentalist church where God’s favor was earned by following strict rules and fitting into a narrow unwavering mold. Church was a place of drama, gossip and ratting on your friends. The slightest offense was met with shock and horror. The world was considered to be a pagan depraved world of the lost where no one should dare go except to “save souls”.
My son was a worship leader for years, but was kicked out simply for not attending every single night of a missions conference. I am thankful in a sense that my son rebelled against that unChristlike atmosphere. It was a wakeup call for us. At the same time I was a Sunday School teacher there for many years and discovered grace, meaning that God’s favor is given not earned and the only merit worth boasting about is what Christ has done.
Anyway we were fortunate. I always stressed to my children that truth was more important than anything, including man made religion. Let God be true and every man a liar. We abandoned superstition (such as certain styles of music are evil) and grew as a family. We went through some unbelievably hard times, but we always agreed to test all things and hold to what was true.
Today they embrace Christianity, not because it is their parent’s faith, but their own. At one point I thought my son had abandoned the faith and he said as much. He said God abandoned him. I correct by saying that God would never do that, rather he had abandoned God. We waited patiently and God set his feet upon a rock. Now he has come back on his own accord and I pray for him as he starts his own family. How hard it is to be a parent.
I see other families where the kids have abandoned the faith. In some sense I don’t blame them, as I think Christ himself would not have approved either. My prayer for kids and all people really is that they would find Christ himself and not let the fallible church dissuade them from true faith.
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Anthony, do you have kids?
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#88 That pretty much describes my history too!
#90 – says you – I’ve read your posts on geology and biology – I can’t imagine you passing a college level standardized test in either, though I’m sure you could if you took the time to actually learn the material.
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#90 – of course, world view does play a role – your world view has apparently led you to resist learning mainstream science and, instead, bone up on creationist pseudo-science. It’s not their you’re educated and know better, it’s that you have chosen NOT to learn fundamental science, even at the non-major level.
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er .. “it’s not THAT you’re educated …”
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Religion never satisfies. A relationship with Christ always does.
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Captain Feris, I liked the comment you made on your site that we can either make each other sick by our words or perfect.
Speaking the truth in love is almost a lost art. And I don’t doubt that this, in some part, accounts for the wandering of many youth. But God is good; He brings back those who are willing, in His own good time. But it will be better for us if we help in that process rather than hinder.
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Xion, that was a very encouraging testimony to God’s goodness and faithfulness. Thanks for sharing.
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Mr. FisherWoof: “How can we help?”
Oh! Oh! I know! If you see a youth group that’s focused on fun rather than God, SAY SOMETHING. TELL THE PASTOR YOUR CONCERNS. IF YOU DON’T, THEN BY ALL MEANS KEEP GRIPING ABOUT IT; NOTHING’S GOING TO CHANGE. And I mean every one of those capital letters.
Look, I see that you all have opinions and such, and most of them are good. “Teach them better doctrine.” “Show them real apologetics.” “Change the focus to spiritual growth.” Great! What have you done to enact these great ideas? There’s only so much I can do by myself. HELP FIX THE PROBLEM. PLEASE!
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Please be so kind as to explain the “problem” in detail – I would like to know what YOU think, from your prospective.
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I think you mean “perspective”, Victoria?
I’m noticing the same problems you guys are. The teaching is played down, portrayed as NOT the reason we gather together. Then, when teaching comes, it’s baby lessons, stuff we’ve learned in Sunday School and will learn many times more by the time we’re out of youth group. The problem is that youth pastors think, “I’m going to get as many kids in here as I can to learn about God,” instead of, “I need to help these kids grow in their faith.” The former produces a fun-focused youth group. The latter makes young godly men and women. We’re not taught to act different, to draw people to Christ; we’re encouraged with the story of David and Goliath as it pertains to Philipians 4:13. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” We don’t change anything about our lives as a result, and though we may be Jesus Freaks at school, eventually we’ll become disillusioned, because being a Christian doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Incedentally, I’m going to talk to my youth pastor about these things. (As respectfully as I can manage; please pray for me!) But like I said, I’m just a teenager. There’s only so much I can do.
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I was on fire for Jesus from 14 to about 21, a real Jesus freak, and remained a serious, devout Christian for more than ten years after that.
NIGHT TRAIN’s boasting impeaches him. The merit of being on fire and devout is the one belief he can’t relinquish. The more confident he sounds, the more mistaken he’s likely to be, cf. his declarations a year ago that Obama lost.
Loyalty to des idées fixes is a psychological trait that survives a change in point of view cf. Marvin Olasky.
Crazy adherents become crazy apostates, unfortunately, whether Communist or Christian.
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#79 My IQ is measured at fairly close to genius (a modicum of intelligence) . . . And I’m rather well read (50 to 100 books a year, many of them fairly deep). I don’t say any of that to brag, but to point out that . . . the truths of the Bible remain true in an age that has educated itself into stupidity.
What a dumb thing to say.
#90 I’m no scientist, true. But I think I’d rank fairly high in a standardized test on the subject, if such a thing were available. . . I have enough of an understanding that I believe I would rank fairly high, probably in the 90s, tested against other adults, as long as I wasn’t limited to testing against other adults who actually majored in science (since I myself did not).
And how relentlessly she says it.
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That’s no way to address this lady. You seem intelligent enough to converse with courtesy. Please use it.
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Anthony came up with some interesting reasons why many youths apostatize, but there is one glaring omission. It’s quite possible that people leave the church because the claims of Christianity are simply not true. This is certainly the reason most of you would give if asked why so many people abandon Scientology.
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OK, Galahad, in the unlikely event that she and I converse.
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YEP, it’s a typo – looks like you have two of your own, LOL – “Philippians” and “incidentally”
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Opinionated Teen – 101
Sorry, should have added…. I’m praying that GOD’s Will may be done in your youth group, hope all goes well.
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Lol, sorry about my typos. Thanks for praying for me!
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Opinionated teen
You’re welcome –
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This discussion has gotten really complicated, thanks in large part to so much adult reasoning, arguing,and parsing over words. It looks like one youth group aged poster with alot to offer entered into discourse here, but was greeted with less than total hospitality. How ironic. I think that Opinionated Teen could have educated all of us.
Let’s go back to the title: “From Youth Group to Agnosticism”– Kids leave clubs (i.e- youth groups) and their value systems, all the time, just like adults do. I hope the premise of this article isn’t that youth group and a relationship with Christ is synonymous.
Clubs have no enduring values. When storms come, kids that are founded on their club, and not the Rock, will crumble.
Second, youth groups that function as clubs compromise and embarrass themselves when they try to mimic or compete with what’s out there in the world’s clubs.
If a youth group is nothing more than a club, it has no Kingdom values- the only values that will last. People leave clubs, even the best of clubs, because they move away, they grow out of them, they change, and/or the club changes- or dies. No one leaves a real relationship with Jesus Christ. His values are enduring. If we move away, He is right there with us. We can’t grow out of Him, and, even if we change, He never does.
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Ah, I’m starting to get the picture. Scroop Moth is just a mirror image of Victoria.
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Opinionated teen –
Have you talked to your youth pastor yet? – I’m anxious to hear what he had to say – GOD bless you
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Spinoza,
I don’t read hard science at all, usually, meaning stuff written by scientists for other scientists. But my reading within (lay) science is from all perspectives–creationism, ID, secular sources. And again, I would willingly test myself against the average layperson on scientific subjects on the sort of level of ACT or graduate tests (not tests for trained scientists), and I have complete confidence that I’d be vindicated as having a working understanding of science from a layman’s perpective. That is, I wouldn’t test up there with working scientists, but I’d surpass any of the other adults on my street. (My ACT percentiles ranged from high 80s to 98 in 1988 or ‘89, but of course science wasn’t one of the courses tested. Basically I’m not bluffing here; I wouldn’t do as well in science as in English, but would do better than in math, my lowest score because it was my weakest course and I never had anything beyond Geometry. And of course I never voluntarily studied math, never did anything with it outside my school courses.)
But I am not really the issue here, or shouldn’t be. The issue is that you’re assuming your own worldview and being biased enough to mistake it for scientific understanding. Origins aren’t “science”; they’re philosophy and history. And, yes, religion–what we owe to our Creator, and more important what He has done for us. But to say that anyone who believes in a Creator cannot, by definition, have any understanding of science is absurd, fallacious reasoning. Notice that I’ve never made the opposite argument, that no believer in evolution can be a true scientist. I’ve simply pointed out that origins are outside the realm of science altogether, and shouldn’t be a litmus test of whether someone is a scientist or has a basic understanding of science.
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My youth pastor is on vacation this week. A few of my friends and I are going to talk to him on Sunday.
Mr. _CT, you have no idea how frustrated I eventually got reading this thread. If everyone has about the right ideas (and mostly everyone does), why isn’t something DONE???
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OT, for what it’s worth, I’ve written and published one book that addresses some of this a little bit, and have another I’m trying to publish that addresses it a bit more. (I don’t give my full name, or the names of my books, on this blog, but you’re free to e-mail me and ask. The books don’t deal directly with this subject, but indirectly they definitely do.)
I’m basically answering what have we done about it. That’s one thing I myself have done, in addition to trying to encourage churches and families to keep families together at church and to train parents to teach their children themselves rather than leaving it up to teachers and youth leaders. I don’t think an individual Christian can usually do much at all about a cultural trend. But we can be faithful. And in the last few years, the trend toward family-integrated churches has built, so we see some movement in the right direction. (I myself am not part of such a church, nor can I say they’re the full answer, or even whether they solve this problem but create others, like more legalism. But I do think they’re a possible step in the right direction.)
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#115,
OT,
The people who comment on this thread are probably the kind of people who pick their churches carefully based on Scriptural principles. So in the churches where we have influence, the youth programs are better. At the church I currently attend, the pastor who leads the youth group is the parent of a teenager himself, and – together with a number of other adult volunteers and college age small group leaders – presents thoughtful lessons about how to apply Scriptural teaching in young people’s lives.
The teens attend church together with all other ages, then they volunteer as helpers in the classes for younger children during the Sunday School hour, then they have their own learning time on Sunday evenings (as well as fun time before and after). During the summer they get together for some extra fun on Wednesday nights, and this week they’re away camping (with LOTS of adult volunteers).
I’ve never been part of a church where the youth leader was little older than the teens, or where youth group was mostly about having fun. Obviously such churches exist. I don’t know if the parents in such churches are satisfied with the situation, or if those are churches with high turnover where people stay just long enough to see the problems and then move on.
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Mrs. D, that’s great. Really. I’m glad that awareness is being brought, and no doubt your books have done some good. But the thing is, not many churches are going to suddenly stop separating different age groups. I have friends who make their living off of childrens’ church programs. But if we can fix the youth groups we have, it will be a step in the right direction, no matter whether or not we believe in separating ages in church.
Pauline, I am not the kind of person who picks my church based on preferences. I am a teenager, for one thing, and if we just leave churches who need help without making some effort to change them for the better, we’re just as responsible as the people who are messing up. “He who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” That’s in James, right?
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Where is the scriptural eveidence that a youth group produces godliness?
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Youth pastors are fine. The lack of parental, and church member involvement with kids is the main problem. The youth pastor is not a babysitter.
#1 means of discipleship should be toward our children. Then go to missions and your community involvements. Take care of the kids first and foremost, but so often even in the best of churches this seems ignored.
Why is it so hard to get people for nursery duty? It’s no wonder the youth pastor is a babysitter to many.
As for those who played the part and ran off and neglected their roots. The main reason that happens is because sin is an ever present corruption, and the world of college is a wide open, often unsupported, beginning. Prodigal son sure liked the idea. How many of these kids actually get involved with church, or at least some organziation like CCC, BSU, or RUF? How quickly do we enjoy our sinfulness, when we do not remain in the places where we have support and accountability.
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Cheryl D – But I am not really the issue here, or shouldn’t be. The issue is that you’re assuming your own worldview and being biased enough to mistake it for scientific understanding.
Nonsense – I was a creationist, but went to college and got some real scientific understanding, a B.S. in physics with minors in math and geology, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Planetary Science – so I do have the scientific understanding needed to talk to scientists. But I am also writing a college-level textbook in origins-related topics for non-science-majors under contract to a major publisher, so I am well aware of science standards in the general curriculum for non-majors.
From your previous posts, I would fail you in geology at the middle school level.
Origins aren’t “science”; they’re philosophy and history.
Nonsense – you are living completely in your own private idaho. Clearly, you don’t even know what science is, having imbibed too much creationist kool-aid.
But to say that anyone who believes in a Creator cannot, by definition, have any understanding of science is absurd, fallacious reasoning.
I’ve never said any such thing – I don’t even believe it.
What I say is that scientific evidence completely refutes a literal interpretation of Genesis. You have professed to believe this in previous posts. Evangelical churches that teach this risk losing most of their youth when they discover they’ve been lied to.
Notice that I’ve never made the opposite argument, that no believer in evolution can be a true scientist. I’ve simply pointed out that origins are outside the realm of science altogether, and shouldn’t be a litmus test of whether someone is a scientist or has a basic understanding of science.
This is just you sticking your head in the sand. Origins is NOT beyond the purview of scientific investigation, because the past leaves its imprint in the present. In fact, you can observe the past directly in distant galaxies whose light is just now reaching us from billions of light years away (and billions of years ago).
By arbitrarily choosing to believe that science cannot be used to study the origin of the universe, earth, and life, you provide yourself with a barricade against scientific literacy that keeps you in the dark. Good luck with that …
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Well, Thorn, I’m one of those who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the nursery, if I do it at all. And not because I don’t like little kids, either, because I do. I’m reluctant to do nursery duty because I go to church to worship God, and I believe that the little ones should be in the service as well. And at this point in time, when I live alone and work from my home, I need the corporate worship of God as much as I need food and drink. I grieve that our youngest family members are denied that themselves, and I for one would rather not aid in that denial, and simultaneously deny my own chance for public worship.
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#118
Opinionated Teen,
I wasn’t suggesting you should leave your church, just trying to explain how it could be that so many people here agree with you, but so many churches have those problems. If the people here represented a broad cross-section of churches, then it would be strange that they would allow such problems to go on. But if the people here represent primarily churches that don’t have the problems you describe, that seems to answer your question in #115.
Regarding choosing a church:
If “based on preferences” means whether they have a particular style of music, whether they have pews or chairs, how long the service is, etc., then I agree we shouldn’t pick a church based on preferences.
But I do think choosing a church should include evaluating whether it is making disciples of Jesus Christ. There are times when God leads someone to a particular church because it does have problems and that person has the gifts to help lead the church in the right direction. My husband feels that his pastoral gifts are directed toward people who are just pew-warmers, getting them to be involved in ministry themselves.
But in general, if a family is new in town and they are looking for a church home, and there are several churches (as is true in every town I have known, even some pretty small ones), I think they would want to choose the church where they see children and young people being discipled, not merely entertained. And if that’s picking a church based on preferences, it’s a pretty good preference to have.
I realize that doesn’t help you in your situation. I’m afraid I don’t know what wisdom to offer in that regard. My own ministry is with young children.
I remember as a teen my best friend and I were very unhappy with what we saw as the low level of spiritual interest in our church youth group. And it wasn’t because of an overemphasis on having fun – our youth group meetings were centered around Bible study, though occasionally there were special fun events to invite visitors to. My friend and I went to public school, while most of the group went to a Christian school. We went to youth group by choice; their parents made them go.
Looking back at it, I think a lot of the problem was that everyone felt they had to act like good Christians. I sometimes wished I hadn’t become a Christian so quickly when I first heard the Gospel, so that I could have felt free to ask the kind of questions that an unbeliever could be expected to ask, but not a Christian. When everyone is too concerned with appearances, even out of good intentions (”we have to maintain a good testimony”), there’s not much spiritual growth going on.
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#122 – Cheryl – Requiring young children to sit still on a hard pew during an adult worship service does no one any favors. As a former PK who had to go to church 5 times a week, I remember it as a kind of abusive punishment for some unidentified crime – probably original sin.
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Spinoza, congratulations on the book contract. I haven’t had any recent luck on that front, but I keep trying.
I don’t know if I don’t express myself very well, or if you’re so blinded by your own worldview that you don’t listen very well. Regardless, the origins of the universe and of life cannot be scientifically tested and reproduced. All we have are the results and the first-person account (Genesis). I am interested in science and in origins both, but I don’t make the mistake of confusing them.
I’ve never studied geology directly, as in taking a classroom course on the subject at any level at all, but your assessment that you’d fail me in geology at the middle-school level is insulting and silly. I have studied a bit about minerals and could “test” on volcanoes and earthquakes and have a basic understanding of mountain ranges and the like. I’ve had a membership to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, or its Field Museum (I had a largely sleepless night and can’t at the moment remember which is which! I think it’s the Field Museum) and have spent hours there studying the displays, and have done extensive reading as well, in spite of the fact that geology is far from my primary scientific interest. Have we discussed any of those things on this blog, that you would know whether I have a fundamental understanding of them? No, we have not. All you know is that I believe the Flood to be literal history, and you do not. That’s your bias, sir, not your science speaking, that you discount anyone on the other side. You pretend that I can’t know what rocks are because I believe the fossils in many of them were laid down by the Flood, but that’s your bias and not your scientific training. And quite frankly it’s insulting. Could I sit down and write an essay on geology that would pass a college science class? No, not without doing research on the subject, as would of course be expected of a college essay. Could I pass a multiple-choice test at the college level without studying? Probably I could. For sure I could at the high school level, though I’ve never taken the course. But hey, that doesn’t fit with your bias that anyone who says the Flood really happened is an idiot. Oh well. The foolishness of God is wiser than men.
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Spinoza, sorry that was your experience of church. It wasn’t mine. I’m deeply grateful for having grown up in the church, and I loved it and paid attention even as a young child. I have many good, early–kindergarten and earlier–memories of the church. Not all my church memories are good, like the time I wet my pants in the ladies’ room because I took too long to tell my mom I needed to go, or the time I put a memory verse into the hymnal and then I couldn’t find it again, or the times I watched other kids get candy bars for taking friends to VBS but my only friend had (again) had her father tell her she couldn’t go. But I’m quite glad I was raised within the church, and loved by its members, and would want to offer my own children that same privilege.
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Cheryl, I have good church memories too – but sitting through the adult worship service at a very young age is not one of them!! My point here is that there really is a good reason to break up church experience into age-dependent groups.
I LOVED VBS, btw – cookies and crafts!
Our Sunday School was separate from adult meetings but hardcore – lots of scripture memorization, etc., – I had stickers and buttons galore for memorizing many long passages – by the time we were in Junior high, our young teen Bible Bowl team completely whipped the professors of the local bible college in a local “Bible Bowl” tournament (we were a lot faster on the buzzer). Youth groups were very bible oriented, but also provided a “non-secular” social sphere to compete with the allegedly evil secular one in public school.
Yes, I was thoroughly and willingly indoctrinated…
The Jesus movement brought a deep emotional and personal spiritual conversion in my later teen years, building on a long life of brainwashing I suppose, followed by a commitment to go into ministry.
However, my subsequent discovery of overwhelming evidence for evolution and an old earth brought a great deal of anger and remorse for having devoted so much of my life to a lie perpetrated by trusted authority figures. Frankly, it still makes me very angry.
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“my subsequent discovery of overwhelming evidence for evolution and an old earth brought a great deal of anger and remorse for having devoted so much of my life to a lie perpetrated by trusted authority figures. Frankly, it still makes me very angry.”
In lieu of post 86, maybe it’s better brainwashing?
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Reg: It’s not so much a matter of a youth group automatically producing godliness. It’s more a matter of, if there is a youth group, it should be producing godliness. (Otherwise, what good is it?)
Pauline, I think that one should choose a church based on God’s calling, and if God calls one to a church with an inadequate youth group, one should try to fix it. I suppose that’s where the issue gets difficult.
There’s a way that you and I differ–I have no qualms about asking questions that make people gasp. It’s a bit of a self-control issue, actually.
Spinoza: Welcome to America! It’s a great and happy land where you can indoctrinate your children if you so wish, because we have this amazing thing called freedom of religion. And if you want to believe that millions of years ago, a glob of amino acids suddenly produced a living cell, you can tell your children that and even ask for it to be put in the curriculum in schools. But if you don’t want to indoctrinate your children that way, feel free to indoctrinate them in any other way you choose.
It’s indoctrination either way, dude.
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#129 – “Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned. As such it is used pejoratively. Instruction in the basic principles of science, in particular, can not properly be called indoctrination, in the sense that the fundamental principles of science call for critical self-evaluation and sceptical scrutiny of one’s own ideas.”
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When evangelical churches encourage their young to critically evaluate their claims about biblical fundamentalism, historicity of the resurrection, 6.000 year old earth, special fiat creation of independent kinds, separate creation of humans, etc., and provide them with all the materials to do so, I will be happy to refer to the process as education.
But they never will – they indoctrinate – this is the meaning of “Train up a child in the way he should go…” meaning, the way evangelicals think he should go.
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More well-pu wiki-isms: “Religious indoctrination is a pejorative term referring to a process of imparting doctrine in a non-critical way, that is, forcibly or coercively causing people to act and think on the basis of a certain religion. Some secular critics maintain that all religions indoctrinate their adherents, as children, and the accusation is also made in the case of religious extremism, such as Radical Islamist terrorism.
Why is it that – for the most part – evangelicals were raised as evangelicals, mormons as mormons, muslims as muslims, catholics as catholics?
Because they stick with the religion they were indoctrinated with!
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The larger point wrt this thread – if you stifle critical thought while “indoctrinating” your youth in Sunday School, don’t be surprised that a large number of them will bolt as soon as they feel they are able to examine what you’ve taught critically and think freely for themselves.
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Okay, so I would call evolution an idea, one that I’ve been inclucated with at my dear public school. If I raise a hand in Ms. Castillo’s class and say, “Is there any chance that evolution isn’t true?”, Ms. Castillo will look at me as if I have the plague and say, “Uh…no.” If I critically examine the theories taught to me in my textbook and write an extra-credit essay saying why I think they’re bunk, she’ll hand it back to me with a condescending smile saying, “Nice try.” I’m not allowed to think that evolution is wrong.
Now, I’m not saying that Christianity and Intelligent Design isn’t indoctrination. It is. But so is evolution.
By the way, what dictionary did you use? I’ve checked three, and none of them say anything like what you wrote.
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Ahh. Wikipedia. Interesting.
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I, also, was indoctrinated my first fifteen years. This is the way it is, do not question it. That was nearly forty years ago. Then, when I learned to think for myself, examining the facts, I was set free to believe what was clearly evident. I dropped off the evolution assembly line of belief.
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However, my personal belief is God created in six days and then rested. A few thousand years ago. Whether He did it that way or not is not really that important. What is important is that I am a sinner and God died to make the way open for me to return to Him. And I am grateful.
As a homeschool family, we teach creation but we also look at evolution and assure the kids it is not critical to salvation. I have known others who say they can never come to Christ because of creation. That is hooey (or however you spell it). They do not want to acknowledge their need for a savior, a pride issue.
As to youth groups, count me as against. We have not allowed our kids in youth group and we have with us as leaders. We have taken many youth group backpacking/camping trips. They are not the place for growth. It is the in between times, the relationships developed with the young ones and touched on throughout the week. It is the Bible study for those interested in growth without the kid stuff. We did well with same sex Bible study as that allowed the girls to actually talk freely. Don’t know what the boys talked about, I was not there.
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OT – “Is there any chance that evolution isn’t true?” –
The best answer to this question is in fact, “No.” The fact that you were allowed to ask it suggests freedom of inquiry. Your question was like asking if there is any chance that gravity doesn’t exist. You could have followed your question with ones about “how” we know evolution is true – and much of that material should already have been in your biology course. That would have constituted a real critical inquiry.
If you doubt the evidence for evolution (because of religious upbringing), then you should ask questions about it and search it out for yourself. You should read what scientists have to say and how they respond to creationist claims. If you can demonstrate that you aren’t just pushing a pre-determined religious belief in class and are honestly willing to consider the evidence – a good teacher will be happy to direct you to the relevant reference material.
It is true that K-12 education can be very like indoctrination. Ideally, it shouldn’t be, but since there is much introductory material to learn, students get little opportunity to evaluate it. Most K-12 students are bored with science anyway and don’t want to think about it at all. So it is hard to get them to be interested in learning how we know what we know or why it is considered to be true.
All of this still doesn’t mean you are ever obliged to believe what you learn in public education (unlike in church). You are required to learn it, but you can believe whatever you want. This is also in contrast to “church” where every effort is made to ensure that you actually think and believe exactly the way they want you to.
In college curricula, there is more emphasis on critical thinking – most general education requirements have a critical thinking component in the form of a philosophy class on logic, for example, and you are encouraged to use these tools in every class you take. It is precisely at this point that many young people leave their childish Christian faith behind in much the same way as as they quit believing Santa comes down the chimney on December 25.
Some do not – many of these are science-avoidant and stay away from any course that will cause them to question their childish upbringing. By continuing in denial, they often still emerge from college believing the same way the did when they were little, and may go back to be pillars of evangelicalism and write on WMB, while remaining illiterate about astronomy, geology, and biology.
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Spinoza,
Some Christians do indeed avoid science, but I don’t know whether the numbers are higher than among agnostics or atheists avoiding science. Possibly they are, and possibly that’s partly because of the open hostility many scientists show to Christians. I’m sure you know it wasn’t always so. I personally avoided math, because I didn’t have the opportunity for good teaching that would help me to understand it; I imagine there are plenty of reasons other students avoided science.
I never had the opportunity for a top-notch science course, but I took science very willingly after fifth grade, when I had a teacher who dearly loved science and taught his students to love it too by leading us in wonderful experiments (making our own prisms, separating water into its two elements, growing small creatures in glass jars by putting in only water and grass and examining the results under a microscope every few days . . .). I tried to take Latin in high school because of my interest in biology, but alas it was no longer being taught. My eighth-grade yearbook lists zoology as my future profession, though ultimately I’m not smart enough to have followed such a career choice, and even more ultimately, by the time I reached the age to choose a career, I chose one that was more suited to my (possible) future as a wife and a mother.
And my interest in science? Twofold. One is that it’s fascinating, with zoology in particular still holding my top interest. One is the whole reason science was started in the first place–to better understand the mind of God. We’re actually invited to know the One who created the galaxies, and He sent His own Son to live among us as one of us. I’m fascinated by animal reproduction and galaxy shapes and the colors we see and the perfection of a feather and the water cycle and so much more. But more than all of that, I marvel at the mind and heart that made it, and that made me, and that made me able to understand and enjoy it. To me, studying creation is an act of worship; studying it and denying its Creator would be as dead as studying human beings while refusing to actually get to know any. But more tragic.
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Spinoza, you sound much like a Richard Dawkins peep. Name-calling and insulting to those who do not see the world as you do. I don’t disbelieve evolution because of “indoctrination” as I came to faith in Christ at 45 years old. What makes no sense to me, absolutely NO SENSE, is the idea of transitional species. And you taught “scientists” as if there were none who supported creation, of which there are countless thousands. You can scoff at truth all you want. But your belittling others who do not hold your worldviews makes you appear rather trite. It obviously makes you seem important to yourself, the object of your own worship.
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Cheryl D. To me, studying creation is an act of worship; studying it and denying its Creator would be as dead as studying human beings while refusing to actually get to know any.
That’s laudable, and I agree. So I don’t understand why you would so willingly accept young earth creationist lies in place of real scientific studies of origins that rely on the evidence that you believe was put their by a Creator. Don’t you want to know the truth about what the Creator did?
#140 – What makes no sense to me, absolutely NO SENSE, is the idea of transitional species.
Why? Do you mean the idea itself, or evidence for it?
Anatomic, genetic, and fossil evidence overwhelmingly confirms that life on Earth today evolved from a common ancestor. Special-creationists misrepresent the theory and lie about the evidence to make a pseudo-legalese case against this fact. If you put all your faith in them, you will simply hide your head in the sand and not look at the evidence. This is not faith in GOD – it is faith in your own church authorities, who are wrong!
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#129 “I think that one should choose a church based on God’s calling, and if God calls one to a church with an inadequate youth group, one should try to fix it.”
Opinionated Teen,
I agree. But how do you figure out what church God is calling you to?
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Spinoza, it has nothing to do with “church authorities” telling me what to believe. I believe God spoke all that is into existence, a mature world much as we know it today. Adam wasn’t created an embryo, but a mature man, with a world created mature so as to support the life God created. If the “evidence overwhelmingly confirms that life on Earth today evolved from a common ancestor” then EVERY scientist would support it. But they all do not. And many of these are not even theists. I’m not misrepresenting the theory, nor do I lie about the evidence. You paint with a mighty broad brush. My faith is in an all-powerful God who created all that is for Himself and His glory. My head is not buried in the sand, refusing to look at the evidence. To the contrary, evidence all around me points to a God who created a special place (earth); called a special people (Israel) through whom He would make Himself known to mankind. He made Himself fully known through Jesus Christ. To know Christ is to know God. Christ attested to God’s creative work. It is not church leaders I trust, but Christ.
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#143 – You contend that your belief is not based on church authority, than regurgitate orthodox views as if they were your own novel invention. I think not!
Your head is buried in the sand. The tiny minority of scientists – mostly retired engineers or in fields unrelated to the topic – that believe otherwise virtually all do so because of a professed fundamentalism, not because the evidence says so. And the evidence clearly says we evolved from a common ancestor, the earth is over 4 billion years old, and humans not only existed but were playing flutes several 10’s of thousands of years before the Genesis narrative even started.
Flute Dating Back 35,000 Years is Discovered in Germany
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Good answer, Steve W.
Spinoza, you are assuming that I’m simply “accepting” YEC in spite of much evidence to the contrary, evidence I either know but refuse to accept or evidence I’m too ignorant to know. Again, this is the irreconcilable place where our worldviews and our presuppositions collide. You simply do not have such “smoking gun evidence.” Period. More of what evidence of origins there is accumulates on our side every year. And I am more than willing to count the Bible as evidence as well, because I know and trust the Creator. Meanwhile you refuse to believe that anything He says can be true. That’s as irreconcilable as your insisting that red is really green, and it ultimately isn’t a scientific impasse at all, so I’m not sure there’s anything more I can say.
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#143 contd.
“To the contrary, evidence all around me points to a God who created a special place (earth);”
Your conclusion may be true – I don’t know – but evidence does not support the belief that earth is a specially (and miraculously) created place. Evidence “all around” indicates Earth and life on it are the product of natural law. Maybe a “god” designed the laws – I don’t know – but there isn’t any evidence for that one way or the other.
“God who…called a special people (Israel) through whom He would make Himself known to mankind.”
This is a biblical interpretation only – there is no credible “evidence all around” you that even hints at this.
“He made Himself fully known through Jesus Christ. To know Christ is to know God. Christ attested to God’s creative work. It is not church leaders I trust, but Christ.”
It is statements about Jesus and probable fictions attributed to him that are behind the doctrines you believe. These were forged by church authorities, and you have swallowed their claims hook, line, and sinker. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that Jesus even thought he was God, much less actually was God. You are “attesting” to the “creative work” of early church clerics, and God had nothing to do with it.
“It obviously makes you seem important to yourself, the object of your own worship.”
You can insult all you want – I don’t really care – what is true about me is not that I think I’m better, but that I am frankly being more honest than you and, in the process, have become very certain that modern science’s basic refutation of the literal Genesis narrative is fundamentally correct. Moreover, biblical studies show that early church affirmations about Jesus being “God” are not only wrong, but were not taught by any historical Jesus. This is not about me. It’s about truth I have spent a lifetime thinking about and resisted believing.
I am indeed very certain that fundamentalism is both very wrong and very bad. The kind of responses put up by WMB posters like yourself routinely confirms to me that this view is correct.
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Cheryl – you can’t have it both ways (logically anyway). You can’t on the one hand say origins is not scientifically discernible and then turn around and claim that evidence is accumulating for the creationist view. Make up your mind!
Again, this is the irreconcilable place where our worldviews and our presuppositions collide. You simply do not have such “smoking gun evidence.” Period.
Do to – mountains of it.
More of what evidence of origins there is accumulates on our side every year.
Rubbish – more crap is made up every year by creationists, but no real evidence for young earth creationism has ever existed. Name ONE thing!
And I am more than willing to count the Bible as evidence as well, because I know and trust the Creator.
If you trusted the “Creator” you would learn about “creation” – God has a message for you in the rocks – EARTH IS VERY OLD
Meanwhile you refuse to believe that anything He says can be true.
If you mean the Bible – there are many things in it that are true, though I don’t think God had anything to do with it. The Genesis story of human origins is not one of those things, however.
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Spinoza:
Hi there. I wanted to jump in with a few comments about what you’ve posted in this thread about evolution; come at it with some “critical thinking.”
First, since I don’t know you or your background and only have your thoughts in here on the matter, I apologize ahead of time for being presumptuous about what you may or may not already know. So doink me for it when apporopriate.
Second, I’m not a scientist, but I enjoy and have read much on the philosophies of science, its “worldview” if you will. And it is from this angle I’ll posit a few quiries and thoughts.
Third, I’ve read Dawkins and Behe and Johnson recently, sort of a back-and-forth exercise for me weighing the pros and cons.
I’ll start with something Dawkins mentions which for me calls into question the entire evolutionary framework, since Dawkins himself is such a staunch and savy defender of its theories.
With no empirical evidence to substantiate his claim, the professor makes the statement that abiogenesis and evolution are completely separate entities.
Ok, so you’re saying that what provided the foundation for life has nothing to do with how life evolved? Really.And how would one know empirically, with any specificity, that such a distinction could be made without delving deeply into mere theoretical constructs?
That’s like saying golf course design has nothing to do with the way clubs and balls are manufactured.
Since there exists no possible means to describe the beginning of the universe from an evolutionary perspective, lets just make something up and pretend its different from evolution. You know what the good professor said started it all? “Luck”! That’s his big scientific credo for the beginning of the universe. Luck.
Good science.He then suggests that this elusive but all-sovereign entity known as “luck” could be responsible for the “jumps” in the evolutionary procecss, something by which one could explain the Cambrian explosion, or the flagellum or the eye.
Luck. It’s all over the last part of The God Delusion.
There’s your “evidence” from a leading evolutionary biologist, ladies and gentlemen.
I once asked a physicist for an evolutionary explanation for quarks and other subatomic particles that Darwin had no idea existed. No answer. I was ignored because I wasn’t a physicist.
Then, Dawkins has his Mt. Improbable scenario where he suggests as most evolutionists do that stuff like wings and eyes begin at the “bottom” and somehow “work their way up to the summit gradually and in stages”.
I asked a very prominent evolutionist last summer if there were any fossilized remains of eyes of any sort of creature that science has strung together since 1859 to prove that eyes and sight are the result of “blind” evolutionary forces. His response?
“No.”
Then I asked him how evolutionary theory posits the development of eyes. He gave me several drawn charts, like frames in a cartoon. What was curious is that in each frame, there were barely noticable features that weren’t in the previous frame. I asked where and how those developed, because apparently, multiple frames later, this one little thing that just suddenly appears in frame three, is a retina by frame seventeen, with no explanation as to why. I was told that it has to be true because that’s what evolution says happens.
Old-fashioned circular reasoning. Evolution must be true because, well, we have eyes!
He then pointed out the various different types of eyes in creatures, including man today as “evidence” for gradation of the development of sight.
But no fossilized eyes. No evidence of transitional species of eyes, no explanation how stuff just “appears” in the frame charts, but a host of assumptions that are as unprovable as a flying spaghetti monster.
And then there’s the little issue with the Cambrian explosion. Lots of fully formed beasties lying about, but not really any sort of transitional species anywhere within. Where are they? The late Stephen J.Gould tried scrambling for an evolutionary explanation and raised some mild ire among his contemporaries for admitting the difficulty posed by the “Cambrians”.
With a bit of critical thinking, even with such “evidence” as evolutionists say exist, even a layman can see that there are gaps and difficulties within the theory. Many. Subatomic particles, complex molecular structures, human emotion, belief and intelligence, the origin of the universe and of life and, my favorite, evolutionary scientists working in labs to prove evolution exists.
If evolution were true, then there can be absolutely NO guiding intelligent intervention in its process. None! Scientists can do things in labs, but if they wish me to believe they’ve proven something, I’ll be impressed when there wasn’t any sort of external intelligence or human being involved in the process, that it was all just natural.
One, such a concept is impossible without a notion of absolute truth. Two, “evidence” in the scientific realm is not hard and fast, nor is it the only means by which we may understand something.
To suggest that Science, because of its empirical process, is superior to all other forms of knowledge, is not a provable construct. In fact, empiricism fails to be able to tests its own philosophical assumptions! You cannot prove, via the senses, via the Scientific Method, that your empirical data is superior to all other forms of truth and knowledge.
That is a qualitative assumption, not empirical fact.
If I am “in love” or find a piece of music to be sublime, to drag all that through the rigors of empirical testing to “prove” what I’m experiencing is real, forget it.
Evolution has its dogma Spinoza, to be sure.
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Ol’ Spin –
One more thing. I’m a nice guy. Really. I’ll never ad hom you save in jest. I just dislike being told that because I’m a Christian and find fault with evolution that I’m close-minded and fail to consider the evidence, that’s all.
I have and find it wanting.
Also, just a question about Genesis, upon what construct or paradigm do you base your knowledge of Genesis? To what light do you compare it to find it to be false? What is truth and how do you know?
Dan
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If evolution were true, then there can be absolutely NO guiding intelligent intervention in its process.
That doesn’t follow – I’m not saying there is “guiding intelligent intervention,” but your statement is just illogical.
The evidence that evolution happened – i.e., common ancestry – is incontrovertible in my view. Even the ID crazy Michael Behe agrees with this. As to how it all exactly happened – that is not a huge enigma, but it is still the topic of ongoing scientific research.
There are many Christians that believe in evolution. I am not a Christian, but I acknowledge the existence of compatible theologies. These are typically NOT evangelical theologies and are never fundamentalist theologies.
As for the “truth” of Genesis – I try to clarify that I think it is “fundamentalist intepretations” of Genesis that are false, i.e., those that invoke literal Adam and Eve and young earth, etc. Interpretations that understand Genesis as revealing some truth in mythic or metaphoric sense are fine with me, though I’m not particularly over-awed by the mythic content of Genesis either. I don’t think it’s particularly superior to all other creation myths of the period.
In science, “truth” is not ever absolute but can be used to mean highly probable with no credible alternative. That is the sense in which I believe the evolutionary view is “true,” and the literal fundamentalist view is false.
“With no empirical evidence to substantiate his claim, the professor makes the statement that abiogenesis and evolution are completely separate entities.”
But this is true vis a vis Darwinian Evolution – in Origin of Species, Darwin even allows for the possibility of the divine creation of the first or of the first few organisms. His theory was about what happened after that. So what’s the problem?
The fact that the universe has changed with time is sometimes called “cosmic evolution,” but this is not what the biologists are talking about. Creationists like to confuse the two – I’m never sure why. Maybe it’s because obfuscation is always in their best interest.
And then there’s the little issue with the Cambrian explosion.
There really is no “issue” with Cambrian fossils of the kind claimed by creationists. The pre-Cambrian-Cambrian record of the rise of multi-cellular fossils is far more gradual and takes a lot more time than creationists claim.
The Cambrian as an Evolutionary Exemplar
Eye evolution is not that mysterious; eyes exist in all possible phases of development in living and fossil organisms – there is no “impossibility” here, and a plausible pathway for eye evolution is quite simple. See the realtime movie linked here for an example: Evolution of the Eye
All for now …
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Not sure why – my Cambrian explosion link doesn’t seem to work – here’s another try -
The Cambrian as an Evolutionary Exemplar
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Another P.S. here about considering the evidence that almost always happens whenever I tell evolutionists what I’ve read.
It’s either never enough, not the right book, or I simply fail to grasp the arguments which are presented in favor of evolution because I’m deluded, brainwashed, biased, what have you,by the church and/or the Bible. It’s funny how it often always comes down to ad hominems.
But ad hom or not, Darwin had absolutely no clue about the complexities of molecular structures or about the evasively enigmatic world of subatomic particles.He’d toss the theory if he were alive today. Absolutely toss it in light of the complexities which we now know surround us.
And then the God-of-the-gaps business always surfaces as if to silence my opposition. Basically, believers are accused of saying “God did it” in the absence of a physical explanation for how the phenomenon came to be through natural means. And so when a “natural” explanation is offered, God somehow becomes “smaller”. And when we have a “natural” explanation for everything, then, like Laplace said to Napoleon about God, science will claim it has “no need of that hypothesis.”
Ok, but in like fashion, I can say I know how a crayon is made, but that doesn’t say anything about the crayon maker nor does it detract one iota from the fact that I know the crayon was intentionally made.
Where evolution fails for me is in Sears. I can stand next to a mannequin and ask an evolutionist which of us were designed and have a purpose. He would have to tell me the mannequin by the default logic of his position.
So, subsequently, in evolutionary theory, it is better to strive to be a mannequin than a human being. We came about by accident, through impersonal chance and causailty and apparently have no purpose in life given to us by a creator. But the mannequin has a creator. A mannequin has a purpose in its dead life, to display the latest fashion, whereas I can’t even say that about myself!
I am even envious of my clothing if evolution were true. Think of it. A shirt is designed, but the torso over which a shirt fits is an accidental by-product of nature. A glove is designed, but the hand into which it fits is not! Shoes are designed, but feet sort of just morphed from primordial stubs, quite by chance. None of my body parts have a purpose.
Now wait! I hear the evolutionists defense. I morphed into a human for survival or because of survival. But evolution cannot posit any sort of imperative for man or life. It is a blind, naturalistic force of some sort that didn’t come with any rules. So imposing the notion upon life that it was “designed” to survive is nonsense. There is no “purpose” for the things which survive and there is nothing to suggest that surviving is better than not surviving.
But to surmise that our existence is a purely the result of cause and effect materialism is beyond the realm of science to say. Simply because you may know how water boils doesn’t tell you why water is here in the first place.Science may comment on the physical properties of our existence, but it cannot say that matter is all there ever was, is or will be, as Sagan did. That is beyond the realm of empirical verification. It cannot make statements like “The universe is impersonal”. How does science know that? That’s a theoretical leap of faith as much as it is to say the universe was created.
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Okay, Spinoza. I accept your challenge. I’m going to the library tomorrow. I’ll be posting my findings on Whirled Views if you care to correct me at any time.
Pauline: You listen, silly! I thought you’d know that.
Old Hickory, you really don’t have to worry so much about being offensive. You’re one of the least offensive people on WMB.
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By the way, I still can’t get over the fact that you got your definitions on Wikipedia.
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Opinionated teen,
You may not realize this, but what you just said to Pauline is way out of line and the smiley face does not make up for it. If I ever heard one of my kids talking to somebody like that, I would come down hard. But that may just be me.
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#154 – get over it …
Complaints about the mere use of Wikipedia are pure sophistry.
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“But to surmise that our existence is a purely the result of cause and effect materialism is beyond the realm of science to say. Simply because you may know how water boils doesn’t tell you why water is here in the first place. Science may comment on the physical properties of our existence, but it cannot say that matter is all there ever was, is or will be, as Sagan did.”
I agree with your point, but you have misquoted Sagan – he said that “the universe” is all that exists. This was simply a definition of the universe as “everything” – no metaphysics about “matter” being all that there is were implied.
“{Science] cannot make statements like “The universe is impersonal”. How does science know that? That’s a theoretical leap of faith as much as it is to say the universe was created.”
I agree.
But ad hom or not, Darwin had absolutely no clue about the complexities of molecular structures or about the evasively enigmatic world of subatomic particles.
And yet – he was basically right, as our modern discoveries have shown!
He’d toss the theory if he were alive today. Absolutely toss it in light of the complexities which we now know surround us.
Not Hardly! That’s a ridiculous notion.
Another P.S. here about considering the evidence that almost always happens whenever I tell evolutionists what I’ve read.
It’s either never enough, not the right book, or I simply fail to grasp the arguments which are presented in favor of evolution because I’m deluded, brainwashed, biased, what have you,by the church and/or the Bible. It’s funny how it often always comes down to ad hominems.
This is understandable, given the confused remainder of your post. It’s clear that you don’t understand evolution.
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Sophistry! New word! I disagree, and I think that using Wikipedia is laziness, but I like your word.
Mumsee, I think you might be right. Perhaps I have lost my sense of propriety hiding behind my Cookie Monster avatar.
Pauline, if I was out of line, I apologize.
(Was I wrong, though? Sometimes even adults need to be corrected, though I’m probably not the one to do it. But if nobody else steps up…why should I be silenced if I’m right?)
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Spin.
Talk to me in your own words about the development of the eye. We have a variety of eyes existing on the planet presently, but your imposition and interpretation that they are “transitional” is convenient fiction. You can prove the variety, but you cannot prove the trans-speciation development of sight.
What you say of Genesis, your certainty of Adam and Eve being ficticious is not empirically verifiable. It is philosophical speculation to which you are entitled, but it cannot pass thorugh the rigors of a laboratory for confirmation.
My lab comment was made in relation to tests about which I’ve read that say “Scientists have done X, Y and Z, thus proving evolution.” But there is no “guiding hand” in pure evolution outside a lab. The scientists come at it with a bias of their own and their intelligence and knowledge guide the entire process from start to finish. Which, for me suggests “ID”, namely that of the scientists!
I read a lab report by some engineers at NASA not too long ago who claimed they let computer program design antenna for space craft. Well, guess what? The computer came up with a design or two! Evolution is true!
No. Someone built the computer program. The engineers not only tweaked the antenna designs, they also kept tweaking the software! Intelligent design at every step of the way. That’s what I meant above. Can’t prove evolution through the intelligent designs and carefully crafted experiments of scientists. That only begs the question, Spinoza.
The problem with Dawkins is his unempirical assertions passed off as orthodox truth. Much of abiogenesis is theoretical, if not all of it.
But science is absolute, Spinoza, at least it so desires to be as “scientism” or the philosophy of science. It cannot make metaphysical claims, but it does. Scientists have personal, tacit knowledge they bring to the labs which affects the outcomes of their experiments.
Evolution is a bias within science as a philosophy. As a discipline, this plays itself out as the “absolute”. In other words, the closed orthodoxy of white coats guards and preserves their own doctrines and dogmas while stigmatizing anyone with a few questions about it, some critical thinking, if you will.
So, for the eye Spinoza, whether it be a film or a series of frames, no one has yet to explain precisely how stuff in the theoretical drawings and models just “appears”. Nothing. We go from nothing to rods, cones, a lens, the retina, PRESTO! An eye. It’s illogical and is coming from an orthodox view that evolution isn’t just theoretically true, it must be true.
And what you say of Genesis is what you believe of course, but how have you arrived at the notion that your assesment of the text is accurate?
The cambrian explosion poses a problem for evolution because of the innumerable species found fully formed.Simple, I think. That’s the issue in a nutshell. What is troubling for evolution in this instance are the lack of numbers of transitional species. These, in my estimation, should far and away outnumber fully formed species.
Anyhow Spin, my name is Dan, I’m 40, love to read and antagonize! I am single, work construction in summer, like to run, bike swim and read a lot. I am a Christian and teach history, math and English at a small school in Texas.
My best you. Thanks for your curteous and thoughtful replies.
I hope I’ve responded to your responses.
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#159 – I provided links on the eye and Cambrian explosion in #150; feel free to read them.
Anyhow Spin, my name is Dan, I’m 40, love to read and antagonize! I am single, work construction in summer, like to run, bike swim and read a lot. I am a Christian and teach history, math and English at a small school in Texas.
Nice to suddenly read a “personal” ad in the middle of an evolution-creation debate.
Maybe, though, instead of “reading and antagonizing,” you should read to learn.
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Opinionated Teen 58,
Just the silly part. Pauline is far from silly and even if she were, it would not be respectful to address her as such. Not even because you are a teen and she in her forties, but because people ought to treat one another with respect as image bearers.
Wrong, no. But I thought she was asking for particulars on how you know where God is guiding you. Some say through feeling, some through advisers, some through the written word, some through an audible voice, some through hit and miss. It was a legitimate question that many Believers have asked over the years with much care and interest, and it received what could be perceived as a flippant answer. She was in expressed interest in dialoguing with you and was doing so respectfully. She deserves the same. Watch out for the cookie monster in you.
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Spinoza, I actually can “have it both ways,” because I’m saying that creation is outside the realm of science, not that it’s outside the realm of history. There can indeed be evidence that lines up with the biblical view of Creation and the Flood without such things being scientific.
Your grave ignorance about the state of evidence supporting Jesus and Scripture (and Christ’s claim to be God) undercut any hope you might have of having Christians believe what you say about the evidence regarding origins, FYI. When you show ignorance in “my field,” but pretend to know what you’re talking about while you do so, it gives me good reason to suspect your claim of knowledge in a different field you claim knowledge in. Where my scientific understanding is limited, I admit it. You’d be wiser to admit your own ignorance when it comes to what has been proven about Jesus’ life and the archeology relevant to other biblical periods.
I have given evidence for young earth before, but could only give you broad swaths of such (I’m not an “expert” in such things) and don’t have time even for that. And young earth isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on, and it isn’t going to convince you, so why bother? I’m far more interested in the fact that God is the Creator than on when He created the earth. You don’t even see Him as the Creator at all, so the age of the earth is irrelevant to this discussion.
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We’ve been talking for only an hour or so and already you’ve made the assumption I do not understand evolution, so let me clarify that I do.
1. Life began through a complex set of primordial interactions of gasses, elements and the likes.some 4 billion years ago. All of the complexities of life we see today have arisen from one single-celled organism that arose via a rather miraculous coming together of necessary RNA and DNA strands.
2. This organism fought for its own survival and reproduced. Some offspring mutated and survived to reproduce its own kind. Some of these random mutations gradually developed into more useful and subsequently more complex apendages and organisms that enabled these offspring to survive over and against their weaker siblings.
3. This process of survival and mutation has taken some 4 billion years. In 1859, Charles Darwin published his thoughts on the matter after a trip to South America where he observed a variety of finches and other such species. Darwin thus concluded that the sizes of the birds’ beaks provided evidence of how species thus adapt and survive in their environments.
4. Today, scientists have been able to reproduce several strains of anti-biotic resistant bacteria, which “changes” to enable its survival against the anti-biotic. Scientist have also experimented ad infinitum with fruit flies, demonstrating that an alternation in the genes of fruit flies yields many intriguing and interesting mutations, thus demonstrating that mutations happen.
Hope that at least demonstrates I have a fundamental idea of the concept, Spin. I’m sorry its not up to your standards, but saying “I don’t know” is sort of prejudicial and dismissive.
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The antagonizing comment spin is in good fun. You’ll get used to my dry sarcasm if ya hang with me for a bit. Trust me, I do try to read and learn. Last winter and early this year, I was burried with study. As I teacher, that’s pretty much a year-round deal.
If I come across as caustic and fiery in my posts, it is the argument to which I apply the flame, not the person.
I’d shake your hand and have coffee with you if I could. I know we are both human beings. Anyhow, sir. Just want to make sure you know my best toward you personally is pledged in debates such as these.
Toodles for now.
Dan
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Ohh, that. I joke too much, and I’m sorry. Groodness, I didn’t realize she was asking me personally! Whoops!
Okay, Pauline, one more time. It seems to me that when God is telling me something, I have to consider all of the options and one of them will just seem RIGHT. Like when I was deliberating over which high school to attend, the one where my friends were, or the unpopular one near my house. When I remembered that God has to be part of my every decision, it was obvious to me that I was more needed at the unpopular one. I can’t explain it further than that. As far as churches go, I don’t have a choice right now, so I guess this is the church God wants me at. Hopefully I’m doing some good.
(P.S.
C is for Cookie, and that’s good enough for me!)
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Spinoza: I’ve read that stuff on the eye before. But I shall comment on this –
Here’s how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made “vision” a little sharper. At the same time, the pit’s opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.
Ok, theoretical. Every change “had” to confer a survival advantage? How is this empirically verifiable knowledge? Or this “perhaps allowing it to evade a predator” Perhaps? How is this good science? I like this , “Eventually, the light-senstive spot evolved into a retina”!
Presto. Just like the diagrams I was shown. How is “eventually” to explain a “light spot” turning into something as complex as a retina? That’s absurd, Spinoza. How’s all that happen? What about the complex neurotransmission systems that would have to be in place for light to register in a brain? How would a mostly blind lemming even know what to do when it “saw” something in its light spot for the first time?
This is even better than “eventually” – “Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye.” Poof. Or little poofs. But why Spinoza? Didn’t “need” to develop. The little lemming could survive with just a light spot. There is no necessity of having these complex structures arise. Absolutely none, let alone morph over the variety of sight-bearing creatures that exist today.
And then at the end of the essay, like magic, we arrive at the human eye!
That explains it Spinoza.
Going from “eventually” to “over time” doesn’t do one bit of good in helping me understand the process by which these things or why these things ever formed in the first place.
I hope you understand my incredulity without claiming that I “don’t know” about evolution. I do. Gradual, random mutation by impersonal, natural causality over millions of years yeilds biological complexity and integration.
But it doesn’t explain where the chemicals came from, how the rods or cones developed, how the wiring got to the brain, etc. etc. etc.
I’ve been through it multiple times, Spinoza. The complexity issue is a game-ender for me, especially in light of what that ultimately translates to for the meaning of human life.
There isn’t any. Let’s take up the philosophical implications for man in light of evolution and see where it goes. I’m up for it if you are.
Good night to you and thanks for the exchanges.
Dan
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Spinoza: I’ve read that stuff on the eye before. But I shall comment on this –
Here’s how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made “vision” a little sharper. At the same time, the pit’s opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.
Ok, theoretical. Every change “had” to confer a survival advantage? How is this empirically verifiable knowledge? Or this “perhaps allowing it to evade a predator” Perhaps? How is this good science? I like this , “Eventually, the light-senstive spot evolved into a retina”!
Presto. Just like the diagrams I was shown. How is “eventually” to explain a “light spot” turning into something as complex as a retina? That’s absurd, Spinoza. How’s all that happen? What about the complex neurotransmission systems that would have to be in place for light to register in a brain? How would a mostly blind lemming even know what to do when it “saw” something in its light spot for the first time?
This is even better than “eventually” – “Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye.” Poof. Or little poofs. But why Spinoza? Didn’t “need” to develop. The little lemming could survive with just a light spot. There is no necessity of having these complex structures arise. Absolutely none, let alone morph over the variety of sight-bearing creatures that exist today.
And then at the end of the essay, like magic, we arrive at the human eye!
That explains it Spinoza.
Going from “eventually” to “over time” doesn’t do one bit of good in helping me understand the process by which these things or why these things ever formed in the first place.
I hope you understand my incredulity without claiming that I “don’t know” about evolution. I do. Gradual, random mutation by impersonal, natural causality over millions of years yeilds biological complexity and integration.
But it doesn’t explain where the chemicals came from, how the rods or cones developed, how the wiring got to the brain, etc. etc. etc.
I’ve been through it multiple times, Spinoza. The complexity issue is a game-ender for me, especially in light of what that ultimately translates to for the meaning of human life.
There isn’t any. Let’s take up the philosophical implications for man in light of evolution and see where it goes. I’m up for it if you are.
Good night to you and thanks for the exchanges.
Dan
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Sorry for the missed italics and double postings. My mistake, my apologies. No attitude intended in the italics, I assure you.
Dan
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I thought so and I hesitated to be so motherey but thought you might like to know.
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Not you hickory, talking to opinionated teen.
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#165 “I have to consider all of the options and one of them will just seem RIGHT.”
Opinionated Teen,
Sometimes that works for me. Sometimes – perhaps more often – I don’t have any clear sense which one “just seems RIGHT.” I don’t know if that’s because I’m not good at listening to God, or because God uses different ways of leading different people in making decisions. In those cases I am left with simply weighing the pros and cons and choosing what seems to make sense in light of factors that I consider important. In the case of looking for a church, one of those factors would be are people – of all ages – being effectively discipled there.
Sometimes I think God does simply leave the choice up to us, and more than one option could be equally pleasing to Him, so long as we will look to serve Him in whichever one we choose.
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Oldhickory68: excellent posts with specific, and unanswered, challenges. Thanks
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Norm:
Thanks for the kind words. I pray Mr. Spin knows I’m sincere, respect him as a person. It’s the theories with which I contend, not the person.
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Spinoza:
Here’s my philosophical, existential questions for you regarding your position on human beings in light of evolutionary theory.
1. What is or who is man and how do you know?
2. Does man possess tacit knowledge that need not submit itself to the rigors of empiricism?
3. What is morality? What is the basis of morality from an evolutionary perspective?
4. Why should man obey moral imperatives that have arisen out of blind, impersonal causality?
5. Why is survival the highest ideal for living creatures? How does evolution differentiate qualitatively between surviving and not surviving? How does evolution allow you to know empirically that one is “better” than the other? The eye’s development as the article you linked said gradations of the eye “had” to have survival advantages.How is it possible to bind a purely random, naturalistic process with necessity? That’s like telling the wind what it “must” do.
6. How do you personally justify your own moral actions or those of others?
7. And was Hitler or Pol Pot or Stalin or Nero “wrong” for the way they treated their enemies or is such behavior relative and unable to be judged? One may argue the Germans were simply evolving, but evolution leaves me with no reason to suppose the Nazi’s were “wrong” for what they did. Their tanks, guns, bombs and gas helped them adapt to the surrounding environment. Their ideologies gave them reason to crush the weak. Evolution supports what the Germans did.
We can start here if you wish. I’d be curious to hear your views on these matters.
Thanks again. And once more, know that I extend my grace, mercy and goodsportedness to you in whatever future dialogue we engage.
Dan “Old Hickory”
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Spinoza (#146)
“You are ‘attesting’ to the ‘creative work’ of early church clerics, and God had nothing to do with it.”
On what do you base your claim that “God had nothing to do with it”? Are you stating that you believe in God, or is it just that the god you believe in doesn’t/wouldn’t/can’t involve himself in the affairs of the material world?
This posting deals with Jimmy Carter’s disagreement with the SBC on interpretation of scripture. Scripture, mind you, that was “breathed out” by God. You have a low view of who this God is; belittle those who believe His word; scoff at the idea that there could even be “holy word” provided and preserved by God.
No matter the topic, you immediately turn the discussion to proclaim your “wisdom” of the way you think things really are, why they are and how they got to be that way. “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:12)
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, ?have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they ?became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ?Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and ?exchanged the glory of ?the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Romans 1:18-23 (ESV)
Knowing God but not honoring Him as God results in one’s understanding being darkened. One CAN’T understand because they WON’T honor Him. What a sad story: thinking one is wise, when their own “wisdom” will in the end result in destruction. All this, when God has made the truth “plain” before all.
It doesn’t have to end that way, in destruction. That’s why Jesus came and did the things He did, lived the perfect life He did, suffered death and was raised again from the grave.
“And even ?if our gospel is veiled, ?it is veiled only to ?those who are perishing. In their case ?the god of this world ?has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing ?the light of ?the gospel of the glory of Christ, ?who is the image of God. For what ?we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ?ourselves as your servants? for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-5)
ALL will stand before Him one day, either as Lord or Judge. I thank Him for the gospel, the truth of it, and for His willingness to suffer rejection and endure the penalty for MY sin so that I may have life through Him. All this, “according to the scriptures.”
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I would tend to agree with you, Pauline.
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I don’t trust the “it feels right” option. Known too many women who divorced the old husband because the new guy “felt right”. But it does seem to be the one we use most often.
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The “feel right” option requires, at a minimum, that
1. None of the courses of action being considered violate Scriptural principles
2. You are not already emotionally invested in one particular course of action (or, alternatively, already hardened against one particular course of action). In other words, you have to honestly be open to God leading you in any one of the directions you are considering in asking for guidance.
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Pauline,
And therein lies the problem. For many of us, we are telling God how it is going to be with pretty sounding words. It is very important to be immersed in Scripture, understanding how things work and also seeking the counsel of others immersed in the word to help keep those emotions in check. But it has to be a trusted source who really wants you serving the Lord over self.
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No, the “feels right” option is always very clearly a God-thing. Like, it can’t be anything else. My parents felt that way when we moved up to this bitty little house in this bitty little town far from home. It was just right.
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Yes, and the people I have known who got divorced have all said it was very clearly God’s will, there was no way He would want them to stay. He definitely wanted the women with the next guy. I do not believe that. Sometimes we direct God, sometimes we don’t.
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Ceryl D. – “You’d be wiser to admit your own ignorance when it comes to what has been proven about Jesus’ life and the archeology relevant to other biblical periods.”
The only thing relevant to this discussion is historical proof that Jesus was God and/or that the Genesis 1 narrative is true. If you have any such thing, please enlighten me. I spent a great deal of time looking for it and found nothing.
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#166-167 – Ah the “argument from incredulity.” I simply can’t believe you’d argue such nonsense.
Part of your problem is that you omit “selection” from natural selection.
#174 – “Here’s my philosophical, existential questions for you regarding your position on human beings in light of evolutionary theory.”
You don’t know my position on “human beings,” and the questions you pose here are completely irrelevant to the discussion. They are big questions to be sure, and I don’t doubt they are important to you, but they go way off topic.
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#175 “Scripture, mind you, that was “breathed out” by God. ”
On what do you base your claim that scripture was “breathed out” by God? Oh wait, don’t tell me – could it be “scripture?”
This utter circularity would be silly, except for the fact that it is part and parcel of evangelical theology of the bible.
Steve W, I have read the bible cover to cover multiple times, taught 9 bible studies a week at one point, led scores of “heathen” to the lord who are STILL “born-again” Christians, etc., so you don’t need to waste your time typing in scripture verses I’ve heard a million times before. Consider me utterly reprobate and hopeless by your standards.
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Spinoza:
Greetings to you sir. My apologies for my questions taking you “off topic” but I thought they were well within the reach of evolutionary theory since man is a living organism, so to say, and what he does must then have evolutionary explanations. But if you chose not to answer them, I respect that.
But then why are you in this thread? Just curious. You do not have to respond of course.
But I must say given the nature of your sharpened wits, you’d perhaps do me a bit more justice than merely posting that my critical thinking was nonsense.
You fail to tell me however how that an essay on the development of the eye suggests that statments like “over time” and “eventually” are good scientific data.
It’s like saying millions of grains of sand “eventually” turn into smoothed glass specifically tuned and polished in such a way as to become a lens in a microscope or an eyeglass or a telescope.
And by the way.I thought “selecting” was something concious living beings do. How does one posit such a term upon impersonal natural causality? Selection implies a selector who sorts and differentiates between a variety of different sources. Who or what is doing the selecting?
Your dismissiveness is unbecoming of the intellect you seem to portray within the thread here, Spin. Take me on and show the world I’m a fool for making statements in 166-167 as I have. Use your own logic and wits, I don’t care, just say something intelligent rather than giving me the back of your hand.
But if that is what your responses shall be to my inquiries and willingness to offer my own layman’s critique of evolution and the subseqent philosophical and social implications for man, that is after all, your call. I’m sorry you feel that we’d be getting off topic and I never insinuated I know what you think or believe about man, I just wanted to know what you thought about such questions through the lens of Darwinism and natural selection/evolution.
Seems like you had a rough go perhaps in breaking away from the faith and for that I do not mean to belittle or minimize the situations and difficulties you experienced. I’m truly sorry about that. I didn’t know of course and didn’t mean to offend.
But in the end Spin, if you do think what I’ve said is nonsense, ok. It’s your call. No hard feelings or anything, Bub.
My best to you.
Dan
As far as your comments on 183,
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By the way Spin, after rereading my list of questions, perhaps question 5 at least would keep us on topic. I’ll be happy to continue there if you wish.
But if not, ok. I’m down with what you dig.
Dan
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I suppose I’m not making my opinion clear?
“…it was very clearly God’s will, there was no way He would want them to stay.”
But when it’s a God thing, you’re not breaking His rules. In addition, it changes from, “no way He would want me to stay” to “He doesn’t want me to stay”, to use your example about divorce. (But divorce is wrong, so of course one shouldn’t use that example in that matter.)
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No, you are clear. I am just contributing that there can come a time when people will not see clearly because they believe they are closer to God than the rest and He is giving them special dispensation to do things contrary to His stated will. One needs to be very very careful to make sure what they are hearing lines up with Scripture.
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Understood.
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OldHickory –
“It’s like saying millions of grains of sand “eventually” turn into smoothed glass specifically tuned and polished in such a way as to become a lens in a microscope or an eyeglass or a telescope.”
No it’s nothing like that at all – that’s mere random assemblage, not natural selection.
In natural selection – the environment (not an intelligence) does the selection. An organism with a better photosensitive receptor can find food better and escape predators better, so he will be more likely to survive.
This is what drives evolution. Not random assemblage, but the selection of the most fit out of a random assemblage by environmental factors.
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Oldhickory –
5. Why is survival the highest ideal for living creatures? How does evolution differentiate qualitatively between surviving and not surviving? How does evolution allow you to know empirically that one is “better” than the other? The eye’s development as the article you linked said gradations of the eye “had” to have survival advantages.How is it possible to bind a purely random, naturalistic process with necessity? That’s like telling the wind what it “must” do.
It’s really very simple – “evolution” doesn’t differentiate, the environment does. If you do not have survival value, you will die without progeny. end of story. If you do, your progeny will be more likely to survive. Future generations will have your traits, not the other critter’s.
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Spinoza:
Thanks for picking up on #5 there. I appreciate it. You’ll find me to be fairly resonable and I won’t berate or ad hom you or your knowledge for not wanting to answer a question. Thanks.
So we shift a trait brimming with personification (selection) from an impersonal “evolution” to an even more impersonal “environment”.
What or who puts “value” on survival though, Spin? As I mentioned whats the qualitative difference? What’s the “value” of surviving?
Which brings up the likelyhood of first-generation offspring who “mutate”? How is it possible to determine the advantage of a mutation? Mutations in observable, real-time nature die out or disappear. There is no conferred advantage in nature that I know of presently where a mutated creature would be considered “advantageous” in his surroundings, let alone likely to survive.
Yet evolution as a theory hangs upon time and mutations as two of the foundational pillars for the variety of creatureliness we have today.
That goes against the physical living evidence we see in the animal and human world, Spin. Mutations to me only appear useful for evolutionary theory, but not for survival in a present-day environment.
Thanks for your comments. Hope you had a good day.
Dan Ol’ Hickory
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BTW Spin, Can you tell me simply the difference between “Random assemblage” and “Natural Selection”?
Because here’s where I’m coming from.Lets take the lens of an eyeglass. You say “Random assemblage.” I don’t follow what is implied by “random” in this case, given what goes into making eyeglasses.
But now take the eye itself. Let’s just say the human eye. Far more complex but you imply “natural selection” here. Am I to understand you’re saying the “environment” selected</i) the human eye over the course of some 500,000 million years as your link you gave me posits?
So the big $24,000 question is, why does natural selection give us the eye but not one single eyeglass from the same process? I would think that if nat sec could make a lens within an eye "naturally" then would it not be reasonable to expect their to be some simple eyeglass lenses laying around, given the fact that there are innumerable coastlines and beaches with inordinate amounts of sand being hammered by the environment in such a way that suggests to me I should expect to see some "natural selection" lenses laying around, for they are far more simpler in their physical makeup than a human eye.
But the evolutionist would say that evolution deals strictly with living organisms. Ok, fine. But at one point, there was no such thing as a living organism. Yet evolution got started somehow, before there was life. It had to have a beginning. So if complex living matter can arise out of nonliving matter, I would expect there to exist the possibility of some mildly complex nonliving matter arising out of nonliving matter, too.
I'm just speculating, Spin, trying to draw out the implications of what you mention and from what I've read.
Also, maybe you missed it, but I'd asked how one may bind an impersonal process with a "necessity"? Evolution or the environment cannot be bound with human constructs such as "necessity". The article on the eye you gave me said evolutionary mutations "must" confer an survivability advantage. How is that determined? You still haven't mentioned why survival is better than not surviving. If a creature mutates and dies because of it, whose to say that poor chap wasn't better off? Evolution cannot. Therefore, in my own limited estimation, there can be no reason to say "evolution" or natural selection "must" do something, one way or the other.
But on the other hand, if you insist that nat sec/evo "must confer an advantage" is stated because in order to survive, one must have the advantage, I can understand that. But its a simple tautology which explains nothing save that those with advatages suited for survival will survive.
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What or who puts “value” on survival though, Spin? As I mentioned whats the qualitative difference? What’s the “value” of surviving?
Survival doesn’t need a conferred value – it is its own value wrt natural selection. A fitter trait will survive, and repeated instances of this through the eons drive evolution.
Mutations to me only appear useful for evolutionary theory, but not for survival in a present-day environment.
Then you don’t understand mutations. Most mutations are neutral, some are bad, some confer an advantage. Really bad ones lead to dead ends and are not “selected.” Neutral ones lead to benign change – i.e., “genetic drift”. Good ones will proliferate in future generations, because individual organisms that have them will thrive.
Creationists routinely misuse the word “mutation” as a kind of macro-organismic “mutant”. Most mutations are simply DNA copy errors. These can lead to changes in enzyme shape and function. Most of have no effect. Some have a slight effect. Some have a big effect. Some have a good effect. Some have a bad effect. Some just make things different without an obvious immediate advantage. Those that improve fitness will proliferate. Over time – and there is lots of it! – these small changes easily lead to big differences.
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Thank you Spin, for replying. I have been myself through the rigors of what you mention.
Here are my disparate thoughts.
I see “survival” in evolutionary theory as a tautology. In short, those equipped with survivability advantages will survive.
Second, I do understand the “abuse” rendered upon the term mutation. It has grotesque sci-fi connotations, does it not? Indeed!
I am in full agreement with you and understanding in terms of how you’ve more accurately described what a “mutation” is as is understood in evo/nat sec. Yes.
However, and I know I run the risk of having you think I’m full of nonsense here, but again I’ll posit my “incredulity” in thinking of “broken” DNA being primarily responsible (that, and lots of time) for the type, amount and variety of living creatures we see today.
Doesn’t “not broken” DNA contribute a bit more than its broken counterpart?
That’s what gets me. Evo/nat sec attributing the complexity of life to DNA that didn’t work properly.
I think fully functional and healthy DNA has much more to do with it than the broken stuff.
And of course, the whole notion that DNA is some sort of coded system. That has me scratching my head too. Where’d the code come from? The precision that is involved in DNA is staggering to me, even from the standpoint of believing God put it there. What an ingenious design! (Pardon my use of creationist terms. It was not meant to offend.
But thanks again Spin for continuing with me. I appreciate it.
Dan
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OldHickory68,
I apologize for barging into the conversation this late in the game, but I wanted to address your comments regarding DNA. Mutations do not “break” DNA or make it any less “functional” or “healthy.” Mutations merely change the sequence of DNA in the genome and/or change the length of the genome. The effect these changes have on the organism may be beneficial, harmful, or neutral, as Spinoza mentioned earlier, but to think of mutation as some sort of a degradation or loss of fidelity is to completely misunderstand how it works. Copying errors are precisely what make evolution possible.
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GWF81
No worries jumping in! That’s what makes this what it isand why I like it and why I do it. I love to write, think and exchange with people.
Now you mention “copying errors”.
Perhaps my simplistic working in 194 is to blame for a misunderstanding, but essentially you help to clarify my point by using the term “error”.
To ascribe the almost infinite variety of the comlexity and frankly, the beauty of living organisms in both their design and appearance to “error” is for me a stunningly contrary doctrine to what we observe in nature.
Sure you can dial in all the different DNA you wish on a fruit fly and create all sorts of interesting combinations of fruit fly mutants if you will, but in the end we aren’t getting anything useful, let alone a new species.
So to say “broken” as describing DNA that produces a mutation was perhaps not the best of choices. I do like how you put it as a “change” in “the sequence.” Yes. That is much more accurate.
But with mentioning “error” there are other questions which arise.
1. There is no “right way” for blind, natural/impersonal causality by which I may judge a DNA sequence to be an “error”. Natural selection is brutally indifferent to what your code is and if your the recipient of some backward or out of place codes, how is it possible to say that these are “errors” and not a genetic advantage? There’s no way to tell.
2. This is a theory-fitting tautology. What’s a genetic advantage for? To survive. How does one survive? By receiving genetic advantages in the DNA which come about through “error”.
3. Nature eats her mistakes, GW. Those who have DNA “errors” usually don’t survive that well and have a difficult time adapting, let alone turning their “error” into something useful.
Anyhow. Barge in anytime! Good stuff. Thanks for the clairity. I claim no expertise in the subject, I just try to be a well-informed layman.
OH.
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OldHickory68,
You are latching onto a negative connotation of the word “error” when none is implied or necessary. For my purposes above, “error” only describes the phenomenon of a sequence of DNA being altered by mutation.
OldHickory68: “Sure you can dial in all the different DNA you wish on a fruit fly and create all sorts of interesting combinations of fruit fly mutants if you will, but in the end we aren’t getting anything useful, let alone a new species.“
This is manifestly false and has been observed to be so both in the lab and in the wild. Novel and useful sequences of DNA quite readily arise under sufficient selection pressure. The process can be loosely replicated on a computer by choosing a specific string of characters (a measure of fitness), generating random strings of characters (starting population of genomes), and selecting the strings that most closely resemble your specific string to seed the next generation. If this process is repeated, it is quite amazing how quickly you will arrive at your specific string.
OldHickory68: “1. There is no “right way” for blind, natural/impersonal causality by which I may judge a DNA sequence to be an “error”. Natural selection is brutally indifferent to what your code is and if your the recipient of some backward or out of place codes, how is it possible to say that these are “errors” and not a genetic advantage? There’s no way to tell.”
This is like asking how nature can sort the water and the atmosphere with such precision without knowing their densities. Natural selection operates by the non-random survival and procreation of organisms. We use the word “fitness” to describe how adept an organism is at surviving in a particular environment, but nature does not need to “know” about this concept to perform the selection.
OldHickory68: “2. This is a theory-fitting tautology. What’s a genetic advantage for? To survive. How does one survive? By receiving genetic advantages in the DNA which come about through “error”.”
The thing is, we know that survival advantages (as well as disadvantages) can be produced through mutation. It’s been known for a much longer time that survival advantages tend to propagate better than survival disadvantages by their very nature.
OldHickory68: “3. Nature eats her mistakes, GW. Those who have DNA “errors” usually don’t survive that well and have a difficult time adapting, let alone turning their “error” into something useful.”
“Errors” (mutations) do not need to be “turned into” something useful. They either cause a genome to produce an organism with higher fitness than its predecessor or they do not. The mutations that result in higher fitness tend to be kept while those that result in lower fitness tend to not be kept.
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#196/197 – GWF81’s answer is fully adequate – I’ll just clarify that by copying “error” I simply mean that the copied molecule is not identical to what it is copied from. It may, in fact, be better than the original with respect to enhancing the organisms fitness.
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p.s. I find that creationist’s typically hold on to 2 related assumptions wrt genes, mutation, and the mechanism for evolution.
1. There was an original perfect DNA blueprint that could only have degenerated. (this basically accords with their notions of the fall)
2. “Mutation” is synonymous with a large-scale deformity
Neither of these is true.
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GFW & SPIN
Thanks gents for taking the time to reply.
GFW you said this:
“You are latching onto a negative connotation of the word “error” when none is implied or necessary. For my purposes above, “error” only describes the phenomenon of a sequence of DNA being altered by mutation.”
What other connotation am I to imply by the word “error”? Evolutionary theory makes “error” “necessary”, not me. Perhaps “genetic alteration” might help clear up confusion for a muddleheaded layman like myself.
But then there’s that word again, “mutation”. Just like the word error, it implies some sort of normative standard from which the DNA in question has deviated. And my point was in evolutionary theory, there can be no such standard.
You tell me its survivability, but again I say that one cannot impose any sort of standard on a blind, random selection process that doesn’t give a whim if I’m blind or if I can see.
2. “The process can be loosely replicated on a computer by choosing a specific string of characters (a measure of fitness), generating random strings of characters (starting population of genomes), and selecting the strings that most closely resemble your specific string to seed the next generation. If this process is repeated, it is quite amazing how quickly you will arrive at your specific string.”
This is another curious facet of evolutionary theory. It requires “intelligent design” to recreate it! A computer program as proof that DNA produces useful mutations? The software has a built-in bias, GFW. It was designed!
3. “Natural selection operates by the non-random survival and procreation of organisms. We use the word “fitness” to describe how adept an organism is at surviving in a particular environment, but nature does not need to “know” about this concept to perform the selection.”
GFW, how can it be proven what nature needs or doesn’t need to know? And again, the connotations of “selection” are pregnant with contradictions within evolutionary theory. In order to “select” one must “know” something about what one is selecting. There are “fingerprints” of intelligence in what you say. Something is doing the selecting. And in the “selecting” just the right amount of this and that simply come together “naturally” through a “non-random” process. If it is “non-random” then it is deliberate. And if it is deliberate, something is doing the deliberating.
Again there is no qualitative necessity of survival within evolutionary theory as the highest end for creaturely existence. The theory doesn’t say why these things are about us and it has no say it how the creatures ought to behave or to what end they ought to strive. Death might just as well be the preferred end. We sit at the end of a purposeless continuum, the highest ideal of which is man’s self-imposed construct that survival is a “necessary” component to the entire process, if not the end in and of itself.
It’s a rather frustrating tautology as I keep saying.
4. “The thing is, we know that survival advantages (as well as disadvantages) can be produced through mutation. It’s been known for a much longer time that survival advantages tend to propagate better than survival disadvantages by their very nature.”
This is a qualitative distinction between two ends (surviving and not surviving) that the theory itself cannot support. You may posit that one is better or necessary, but in the end, the theory cannot support this. There’s no magnum codex for how nature “must” behave. She cares not a whim for human constructs or whether they bring life or death. She cares not a whim for her creatures, either. Kill or be killed, survive or die, but there is none of this presupposing there’s some sort of necessity which binds natural selection to specific ends of survivability.
I can with equal force of argument, posit that an advantage can be conferred upon a creature if it results in death. If I kill myself because I come to the conclusion I simply do not want to survive in a cold, impersonal universe, evolution or natural selection cannot condemn my actions. I am merely acting in accordance with my own conclusions that one cannot qualitatively differentiate between surviving and not surviving. Advantage in this case is purely relative.
5. ““Errors” (mutations) do not need to be “turned into” something useful.”
But GFW, you said that such errors are the foundation of natural selection. If they don’t turn into something useful, you don’t have a theory!
Anyhow, thanks again gents. Good stuff. Appreciate the thoughts. It is familiar territory for me, but always enlightening and enjoyable. My best to you both this day.
Sincerely,
Dan
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Dan,
The words “error” and “mutation” must be understood biochemically, not ethically!
When a DNA molecule makes and imperfect copy of itself, we call that an “error.” That doesn’t mean it’s worse than the original, just different. It may be better than the original. Such an error is a “mutation.” That doesn’t mean it’s defective, just changed. If, for example, a reproduced DNA strand has thymine where adenine used to be, a “point mutation” has occurred. If this is in a third codon position, then it will make the same protein as the former and the mutation is completely benign. If otherwise, it may insert a different amino acid into the peptide change, making a slight variant on the resulting enzyme. This enzyme might be better than the original one was, so it will make its host organism more likely to survive.
This all follows from an understanding of DNA at the level of high school biology. Do you understand DNA? Do you know what a gene is? Do you know what an enzyme is? Do you know the difference between genotype and phenotype? These are the relevant quantities here. You speak about the topic as if you don’t know what any of these are. If that’s true, then your mind is hopelessly in a fog far away from the topic at hand.
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corrected typos from #202 –
“When a DNA molecule makes an (not “and”) imperfect copy…”
“…insert a different amino acid into the peptide chain (not “change”)
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Spin
Hey there. And I do thank you for your insight and clairity regarding DNA change verse error.
Now, I’ll also admit I haven’t the knowledge of a geneticist nor do I claim expertise or any sort of authority regarding DNA. Admittedly its complicated and I derive my limited knowledge from what I read and from discussions like this.
But to answer some of your questions:
Do I understand DNA? Yes, in a limted capacity. It’s fantastically complex stuff.
Do I know what a gene is? Yes. A protein molecule found in reproductive cells which carry a code. This is why I look like mom.
Do I know what an enzyme is? I’m pretty sure. A protein made by cells to start a sequence of chemical reactions?
Genotype and phenotype – Geno isn’t Italian salami, but one might look at it that way. Genoa salami we could say is made up of specific ingredients that distinguish it from run-of-the mill deli salami.Phenotype would be like what would happen to the salami when exposed to its surroundings, like if it was heated or had cheese melted on top of it – how would the salami “adapt” after being exposed to various environements – ovens, toasters, freezers, refrigerators and my gut.
And I will candidly admit I double checked my facts, Spin. You are probably correct about my “high school level” knowledge of the subject.
But let us not allow the limitations of my specific knowledge of DNA detract from the basic premise that it is a very precise and complex entity.
What we disagree on is not how it works, but where it came from and why its here.
If man came up with something as wonderfully intricate as DNA, he’d call it technology and probably get a Nobel Prize.
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Whoops! Forgot DNA altogether as I was trying to be witty and knowledgable at the same time.
Uh, deoxyribonucleic acid. A twisted ladder if you will. That double helix deal which has “instructions” on it or in it which yield hereditary traits.
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And a caveat to your distinction between understanding error biologically.
What is presupposed in a backward looking view of how living organisms developed is that a slight change in DNA confers advantages of survivability. I get that. And it is obvious DNA does alter with resultant observable traits. Sure.
What is also presupposed in a backward-looking theory about creaturely development in regard to DNA, however, is that these “slight” changes result in trans-speciation. That’s where nat sec as a theory exists in a bank of unempirical fog.
Sure you can make better horses, or hybrid flowers, or interesting dog breeds. But you still in the end get horses, flowers and dogs. Mendel never got anything more than pea plants, etc. And there is not one empirical shred of evidence that man ever climbed anything even remotely related to Professor Dawkins’ Mt. Improbable.
It’s no more incredible to believe that than Moses going up Mt. Sinai.
In the end Spin, your categorical classification of the utility of genetic change, “error” in producing different species through impersonal naturalistic causalities with no outside intelligence acting upon the entire process is essentially a theoretical leap in the dark with scant physical evidence. I mean, ok. Fine. Have a theory, but let us be candid and say it’s not completely grounded in a fully robust empirical foundation.
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“Do I know what a gene is? Yes. A protein molecule found in reproductive cells which carry a code. This is why I look like mom.”
Not quite – a gene is a segment of DNA that codes for a protein. A sequence of 3 DNA base pairs codes for a single amino acid. A protein is a chain of these.
Maybe you should review the DNA/RNA process of protein synthesis.
It is only in this context that the words “mutation” or “error” should be used. Your last comment shows you don’t understand the basics here at all. This is not specialized “biochemistry” – it is high school level biology.
“error” in producing different species through impersonal naturalistic causalities with no outside intelligence acting upon the entire process is essentially a theoretical leap in the dark with scant physical evidence evidence.
The only one in the dark here is you, Dan.
DNA copying mistakes are observed and are simply accidents of quantum mechanics. Their utility in providing useful changes is also observed. The empirical foundation is quite firm – you just don’t understand any of it.
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Ok, then. Spin. I read between the lines. You have declared my knowledge insufficient. I suppose there would be no more reason to continue, really.
But I scratch my head at your useage of mistakes and accidents.Your use of terms betrays consistency. We go back to the beginning here. Mistake, like error, is not the same as a mere change as would be the case in whether I get brown or green eyes. No. There is much more consistency in DNA which tirelessly yields traits for healthy blood and brain cells, without change. Alterations of such configurations of DNA would yield fatalities, not new species.
Put me in the dark if you wish Spin, but I cannot view such complexity and believe it was without intentionality and design.
And while I cannot claim anything but a mere surface level knowledge of quantum mechanics I cannot fathom that it’s a “simple” as you posit. Much is unknown at this point about QM as I understand it. So to take such a complex theory and to declare DNA is “simply” an accident of QM is far too much of an oversimplification of the matter.
You’ve never observed trans-speciation, though Spin. No one has. Lab experiments which allegedly yield such things are the result of lab techs and scientists contributing their intelligence. The bias in such “proofs” is deliberate intelligent design.
And I beg to differ. I have demonstrated I understand some of it, not all, but certainly I’ve shown I do know something.
Thanks for your thoughts though. I’m sorry I’ve not been knowledgable enough to continue to merit your engagement. Really. I am being sincere. I’ve enjoyed today’s thread, Spin. You made me check my facts! That’s a good thing.
Sincerely, for now,
Dan Ray
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Mistake, like error, is not the same as a mere change as would be the case in whether I get brown or green eyes. No. There is much more consistency in DNA which tirelessly yields traits for healthy blood and brain cells, without change. Alterations of such configurations of DNA would yield fatalities, not new species.
This is just plain wrong. DNA copying mistakes occur naturally all the time. They are observed to occur naturally. Some changes are bad. Some are neutral. Some are good. If you don’t understand this, you’re just not on page one.
Put me in the dark if you wish Spin, but I cannot view such complexity and believe it was without intentionality and design.
If you want to wonder at the universe etc. and believe there’s a designer generally speaking, I have no problem with that. But such a hypothetical designer has apparently set up life to evolve to complexity under the influence of natural laws without further intervention by him/herself.
And while I cannot claim anything but a mere surface level knowledge of quantum mechanics I cannot fathom that it’s a “simple” as you posit. Much is unknown at this point about QM as I understand it. So to take such a complex theory and to declare DNA is “simply” an accident of QM is far too much of an oversimplification of the matter.
QM is the theory by which we understand molecular reactions. These require no intelligent intervention to take place. If you light a can of gasoline, it explodes, but God doesn’t have to intervene to make it explode. Similarly, DNA copying and associated “mistakes” (i.e. imperfect copying) happen according to natural chemical laws that ultimately depend on QM. No intelligent intervention is needed.
You’ve never observed trans-speciation, though Spin. No one has. Lab experiments which allegedly yield such things are the result of lab techs and scientists contributing their intelligence. The bias in such “proofs” is deliberate intelligent design.
I’m not sure what “trans-speciation” is – never heard of it. But “speciation” – the origin of a new species from different ancestors has been observed multiple times.
And I beg to differ. I have demonstrated I understand some of it, not all, but certainly I’ve shown I do know something.
You know only enough to fool yourself. Do yourself a favor and some good mainstream biology books.
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Spin
Trans-speciation. Cross species, new species arising out of mutations,changes of existing ones. It is my mistake for the trans business. I kept thinking of transubstantiation as I was writing! Thanks for pointing that out.
In regards to QM, I do know it’s complicated. I simply make the observation that your comment seemed a bit too simple of an explanation.
“But such a hypothetical designer has apparently set up life to evolve to complexity under the influence of natural laws without further intervention by him/herself.”
Just a though on this really quickly. If you’re not looking for a designer or you don’t believe in one, I’m not sure it would be within the realm of science to make the determination that such a being does “not” intervene. That Spin, that conclusion is philosophical speculation. Even Job admits God passes by and he doesn’t see him. The ending chapters of Job even put my hand to my mouth. I don’t know all there is to know about the complexities of living oranisms, Spin, even from a creationist perspective.
But science must halt at making metaphysical postulates which go beyond the realm of empirical investigation and declare them as orthodox truth.
And quickly or briefly what sort of speciation has been observed? Link me something simple and I’ll look at it. Really.
Thanks again Spin.
Toodles to my evo cyberchum.
Dan
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“But science must halt at making metaphysical postulates which go beyond the realm of empirical investigation and declare them as orthodox truth.”
Science doesn’t do this – some scientists do, but they are speaking personally, and that is their prerogative. They are not less justified in doing this than are their devout counterparts.
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“Even Job admits God passes by and he doesn’t see him.”
Then what evidence justifies this conclusion?
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All bow to the all knowing Spinoza…you poor christian creationists are just uneducated and indoctrinated…forget the fact many of you have substantial degrees and education and the ability to read just as much as the next person.
/sarcasm off
Evolution is fast and limited. It occurs at reproduction, therefore the reaction will always be dependent upon the variables that constrain it, just like any other reaction or mechanism.
It does nothing to substantiate millions of years.
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In regards to the actual original post.
I heard a description of Gen Y’ers this past week. Or the Nintendo Generation as I like to call them.
Basically Gen Y’ers which is about 1980ish to 2000 have grown up sheltered (parental hovering), technologically minded. They have grown up knowing people across the world, information is at their fingertips anytime they need it. Diversity is not an issue to most, they are highly educated (as college takes 6 years now etc)
There was more descriptions given at this business conference as they they were discussing how to relate to different gen’s in a work environment.
Why a Gen Y’er repeatedly comes in late, has his mom show up at his interviews, has his mom call the school to check his grades, kids go to school closer to home etc etc it goes. Parents are scared, so the kids are scared. They leave the house older and older, even coming back after school.
So anyway, this was all interesting, and please note its generalizations, there are exceptions. But I was thinkinga bout all this in relation to Youth Group issues, and I think it helps understand why this happens a good bit when a kid gets lost after going to college.
See the other big note was that Gen Y’ers want something to care about, they want their life to be meaningful. Apparently money doesnt mean much, job status, health, etc can all be stripped away as we’ve seen. Why work 100% at a job when the end result isnt noticeable. You have to give them that. Money and 401ks arent enough to keep them at a job.
So I think youth group has done something well, it has provided this age range with similiar security like their parents offer, it also gives them something bounded, and something worth caring about. Something meaningful.
The problem arises is when a kid goes off to college, is suddenly unbounded, without parents, no longer applying himself to something as meaningful. They get lost in the transition, being subjected to such a world unguarded. It’s really not a wonder many are tested and fall prey to the world.
So really, i think what would be beneficial is if churches would begin to incorporate their youth groups at least their seniors toward such organizations like the BSU, RUF, CCC..etc. So that they continue to live and apply themselves. Help them to find churches, and mentors that they can look too.
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Cheryl,
I know there is a nursery debate for some. I personally dont have a problem with it, but I see your side of it. I’d prefer to have my kids in service as well.
I rarely serve in the nursey, mostly out of hte excuse that its not my place when I dont have a kid…but thats a poor excuse too really.
However, my point is that we need to disciple our own children first, whether they sit in nursery or sit in service. Especially if we allow a youth group…parents and other members who raise their hand at baptism need to not give less support and discipleship, but all the more.
Where 2 or 3 are gathered in His name, is church. There is no age qualification. Serving to take care of a child so a parent can get a break to go to service…well I dont think there’s any harm in that. They need it just as much as you or I do.
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Thorn, no, there is no “harm” in serving in the nursery. I personally bowed out (with my shepherding elder’s blessing) from nursery service, however, partly because I don’t believe in the nursery, but more practically at this point in my life because I live alone or with a housemate who’s rarely home and work from my home and I need to be part of the church gathered in worship. I’ve served in the nursery occasionally, but have cried through one or two of those times because of being separated from the body. And I think the children in there with me need the larger body as much as I do!
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Thorn, theologically I question the idea of a parent “taking a break” by going to the service alone, however. It seems to me nearly as misguided as taking a break by eating alone (and leaving children unfed). Children need spiritual and physical nourishment too; it’s better by far to find a different time of the week to seek such a “break.” I don’t think it’s a sin to put kids in the nursery, but I do think that churches ought to offer support to families with kids in the service rather than taking them out of the service for the spiritually irrelevant reason of parental convenience. (Single adults and those whose kids are grown can and should come alongside single parents and those with multiple kids or kids with special needs. Kids being in the service doesn’t necessarily imply that their parents have full care / responsibility for them during the service. For me personally, when I had foster kids I always made sure there was at least one other responsible, loving adult in the same pew with me! More than once, in fact, I had to take one child out and that other adult was left looking after the remaining child for a few minutes.)
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