I'm (still) getting Newsweek, even though my subscription ended at the end of October. This week's issue has a little article on curricular reform at Harvard. It seems Harvard's Task Force on General Education has decided to require students to take classes on religion. One science professor's response: "There is an enormous constituency of people who would hold that faith and reason are two routes to knowledge. It is a mistake to affirm that. It's like having a requirement of 'Astronomy & Astrology'. They're not comparable topics." If you didn't know already, this is one of my pet peeves.
Faith, at its essence, is believing something (anything) even though you have to make certain assumptions for which you have no basis. The classic example is religion. An equally good example is science. Scientists will be the first to recognize that they make assumptions they can't prove and that they base these assumptions on reason or experience. But how do we really know either of those is worth anything? I'm not trying to say science is worthless; I'm trying to say that I'm sick and tired of arrogant scientists thinking they know everything. Every reasonable person knows or should know that lawyers have the monopoly on knowledge. Duh.
Am I a nihilist?
1 comment:
I agree. But faith is no less verifiable than science. Consider Paul's definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Consider this life as if we were walking into a wall of darkness. So often, we ask God to move the light to move forward. Instead, He says, "Step forward, and the light will move. You'll be just fine."
When we finally trust Him enough to move forward, He's always right: the light moves, and we were fine. We hoped that things would be fine, and looking back, we see the evidence that it was true because the path we have taken to the edge of the darkness shows the guidance of Deity.
-Craig
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