A friend of mine, who does not realize that I am a skeptic, told this story to me (I'm doing my best to remember):
A Christian and a Skeptic were having a conversation. The Skeptic wanted to trap the Christian into admitting that a flaw existed in the Bible.
Skeptic: "So, do you know anything about the story of the ark in Genesis?"
Christian: "Why yes. I know the story quite well."
Skeptic: "That ark must have weight several tons, right?"
Christian: "It probably weighed several thousands of tons. It was meant to hold many animals."
Skeptic: "When the Bible says that it only took four priest to lift the ark, do you think that is possible?"
So the skeptic in the story is confusing Noah's Ark and the Ark of the Covenant, thus it stereotypes all Bible skeptics as being ignorant of basic Bible stories. While this may be true for some, there are many dedicated skeptics who come from Christian homes and have a good knowledge of the Bible. Skeptics must work to impress upon Bible believers that they are equal in terms of Bible knowledge.
In an effort to maintain a literal view of the Bible, fundamentalist Christians are limiting the amount of science education that they wish to learn. If a scientific theory conflicts with the Bible, that is all that is necessary to invalidate it. I've even heard this sentiment while sitting in church: "God said it and I believe it." One preacher took it a step further: "God said it, and it doesn't matter what I believe, it is truth." To them, their salvation depends on the inerrancy of the Bible.
Even the New Testament writer Paul was faced with skeptics. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-34, you can sense the frustration in Paul's writing because people refuse to believe that the resurrection of the dead is possible. He concludes the passage as if he were screaming at the reader: "STOP SINNING... for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame!" Paul is faced with the difficult problem that he can't prove a word of what he claims. His only experience of Jesus was a one-time-only vision with an audience of one, despite being surrounded by people when the vision happened. He claims that there are other witnesses (500 of them!) but then says that they are dying off. Even if he could gather 500 witnesses, we would have 500 anecdotal accounts and still no way of testing the claim. For good reason, faith is the most prominent message taught by Paul across all of the books that he authored. Christianity requires faith.
Christianity's dependence on faith should be put in contrast with science's refusal to accept faith as evidence. Academia wants science students to be rigorous testers of scientific concepts. If an idea cannot be tested, or the testing of an idea repeatedly fails, then the idea is thrown out. Evolution is an ordinary claim (organisms change over time) that is backed up by ordinary evidence, but the same cannot be said for any religion's extraordinary claims about the natural world.
Like the writer Paul, the tactic of modern day fundamentalists is to launch an attack on anyone who makes a scientific claim that differs from scriptures. Saint Augustine, just a few centuries after Paul, realized that you cannot teach extraordinary claims by refuting scientific claims. He wrote the following:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. .... Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.
Saint Augustine wants his Christian brethren to stop making fools of themselves. If science conflicts with your religion, learn to accept this.
Tags: religion, science, Christianity, science education, skepticism, skeptic, Christian, bible, faith, evolution