Dude, What Are We Thinking?: Darwinian Religion Versus the Faith of Our Fathers

by Simpson, K. Allen

• ISBN13: 9781469761367
• ISBN10: 146976136X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-09
• Publisher: Author Solutions

Summary

In this consideration of religious and scientific beliefs, Keith Simpson offers a provocative challenge to Darwinian thinking through conversations with a close friend. "An important tool for parenting and college preparation. Having taught on all levels of academia, I am convinced that it takes great wisdom to take complex and sophisticated issues and present them in a way that the non-expert can comprehend and evaluate. Simpson has done a masterful job of synthesizing, exposing, and presenting-in an understandable and engaging way for our evaluation-the embedded philosophies of Darwinism that intertwine our cultural thinking." -David P. Ferreira, Ph.D. "Keith Simpson provides an enjoyable and highly personal account of how respectful and well-informed interactions with atheists can change hearts and minds for the better." -Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute

Excerpts

In one sense, our conversation was one-sided, which is to say I did most of the talking. I see now that was inevitable. Our personal beliefs predestined the proportion of our interaction. You see, Sam was an agnostic Jew, but I was an orthodox Christian. Being an agnostic Jew is easy, but being a Christian is difficult. That may sound crazy, but it's really not. Let me explain. Being agnostic can be easy because it goes with the flow of our culture. Agnostics don't propose to know anything for sure. They are tolerant of nearly everything. They believe in baseball, moral relativity, and a good paying job. They believe in sex before, during and after marriage. In other words, being an agnostic is easy because agnostic ideas are popular and agnostic orthodoxy reigns in pop culture. I'm not making a case against Sam's ideas, at least not right now. I'm only saying that when someone's views go along with popular ideas, there's no tension between that person and the culture around them. In our conversations Sam didn't have anything to prove. His beliefs were kosher at the office, at schools, and at swimming practice. And his views are promoted in movies, magazines, and music. Sam, therefore, was safe at home. Being a Christian, however, was totally different. There's lots of tension. Some people say America is a Christian nation. But that idea is bogus. Sure, most people still say they are Christians when a pollster calls them at dinner time or when they enlist in the Marines. Maybe their stepmother read Bible stories to them at bedtime. Or perhaps, their grandpa was a Sunday school teacher. But times have changed. Now, Christianity has been stomped out of the public square. Singing Jingle bells at the office holiday party is fine, but caroling about Christ at the Christmas party is over. The faith of our fathers has been relegated to obscure TV channels and office whispers. And most American teenagers know more about Lindsey Lohan than the Gospel According to Luke. Heck, they probably don't even know about Luke. As a practicing Christian, I propose to believe in truth, a concept that was once as controversial as mashed potatoes, but now it offends my mailman and my son's English teacher. I think people should get married and then have sex. Try believing that while you watch NBC or HBO or MTV. I think modesty is healthy, but the women's magazines stacked in my face at grocery store check-out lines counter that value. Lips and boobs and curves and skin are laid bare for me and my kids to feast upon as we place bread and milk on the moving belt. I believe children are a gift from God and that what we do in this life reverberates throughout eternity. According to Vogue magazine and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, my ideas are crazy. See what I mean? Many Americans have rejected their Christian heritage. Now our culture promotes the idea that we should be "seekers" of truth...but we're not really supposed to find it. We're supposed to keep seeking and seeking and seeking. It's all about the journey. Finders of truth—like Christians—are considered simpletons. Finders of truth are naïve. And, worst of all, finders of truth like to share their discovery—a faux pas at the water cooler and at the club. It's not acceptable to belly up to the bar and say: "Give me a Manhattan, and oh, by the way, let me share with you why I believe in Jesus." Can't you just see the bar stools empty? When a secular person meets someone like me, what can they possibly think, except perhaps that I have a 1 GHz brain in a 30 GHz world. Or they may think I'm a religious nut job. Of course, I don't see it that way. When I ask timeless questions about the meaning of life, work, family happiness, love, sex, death, etc., I find Christianity fulfilling, reasonable, and highly explanatory. But that's the catch. What does a guy like me do with Christian belief in an anti-Christian world? I have other offensive Christian ideas too, which Sam and I wrestled over. We all have lust and greed and anger. Who can deny it? We like to think we're noble, and lots of times we are. But we're also corrupt. That's what's so strange about being human. We're good, but we're also bad. The concept of sin should be a no-brainer, but that word—sin—is offensive to nearly everyone these days except for some people who worship God on Sunday mornings. I also believe in the God of the Bible—not the safe, generic gods that are socially acceptable such as an "eternal spirit" or "cosmic force." I believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. I believe in the terrifying God who flooded the earth when humanity turned evil. In the just God to whom we are morally accountable. In the loving God who overlooks and forgives. And I believe in the God who will judge the quick and the dead. By the time they go to kindergarten, most kids already know my ideas are unacceptable in polite society. My point is simply that a Christian is about as home in our present culture as a cat among coyotes. America may have been founded as a Christian nation, but things have changed. Christians are now the rebels and the iconoclasts that must rage against the system. When I go to the movies, my faith is ridiculed. When I go to the courthouse, it is undermined. When I read my kid's textbooks, I must demonstrate to them why the information is biased. When I go to work, I must hold my tongue. I'm not at home. That's why I did most of the talking. In our conversations, Sam's beliefs were in perfect harmony with American society and he didn't have to worry. But I had a lot of explaining to do. Sam didn't have any territory he considered sacred, but I had a hill to defend. The onus was on me, therefore, and it was inevitable that Sam became the interrogator. He probed and prodded, poked and pried, searching for cracks in my reasoning. Sam treated me with great respect and care, as though he had uncovered an ancient artifact to examine. I felt like a strange and curiously preserved fossil from a past era. He was the paleontologist and I was the bone.