The Broken Heart of Faith and Growing Doubt in Christianity
“Christianity has lost its mystical core — the central, often unsayable, wholly practical essence that underlies all religious belief. The spirit of the Christian faith has been overwhelmed by its laws, and without a guiding spirit, laws become stiff and unbending, unable to adapt to the world as it changes. Faith becomes abstract and procedural rather than concrete and experiential.”[1] — Harry Readhead
[1] https://guiltandindustry.medium.com/biography-of-light-a-mystical-reading-of-the-gospels-19c7f9208433
“We can go as far as reason will take us and look for these other truths, but it is like peering over the edge of a cliff into a bottomless abyss. Think of how dizzy and scared that will make you. The natural inclination is to recoil back to where it is safe. But if we want the deeper truths, we must venture out, stare at the endless darkness beneath us, and take a leap of faith, according to Kierkegaard’s famous phrase.”[1]
[1] https://www.feedyourhead.blog/p/spiritual-but-not-religious-3b9?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1185761&post_id=147261835&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1rvwv6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Today’s worldview is dominated by science and rationalism. This view, known as Scientism, relies on science and rationalism to describe all things in human reality. Its followers generally default to rationalized explanations for all events and causes. As I explained in the “New Christianity” movement article, the supernatural and unseen aspects of scripture are opposed as unscientific and primitive from a dead history; scriptures, in this case, serve no purpose other than another good philosophical source of inspiration. This rationalistic modern view is more appealing to the educated mind.
I will not go into a deep dive on this subject and use the many varieties of scientific terminology and assumptions available. Still, I will point out that scientific theories are not necessarily “facts” but are merely observations limited to a repeatable nature. Science has no opinion on sporadic, unpredictable events and is limited to observable occurrences — even if the event holds some credibility.
One example is the phenomenon of the Unidentified Areal Phenomenon (UAP), which is a prior better known UFO visualization. History has, over time, shown conceivable occurrences that have compelling signs that such phenomena occur. There is even radar evidence of such sightings, and the US military admits to seeing and recording such events. Still, scientific communities do not consider these things relevant for study as they are infrequent and not repeatable.
(an exception to this view can be seen in the articles posted by the highly respected Harvard Astronomer Avi Loeb)
Empiricism is the core foundation of science. It is a philosophical concept that nothing is real unless sensed with the five standard human senses: sight, hearing, touch, sound, and taste. [1] The principal application of empiricism is in physics, the study of the causes and effects of nearly everything. It has many subspecialties that make up most scientific thought.
Physics uses technology and higher mathematical thought to explain its findings, creating working hypotheses that are further studied to show repeatability. If repeatability is demonstrated, the hypothesis becomes a theory. If no changes in observations occur over time with repeated study, the theory becomes foundational…but still not a fact. At any given moment, when a study deviates from predictability, this opens the need to review the theory’s claims. If the study continues to deviate from the theory, the theory is reframed or rejected.
This is where it gets interesting. Once theories are established, the scientific credibility of the founding scientist is established. This is where the ego gets involved. The scientist who built the case for a theory gains academic credibility and higher academic appointments. They are regarded as having a type of fame, e.g., Albert Einstein. Einstein became almost a household name for his incredible discovery of the theory of relativity.[2] However, the theory of relativity is challenged repeatedly with new observations. So far, it is consistent with observations, but as science experimentation capabilities improve, small cracks in the theory are starting to be seen. In time, the theory may prove wrong, forcing the scientific community to reject it. Many theories rise and fall as more observations and better techniques arise. The real implications are that science has no absolutes — only working theories. All knowledge is subject to change.
It is critical not to rely on science to explain everything overly thoroughly. Unfortunately, science has emerged as a new dogma in modern times — a new religion.
Some have come to rely entirely on science as a foundation for their beliefs. As I mentioned, the ego gets inflated with each new successful theory and is defended to the point of conflict. Even while newer evidence conflicts with standard theories, the evidence is critically rejected, even to the point of ruining a scientist’s reputation and career. Those rising in scientific circles are highly cautious about challenging existing theories, and many do not, seeking to avoid censorship.
Staking one’s claim of faith in scientific thought is highly risky!
This is highly unscientific behavior, as all theories should be tested and changed if found defective. This is an ongoing process in actual science and should never be discouraged…but it is. This is why scientific thought is slow to change, even when theories are outdated.
Given this reality, placing one’s salvation-based faith in Scientific theory should be hard.
Certainty becomes even more difficult as science moves toward strange and mysterious discoveries. Such mysteries include quantum field theories, the absolute nature of matter, Black Holes, cause and effect(causality), and so on. Even the passage of time is scrutinized and may be proven only an illusion and unreal.[3]
The highlight of Einstein’s E=mc2 equation is that nothing is physical or solid. It’s all an illusion based on the state of energy. Everything is only the appearance of energy waves in differing states. If we could see reality, it would consist of various interreacting waves. If sufficient energy could be injected into the system, such waves could be altered to appear in many different formations and structures— such power would be seen as a miracle to mortals.
Such theories can overwhelm the average mind, relying on interpretations of scientists who cannot sense these invisible waves without using instruments, whose output is also subject to interpretation. This is like translating ancient scripture with imperfect methods from one language to another. Yet, it is easier for the modern generation to trust science and doubt scripture, saying that scripture is inaccurate due to many translations.
Science, too, is only a translation that is still in progress.
Interestingly, per science, most scriptures are based on ancient documents written mainly in the current era CE. Years after, the claimed authors died out. This is one of the arguments that's used to disclaim the accuracy of scripture. However, many have yet to learn that recent discoveries include ancient documents preserved in caves in the Holy Lands known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls and fragments have mostly been translated from documents much older than the current era by hundreds of years. They were unaltered for millenniums, and the translations were determined to be highly accurate with more modern scriptural translations.[4]
Like in science, scriptural translations are continuously being researched and compared to newly discovered ancient documents, which helps ensure that only some translational errors were introduced in the modern era. Even so, the underlying precept in biblical scripture is that the Just shall live by faith — not proof.
Conclusion: There is no qualitative difference in trusting science over scriptures, as both are processes subject to new information. Scriptures are based on unseen supernatural events that cannot be proven empirically. Causation, a litmus test of science, has shown inconsistencies with specific quantum-level observations, and time may be an illusion.[5]
There is very much room for belief in the God of the Bible.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity. Relativity is made up of two theories — special relativity and general relativity.
[3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-an-illusion/
[4] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/35700/are-there-textual-deviations-between-the-dead-sea-scrolls-and-the-old-testament
