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[Kozmo]

Anyone have the links to the series of youtube videos (I think it was a six-parter) of the guy who was pretty much a hardcore Christian who ended up becoming an atheist? I think he laid out like 6 pillars of his faith, and how one by one, they crumbled around him.

In one of those videos, he mentions how he'd found a book which tried to explain how creationism could have been possible. It was later debunked in his mind, but it might work for your dad as a first step.

 

[GhaleonQ]

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a good one by one of the head scientists on the human genome project.

That and writing by Marilynne Robinson (the famous author) are the usual suggestions.

That said, it can't be done for Christianity. *is a Lutheran* Neither squares the Christian account of sin with evolution, which, to date, hasn't been done in a satisfactory way (in my opinion).

The best you'll get is theism, which really is a valid idea irrespective of any scientific tests.

In one of those videos, he mentions how he'd found a book which tried to explain how creationism could have been possible. It was later debunked in his mind, but it might work for your dad as a first step.

Eh, that guy was pretty dumb and he chose titles for his "debate" that are very specific to nondenominational American evangelicalism. They're idiosyncratic.

 

[Jasup]

But really, does it matter? If there is a God, then this is how he made the world we live in. And by studying how the world works using science as the method we learn more and more about God's work - and with new discoveries God becomes greater and greater.

By confining god only into the word of a holy book, one eventually makes god small and weak.

 

[Fusebox]

I'm sure there's plenty of books on Evolution written from a Christian perspective which don't conflict with scientific understanding as it stands today.

Anyone who finishes a book that says "God created man over millions of years using using the process of natural selection known as evolution" had better be forming some serious game-breaking questions in their mind about how that relates to their understanding of God from the Bible.

 

[wayward archer]

But really, does it matter? If there is a God, then this is how he made the world we live in. And by studying how the world works using science as the method we learn more and more about God's work - and with new discoveries God becomes greater and greater.

By confining god only into the word of a holy book, one eventually makes god small and weak.

The authoritarian view of deities don't want to view them as undefinable. They want definition, limits, order.

To them the bible might be a cage, and they might be putting god in a box, but they would never admit it to themselves. They see these definitions and limits as merely being the correct way to live, think, believe.

If science, observation, reasoning, deduction go against that then it's wrong, end of discussion.

All and all I like your way of thinking though.

 

[Earthstrike]

I was talking about this section of the site...:|

Yes, I figured you were, however, these comparisons are done with a false understanding of evolution, or they are simply trivial.

For instance it says the first living thing is algae. This is not true.

And when I say trivial, I mean that given the nature of what's posted, its almost inevitable that it'd be true in any state of affairs. Life came from water and man came from earth are two statements posted. No matter where man came from a corresponding "correct prediction" from the quran would exist.

I mean lets say I write a book and somewhere in it I write "You will make less than 40,000$ a year" and somewhere else I write "You will make more than 40,000$ a year". Technically I'll always be right. Of course what the quran wrote isn't an exact dichotomy. What if the numbers I wrote changed to less than 39000 and more than 40000. Then I would simply probably be right, unless you fell into that narrow price range. What if I changed the numbers to things that are metaphorical now? You will probably make a lot of money and you probably won't?

Really, I'm trying to build up to a much larger point so let me do that now.

1. Consider a document of text that contains a large number of statements. There is a body of assertions being made. Lets call this the "assertionspace".

2. Consider the linguistic fact that any statement can be taken to mean different things in the absence of sufficient clarification. The assertionspace becomes larger given the fact that associated with each statement there can be drawn several assertions.

3. Consider the set of all truths extant in today's world. Everything from "ants exist" to "I have a left hand" is included here. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly large set. Let's call this the "truthspace".

Is it really appreciable that some elements of the assertionspace of a document containing a large number of statements happen to align with portions of the truthspace? It shouldn't be when you consider the volumes of these sets.

I mean you always talk about true islam and people bastardizing it. What you fail to appreciate is that its the size of the interpretation space which allows these views to emerge. Its the same kind of reasoning that is used here to claim Islam has had scientific revelations well before western society. Oh look, this single statement, when I interpret this way, predicted something way ahead of time, or tells me to do this.

It's why there exist christians which both support and condemn homosexuality. Both sides can find some line and some interpretation to support their view. People the battle out their views, via additional line selection and interpretation.

I mean "man is made from clay" is really supposed to reconcile with the current understanding of two gametes forming a zygote and undergoing cellular division directed by DNA and protein aggregation affinities?

This reasoning can be extended even further and make the existance of partially truthful religious documents even more trivial but I'll stop this post here for now as it's getting a bit long.