Reading material
I was reading Billy Graham yesterday. As in the evangelical Christian Billy Graham. It was one of the books I borrowed from my friend's overflowing bookshelf. And although I enjoyed the first few chapters, and some of his points resonated with me, I found that his ideas about science kept getting in the way.
Billy Graham does NOT approve of science. "It stands like a somber shadow behind our waking thoughts," he writes. "It stalks like a spectre of horror through our children's dreams."
Really? Really, Billy Graham? He's talking about nuclear weapons, I assume, and the possibility of world destruction. And there is the possibility of world destruction, but based on over half a century of evidence, we're handling that power fairly well. There were threats, but never full nuclear war. I don't think that nuclear weapons are bad per se, since their power can be used for any purpose. Imagine using nuclear weapons to destroy an asteroid about to hit the Earth?
Later on it was his metaphors that got under my skin. "Your mind might have trouble explaining how a black cow can eat green grass and give white milk," he writes, "but you drink the milk and are nourished by it." Excuse me? There's nothing mysterious about how cows make milk. I know how their digestive system works, how their cells divide, how their hormones and nervous system order their mammary glands to secrete milk. And a scientist studying cows would know a hundred times what I know. I assume he's trying to convey the idea of taking something on faith, but why should you take cows on faith? Their milk nourishes us because the fats and proteins in it are converted from the energy in grass, which itself was nourished by the radiation of a ball of fusing gas about 100 million kilometers away.
"You can't understand radio, but you listen. Your mind can't understand the electricity that may be creating the light by which you are reading at this very moment, but you know that it's there and that it is making it possible for you to read!"
Radio isn't a mystery either. Maxwell wrote the equations of electromagnetism in the 1860s. Obviously we as a species understand radio, or it wouldn't have been invented, would it? The same goes for electricity. And I have only a high school education in physics! There are people in the world without access to this education who don't have my understanding. There are even Americans and Canadians who don't understand, but this isn't because no one understands electricity and it's mysterious. It's their choice, their complacency, and it reveals a lack of curiosity that I can't even understand.
I think you can safely say that no one understands the God-concept, that it's part of his definition. I guess that's Billy Graham's ultimate point, and I agree. I guess his particular metaphors are catering to the segment of North Americans who share his opinions on science. But I think it's sad. It says something about society, that mainstream Christianity is so against science, and I wish it could be different.
Billy Graham does NOT approve of science. "It stands like a somber shadow behind our waking thoughts," he writes. "It stalks like a spectre of horror through our children's dreams."
Really? Really, Billy Graham? He's talking about nuclear weapons, I assume, and the possibility of world destruction. And there is the possibility of world destruction, but based on over half a century of evidence, we're handling that power fairly well. There were threats, but never full nuclear war. I don't think that nuclear weapons are bad per se, since their power can be used for any purpose. Imagine using nuclear weapons to destroy an asteroid about to hit the Earth?
Later on it was his metaphors that got under my skin. "Your mind might have trouble explaining how a black cow can eat green grass and give white milk," he writes, "but you drink the milk and are nourished by it." Excuse me? There's nothing mysterious about how cows make milk. I know how their digestive system works, how their cells divide, how their hormones and nervous system order their mammary glands to secrete milk. And a scientist studying cows would know a hundred times what I know. I assume he's trying to convey the idea of taking something on faith, but why should you take cows on faith? Their milk nourishes us because the fats and proteins in it are converted from the energy in grass, which itself was nourished by the radiation of a ball of fusing gas about 100 million kilometers away.
"You can't understand radio, but you listen. Your mind can't understand the electricity that may be creating the light by which you are reading at this very moment, but you know that it's there and that it is making it possible for you to read!"
Radio isn't a mystery either. Maxwell wrote the equations of electromagnetism in the 1860s. Obviously we as a species understand radio, or it wouldn't have been invented, would it? The same goes for electricity. And I have only a high school education in physics! There are people in the world without access to this education who don't have my understanding. There are even Americans and Canadians who don't understand, but this isn't because no one understands electricity and it's mysterious. It's their choice, their complacency, and it reveals a lack of curiosity that I can't even understand.
I think you can safely say that no one understands the God-concept, that it's part of his definition. I guess that's Billy Graham's ultimate point, and I agree. I guess his particular metaphors are catering to the segment of North Americans who share his opinions on science. But I think it's sad. It says something about society, that mainstream Christianity is so against science, and I wish it could be different.