The scarecrow of “scientism”
A note on Karl Giberson’s Huffington Post piece.
Can one accept the modern scientific view of the world and still hold to anything resembling a traditional belief in God?
My answer to this question is “yes, of course,” for I cannot see my way to clear to embrace either of the two alternatives — a fundamentalist religion prepared to reject science, or a pure scientism that denies the reality of anything beyond what science can discover.
But that isn’t the choice. Really, it’s not. Science can’t discover exactly what it feels like to be you, for example, but you know that that feeling is real. The complexity of personal experience alone is enough to keep you busy and happy for many lifetimes, and it has no need of religion at all. Why think the choice is between a traditional belief in God, fundamentalism, or “scientism”? That’s just a scarecrow.
A lot of people think that is the choice though. Why do they? Have they never talked to any godless poets or musicians or birdwatchers or gardeners or mountaineers?
Pehaps all Karl really wants is for the New Atheists to direct their insults at Albert Mohler and the 100,000,000 Americans who clap when he opens his beak, in a more sonorous, and less plain spoken way?
I’ve been thinking of making a catalog of Giberson’s expressions that could be edited to “idiot”, without changing his meaning … of course calling 1/3 of America “idiots” would be rude, and we can’t have that.
from huffpo piece:
… can get themselves onto an intellectual island and float so far away from modern science that they can’t see the shoreline any longer.
“Mohler’s central point, however, was not that a young earth is essential or that science must be resisted”.
Mohler was most certainly was saying these things. BioLogos transcribed the damn speech so we could all read it, and now, BioLogos is saying that the speech doesn’t say what it says. IT F__KING SAYS “SCIENCE MUST BE RESISTED” and that “FAILURE TO DO THIS WILL LEAD TO DISASTER”.
Karl, don’t go all Mooney on us. Here is the relevant part of what he said on “resisting science”.
When general revelation is used to trump special revelation, disaster ensues. And not just on this score. It’s not just on the question of the age of the earth. What about other questions? The assured results of modern science. There is so much that is packed in that mental category, that intellectual claim. Just remember first of all that science has changed and has gone through many transformations. The assured results of modern science today may very well not be the assured results of modern science tomorrow. And, I can promise you, are not the assured results of science yesterday.
In the New York Times just in recent days there’s been a major article about one particular fossil which is claimed to be a hominid and just about a year ago that same paper presented it as irrefutable proof of a certain trajectory of human evolution. Now you have scientists coming back saying we don’t even believe that it’s a hominid fossil. The assured results of modern science? What do the assured results of modern science say about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? What do the assured results of modern science in terms of the methodological naturalism that is absolutely essential to modern science, what does it say about the virgin conception of Jesus Christ? The assured results of modern science? Science is now claiming to tell us about sexual orientation in terms of a physicalist explanation. Is the Christian church going to make its understanding of human sexuality and sexual morality accountable to the assured results of modern science? Are we going to submit our cosmology, are we going to take the redemptive historical understanding of scripture and submit this to interrogation by the assured results of modern science? Let me suggest to you the end of that process is absolute (commercial interferes here) [..] of Scripture includes the claim that Scripture is norma normans normata. The norm of norms that cannot be normed. Any surrender of that on any question leads to disaster.
In conclusion, there is a head-on collision here. There are those that claim there is no head-on collision. Francisco Ayala, who just won the Templeton Award, says that science and religion cannot be in conflict because they’re answering two different questions. Science is answering the how, and religion is answering the who and the why. That is intellectual facile. The scripture is claiming far more than who and why and any honest reading of the modern scientific consensus knows that it too is speaking to the who and very clearly speaking to the why. Stephen J. Gould, the late paleontologist of Harvard University, spoke of what he called non-overlapping magisteria. He said science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria. Each has its own magisterial authority and its own sphere of knowledge and they never overlap. Well the problem is they overlap all the time. They overlap in Stephen J. Gould’s own writings. We cannot separate the who and the why and the what, as if those are intellectually separable questions. In his new book Why Evolution is True Jerry Coyne cites Michael Shermer at the very beginning who says this, “Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age. An epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.”
Now it sounds to me like he’s talking about the why, not just the when and the what. I want to suggest to you that when it comes to the confrontation between evolutionary theory and the Christian gospel we have a head-on collision. In the confrontation between secular science and the scripture we have a head-on collision.
Bleh… I should have waited for this post to reply with my latest blog post…
I’m tempted to coin “New Romantics” to describe reactions to atheism and/or science of this sort. I’m still sticking with sensabilités for now.
We need evidence for our beliefs? But what about poetry!?!?!?
*frustrated expletives*
I have no idea how Ayala can simultaneously argue that science and religion answer different questions while also arguing (somewhat fatuously, but still …) that Darwinian evolution is valuable for theodicy. That seems like a plain contradiction.
Giberson is not being honest about what Mohler says:
His point is that the Bible must be taken seriously if one wants to be a Christian and, for Mohler, seriously means literally.
Mohler is saying that we must not submit the claims of the bible to interrogation by Science, because science will (and HAS) come to different conclusions than the bible. He lists the points of conflict.
Scott,
I agree. When they say “what about the why?”, what they really mean is “what about stuff we can dress the world up in to make it more appealing?”
That’s fine in my book. I’ve seen no objections to the existence of fictional literature, broadly. Who denies the usefulness of metaphor and analogy or even the pleasure of having a sense of purpose?
The point, and it was always the point, which Gibberson etc. seem to miss, is that this the case, it is dishonest at worst, lazy at best, to treat the content of these items as factual.
If it’s all metaphor and symbol, why then would there be a problem saying so, say, a pastor saying so, at a church? At some churches, it isn’t, but we’re labeling the rest (and a BIG rest) as “not religion” or “false religion” by buying the accommodation line. It’s not a claim that can consistently be made by those who give faith credit as epistemic methodology.
At least with Templeton, they’re being honest whenever they say that theology will be part of the conversation. Up to this issue, their fellows, prize winners, and affiliates are often quite comfortable in producing theological rulings.
Up to factual concerns, this is liberal Imamism. It’s often more agreeable, but it’s still Imamism.
Scott: I agree with your statement “Science is answering the how, and religion is answering the who and the why. That is intellectual facile. The scripture is claiming far more than who and why and any honest reading of the modern scientific consensus knows that it too is speaking to the who and very clearly speaking to the why.”
The Church used to answer the lot, which is why challengers like Bruno, Copernicus and Galileo got such rough treatment. Far from welcoming science, the Church has gradually yielded to it; resisting like mad all the way.
Ultimately the ongoing duel between science and religion is about reason vs supposition, with the latter getting ever less defensible with every passing year. But it seems to me that people (including some scientists) cling on to religion not so much for the light it sheds on nature, as for the connection it gives them to their own ancestry and its traditions. When they abandon their traditional religious beliefs most opt for no replacement rather than go seek a new religion; except when they have an economic motive – eg the ‘rice Christians’.
I had not heard of the term ‘rice Christians’ before, but the phenomenon is familiar. It is somewhat sickening that when missionaries become entrenched in a region, the grandchildren of ‘rice Christians’ often grow up to become true evangelicals. This is common in Hong Kong and other parts of China.
My thought is that it is not that science can answer everything, it is that revelation can answer nothing. The false dichotomy that if it is not science, then it must be religion is rampant. You want an editor to say, “but Karl , this is just vacuous crap – go back and rewrite it.”
Hamilton,
I think it was somewhere in Laden’s <a href=”http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/missionaries/index.php?page=1″>experience with missionaries</a>, but a similar phenomenon occurs in Africa.
It’s part of a sort of implicit master-slave relationship between the missionary and the locals. The missionary might be a very lax example of Christianity, but the formal, rather authoritarian treatment of locals, at least up to doctrine, leaves the converted far more reactionary and conservative than the missionary him/herself. When mixed with local customs, relatively minor points of the Bible, like witchcraft, become a central focus. Hence Nigeria’s “child witches” and the recent flak over Helen Ukpabio et. al. in American pentecostal circles.
In response to this, I’ll repost a comment I made responding to a similar posting at Camels and Hammers with some minor modifications:
Every major atheist writer I have ever read has gone out of his way to write against this perception. They are always ignored. It’s a Catch-22.
If you question religion: “But if my religion is false, what about poetry? What’s the alternative? You need proactive substitutes for religion.”
If you present the secular alternatives, from ethics to happy living to whatever: “But that doesn’t take God into account. Religion provides this for me.”
Believers believe, etc.
Ha! I got the HTML right in the last one at least!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Christina Fischer, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: The scarecrow of “scientism” http://dlvr.it/2bsJJ […]
A good observation, Ophelia. Not often enough do people realize that many choices they are presented (by, say, Giberson, or by newsmakers) are being framed, not to mention why or how they are being framed.
Speaking of Framing… Setting the Record Straight on Ophelia Benson | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
He may or may not be reacting to the reaction of a recent podcast he was on: http://doubtreligion.blogspot.com/2010/07/episode-70-accommodationism-with-guest.html
From: Setting the Record Straight on Ophelia Benson
“It is our intention to foster a forum for reasonable, thoughtful, civil discussion of the topics that interest us.”
Followed by:
“Comments are closed.”
Coherent thinking is essential in scientific work. For example, if a scientist states that human parthenogenesis (female –> male) is plausible and provides no evidence for it, even his/her diplomatic colleagues describe his/her ideas as bullshit. If they are coherent, they must treat the beliefs of preachers in the same way.
Can anyone give examples of coherent compatibilists?
This is a bit of a digression from the main thread, but…. I have heard the name ‘rice Christians’. In fact, ‘rice Christians’ were quite common in India where my father worked as a missionary. (I have never quite figured out why he chose to do that.) However, rice Christians were usually simply names on records. They became Christians during times of famine, since the missions used to give aid first to Christians, and then to anyone else, if there was anything left over. So, it was a matter of survival. However, they soon returned to their Hindu (or, often, in tribal areas, in Central India, now Madhya Pradesh, Hindu/animist) roots, and, as I recall, the task of the church was to sift through them, and drop the names of those who did not remain within the fold (as Hitchens says, speaking of people as sheep tells you all you need to know about Christianity). Most of them had not.
Regarding the main seam of this thread… I said something similar over at Why Evolution is True. Religious people are given to false dichotomies and trichotomies. C.S. Lewis used to use the famous mad, bad or god, about Jesus, which neglects to point out that, if the gospel accounts are accurate, which is very doubtful, he might just have been wrong. And Giberson’s alternatives are not exhaustive either, clearly. The choice is not between ‘a pure scientism’ (as I say over at WEIT, I challenge Dr. Giberson — I always want to put G-i-b-b-erson, because he gibbers so much — to produce someone in this debate who is given to pure scientism) and religious faith, but between pure scientism (if this is really an option, which I doubt), religious faith, and a humanity which accepts science as the basis of objective knowledge about the world, and the personal knowledge that is accessible through relationship, art, music, literature, etc. etc. What Giberson needs to do is to produce some religious knowledge, to show that his option is a truly open one, and this, I suspect, he will not be able to do.
Yes, SinSeeker, that is hilarious is it not? Let’s set the record straight, but this is not discussable. Mooney at his very best: ‘Either agree with me or shove off.’
Erm …
“… the reality of anything beyond what science can discover.” And, what, precisely, is beyond the reach of the discoveries of science? Do you think, please Mr. Giberson, that you could actually specify an area where this statement migh possibly be valid? Or are you just engaging in rhetoric?
> “The assured results of modern science today may very well not be the
> assured results of modern science tomorrow. And, I can promise you, are
> not the assured results of science yesterday.”
Ooookaaaay. Two problems here.
Firstly, it’s certainly not valid to say “I believe in revealed divinity, and it’s superior to science because my belief doesn’t change”. Whether it’s a Platonic ideal geometric figure or the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator, these things don’t change because they have no physical reality. Science deals in physical reality.
Secondly, they’re comparing belief itself with the results of science. How about comparing the results of belief vs. the results of science? The results of belief are different all over the world, even among Christians, and change all the time.
> What do the assured results of modern science say about the resurrection
> of Jesus Christ from the dead?
It flabbergasts me to find Christians asking for science to comment on the Resurrection in the first place. It was a miracle, right? Doesn’t that mean it is outside the realm of science? Still, it’s true that science doesn’t comment on the Resurrection. I don’t want it to. I also don’t ask what economic theory has to say about Pippi Longstocking.
If it’s valid to ask what science has to say about the Resurrection, then it should be equally valid to ask what faith in God has to say about the concerns of science. From what I’ve seen, that doesn’t work very well.
I have a friend who is an astronomer studying the atmospheres of gas giants. If you ask him about the planet Jupiter, he can tell you about the chemical composition of the ‘air’ and about the enormous swirling tornadoes. Ask religion about Jupiter, and you get “God made Jupiter” or, if you’re lucky, “God made Jupiter and isn’t it astoundingly marvelous?”
Therefore scientists don’t ask religions “Why can’t you explain the atmosphere of Jupiter?” Wouldn’t it be nice if religions returned the favor?
I once saw a piece on CBS’s “60 Minutes” about kids in a Christian school, which showed a little boy of about 9 taking a “science” test. One of the questions was “What do birds eat?” and the correct answer, according to the course materials, was “God feeds birds.” I’m sure not all Christian schools do their pupils such a disservice, but when you ask faith to explain the physical world, you don’t get very far.
But that is not a criticism of religion or faith! In a Cartesian coordinate system, if I say x=5, I imply absolutely nothing about the value of y. It’s the same with religion and science; they should get out of each other’s way.
As for that Discover piece “setting the record straight”, call me naïve, but I’m astonished that Discover would think it ethical to quote tidbits out of context from a message they would not publish in full and then allow no discussion so that no one may put the other side of the case or even challenge their decision to use the message in such an unethical way. And the only contact information they give is for reacting to the content of the magazine, not the web site. This is shoddy, shoddy behavior, and my opinion of Discover just took a nosedive.
While I am not a compatibilist in Matti K’s sense, I think one can say that religious beliefs do come in degrees of ridiculousness and incompatibility with scientific findings or the principles of scientific research (which of course are delayed “applications” of the former in many cases). Human female to male parthenogenesis is less ridiculous than a 6000 year old earth and no evolution (or worse, the “baraminology” one hears about sometimes). This is not to say every last belief, etc. can be directly compared, but a rough and ready scale is sometimes doable. This is why would would say that “liberal” Protestants, some Catholics, Reform Judaism, some Buddhists etc. have less severe incompatible doctrine than fundamentalists of all sorts, etc.
#22 “Human female to male parthenogenesis is less ridiculous than a 6000 year old earth and no evolution..”
How so? Considering ample scientific evidence, all those claims are false. How does one place them on the ridicule scale?
Bingo. I zeroed in on that statement on a comment over at WEIT. It is the same old rhetorical trick, where an faith apologist asserts (correctly) that there are aspects of being human for which science is not particular useful, and then pretends (dishonestly) that this means there must be aspects for which religion is useful. The hidden assumption is a false dichotomy which classifies all epistemologies as either “scientific” or “religious”. What about art appreciation, for instance?
The pithiest way I have found to express this is: From the observation that science is not good for everything, it does not necessarily follow that religion is good for anything.
Which, of course, everybody and their uncle have said over and over again is as illuminating a way to define ‘compatibility’ as saying that obviously being a Catholic priest and being a pedophile are compatible because there are so many examples of the two things coinciding in one person. Nobody denies the ‘able to co-exist’ part of ‘compatibility’, exactly because it is so singularly uninformative; the interesting question is whether two things are consistent. As far as I can tell, there isn’t much controversy about the question whether science and religion are consistent, either. Instead, accommodationists try to impress the audience with their verbal sleight of hand of systematically confusing the two meanings, hiding behind the yawningly obvious interpretation whenever someone challenges their unqualified, blanket assertions of compatibility.
And, of course, there is no such thing as scientism.
Ophelia, one question, though. Why do you think that “science can’t discover exactly what it feels like to be you”? Which obstacle in principle obstructs empirical and rational inquiry in this case?
Peter, by definition, surely. Isn’t that the nature of subjectivity? That it’s subjective, while science is inter-subjective?
I’m not saying it’s a black box. We can narrate and describe and discuss what it feels like to be Me, but all that is (loosely) literature rather than science. Notice I didn’t say that empirical and rational inquiry have nothing to say about personal experience, and I don’t think that. But “exactly what it feels like to be you” is a fuzzy, vague, narrative kind of thing rather than a can be discovered kind of thing.
Do you think Dennett’s idea of ‘Hubert’, the computer-program simulation of his brain, makes any difference to your position? Is it implausible in principle to completely reconstruct a mind and with it its sense of ‘self’? Would that not entail an understanding of what our subjective sense of self is?
Ah – I don’t know. I don’t have time to explore it right now, but after tomorrow I might.
In any case I have no objection to agreeing that it could become possible to find out what it feels like to be someone else, in which case my claim about “by definition” would be wrong. I don’t know of any way that could be done now, but I suppose I can imagine one, in a fantasy or science fiction or speculative fiction sort of way.
And if it did – that would be the opposite of what Karl Giberson seems to take to be the desert world of science plus nothing. It would be fascinating!
Giberson seems to be equating extremes with bad and means or medians with good, but we all know situations where being at one end or the other of a spectrum is considered better – health, intelligence, athletic performance, etc. As Jim Hightower said, ” there’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead amadillos.”
Ophelia: And if it did – that would be the opposite of what Karl Giberson seems to take to be the desert world of science plus nothing. It would be fascinating!
My point exactly. :)
But do let me know what you think of Dennett’s SciFi example. I am not entirely sure that it fits the scenario you said was (if I may simplify) impervious to science.
There is a religious ‘way of knowing’ and a scientific way of knowing. The only form of the former is acceptance on faith of traditional teachings, and even when these are written down there is still plenty of disputation over their meaning. But those disputes themselves are capable of being rationally analysed.
According to traditional Christianity, there is not just a supernatural otherworld in the here and now; in the period before The Fall the basis of life was vastly different from what we find today, implying a different underlying biology, biochemistry, chemistry and probably physics as well. Then everything changed and all because of the Original Sin. One would think that those who hold to this hypothesis would wish to investigate it further and explore its implications. But unfortunately for them, their only possible source of information is the Scriptures, and those are subject to varying interpretation.
Sigmund Freud I am told was of the view that the Original Sin took place when Adam first had intercourse with Eve; the initiative apparently coming from her. But I have never checked that up. Everything on Earth was dramatically changed by that event, so it must have been quite something. That is, if the story is true.
The free-market fundamentalist novelist Ayn Rand believed that their sin was merely thinking for themselves; hence the otherwise mysterious ‘fruit of the tree of knowledge’: see Google 9 below. (Those who face a bleak and lonely coming weekend might care to invite their local Jehovah’s Witnesses around to discuss the issue.)
In the interests of clarification of this most fundamental question, let me point whoever here is interested to some most entertaining websites.
(Google 1) A Basic Buddhism Guide: Differences From Other Religions.The idea of sin or original sin has no place in Buddhism. … Briefly, this doctrine asserts the transcendental nature of Ultimate Reality. …http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/snapshot01.htm – Cached – Similar
(Google 2) YouTube – Original Sin is a Lie22 Aug 2009 … Original sin asserts that we are ALL sinful by nature. I don’t dispute that Jews are. It’s a matter of paradigms. A good tree bears good …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoFL1ZpjqKA – Cached
(Google 3) A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: How Charles Finney’s Theology Ravaged … That is the doctrine of original sin, not a hyper-Calvinist dogma, …. nor imply a sinful nature, in the sense that the human soul is sinful in itself. …http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/finney.htm – Cached – Similar
(Google 4) Philosophy of Religion » Inherited Corruption You are here: Home > Arguments for Atheism > Problems With Original Sin … the first sin brought about a change in the first man, corrupting his nature, …http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/…original-sin/inherited-corruption/ – Cached – Similar
(Google 5) Was Sex the Original Sin? – Associated Content – associatedcontent.com3 Jan 2007 … A brief overview of secular and religious sources input on the Genesis account of the Original Sin to help you decide for yourself if sex …http://www.associatedcontent.com/…/was_sex_the_original_sin_.html – Cached – Similar
(Google 6) Does Adam and Eve’s original sin have to do with sex? Original sin has nothing to do with Adam and Eve having sex. God created them not only with the ability and freedom to have sex, but with the instruction to …http://www.everystudent.com › Q & A – Cached – Similar
(Google 7) BBC – Religions – Christianity: Original sin 17 Sep 2009 … This bad element in sex provides the means by which original sin is transmitted from father to child. It transmits both humanity’s guilt for …http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/…/originalsin_1.shtml – Cached – Similar – Add to iGoogle
(Google 8) Steven Pinker and original sin Steven Pinker, Darwin and original sin. … A century-and-a half later. Sigmund Freud found himself surrounded in Vienna by theories of human nature which …http://www.richardwebster.net/archivepinker.html – Cached – Similar
(Google 9) John Galt on Original Sin | Atheist Media Blog25 Mar 2010 … John Galt is a fictional character in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged … The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin. …http://www.atheistmedia.com/2010/03/john-galt-on-original-sin.html – Cached
According to traditional Christianity, there is not just a supernatural otherworld in the here and now; in the period before The Fall the basis of life was vastly different from what we find today, implying a different underlying biology, biochemistry, chemistry and probably physics as well.
Really? I don’t mean to take issue with your conclusions at all, but I’m uncomfortable with your assumption of a “traditional Christianity”, perhaps because I don’t know what you mean. Maybe you could explain what that is?
Fortunately public education taught me other approaches to life, and even a little (very little) about logic, but I was born into a conservative southern fundamentalist family, from a long line of preachers. We not only attended church only twice on Sundays but other days in the week for all kinds of other groups, including “Mid-Week Bible Study” in which the preacher went over various points in the text in the original languages and discussed the translation. And I was at one point made to study the history of a couple of branches of fundamentalism.
All of which would, I think, give me an idea of what these people believe, but I’ve never heard any of the things you ascribe to “traditional Christianity” here.
I don’t want fundies and creationists and what-all to make statements about “scientism”, and in the same way, I think care should be taken when using sweeping terms like “traditional Christianity” that lump ’em all together. (Like Rome, they don’t have a single head, so you can’t chop it off.)
mef:
I am not a Bible scholar, but the fact that this stuff is still around at all 150 years after Darwin gives an idea of how strong it must have been in more biblical-literal mediaeval times in European civilisation. Modern fundamentalists first explained it to me, and it stirred something in the dim recesses of my distant Anglican background. Given the Original Sin story as the origin of evil in the world, and the its portrayal as the event which terminated the previous Earthly paradise, and made necessary Christ’s redemptive act, it is both necessary and consistent with the Christian story. Modern Christians may gloss over it, but it is definitely there in the Bible, and has had a prominent history.
A CATHOLIC VIEW
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm
A PROTESTANT VIEW
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2009/09/10/the-bible-and-the-origin-of-death/
ALSO
http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1R2GPMD_enAU333&q=original+sin%2C+bible&aq=f&aq
i=g3&aql=&oq=original+sin%2C+bible&gs_rfai=&fp=3545179d97f38d32
http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1R2GPMD_enAU333&q=the+fall%2C+bible&aq=&aqi=g1g
-c1g1g-c4g1g-c2&aql=&oq=the+fall%2C+bible&gs_rfai=&fp=3545179d97f38d32
http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/?q=origin+of+death&search=Go#q=origin+of+death&site=default_collection
Sorry. Those last references should have been
http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1R2GPMD_enAU333&q=original+sin%2C+bible&aq=f&aqi=g3&aql=&oq=original+sin%2C+bible&gs_rfai=&fp=3545179d97f38d32
http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&rlz=1R2GPMD_enAU333&q=the+fall%2C+bible&aq=&aqi=g1g-c1g1g-c4g1g-c2&aql=&oq=the+fall%2C+bible&gs_rfai=&fp=3545179d97f38d32
http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/?q=origin+of+death&search=Go#q=origin+of+death&site=default_collection
Ah. Having tapped in to some of those links (thank you!), it seems that maybe you take the idea that “traditional” Christianity says biochemistry and such used to be different, from the assertion that people back then lived so long? Oops, no, because that wasn’t before the fall… Well, I dunno then.
I see nothing in any of the links I visited to support the statement that “traditional Christianity” says anything about biochemistry, etc. And some of the links I tried are the horrible mis-behaving kind that trap you and won’t let you go back where you came from, and some are list of other links, and whatever the fundies think, life today is certainly short, so I’m done and we’ll have to agree to disagree.
But if you are basing your “traditional”-Christians-believe-maybe-even-physics-must-have-been-different-then” on things like “Methusaleh lived to be a zillion years old” (even if that wasn’t “before the Fall”), then I think you are overstating the case *substantially*, which, er, well, I don’t think is constructive.
mef:
Noted. Except that no death means no killing. Not of anything. Nothing dies, not even of old age. Yet populations continue to grow in Eden, but using what to build their body tissues? When the lions are not lying down with the lambs, what are they eating? They cannot live on grass without a radical reorganisation of their anatomy, physiology and biochemistry, unless physics and chemistry themselves were differently constituted cf at present.
No death has enormous implications, because in its own way and for fairly coherent reasons, life as we know it in the present biosphere depends on death happening; all the time.