To hold any creation story as true, one must exercise faith.
One of the greatest myths of evolutionary theory is that any scientific belief does not require any faith to believe its veracity. And, of course, according to evolutionists religion requires faith, which is very, very bad.
Consider what evolutionist Richard Dawkins said regarding faith:
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. Richard Dawkins’ Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (April 15, 1992); quoted in “EDITORIAL: A scientist’s case against God”, “The Independent”(London), (p. 17), April 20, 1992.
But is faith a “cop-out” as maintained by Dawkins? And, if so, is it relegated only to religious beliefs? Did anyone in Dawkins’ audience even stop to think–and, possibly evaluate–his statement to determine if it is true?
Consider a more factual approach to the question of faith. For starters, what is the difference between faith and belief? Many affirm that they “believe in evolution as the true creation story for human beings.” But such an affirmation can be identically expressed by saying they “have faith in evolution as the true creation story for human beings.”
It seems that belief and faith are similar in meaning, and can be used interchangeably. The two terms seem different in meaning mainly because the are typically utilized in different contexts: faith is typically used in the context of religion and belief is typically used in other contexts.
For example, according to Pediaa.com:
Faith and belief are two words we often associate with trust and confidence. Although these two words can be used interchangeably in some contexts, there are some differences between them based on their meaning and context. The main difference between faith and belief stems from their usage; faith is mostly used to refer to religion, but belief is used in a variety of contexts. https://pediaa.com/difference-between-faith-and-belief/ (bold emphasis in original).
Pediaa.com continues with a definition of faith with which we can all agree:
Faith is the strong trust and confidence in something or someone. Faith specifically refers to something that cannot be proved by evidence; in other words, faith is not based on proof. Ibid. (Bold emphasis added).
But what about belief? Pediaa.com continues:
Belief is based on trust and confidence. The Oxford Dictionary defines belief as the “acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof” and Merriam-Webster defines it as “a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true”. The phrase belief in refers to trust and confidence in something. Ibid. (Bold emphasis added).
Consider again the difference between belief and faith. Both are related to an expression of “trust and confidence” in something that cannot be proven is nevertheless true.
Can evolution as an explanation for the creation of new kinds of beings be proven? Is there any evidence to suggest, for example, that nature used the repeated disorder of random genetic variation alone to reprogram the DNA code to build sea sponges to become the much more complex and very different DNA code to build human beings?
But if one “believes” in evolution, such things as massive reprogramming of DNA via random genetic scrambling is exactly what one must believe. And this belief is held, in Richard Dawkins’s terms “in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” There is no evidence that nature alone can produce order out of the disorder of random mutations. How is believing against the evidence different from faith?
So Dawkins may rail against faith as if faith itself is evidence of falsehood in any theory of creation. But in doing so he is merely displaying his own faith in a creation story that cannot be proven any more that that of the Bible.
Everyone, Dawkins included, has the same evidence on earth from which to infer explanations. Dawkins has chosen to infer various explanations that cannot be proven despite evidence to the contrary. For example, Dawkins has faith in natural selection, and yet natural selection plays no role in the origin or existence of any current living thing! For an explanation of natural selection’s true nature, see here.
Others infer different explanations from the evidence. For example, the existence of complex coded information in human beings leads to a logical inference of an intelligent “coder” somewhere in or out of the universe. Can the identity of this “coder” be proven? Maybe not. But the evidence leads to no other logical inference from which to explain coded information in us, for example.
As human beings on earth we are faced with the fact that there are some things that we cannot know. And there are things that we will likely never know with the certainty that we know other things. In light of our inability to know with certainty all things we are left with the next best thing: faith. Or, if you will, belief.
Belief abounds in every creation story. And faith is its close companion, pushing belief a bit beyond the evidence into areas where the evidence leads not to proof, but to logical inferences.
Faith is not a bad thing. It is a necessary good thing.
Think about it.
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