Hello Blogosphere (I hope that is the right term)I have not written a Blog since September and a lots of things have happened in the interim (my awesome beard for starters - but I digress).
I am taking a Spiritual Disciplines and Discipleship class right now where we are supposed to practice several disciplines over the semester. One of the options is Spiritual Journal writing. Because I recieved a lot of constructive feedback from my past blogging ventures, and it is good to practice my writing, I decided to publish the journals which are appropriate for public consumption. I will not be airing my dirty laundry or confessing deep sins, so you can relax. Today I am going to do a Theological Reflection on an article I came across on Huffington post a couple days ago. Something about it got me thinking and inspired my return to the sphere of blogging. Please feel free to leave comments here or on my facebook page. I appreciate the interaction.
A couple months ago, my friend Ryan (whose musings can be read at http://faithlikeaman.blogspot.com/) introduced me to Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson . We were sitting around in need of something to watch, so he pulled up a YouTube video of two scientists having a discussion with Jim Gaffigan (whom I love!), Sarah Silverman (whom I do not care for, but I wanted to watch Jim), and Eugene Mirman (whom all I can think of when I hear him talk is his character "Gene" from Bob's Burgers). Anyhow, if you want to check out the video, you can here => (I am not sure about the language - It is Sarah Silverman after all).
I found the science quite interesting. I have always like science, and sci-fi, so when was running on the treadmill at the gym last week and I saw NdT (which I will refer to him from now on - not sure if that is a thing yet, but if it catches on, it started here first!!) on a sports talk show speaking about the science behind tennis, centrifugal force, and how sports and astronomy have a lot in common, you can bet that I paused the episode of Doctor Who I was watching at the time, and plugged in my headphones, so I could hear and not just read the subtitles. On Monday of this week, I was trolling through the top stories on Huffington Post and I saw the headline "Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Media Should Stop Giving Space To Climate Change And Science Deniers." Because of my new found interest in NdT, I clicked on it, read the article, and watched the six minute clip that accompanied the article. The article is very short and I would just copy and paste the whole thing, but I do not want to get into copyright trouble, so go read it right now (http://goo.gl/NzSY9l), it might take you a whole two minutes, and if you have time, watch the video. What it amounts to is a promotional interview for NdT's upcoming reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. (which can be seen Sundays at 9pm on Fox - http://www.cosmosontv.com/)
To sum up the sentiment of the article, NdT argues media outlets should not equal coverage to people who do not believe "Climate Change," because it is a fact. I am not going to engage the "Climate Change" debate anymore to say I believe God created the earth and He put human in charge of its care. If humans have done something to harm the ecosystem, then we have not been good stewards of what God gave us, and we should do what we can to correct the problem. It was not his view of "flat earthers"(who are mostly creationist and fellow Christians) but the following statement which caused me to think the hardest. He said,
"Science is not there for you to cherry pick. You know, I said this once and it's gotten a lot of Internet play, I said the good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.I guess you can decide whether or not to believe in it, but that doesn't change the reality of an emergent scientific truth."
As a person of faith, I thought, "If scientific fact is true whether we believe or not, does that mean my faith - something I cannot prove or have tangible evidence for is automatically false? Does the fact I cannot prove God created the earth mean it is not true? " This is the question people have been debating for years, and I admit I have not done my homework in philosophy. However, two things which stuck with me from my years of Christian High School are "All truth is God's Truth" (A quote from St. Augustine of Hippo, whom I have come to really appreciate during my time in seminary) and "Truth has nothing to fear from investigation." (Part of the Pepperdine University Server College Mission Statement)So, I guess what I want to say is having a Christian Worldview does not automatically mean I am ignorant, and conversely Christians should not blindly believe something when there is scientific proof to the contrary (Truth - God's Truth). Science and Faith can co-exist. The Apostle Paul exhorted Timothy, "Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth." (2Ti 2:25 NLT ) We would all be wise to follow this advise.
Ryan's response is here!!
Daniel
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