Religion and Pseudoscience

I stopped taking my asthma medication for one week when I was in high school. No, I was not a stupid kid who was trying to get my health into trouble. I was a fundamental, evangelical Christian who believed in faith healing. There were preachers who came to our church and preached that taking medication was preventing our healing.

I’d heard stories about Christians who would stop taking medication-- believing God would heal-- then dying. And here I was, trying to do this. I couldn’t stand the cognitive dissonance of believing in healing but taking medication at the same time.

All I ended up with was heavy breathing and asthma symptoms.

I apologize if this introduction makes it sound like I am going to write an article bashing Christianity, bashing people who are ignorant enough to believe in faith healing and teach it to their kids. I am definitely not doing that. And this may surprise you, but I still do believe in faith healing.

What I do want to write about is the attitude of denial that many Christians feel compelled to live in. When science or society diverges from our doctrines and theology, we feel compelled to simply ignore the evidence instead of carefully examining it. Jesus never told us to have confirmation bias. In fact, His word says:

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3). 

It sounds to me like He was warning AGAINST confirmation bias. We must consider the evidence, not simply make it suit what we already believe. So here is a list of some things that I have proclaimed belief in for years because of pressure to conform to the version of Christianity that I was brought up in:

1) Evolution is not true because God created the world. To believe in evolution is to deny God.
2) God heals so you do not need medication.
3) Gay marriage is wrong and people who do so are choosing to sin.

That is by no means a comprehensive list but those are three things I have wrestled with a lot. Before you dear fundamentalists shake your heads at what nonsense and heresy I am proclaiming, I beseech you to hear me out. I am by no means saying that any of these three things are not true. I am only saying that the arguments we have come up with thus far are insufficient.

We have attacked evolution with arguments like “it is just a theory” or “creationism is more accurate in explaining the evidence” but we have to somehow come to terms with the fact that the proof for evolution is real. It is time we got on the same page with scientists. No one will take us seriously if we argue only through our own Biblical lens, sputtering arguments full of confirmation bias, trying our hardest to confirm what we interpret the Bible to say. We need to have enough faith in God to know that He is not stupid. Let that wash over you. The Almighty is not stupid. He wouldn’t leave evidence against our current beliefs about creationism and insist that we keep those beliefs. The Bible says:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (Romans 1:20).

Science and theology will line up. I believe this with all my heart. But the way we Christians are acting seems to portray the belief that science and theology do not line up and we are just going to side with theology without worrying about the two being reconciled.

Yes, we believe in God’s Word. But when we are trying to debate the truth about science and society, we need to debate on the secular playing field and not ours. We must use their facts, not ours. And where does faith come in, you ask? Well, faith comes in when you trust that theology and science will line up because the Almighty is not stupid.