Dan
Posts: 77 Joined: Sep. 2009
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There are many reasons one might be a Christian -- here are a few I thought of right off hand: to insure the immortality of one's soul, for social interactions, for the purity of one's soul, to support good works, to expand the good part of one's own personality, to attend confession, to make friends, to make business connections, to insure that you will meet your deceased spouse in the afterlife, in expectation of answered prayer, to provide a moor of stability during difficult times, to make sure you have a place for a nice church wedding, to explain the laws of physics, to explain the origin of life, to explain the diversity of living things, to find a sanctuary of calm in a turbulent world, to support great art and architecture, to immerse oneself -- once a week -- in great art and architecture, to feed one's feeling of the spiritual, to support environmental stewardship, to oppose war, to support social justice, to connect with one's personal history, to connect with one's national heritage, to connect with a world heritage, to be part of a group supporting something larger than one's self. If you think for a minute or two you can come up with dozens more reasons.
A knowledge of evolution might or might not remove a single one of those reasons: "to explain the diversity of living things".
I imagine that for most people this is a non-reason or very minor reason for being a Christian. Suppose you handed out a survey to Christians listing all these reasons and more. How many do you think would check: "I am a Christian because I want to explain the diversity of living things"?
I have not done this, but I can't imagine that more than 0.2% of all Christians hold their faith because they want their faith to explain the diversity of living things. If my hunch is correct, then only 0.2% of all Christians are at risk of losing their faith due to knowledge of evolution. Perhaps that's why, even with all his distortions, FL could find only four examples of "loss of faith due to evolution". (Three of which turned out not to be loss of faith at all.)
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