"You are so right-on in what you say ! In a Sunday school at a church I formerly attended , an elder of the church remarked that his `` faith was strengthened `` by the `` evidence `` afforded by recent archaeological discoveries in the middle east . In a tone I now rather regret , I blurted out two things ... ... How weak was your faith before ? and ... If the `` evidence `` had gone 'the other way , ' would your faith then have been weakened ? His answer for the second question was a simple 'no , ' which suggests to me that the sense of the term 'evidence ' he was employing was not the same sense you 'd expect a scientist to use . His response to the first was problematic , and interesting . '' My faith , `` he said , has always been -- then he used the most interesting word -- `` complete. `` But he had taken sufficient offence already , it seemed , that I pressed no further . I wish sometimes that I 'd asked : If your faith was `` always complete , `` did the archaeological evidence make it `` more complete `` ? And , if so , does your sense of 'complete ' match that word 's usual application ? I do not quite grasp the notion of there being `` scientific evidence `` for a proposition within the realm of faith . I do not mean to suggest that my claim that scientific and religious propositions reside in different discourses disposes of all worry or complaint . Activity in one realm may be felt in the other . But , re : evolution , I think this ... Given convincing evidence that , say , the earth is billions of years old , not thousands -- a mound of evidence more than high enough for my needs -- my worry is not that the 'Biblical account ' of creation is wrong , erroneous , falsified ... but rather is the quite different worry of wondering what , now , that account 's meaning is , what it affirms . Scientific discovery , evidence , and discourse thus do n't `` disprove the Bible. `` Rather , they serve to displace interpretations of biblical text , and give us cause -- I call it : opportunity -- to find new , richer meaning in scripture . I 'm often embarrassed by the smallness and brittleness of certain Christians ' interpretations . Emphasizing the 'literal , ' as some do -- a very problematic term in itself -- some Christians see in , for example , the Genesis `` tree of the knowledge of good and evil `` nothing more than a tree . A biological tree . Pear tree . Peach tree . Apple tree . Tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Albeit a special species , nonetheless a species . And , for them , there you go -- Eve chowed down on the fruit of a proscribed species , and that 's your story . Lost , in the insistence upon and closing of that interpretation , is the richness of metaphor the story offers . Metaphor , again and again , is variously deliberately denigrated or unconsciously eclipsed , in the readings of certain Christians . Science is not the only victim of such cheesily 'literal ' interpretation . Christian faith -- at least , the possibility of a rich faith robustly aware of its own weight in metaphor , parable , legend and myth , and the transformative power that arises from those aspects of scripture -- is equally victim . I feel more sadness about such a limited believer 's faith than I do about that person 's science . Master_Shake , for your poignantly apt remark -- `` what they have is n't faith at all `` -- thanks . Bless you ! Brad"
"You can have reasoned faith , but it need not rely on 'empirical ' evidence . There are very many forms of evidence ."
"weak was your faith before ?"
"You can have reasoned faith , but it need not rely on 'empirical ' evidence ."