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Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

Every community I have been a part of (church, family, techs, software development, Ruby Programming, etc) have been multifaceted. I will only talk about my camp, Evangelical Christians, because that's what I know.

When I was a new Christian back in 1990 I was a bit baffled by the anti-intellectualism I witness among my friends at a local Pentecostal church. I found a sufficient answer in the book "Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It".

So I think it's fair to say many people have had the experience of talking to people of faith who know what they believe, but they don't know why they believe it. I'll give you that.

But consider this: Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Princeton are all Universities that started off as Christian seminaries. Their roots are founded in the idea that academics and reasoning are inherently noble pursuits.

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My theory on why certain kinds of people believe in things like religion has to do with different styles of information collection and perceiving the world. Religion is often adapted, or rejected, on moral grounds, rather than strict evidence grounds, because it's a lot more relevant to life on Earth than it is to who created the world at the end of the day.

Given that, it's not too surprising that religion can affect things without being true. The moral parts of religion are a lot more interesting and influential than the creationist parts, but the creationist parts make it sound true.

But what are the arguments for the creationist parts? The Bible simply says, in the beginning there was this and that. Most arguments after that are more about the fact that Jesus existed and made miracles, and therefore he had unusual powers, and if he had unusual powers, perhaps what he said was true.

I've never seen any from the ground up evidence about creation itself. Intelligent design to me is a counterargument more than an argument, and, apart from that, I haven't heard much at all.

You're right. The Bible starts with the first five books, but then begins to unfold an incredibly compelling narrative rooted in culture and history right up until approximately 2016 years ago give or take a few years.

Have a look at thebibleproject.com, and the "Read Scripture" app on iPhone/Android. The Bible has a record that is truly worth a read: first printed book ever to be published (Gutenberg), the most translated book on the planet, the most printed book in all human history, more archaeological artifacts and manuscript evidence than any other book.

With a pedigree like that, doesn't it warrant an honest investigation into its central message?

"But consider this: Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Princeton are all Universities that started off as Christian seminaries. Their roots are founded in the idea that academics and reasoning are inherently noble pursuits."

The key here is that they started off as Christian seminaries. Are they any longer? Perhaps this same reasoning led them to stop being Christian seminaries in the first place.

(facepalm)

Did you even bother to search their websites?

http://www.ptsem.edu/

http://hds.harvard.edu/

http://divinity.yale.edu/

http://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/home

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