Faith and Culture

Lots of things have been popping up in my life lately that have made me think about how a typical person views a person of faith.  First was a reference, I can't remember where, made to two kinds of people: "reflective, rigid" people and "flexible, easily swayed" people.  I must say, that quote really bothered me at first.  I find the term "rigid" rather negative.  I think of myself as a fairly reflective person, overall, and I think that of most people who are honestly of a faith, Christian or otherwise.  But I also think of myself as a fairly flexible person--I'm willing to go along with many different ways of doing anything, as long as I don't think anything involved is outright wrong.  But maybe that's exactly what was meant--someone who is reflective has thought about their faiths and their beliefs, and knows not only what they believe, but why they believe what they believe.  They would be more likely to know what they believed and less willing to compromise on what they believed to be right.  That probably would make that person seem rigid, especially to someone who didn't know why they were acting the way they were.

I was also reading a book about science today.  The author had the implicit but extremely obvious assumption that science and religion (specifically Christianity) don't mix.  Any time there was a religious scientist, he ridiculed the inherent contradictions in their beliefs in both science and religion.  He argued that as science has developed more and more, it has disproved Christianity/religion more and more, with the rather obvious implication that anyone who continued to believe was ignoring the evidence.  He even went so far as to say that the diversity of life practically proves that there is no intelligent design, which I found utterly ridiculous.  I would even argue the opposite, that science only proves more and more how awesome God is.  I think that the diversity and interdependence of life is proof of His existence and of His power.  I did find it interesting to look at the mix of science and religion from the other viewpoint.  I find it so interesting that he and I can look at the exact same evidence and see two completely different things--he that religion is utterly wrong and disproved by science, and I that religion is right and science only proves Christianity and the existence of God.