religion a source of mental well-being

How did scientists overlook for so long the fact that religion is a powerful source of mental well-being? How did they even mistake it for a form of mental disorder? If the study of mental health is a science, as its practitioners like to claim, this was no “minor oversight,” writes Peter Glynn, in God: The Evidence. “It shows to what degree the term ‘science’ has been abused by the thinkers of modernity to mask what amounts to little more than a prior prejudice against the idea of God.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 59.

truth is expendable

Wrong information, no matter how obstinately defended, remains wrong, and is passed to succeeding generations, leading to a false record of America’s history, and a false impression of its present.

Larry Halzwarth, 19 Disclosed U.S. History Myths, History Collection

See https://historycollection.com/19-disclosed-us-history-myths/

Yes amazingly, the [peppered] moths continue to appear in science textbooks. One enterprising reporter interviewed a textbook writer who admitted he knew the photos were faked – but used them anyway. “The advantage of this example,” the writer said, “is that it is extremely visual. “Later on,” he added, students “can look at the work critically.” Apparently even falsified evidence is acceptable, if it reinforces Darwinian orthodoxy.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 162.

faith of evolution

“The so-called warfare between science and religion,” wrote historian Jacques Barzun, should really “be seen as the warfare between two philosophies and perhaps two faiths.” The battle over evolution is merely one incident “in the dispute between the believers in consciousness and the believers in mechanical action; the believers in purpose and the believers in pure chance.” To promote one faith in the public school system at public expense, while banning the other, is an example of viewpoint discrimination, which the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional in a wide variety of cases.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 173

astronomy exactly aligns with scripture

“I am not a religious person, but I could say this universe is designed very well for the existence of life,” says astronomer Heinz Oberhummer. “The basic forces in the universe are tailor-made for the production of… carbon-based life.”

Nobel Prize-winner Arno Penzias, who has a Jewish background, is quick to see the religious implications: “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say “supernatural”) plan.” In fact, he says, “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 189.

sufficiency of christian worldview

Christianity explains not only freedom but also the other dimensions of human personality that derive from freedom: creativity, originality, moral responsibility, and even love. The whole range of human personality is accounted for only by the Christian worldview, because it begins with a personal God.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 395.

evolution functions as a religion

“The trouble with you evolutionists is that you just don’t play fair,” [Duane] Gish told him. You accuse us of teaching a religious view, he said, but “you evolutionists are just as religious in your way. Christianity tells us where we came from, where we’re going, and what we should do on the way. I defy you to show any difference with evolution. It tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way.” In short, evolution itself functions as a religion.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 172,
Quoting Michael Ruse, Saving Darwinism from the Darwinians, National Post, May 13, 2000, B-3

strength in sacrifice and stigma

In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture. As a general principle, the higher a group’s tension with mainstream society, the higher its growth rate.

“Religious organizations are stronger to the degree that they impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members,” write Finke and Stark.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 261.

christianity works because it begins with a personal god

Christianity explains not only freedom but also the other dimensions of human personality that derive from freedom: creativity, originality, moral responsibility, and even love. The whole range of human personality is accounted for only by the Christian worldview, because it begins with a personal God.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 395.

the only worldview that works

The only worldview that supports the highest aspirations of the human heart is Christianity. It gives a basis for believing that love is real and genuine because we were created by a God whose very character is love. The Bible teaches that there has been love and communication between the members of the Trinity from all eternity. Love is not an illusion created by the genes to promote our evolutionary survival, but an aspect of human nature that reflects the fundamental fabric of ultimate reality. Moreover, by submitting to God’s plan of salvation and becoming His children, we have the astonishing possibility of participating in that eternal love.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 318.

why does math work?

In a famous essay titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Eugene Wagner says the fact that math works so well in describing the world “is something bordering on the mysterious.” Indeed, “there is no rational explanation for it.”

No explanation within scientific materialism, that is. But within the Christian worldview there is a perfectly rational explanation – namely, that a reasonable God created the world to operate as an orderly progression of events. This was the conviction that inspired the early modern scientists, says historian Morris Kline: “The early mathematicians were sure of the existence of mathematical laws underlying natural phenomena and persisted in the search for them because they were convinced a priori that God had incorporated them in the construction of the universe.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 316.

distinctive element of darwinism

“The distinctive element” in Darwinism, [Charles Hodge] wrote, is not natural selection but the denial of design or purpose. And “the denial of design in nature is virtually the denial of God.”

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 309.
Charles Hodge, What Is Darwinism? And Other Writings on Science and Religion, pages 92, 155.

secret to church growth

In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture. As a general principle, the higher a group’s tension with mainstream society, the higher its growth rate.

“Religious organizations are stronger to the degree that they impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members,” write Finke and Stark.

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, page 261.