Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.
— Saint Augustine
You follow metmom around the same way Soliton did.
The leaders of the day laughed Jesus to scorn.
The whole problem is that the infidels are working from the perspective that anything outside of Scripture that they have investigated themselves is true. It's the same old argument that when there's a conflict between *science* and Scripture, that science is by default correct and Scripture is wrong. That's presuming, with no basis, that what mankind has discovered outside of Scripture is true and right, when we've all been told often enough, that truth has no place in science.
There's simply no reason to assume that *science* is right and Scripture is wrong by default, except the desire is to make out parts of Scripture to be a lie so as to make all of it out to be a lie.
There are people in every avenue of life who don't know what they're talking about and are an embarrassment to who or what they represent, science included. After all, you guys have Dawkins representing you and the people who have written the articles which ECO has been posting to show what your history is.
But to blame the occasional person who is a bad representative of Christianity for the infidel not believing is just blame shifting and intellectually dishonest. It also does not say much for the intellectual prowess of the infidel if he can't distinguish between the message and the messenger.
Anyone who rejects Christianity because of the behavior of or intellectual ability of a person who calls themselves a Christian, is just looking for an excuse to reject it.
— Saint Augustine
We’ll stick with the author of the Holy Bible, not fallen man.
Many have gone to “science” to ask what part of the Bible they may believe as factual, true, and have been told to toss this and that in the name of not being “unscientific”.
To do so is mistaken as much of what is called science is what the Apostle Paul called, “contradictions of the falsely called “knowledge” “. It is this that the Bible conflicts with not fact.