The number of students that have been raised in a good church and a solid youth group that leave their faith when they enter college is well over fifty percent, according to recent surveys.
How can this be? Many studies have been done as to why this is happening but there seems to be little agreement as to what the underlying cause is.
It is often stated that science teachers and philosophy professors create doubt in young minds as to the accuracy of the bible when it comes to the subject of origins or the meaning of life. So here is an eighteen-year-old freshman sitting before a teacher who has a doctorate in biochemistry. How can this even be a challenge? This is David and Goliath, and David has neither stone nor sling. A semester of bullying by the professor who offers proof of evolution begins to erode the faith of this young man or woman. No matter how well equipped the student is with apologetics, the professor is several steps ahead and will soon prove to this naive teen that he has been shielded from the truth and has been brainwashed inside the evangelical bubble. It is time to put on your big boy pants and enter the real world of science and leave the world of fairy tales.
Now that the student’s faith has been put into question sexual temptation is more easily given into because there is no God to be accountable to.
How did eighteen years of solid teaching get erased in six months? Two words were used interchangeably thus making them equivalent to one another: Science = Scientists.
Somehow over the years these two words became one in the same. So if a scientist makes a claim it soon becomes the inerrant voice of science. Let’s put some definition to these words. A scientist is a fallible interpreter of experimentation. Science is an infallible interpreter because it is backed by what is observable and reproducible. We know, for example, that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and freezes at 32 degrees and does it every time.
However, in those areas which are subjective and cannot be put to objective experimentation is where the words science and scientist are used interchangeably. For example, twenty-five years ago it was a known fact that cholesterol was the major cause of heart disease. Today the scientific community has corrected that error by saying that sugar is the main culprit that is causing inflammation in the arteries.
These types of studies are wide open to interpretation since they are not observable and reproducible. Which science is the right one, the science of twenty-five years ago or today? Since science by definition is provable and thus factual, I think it is safe to say neither of these were true science but false interpretations of the information. However, when a scientist says that studies prove this or that about heart disease it becomes science.
These two words are now synonyms when, in fact, in many cases they are antonyms. Evolution and the study of origins fall into the category of looking into the rear-view mirror and trying to interpret the past. But to a young naive college student, if the prof says it is provable the student sees it as science and his faith is shattered. So let’s help our young people to be discerning between what is science and what is wishful thinking.