Well, yes, most Christians believe some parts of Christianity and disbelieve (or only believe they believe) other parts. That any faithful follower of Christ ought to be able to walk on water and command mountains to move are not things they believe; that prayer affects the world and they have souls are things they do believe. This is much like someone who believes Newton’s Laws apply to the world, but doesn’t believe General Relativity applies to the world.
That is, it’s near impossible to not have an accurate model of Newton’s Laws, mountains, and water in order to survive; it’s quite possible to not have an accurate model of relativistic bodies, statistical significance, and strictly-physical worlds and still survive—even thrive.
Faith healing and souls strike me as part of the category of things Christians are “still allowed” to believe:
One who wishes to believe says, “Does the evidence force me to disbelieve?”
That is, it’s near impossible to not have an accurate model of Newton’s Laws, mountains, and water in order to survive;
One needs surprisingly little. There’s a reason Newton’s laws weren’t arrived at until the 1700s. For the vast majority of purposes one can use a pseudo-Aristotleian view of motion and get decent results. But yes, the other two issues could be more immediately fatal.
Well, yes, most Christians believe some parts of Christianity and disbelieve (or only believe they believe) other parts. That any faithful follower of Christ ought to be able to walk on water and command mountains to move are not things they believe; that prayer affects the world and they have souls are things they do believe. This is much like someone who believes Newton’s Laws apply to the world, but doesn’t believe General Relativity applies to the world.
That is, it’s near impossible to not have an accurate model of Newton’s Laws, mountains, and water in order to survive; it’s quite possible to not have an accurate model of relativistic bodies, statistical significance, and strictly-physical worlds and still survive—even thrive.
Faith healing and souls strike me as part of the category of things Christians are “still allowed” to believe:
The Fourth Sin, Eliezer Yudkowsky
People managed without an accurate model of Newton’s laws for most of human history.
People do occasionally survive some pretty severe memetic immunity failures. One of my own recent ancestors was a snake handler.
Well, they had a decent approximation of Newton’s laws, at least. Otherwise they would struggle to hit things with thrown rocks.
One needs surprisingly little. There’s a reason Newton’s laws weren’t arrived at until the 1700s. For the vast majority of purposes one can use a pseudo-Aristotleian view of motion and get decent results. But yes, the other two issues could be more immediately fatal.