The claim of a recent origin of life is not very central to Christianity. In fact, I believe this is a minority position among Christians world-wide. Did you intend it as a factually incorrect claim of Christianity, or as a factually incorrect claim of a particular flavor of Christianity (e.g. fundamentalist)?
I intended it as a factually incorrect claim of some versions of Christianity. It is true that most present-day Christians, especially those in wealthy industrialized well-educated nations, no longer make such a claim. (And also that the possibility of taking the Biblical account as something other than straightforward factual narrative has eminent representatives a long way back into the Christian tradition. But I’m pretty sure that until, say, 250 years ago at least 90% of the world’s Christians, and a sizeable majority even of the world’s best-informed Christians, believed that the origin of life is very recent. How much that matters when trying to decide whether Christianity is right is an interesting question I don’t propose to go into here.)
[EDITED to add a word I noticed I’d accidentally omitted.]
I’m pretty sure that until, say, 250 years ago at least 90% of the world’s Christians, and a sizeable majority even of the world’s best-informed Christians, believed that the origin of life is very recent.
I don’t know if that is true or not, but it sounds plausible. However, 250 years ago no one had a justified, accurate estimate of how long ago life originated—the science behind that had not been done yet. So, I do not see how the fact (if fact it be) that most Christians had an inaccurate idea about how old life is has any relevance to whether or not Christianity is true.
As I said, the relationship of this to the truth or untruth of Christianity’s claims is complicated. But one reason why it might be relevant is that there is a difference between not knowing something and confidently believing something that is false, or still worse holding that that false thing is a revelation from God. If for many centuries the Christian tradition confidently proclaimed a belief that was actually wrong, then that doesn’t make the Christians involved particularly bad or stupid (since, as you say, no one else knew the answer either) but it does mean that the Christian tradition was capable of prolonged serious error. Which in turn means e.g. that arguments of the form “X is more likely to be true, because look at this lengthy tradition of people who believed it”—which is actually an argument with some strength; people believe true things more often than otherwise similar false things—are weaker than they would be without such mistakes in the history of that tradition.
it does mean that the Christian tradition was capable of prolonged serious error.
I don’t know that I would classify the error as serious; a belief in a recent origin of life it is not central to Christian doctrine. None of the core tenants of Christianity are dependent on a recent origin of life. Nor is correctness regarding the age of life instrumentally important in the typical person’s day-to-day non-religious activities. And, it is not the case that the Christian community as a whole (obviously there are some exceptions) hung on to this belief once strong contrary evidence became available.
there is a difference between not knowing something and confidently believing something that is false
This is true. But, I suspect that rather than confidently believing in a recent origin of life, a lot of pre-modern Christians simply did not give the topic much thought one way or the other. And, it seems to me that holding an incorrect belief in the absence of evidence against the belief is a relatively minor failing, particularly if that belief is a non-central one.
arguments of the form “X is more likely to be true, because look at this lengthy tradition of people who believed it”—which is actually an argument with some strength; people believe true things more often than otherwise similar false things—are weaker than they would be without such mistakes in the history of that tradition
But, we already have lots of evidence that a lengthy tradition of belief in something does not imply that the thing is true. So, premodern Christian belief in a recent origin of life does little to weaken the argument that X is probably true if there is a lengthy tradition of people believing X (since the argument was IMO already quite weak to begin with).
a belief in a recent origin of life is not central to Christian doctrine.
There are plenty of Christians who would disagree (or, more precisely, would say that a belief in a recent origin of human life along the lines of the story in Genesis is central, on the grounds that the New Testament draws analogies between Adam and Christ that don’t work if there was not a historical Adam with the right characteristics).
More to the point—since in fact I agree with you that a recent origin of life is not central to Christian doctrine—I think an error can be serious without being central to Christian doctrine.
we already have lots of evidence that a lengthy tradition of belief in something does not imply that the thing is true.
We do. None the less, many Christians have trouble applying that evidence to their own religion :-).
There are plenty of Christians who would disagree (or, more precisely, would say that a belief in a recent origin of human life along the lines of the story in Genesis is central, on the grounds that the New Testament draws analogies between Adam and Christ that don’t work if there was not a historical Adam with the right characteristics).
Regarding Adam—yes I think that Catholics in particular are committed to a belief that there was an actual Adam and an actual Eve. However, as far as I know, they are not committed to any particular time-line as to when the actual Adam and the actual Eve lived (nor are they committed to all of Genesis being literal). So, I don’t think that this counts as modern Christians necessarily believing in a recent origin of human life, much less in a recent origin of life in general.
I think an error can be serious without being central to Christian doctrine
Fair enough—we can agree to disagree about that. I just don’t see how pre-modern Christians having an incorrect belief regarding a non-central (to Christianity) scientific fact in the absence of any significant evidence that their belief is wrong is particularly problematic.
many Christians have trouble applying that evidence to their own religion
I think that we have an area of agreement here—I think that the argument that we should believe in Christianity because there is a long tradition of people who believe in Christianity is, by itself, quite weak.
The claim of a recent origin of life is not very central to Christianity. In fact, I believe this is a minority position among Christians world-wide. Did you intend it as a factually incorrect claim of Christianity, or as a factually incorrect claim of a particular flavor of Christianity (e.g. fundamentalist)?
I intended it as a factually incorrect claim of some versions of Christianity. It is true that most present-day Christians, especially those in wealthy industrialized well-educated nations, no longer make such a claim. (And also that the possibility of taking the Biblical account as something other than straightforward factual narrative has eminent representatives a long way back into the Christian tradition. But I’m pretty sure that until, say, 250 years ago at least 90% of the world’s Christians, and a sizeable majority even of the world’s best-informed Christians, believed that the origin of life is very recent. How much that matters when trying to decide whether Christianity is right is an interesting question I don’t propose to go into here.)
[EDITED to add a word I noticed I’d accidentally omitted.]
I don’t know if that is true or not, but it sounds plausible. However, 250 years ago no one had a justified, accurate estimate of how long ago life originated—the science behind that had not been done yet. So, I do not see how the fact (if fact it be) that most Christians had an inaccurate idea about how old life is has any relevance to whether or not Christianity is true.
As I said, the relationship of this to the truth or untruth of Christianity’s claims is complicated. But one reason why it might be relevant is that there is a difference between not knowing something and confidently believing something that is false, or still worse holding that that false thing is a revelation from God. If for many centuries the Christian tradition confidently proclaimed a belief that was actually wrong, then that doesn’t make the Christians involved particularly bad or stupid (since, as you say, no one else knew the answer either) but it does mean that the Christian tradition was capable of prolonged serious error. Which in turn means e.g. that arguments of the form “X is more likely to be true, because look at this lengthy tradition of people who believed it”—which is actually an argument with some strength; people believe true things more often than otherwise similar false things—are weaker than they would be without such mistakes in the history of that tradition.
I don’t know that I would classify the error as serious; a belief in a recent origin of life it is not central to Christian doctrine. None of the core tenants of Christianity are dependent on a recent origin of life. Nor is correctness regarding the age of life instrumentally important in the typical person’s day-to-day non-religious activities. And, it is not the case that the Christian community as a whole (obviously there are some exceptions) hung on to this belief once strong contrary evidence became available.
This is true. But, I suspect that rather than confidently believing in a recent origin of life, a lot of pre-modern Christians simply did not give the topic much thought one way or the other. And, it seems to me that holding an incorrect belief in the absence of evidence against the belief is a relatively minor failing, particularly if that belief is a non-central one.
But, we already have lots of evidence that a lengthy tradition of belief in something does not imply that the thing is true. So, premodern Christian belief in a recent origin of life does little to weaken the argument that X is probably true if there is a lengthy tradition of people believing X (since the argument was IMO already quite weak to begin with).
There are plenty of Christians who would disagree (or, more precisely, would say that a belief in a recent origin of human life along the lines of the story in Genesis is central, on the grounds that the New Testament draws analogies between Adam and Christ that don’t work if there was not a historical Adam with the right characteristics).
More to the point—since in fact I agree with you that a recent origin of life is not central to Christian doctrine—I think an error can be serious without being central to Christian doctrine.
We do. None the less, many Christians have trouble applying that evidence to their own religion :-).
Regarding Adam—yes I think that Catholics in particular are committed to a belief that there was an actual Adam and an actual Eve. However, as far as I know, they are not committed to any particular time-line as to when the actual Adam and the actual Eve lived (nor are they committed to all of Genesis being literal). So, I don’t think that this counts as modern Christians necessarily believing in a recent origin of human life, much less in a recent origin of life in general.
Fair enough—we can agree to disagree about that. I just don’t see how pre-modern Christians having an incorrect belief regarding a non-central (to Christianity) scientific fact in the absence of any significant evidence that their belief is wrong is particularly problematic.
I think that we have an area of agreement here—I think that the argument that we should believe in Christianity because there is a long tradition of people who believe in Christianity is, by itself, quite weak.