This article was an inspiration to me, as I feel God has called me to science.

Everyone is talented.

Not everyone is a genius.

Everyone has some little bit of beauty.

Talent is precious, genius more so.

There is a difference between genius and high intelligence.

I believe that God has given talents to everyone, and I hope to encourage and inspire people to use those talents. Hard work, determination, ambition, faith and passion will get you further than talent alone. Talent is a booster. Combined with the above character traits is can go to the stars, but is nothing without God. God, talent, hard work, passion, faith and determination can get you anywhere!

With that aside, thank you for the apology on the issue of stem cells, Burton. I appreciate that.

I think part of the problem you have with this article is based on a misunderstanding of what this website is all about. The Rebelution is defined as “a teenage rebellion against low expectations.” We share Eva’s story because it is an example of a young person using their teen years as a launching pad, rather than as a vacation from responsibility.

I would assume you don’t have a problem with any of that—the primary thrust and purpose of the article. What you do have a problem with is that we brought in God, Jesus, and the Bible as a reason for our reader’s to follow Eva’s example.

You claim that science and faith are diametrically opposed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even secular scientists Whitehead and Oppenheimer said that modern science couldn’t have been born apart from the environment created by Christianity. Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, all the way up to Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell, ushered in the modern scientific era by understanding that there was a universe because God had made it and that because God was a reasonable God, man could discover the truth of the universe by reason.

So no, there is no conflict between science and Christianity, between reason and faith. The conflict here is between a biblical worldview, which believes there is a God, and naturalism, which believes there is not. Biblical Christianity provides a foundation for scientific endeavor — a reasonable God who created a reasonable world and gave us rational minds with which to accurately reason and arrive at truth. Naturalism does not provide that foundation — implying rather an unguided evolutionary process and a high unlikelihood that our cognitive faculties are consistently reliable. In that, it is a self-defeating philosophy. This isn’t to denounce the work of non-Christian scientists, only to point out that they must necessarily borrow from the Christianity to avoid the logical end of their worldview: Hume’s skepticism.

It is interesting that you bring up Dawkins. I watched the TED video (all 29 minutes and 22 seconds of it), and had already read detailed synopses of The God Delusion, which is, pretty much, the expanded version of his talk. His increasingly “religious” hatred of religion (and Christianity in particular) is far less scientific than it is personal, as well as philosophic, which certainly isn’t his forte. Alvin Plantinga, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, wrote about The God Delusion:

“Now despite the fact that this book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he’s a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class.”

Of course, and Plantinga would heartily agree, none of this is to say that Dawkins is a lousy scientist or an unintelligent person. Either would be a ridiculous argument. But it is to say that the philosophical assumptions that guide and shape his scientific aims and stated life purpose (curious, wasn’t it, how he talked about being put on earth for a purpose — whose purpose?) are fundamentally skewed.

But you’re right, and I learned something about the differences between stem cells and embryonic stem cells. I was channeling my ire into a place that it didn’t belong. I apologize.

You draw attention to a Princeton undergrad that is making significant strides in understanding the nature of cancer. She is well spoken, and has some great insights to offer the field of cancer research.

What the posted article did, though, does a horrible disservice to Eva, and, indeed, to science as a whole. To attempt to co-opt her and her work and to inspire your readers for the WRONG reasons is an example of everything that is wrong, unethical, and sad with modern Christianity.

It’s time that you and your readers realized that science and faith are diametrically opposed from one another. They define one another insofar as they are opposites.

The very definition of Faith is choosing to believe something without proof. And the very definition of Science is refusing to believing something without proof. I think that it’s nice that you liked Eva’s talk. Just stop trying to claim her as your own, when she’s clearly on the other side of the fence, on the side of reason.

And I know that you’ll smugly say that you’re not claiming her as your own, that you’re just praying that she’ll find Jesus.

Well, it’s in that vein that I sincerely hope that you and your readers wake up to realize that they have been believing in a mythology, one that, I fear, is finding it’s way into public policy.

I hope some of your readers will take the time to watch this talk from the TED conference, as well:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/113

I’m not decrying your point of view; it’s just food for thought.