{"id":1879,"date":"2015-11-14T13:28:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-14T13:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2015-11-14T13:28:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T13:28:42","slug":"smart-christians-the-curious-case-of-sarah-salviander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/2015\/11\/14\/smart-christians-the-curious-case-of-sarah-salviander\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Christians – the curious case of Sarah Salviander"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former atheist astrophysicist, Sarah Salviander, explains her journey to Christianity.<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s the title of an article that’s been going around on Facebook recently. \u00a0The article (linked to above) tells the story of an astrophysicist, one Dr Sarah Salviander, who grew up in a non-religious family, went on to study physics and mathematics at university, came to believe in God and eventually became a Christian. \u00a0Sarah\u00a0now works in astrophysics research at the University of Texas.<\/p>\n

For my Christian friends, Sarah Salviander’s story\u00a0ticks all the boxes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Christians love to talk about ex-atheists<\/em>. \u00a0<\/strong>Oh yes, this person used to believe all the same stuff you believe, but then they realised they were wrong. \u00a0You should read this – it’ll set you straight!<\/li>\n
  2. Christians love to talk about smart Christians<\/em>. \u00a0<\/strong>Oh yes, this person is an astrophysicist. \u00a0You can really trust her – she’s obviously very rational, and she realised Christianity was true. \u00a0You should read this – it’ll set you straight!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Ex-atheists<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I’ve talked about ex-atheists before. \u00a0In a certain sense, every believer is really an ex-atheist<\/a>\u00a0(nobody is born believing in God). \u00a0But beyond that technicality, I think it is obviously the case that some believers used to be conscientious un-believers. \u00a0Just like how some un-believers used to be conscientious believers (like myself). \u00a0Just like how some Muslims used to be Christians, and some Christians used to be Muslims, and some Mormons used to be Christians, and some Hindus used to be agnostics, and some agnostics used to be atheists, and… \u00a0you get the picture.<\/p>\n

    Many people change their beliefs about many things. \u00a0Sometimes people have good reasons to do so, and sometimes they have bad reasons (or no reasons). \u00a0I find it very interesting to listen to people who have changed their minds. \u00a0It’s not easy to change your mind about something big (changing\u00a0career, political party, religion, acceptance of\u00a0evolution, etc), so people who have changed their minds in a major way usually have a fascinating story to tell. \u00a0Sometimes you get the feeling the person had never really thought much about their previous position. \u00a0But\u00a0sometimes you can tell the person had always thought deeply about the topic, and\u00a0came to change their mind as a result of\u00a0new information, or a new perspective.<\/p>\n

    But one thing is crucially important. \u00a0The mere\u00a0fact that someone\u00a0has changed his\u00a0mind, and now believes X,\u00a0does not lend any support to the actual\u00a0truth<\/em> of X. \u00a0Because don’t forget that someone else\u00a0has also changed her<\/em> mind, and now disbelieves<\/em> X! \u00a0The very fact that some believers have become non-believers, and that some non-believers have become believers, means that people can and do\u00a0change their\u00a0minds and end up with wrong beliefs.<\/p>\n

    The main\u00a0thing to consider when someone tells you they changed their mind about X, and thinks you too<\/em> should change your<\/em> mind about X, is this: \u00a0What reasons did they\u00a0have for changing their\u00a0mind? \u00a0<\/em>Are they good reasons? \u00a0Should such reasons convince other people? \u00a0I’ll examine the reasons for Sarah’s change of mind below. \u00a0Suffice it to say, I don’t find her reasons even slightly convincing.<\/p>\n

    Smart Christians<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Dr Sarah Salviander<\/a> is a Research Fellow in the\u00a0Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas. \u00a0Her arXiv page<\/a> lists 18 journal articles since 2003, mostly on black holes and quasars, and published in good journals. \u00a0She’s the real deal.<\/p>\n

    But what should we deduce from this? \u00a0There are definitely many smart Christians. \u00a0Should we deduce that Christianity is true? \u00a0There are many smart Muslims. \u00a0Should we deduce that Islam is true? \u00a0What about Hinduism?\u00a0 Mormonism?\u00a0 Buddhism? \u00a0Atheism? \u00a0Only five years ago, people\u00a0pointed to\u00a0me<\/em> as a “smart Christian”. \u00a0But now I’m an atheist.<\/p>\n

    In line\u00a0with my comments about about people changing their minds,\u00a0the existence of a well-educated or intelligent\u00a0person who believes X does not lend any support for the actual\u00a0truth<\/em> of X. \u00a0However,\u00a0I\u00a0am<\/em>\u00a0interested to hear the\u00a0reasons<\/em>\u00a0such a person has for believing X. \u00a0I’m very interested to hear from smart Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Atheists, etc. \u00a0 I greatly enjoy listening to people give the reasons (they say)\u00a0they have for holding\u00a0their beliefs. \u00a0Beyond\u00a0mere intellectual curiosity, if a Mormon gave me really great reasons to think that Mormonism was true, I’d become a Mormon. \u00a0I want to believe what is true! \u00a0But so far, I haven’t been given any such good reasons (despite some very fun conversations with Mormons over the years).<\/p>\n

    The main\u00a0thing to consider when someone\u00a0tells you they believe\u00a0X, and thinks you too<\/em> should believe\u00a0X, is this: \u00a0What are the reasons they\u00a0believe? \u00a0<\/em>Should such reasons convince other people? \u00a0Are they good reasons? \u00a0I’m now ready to examine the reasons for Sarah’s belief in Christianity.<\/p>\n

    Sarah’s reasons for belief<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In the case of Sarah Salviander, the reasons she gave for coming to believe in Christianity are pretty terrible. \u00a0Please read the article for the full version (the link is at the top of this page), but here is how I summarise (with quotes from the article) her path from non-belief to belief:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Sarah’s\u00a0studies in cosmology led her to be\u00a0“astounded […], blown away, completely and utterly awed” by the order of the universe.<\/li>\n
    2. Reading a novel,\u00a0The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em> by Alexandre Dumas (which Sarah describes as being\u00a0about “forgiveness and God\u2019s role in giving justice”),\u00a0led Sarah to\u00a0“realize that the concept of God and religion was not as philosophically trivial as [she] had thought”.<\/li>\n
    3. “All of this culminated one day, as I was walking across that beautiful La Jolla campus. I stopped in my tracks when it hit me\u2014I believed in God!”<\/li>\n
    4. Although she was apparently a generic theist for some time (albeit, one who believed in a loving, perfectly just God, who caused people to suffer for the bad things they’d done, but ultimately used pain and suffering to build character), Sarah\u00a0met and eventually married a Christian man. \u00a0“Somehow, even though I wasn\u2019t religious myself, I was comforted to be marrying a Christian man.”<\/li>\n
    5. During a lonely year, while she was in a different state to her husband and all her family, Sarah read a book, The Science of God<\/em> by Gerald Schroeder. \u00a0“I was intrigued by the title, but something else compelled me to read it. Maybe it was the loneliness, and I was longing for a deeper connection with God.”<\/li>\n
    6. Sarah was very impressed by Schroeder’s\u00a0book: it “proved to me that Genesis 1 was scientifically sound, and not just a \u201csilly myth\u201d as atheists believed. I realized that, remarkably, the Bible and science agree completely.”<\/li>\n
    7. But Sarah didn’t stop there.\u00a0\u00a0“If Genesis is literally true, then why not the Gospels, too?”<\/li>\n
    8. “I read the Gospels, and found the person of Jesus Christ to be extremely compelling […]\u00a0And yet I struggled, because I did not feel one hundred percent convinced of the Gospels in my heart. I knew of the historical evidence for their truth. And, of course, I knew the Bible was reliable because of Genesis. Intellectually, I knew the Bible to be true, and as a person of intellect, I had to accept it as truth, even if I didn\u2019t feel it. […]\u00a0So, I converted. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      [The article continues beyond that. \u00a0Sarah shares some life stories from after her conversion, mostly revolving around a number of unfortunate hardships she suffered with her family. \u00a0She also\u00a0reveals some extremely offensive views about suffering:\u00a0 essentially, people are “made to suffer for the bad things [they’ve]\u00a0done”, and there is always “a reason for suffering”. \u00a0This seems especially insensitive to the people who have lived\u00a0a life of terrible suffering merely because of the place and\/or time of their birth, and who never experience a silver lining of any kind. \u00a0Sarah also discusses her views of\u00a0the multiverse (which I find extremely\u00a0misguided). \u00a0Both of these topics might be worth pursuing in the future, but the purpose of this post is to examine Sarah’s reasons for coming to believe in Christianity.]<\/p>\n

      Points 1-3 describe a journey familiar to many – the wonder of nature makes many people think there is\u00a0a God, some kind of creator. \u00a0I recall having such thoughts myself in my former life as a believer, though they weren’t what drove me to my belief; they served more as confirmation that there must be a God. \u00a0This part of Sarah’s\u00a0story is also a bit thin on details\u00a0– in particular, there is no real precise link given between points 2 and 3 above (there are no words in between the quote in point 2 and that in point 3). \u00a0But what interests me most of all is the path from generic theism<\/em> to a very specific Christian theism<\/em>. \u00a0It’s one thing to think there is\u00a0“something out there”, but an entirely different thing to think that that “something” must be the God described in the Bible,\u00a0with all those specific details thrown in.<\/p>\n

      Sarah doesn’t say a lot about her husband, but it’s important to note that this relationship would certainly have had\u00a0a significant emotional impact\u00a0on her decisions. \u00a0At this point, Sarah believed in some<\/em> kind of God (but see point 4 above for some of the extra beliefs she had about God), and her husband believed in a very specific<\/em> God. \u00a0Sarah clearly admired her husband’s\u00a0personal qualities, and this\u00a0would have warmed her\u00a0towards Christianity.\u00a0 Her husband also (presumably) believed his God would send Sarah\u00a0to hell\u00a0if she didn’t become a Christian, and these kinds of pressures would no doubt influence her thinking.<\/p>\n

      After reading\u00a0Gerald Schroeder’s book, The Science of God<\/em>, Sarah\u00a0became\u00a0convinced that the book of “Genesis is literally true”. \u00a0(The word “literally” is used in\u00a0a pretty non-literal\u00a0sense here, since Schroeder’s theory is that the first “day” of creation was 8 billion years long, the second day was 4 billion years long, etc – the thesis of Schroeder’s book is really that Genesis can be squared with our modern scientific understanding of the universe, apart from a few teeny little details like\u00a0evolution.)<\/p>\n

      So, does Schroeder’s book constitute a good reason to think that “Genesis is literally true”? Most definitely not. \u00a0Here are several scholarly reviews of the\u00a0book:<\/p>\n