Derrick Lumsden's Take on Believing Things That Can't Be Proven by Science

Ben Barnett has a blog called Create Cognitive Dissonance where he writes about the problems he sees with dangerous and destructive religious dogmas. The sad thing, in my opinion, is that he dismisses all religious beliefs as potentially harmful dogmas because they cannot be verified by science.

To his credit, Ben has invited people—particularly religious leaders—to write guest posts on his blog about what they believe. Rev. Derrick Lumsden, assistant pastor for the Westville New Church, has taken him up on it and written a guest post titled, “How Do You Prove What You See Clearly”, in which he argues for the validity and value of believing in things that cannot be verified through the five senses.

I recommend reading the post and the comments following it. Here's part of the post:

I accept my premise “not everything worth knowing can be known by the five senses or evidenced to them” because in my experience there is internal knowledge and internal senses–some way of knowing that comes from within. To have this sense is beyond anything that can be proven by the scientific method or shown conclusively to the senses.

And here's part of Derrick's follow-up comments:

If you are interested in the balance I have between the science, religion, and free thinking I will gladly tell you. Science teaches me about the physical world and religion teaches me about the spirit world. I trust science (as long as I am given the evidence to see it for myself) to tell me all about how this world works. I trust religion to tell me about how my soul works, what feeds it, and what harms it, just as I trust science to tell me the same about my body. And free thinking runs through out....

UPDATE: If this is interesting to you check out the comments on this post for further things to read.