Actually not true, which a cursory glance at Wikipedia will show. Suicide attack - Wikipedia.
Surprisingly enough, I find myself siding with @Eddie on this one. 
Really? âReligion and ideologyâ are the âonly thing I can think ofâ that can convince someone to be a suicide bombing? Considering that the word ideology spans just about every imaginable motivation (from theist to agnostic to atheist ideologies), Iâd say that your âonly thing I can think ofâ is a very very WIDE âthingâ indeed.
I donât want to start a totally new tangent in the middle of a thread on evolution but anyone who thinks there are no âatheist suicide bombersâ needs to do some historical research. (My uncle narrowly escaped injury when a Marxist suicide bomber had no difficulty espousing his atheist philosophy as a justification for taking human life in a village square market. I could also cite various east Asian and eastern European conflicts where atheist philosophies motivated all sorts of large scale and small scale tragedies. I can hardly believe that anyone with a knowledge of world history would ever pretend that religion holds a monopoly on suicide terrorism and other deliberately violent, massive losses of human life.)
My apologies for briefly pursuing that tangent unrelated to the so-called âevolution deceitâ topic (which I obviously find a bizarre title for this thread) but as a historian and philosophy/religious studies scholar I just canât casually stroll by when someone pretends that religion is to blame for a human foible that manifests itself in violence while finding justification in a large assortment of âexcusesâ including political, economic, ethnic, class-war, linguistic-division, and countless other reasons besides religion! The cause of such terrorism and suffering is the evil decisions of humans! Anyone who thinks that religion is the only or even the major cause or excuse for such violence badly needs to study the twentieth century FOR EXAMPLE.
Wow. This reminds me of a stereotypical I-know-best undergrad I once had who tried to blame religion for âthe vast majority of the bloodshed in human history.â When his own classmates thoroughly incinerated his claim by a long series of examples of massive carnage by the millions which were not based on religious strife, he tried to recover by saying: âBoth Stalin and Mao killed millions for purely religious reasons. Both declared themselves worthy of worship and erected state religions with themselves as the deities. So their body counts were due to religion also!â Yes, I suppose if you redefine every possible motivation as âreligionâ, the claim might pretend to stand up to scrutiny. (Stalinism and Maoism were/are NOT considered religions by any of us within the religious studies academy because a religion by definition requires a reverence for and recognition of TRANSCENDENCE. So even if one were to call Stalinism and Maoism âstate religionsâ, there is no recognition of supernatural TRANSCENDENCE. So those are not religions. Nevertheless, such pretenses are a great example of redefining words/terms in order to maintain a wrong assertion.)
I remember that same student got angry when it was pointed out that the Tamil Tiger suicide-bombers were Marxist atheists because he insisted that because they were atheist Hindus, that still made them âreligionistsâ and therefore âReligion was still to blame for their suicide bombing.â (Some people donât like the fact that some religions donât recognize the existence of God/gods. I remember that same students had just a few weeks before insisted that those who are atheists and who identify with east Asian religions arenât really âreligiousâ because âThose Asian religions arenât really religions at all because they donât involve gods. So they are just philosophies.â)
Oops. Sorry. More tangent. (Interesting topic though, just irrelevant to this evolution thread.)
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Yes, but I hope that we can agree that these unis worn by the Bills and Jets border on sinful:
Has anyone polled the members of MÊdecins Sans Frontières?
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Really? Then in regard to the atheist Marxist Tamil Tigers who have been responsible for a great many suicide bombings, tell us âwhat God they believed in.â
(Yes, they were Hindus who donât believe in deities. If you donât like calling them âatheistsâ, then call them ânon-theistsâ and tell us what God you know they believe in.)
(So many anti-theism arguments popular on the Internet are so devoid of familiarity with even world history of the last few decades.)
I do love that Tamil Tiger example. Iâd forgotten about that long-standing conflict. Kudos and thanks!
Patrick,
I really donât understand your distinction that youâre making. You act as if atheism, or materialism, is somehow not an ideaolgoy OR a metaphysical reality. You canât exclude your own beliefs from the category of âhuman atrocitiesâ ⌠Thatâs non-sense. People do all sorts of atrocious things without needing to believe that âGod told me to do itâ ⌠Itâs because were human and often selfish. You seem to think that somehow, once all âsupernatural beliefâ is eradicated from humanity then we will all hold hands and live in some sort of utopia. No ⌠Humans will still be humans. Itâs illogical and absurd to pin human evils to that of âGod told me to do thisâ ⌠Often what we are dealing with is Justication for what you already wanted to do in the first place. For example, âI want to kill a bunch of people, but I need to think of a good reason to do so.â ⌠âOoooh! I know! Iâll say God Told Me!â ⌠Are you aware that the shooter in recent times, in Oregon, actually asked his victims whether or not they believed in God, and if the victim said yes, the shooter would respond, âWell then prepare to meet your Makerâ then heâd pull the trigger.
You equate human reasoning with morality, and this is simply not the case. It is perfectly reasonable for a human being to rob a bank if that person wants some extra cash and thinks he can get away it. Is it moral? No. But donât start saying that âpure reasonâ somehow leads a person into the path of sainthood.
Are you aware that the freethinking Jacobins killed more people in three years, than the Inquisition managed to do in the same number of centuries?
Itâs not supernatural belief thatâs the problem ⌠Itâs human evil. Pure and simple.
-Tim
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Granted!
But avoiding the mention of how LONG it takes⌠does not make you a generic Creationist.
I donât know of any people who steadfastly believe:
âGod made humanity ⌠but I donât have an opinion on whether it
was a few days ⌠or millions of years.â
Iâm sure there MUST be someone ⌠but Iâm pretty sure it isnât you.
George
I believe what I refer to is called secular humanism. Yes, I pin all evil acts on humans. I do equate human morality with reasoning. Individual and collective reasoning has resulted in todayâs morality and this morality will hopefully improve with time as society progresses.
I agree that it is human evil that is the problem but in many cases supernatural belief adds to the human evil.
Okay, I will add "Today when you hear about a suicide bomber, you can assume the bomberâs faith was a fanatic form of Islam and be highly likely to be correct. Also from the bomberâs DNA fragments in the body parts, you know he/she isnât physically with the promised 42 virgins.
Discussing suicide bombers and their religion is not relevant to this thread, and neither is it relevant to the BioLogos discussion.
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Itâs pretty clear to me from the BioLogos Statement of Faith that they believe that God is sovereign over nature:
âWe believe that God also reveals himself in and through the natural world he created, which displays his glory, eternal power, and divine natureâŚWe believe that God typically sustains the world using faithful, consistent processes that humans describe as ânatural laws.â Yet we also affirm that God works outside of natural law in supernatural events, including the miracles described in Scripture. In both natural and supernatural ways, God continues to be directly involved in creation and in human historyâŚwe reject ideologies such as Materialism and Scientism that claim science is the sole source of knowledge and truth, that science has debunked God and religion, or that the physical world constitutes the whole of reality. We believe that God created the universe, the earth, and all life over billions of years. God continues to sustain the existence and functioning of the natural worldâŚTherefore, we reject ideologies such as Deism that claim the universe is self-sustaining, that God is no longer active in the natural world, or that God is not active in human history. We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes. Therefore, we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God. We believe that God created humans in biological continuity with all life on earth, but also as spiritual beings. God established a unique relationship with humanity by endowing us with his image and calling us to an elevated position within the created order.â - See more at: The Work of BioLogos - BioLogos"
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Thanks for clarifying what it is you believe in.
I guess I spoke presumptuously. Thatâs for the correction.
-Tim
No problem. Life is too short to get upset at such things. Enjoy today, it is a great day to be alive.
Well done, @DougK !
Iâm looking forward to hearing from @Eddie why this is completely inadequateâŚ
George
Isnât this the same as what the Catholic Church has stated for centuries?
Well certainly more recently! In the re-boot of the COSMOS series, one interesting
transition that didnât seem to get much treatment is that during the time of Galileo,
there was lots of fuss about theology taking precedence over natural evidence.
The Catholic Church learned from all that. But I couldnât tell you when the
Church put their âeducationâ down into policy statements.
But the arrival of Darwinism seems to have triggered a pretty big reaction from
the Evangelical community. The Catholic Church is rather fearless now in their
acceptance of scientific findings.
George
fearless from whom?
Thanks for the gracious redirection. Apologies.
It seems you should seek to get on the Board of Directors for BioLogos. Then you can lobby to have policy statements constructed to your exacting specifications.
But ⌠in the meantime ⌠I consider the quote below:
And, after reflecting on your concerns, I think I need to add THIS from the policy statement as well:
âWe believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.â [I will amend my earlier post as soon as this one is posted.]
So, when I look at the text at the top, in combination with the new text (immediately above), I see an adequate paraphrasing of the words you, Eddie, want to be represented!:
". . . BioLogos affirms that God âguidedâ or âintervened inâ the evolutionary process . . . "
I apologize for having taken too little out of the original block of policy text that was provided by @DougK
George