I’ve been wondering whether having a badge would be useful - -
especially for new members to see and to get an immediate understanding
of who is speaking as a Theist Evolutionist.
Below is an example of what a “signature badge” might look like:
Participants who wanted to earn the symbol could take a multiple choice
quiz…. and the ability to accurately convey the BioLogos fundamentals
would be the only requirement. Non-Theists could thus earn the badge
as well.
This would also take some of the burden off of the moderators by
building in some quality control at the very point of entry. I know I would
be more precise in some of my free flying wordiness if therre was a gold
standard to work against.
I know BioLogos is not a democracy. So if the powers-that-be don’t like
the idea much, I’ll just put that “gadget” back in the box. But I think there
would be a number of Creationist who would find it helpful in negotiating the
heavy surf we sometimes encounter here.
It would also help the TE’s recognize fellow TE’s and proxy TE’s immediately
and reduce the unintentional conflict that sometimes erupts.
Users do have the ability to add a “name” that shows up after their actual forum name on posts. Some use that as a way to identify with a particular label to serve as a mini introduction in discussions. I just added “.EC.” to mine to see what it looked like. So that’s an option if someone wants to save time by making their posting profile slightly more descriptive.
2 Likes
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
4
How does one edit that field, @Laura ? Do we need to ask a moderator to assist?
Looks like you already have one there (“Chief Wikipedia Quoter” – which is a good one!). If you go to your profile by clicking on your name from a post, there should be a button (to the far right for me) there called “Preferences,” which gives you the option to edit some profile items including “Name” (not username). That is how I get there, but it’s possible there is a different setup for moderators.
1 Like
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
6
Well, I’ve put it in place of your name for now. I don’t actually see a place to edit the “Chief Wikipedia Quoter” thing. That may have been put in by a moderator looong ago. If you’d like to be rid of it, I will poke around some more and see what can be done.
I go to a message that I have posted and click on my own name highlighted in blue above my message. That should take me to a bigger version of my name above a horizontal menu:
SkovandOfMitaze
(Intellectually Atheist Emotionally Christian )
14
One issue would be that the basics of Biologos is super basic. Do you believe in god and do you accept evolution. The way you believe god interacts or was involved with anything because pretty diverse. Some believe in fine tuning and some don’t. I don’t think the badge would really change much. I’ve noticed that regardless if you say evolutionary theist, theistic evolution, evolutionary creationist/ism or or whatever none of it answers any particular question anymore or less than saying I’m a Christian who believes in evolution. Depending on who’s asking they always follow up with several questions. I’ve basically dropped the term creationist completely because it always seems to imply I believe god was directly involved with some kind of purposeful intent in creating the world. That naturalism alone fails and needs supernaturalism merged with it to make sense of the universe or human origins and despite believe in God I don’t not believe in a creator. If he did help create its before anything we can meaningful measure within gaps that we can’t really explore yet and therefore it’s useless to me. It’s just a way to help cover up the stupidity I feel about believing in a god. A way to make it feel less intellectually dishonest or dumb. Often in person to person conversations where this shows up in have to spend 10-15 minutes of talking about geological layers, geological eras they represent, the movement of things like carnivores into other lands driving out the marsupials, or diving into coevolution and ecology of habitat systems like moths with flowers and jump through botanical histories of gymnosperms and angiosperms and so on. I have to first show that I actually understand evolution quite well. Then spend time going through why I don’t believe there is any evidence for god to show that I’m not delusional into accepting creationism and then have to explain why I still choose to believe in god and detail out why I recognize it could be a mental disorder. After all my belief in god uses the same arguments I would be using if I argued I believed in ancient jellyfish from another planet that telepathically is in touch with some of us.
It’s why as time goes on. My arguments for god actually has nothing to do with god or requires being religious. It’s mostly just down to how the bible works within most of my beliefs on how we should treat eat other and treat the planet. Believing in God in the least important part of me being a Christian. The most important part of me being a Christian now is mostly how I see the teachings of Jesus, most of them anyways, playing into treating other humans with respect and dignity which can be taught using any faith or even just humanism.
Many often reads that as “little or no faith” but the amount of faith is a stupid argument. You basically fall into just a few categories of what you think.
You know God is real.
You think God may be real.
You know God is not real.
Personally I think everyone is truly agnostic. But if you think God may be real as a stance to me that means you have faith in God. There is no high or low end to it. It’s like asking if you’re a faithful husband. You either are or you are not. There is not like a half faithful husband towards his wife.
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
15
AND…. there are other reasons to drop the term “Creationist” (as part of a personal label), including the implication that living creatures were repeatedly created “de novo”.
