I put together a progression of questions that I thought might provide a “core” of a survey.
Can you use survey questions along these lines? Or perhaps these questions inspire a different path to take?
DRAFT SURVEY QUESTIONS:
A) I don’t believe in any god, but I support BioLogos because it opposes
Creationists.
B) I believe in some kind of God, and I support BioLogos because it opposes
Creationists.
C) I am a Jewish or Christian and support BioLogos, but believe God didn’t
involve himself in the creation of life generally, or the creation of humans
specifically.
D) I am Jewish or Christian, support BioLogos, and believe that God uses
the natural order/disorder of genetics and natural selection to eventually
create organisms that generally fit within God’s expectations for life and
humanity (plus whatever miracles God might have needed outside of
evolution to invoke invoke throughout history).
E) I am Jewish or Christian, support BioLogos, and believe that God uses
the natural order/disorder of genetics and natural selection to SPECIFICALLY
create life as we see know it today.
F) I am Jewish or Christian, support BioLogos, and believe that God specifically
bridged evolution with miraculous creation where natural evolution was unable
to produce the results God required in his cosmic plan.
G) I believe in God, but do not support BioLogos, because God’s creation
bypassed some or all of what scientists think is Evolution, over the span of
millions of years.
I thought it might be helpful for those who support or criticize BioLogos to get an idea of the relative proportions for the KINDS of supporters (or otherwise) BioLogos has.
Why should we want to pigeonhole people? There’s already too much of that going on around here. Most people hold theological positions that are nuanced and can’t be summed up in one sentence.
As I mention above: “I thought it might be helpful for those who support or criticize BioLogos to get an idea of the relative proportions for the KINDS of supporters (or otherwise) BioLogos has.”
My point is not to CHANGE BioLogos if we happen to find out that a higher percentage exists of supporters who have some eccentric or odd view.
My point is to find out how many people on this forum hold heterodox views about God or Evolution.
@beaglelady… I was hoping to create enough survey categories to CAPTURE most of those nuances…
Not too interested in taking a survey, but whatever. One research topic I would like to see explored a bit is to better define the oft referenced statement that the false dichotomy produced when young people trained in science unfriendly youth groups are exposed to science and then reject Christianity because they lack a way to integrate that into their life is indeed true. Poor sentence, but you know what I mean. So many studies I have seen have such bias built in, it is difficult to tease truth from their findings.
“Frequent posters on the Forum” is a small subset of “BioLogos supporters” and probably not a good representation of the views of the overall group. In fact, I’m absolutely positive it’s not a good representation. Were you thinking of a different sort of survey?
Heterodox views about evolution? What does that mean?
I consider orthodox Christianity to be defined by the Nicene Creed, more or less. So why not just ask, who holds to the Nicene creed?
Ha! Just DISCUSSING such a survey is a pretty complex thing!
I definitely agree that quantifying the Forum participants is not a reliable reflection of the supporters of BioLogos in general… or of the STAFF of BioLogos.
But, nevertheless, I was wondering if you thought knowing the makeup of the PARTICIPANTS wouldn’t be useful in and of itself?
I’m not going to fall on my sword over it … it’s just pretty clear to me that the participants here are a very odd and special mix!
As for Christian orthodoxy or not … I was contemplating trying to capture as many flavors as possible… Non-Christian Theists … and so forth. If I were to answer the question about the Nicene creed, I would probably say I do not support the Nicene creed.
So… referencing the Nicene creed does have its value. . . .
You don’t need a survey to find this out. All you have to do is hang around a little while. I’d bet that you can already supply names to go with the categories! haha. It would be interesting, but the sample size would be too small to yield any meaningful results.
On the other hand … I would love to see some more detailed surveys on the relationships between people’s theological commitments and their beliefs on origins. As Eddie pointed out, the Pew polls give us a snapshot of general outlines, but they do not drill down into specifics. Such research will have to come from individual scholars, but Eddie noted the problems with that, as well. A secular scholar is unlikely to ask the right questions, but a scholar with ties to a religious community or institution may self-censor to keep from ruffling feathers. Not sure there is a solution to this particular conundrum.
EDIT: I’d be glad to answer any questions about my own theological commitments, if it would help!
I like surveys sometimes, but I think a list of more general background questions would be better than questions that specifically ask about evolution. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the readers are Christians. And are they Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant? If they are Protestant, what denomination do they belong to? What is their age? Were they raised as Christian or did they convert to Christianity? How many years they attended church?
Maybe there are also some non-Christian readers. What percentage of them are Jewish, Islamic, or belonging to a different religion? Or they kind of spiritual but do not identify with any religion?
These are just some ideas at the top of my head at the moment.
Considering the dearth of information we have about attitudes for and against BioLogos … I would hardly think this is an EITHER / OR proposition. The more surveys on all sorts of things … the better!
I still remember how slack my jaw got when I saw that more than 80% of scientists have no feeling for God being involved in the creation of life…