You got like, five responses, and are surprised because none of them contained a couple of specific key words that you were anticipating?
How do you know from a handful of posts what “TEs” deeply seek to understand? One of your responses came from a missionary and two from teachers at Christian schools – I can guarantee you they’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, thinking, and also writing about plenty of biblical doctrines and have no need to defend the legitimacy of their understanding to you.
I’m glad you’re here, Adam, and I hope you’ll keep in mind that most people here do not see “supporting evolution” and understanding biblical doctrine as some kind of zero sum game where only one can be legitimate, and therefore probably don’t appreciate being written off as “armchair Christians” because they didn’t answer your question the right way. As Merv mentioned above, we discuss all kinds of things here – I hope you’ll take the time to genuinely ask questions and listen to what people are saying rather than making assumptions about others’ faith or trying to sort them into predetermined boxes.
Personally, I suspect they would … if any of them were to arm-wrestle a Catholic here. But I’d be surprised if there are any Catholics here–someone can correct me if I;m wrong.
In any case, I doubt that the apples here will holler if you want to throw oranges in the trash, but the apples will holler if you say apples are oranges, but just a different color and want to throw them in the trash too.
All the answers of both Christianity and science. They do not ignore either what God has said in scripture nor what God shows us in the universe He has created.
We are free to use any reference which we find useful and don’t have to restrict ourselves to things which agree with some made up fantasy world in place of the reality we all live in.
There is evidence from the Bible, which doesn’t treat the things in Genesis chapters 1-3 as literal. And there is the evidence of everything God shows us in the universe He has created.
Science certainly offers insight into epistemology, consciousness, sex,… The scientific theory of evolution gives us insight in the origin of the species. Evolution is NOT a theory of everything.
This site is a pro-science place. We aren’t trying to take the place of church. So in a place that says it will focus on science with a special focus on evolutionary biology, you are surprised that we spend a lot of time talking about … evolutionary biology?
All manner of subjects of more explicitly religious nature come up too. That this forum isn’t just repeating what is in Sunday school every week is a feature, not a bug. This is where people can come and ask the questions they likely don’t feel welcomed to ask in Sunday school. Or if they do - they too often only get a YEC talking-point answer instead of a robust conversation that actually engages with scriptures and reality. We are trying to fill a needed gap here, not duplicate the work of being a church community or gospel missionary outreach. (Though - make no mistake - we believers are interested in and support all those things, and even try to do it here to the extent that online communities can at least partly be as such to each other.)
Do you know what the word epistemology means? It is the study of knowing and knowledge and how one establishes things like certainty and belief. It’s not a synonym for Christian doctrines or “things vital to our existence,” so if you ask about epistemology, why would you be surprised people are talking about epistemology and not about about sin and salvation?
Nope, that is Deism. Christian TEs believe in the Christian God, who is intimately involved with his creation, united himself with it in the Incarnation, defeated sin and death, and rules the world as a resurrected human, Jesus the Christ.
There are obviously many metaphors and models that help Christians understand the atonement and different streams of Christianity prefer some over others. All streams of Christianity believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection atone for sin and make possible a right relationship with God.
All streams of orthodox Christianity affirm some basic creed that claims Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
What is God’s purpose in creating the New Creation? I would say completing the work he began at Creation and reconciling all things to himself under the just, righteous, and peaceful rule of his Son, Jesus.
Why would you say something like this?
Just because most people are some flavor of Protestants doesn’t mean we all reject the brotherhood and sisterhood of Roman Catholics in the Christian faith. Or Orthodox or Pentecostals. There are some Catholics and Orthodox around, don’t lump entire Christian faith traditions together under some pejorative label, please.
With all due respect, a little walk down memory lane may help you refresh your memory:
Adam said, among other things,
Responding specifically and only to what I quoted from Adam’s post, I wrote:
Your response neither corrects nor amends anything in my post in any clear and unquestionable manner. Ergo, chastising me for something I didn’t do seems ungracious to me. If you insist that I offended you or violated this forum’s rules, I call for a translator, because given our mutual inability to understand each other, I think you and I need one.
If you want to object to my anti-ecumenical bias, knock yourself out. I am certainly–and cautiously–biased. I confess.
Well - it might be more than just Christy that needs a translator here then - as I’m not sure I follow everything you post - not that I’ve read everything you’ve written.
But I will say this, to the extent that Adam or anybody else here wants to start piling on Catholics (whether they are present or not - and I wouldn’t be so sure there aren’t, especially among many lurkers none of us know about) that will all be a no-go here. We aren’t about trash-talking various denominations here, and won’t let others platform such stuff here either.
Is it simply that all creationists believe in lying for “Jesus” (the name they use for the power and wealth of their organization).
Since what you said is not true… his purposes are many but they probably include…
Provide a way for God to communicate the truth to human beings without the religious exploiting it for their own wealth and power.
Jesus his son died on the cross according to the demands of the religious in order to get past their lies to the real God whom the religious do not speak for as they claim.
Unknown. …just as the day and hour is also unknown except by false prophets seeking to use God as a tool of power and manipulation of other people.
Since the only thing wrong with heaven and earth are the sins of the inhabitants who make any place they are into hell, both heaven and earth will be transformed when sin is eradicated .
Nope. With Mormonism is where you align yourself with this belief in a war in heaven before the creation of mankind. Mormonism is what pops up on a google search of that topic. The question was, why do you sound more like a Mormon or Gnostic than a Christian?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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It wasn’t intended as a personal rebuke, more I was using your post to give context to why I was asking everyone in future posts not to consider themselves invited to be jerks to Catholics. I can see why that looked like it was directed only at you, but it wasn’t. I just “correcting” the part about “I’d be surprised if there are any Catholics here.” There are.
I am unworthy of that much attention, be it from the forum in general, or from you specifically. Besides, too much attention from the forum or any one person could move me to paranoia.
The portion of the response that I posted which evoked a negative response focused on a portion Adam’s post to me, to wit: Adam wrote: “Surely those here on this forum recognise the futility of the Catholic habit”.
That portion of his post hardly constitutes a “piling on” anybody by anyone. However, I said to Adam: "Personally, I suspect they would … (an elipsis, not a period); to which I added: "if any of them (i.e. folks on this forum) were to arm-wrestle a Catholic here. (end of sentece, period).
Paraphrased, I meant that if a non-Catholic and a Catholic were to engage in debate over whether the Catholic was anything more than a “Nominal Christian”, an astute non-Catholic genuine Christian should be able to recognize what Adam refers to as “the futility of the Catholic habit”.
It’s important to me to note here that in my brief time here in biologos, I have yet to actually see a debate between a non-Catholic and a Catholic in Biologos. There either never has been one, or I have just never seen one, or it’s been undertaken privately.
Moreover, I said to Adam that I would be surprised if there are any Catholics here, but I welcomed correction if I was incorrect and there are Catholics in this forum. As you noted, “Lurkers” faith-allegiances aren’t known and, IMO, don’t get counted.
Would that include trash-talking Seventh Day Adventists for their young-earth beliefs which they are moved to express in this forum? Or does calling young-earthers “a cult” succeed where calling Seventh Day Adventists a “cult” wouldn’t?
Feel free to flag anything you believe is trash-talking SDA. It is not allowed. But saying “these are historical facts about SDA writers” or “SDA teaching is wrong about XYZ” isn’t trash-talking. Any posts that claim SDAs are not Christians is a violation of our guidelines and should be removed. We don’t make judgments here about who is in and out or whose faith is real and best. If people self-identify as Christians, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, LDS, SDA, or whatever, we take them at their word.
The designation “cult” has to do with the behavior of a community, not the beliefs. I think some Christian homeschool groups are cults, but it’s not that they are teaching a false religion (though they do have some messed up ideas, in my opinion), it’s that they have a controlling, isolating effect on members of their community that make it very difficult for them to disassociate without stigmatizing and painful social repercussions.
The designation is on shaky ground – to be fair. In general, it simply means a religious group which main stream society thinks is harmful in some way. That included Christianity at one point in history, which they called the cult of the Nazarene. I am not shooting down the designation completely, since I think there is a lot of religion which is harmful. And one of the more common things which I think does this is a teaching that the salvation of the world depends on members doing their duty in the activities of the organization. Putting such a burden on human beings is wrong, dangerous, and harmful, even objectively speaking. But in general, what people think is harmful, especially in religion, is rather varied and contradictory. So unless there is some objective evidence of harm, then perhaps the term should be avoided.
That is indeed one usage. The usage here in the context of “YEC is a cult” was about the way the group policed boundaries and controlled information and squashed dissent. Agree that it is probably best to avoid the term if you are trying to have a civil conversation.
The abundant lies and irrationality of denying the demonstrable findings of science is rather clearly in the category of objective evidence of harm. That is not a case where I would object to the use of this term at all. I am not entirely sure a civil conversation is always possible and accordingly I try to avoid getting involved in threads where this becomes too difficult for me.
I now stand corrected. One biologos member has now publicly identified himself as a Catholic. I do not dispute self-identifications. Period. Now to find someone who has engaged the person in debate and found the Catholic’s faith futile.
ah see that is an answer that i was wondering if it might pop up.
so then let me ask this…
You as a TE would therefore maintain the belief that the Son of God…whom Trinitarians believe is God, came to this earth as a man and died for our sins.
Now the mere fact that God himself comes to this earth and mixes with his creation, then dies at the hands of his own creation would support the claim that God is intimately interested and intimately interacts with his creation!
Do you not agree therefore with that statement? Obviously from your last post yes.
This means that you also must automatically agree that the reason for the second coming of the messiah is to redeem us sinners to Himself and to restore the fallen creation back to its former glory as it was prior to sin and the fall of man.
Now here is the problem, how then can you possibly claim that Genesis chapters 1-3 are not literal? To make such a claim is to destroy the very foundation of your own claims of belief in the Messiah dying for sin and the restoration of life back to what it was before sin ruined this world.
Take the following verses…
Revelation 21.4 There will be no more death or mourning … crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed … ." He will wipe every tear from their eyes
Are TE’s really going to say that death is only spiritual given that Jesus died a physical death to save us from our sins, and the second coming is clearly a physical event in that the “dead in Christ shall rise first”. If its spiritual, why do the dead need to rise from their earthly graves?
I do not see how it’s possible that TE’s (which has the theist first), can possibly avoid the questions I have asked about sin and salvation in the context of the above points I have made.
Here is another question…
for a TE, what is the purpose of prayer?
Thank you @pevaquark. I dislike giving AIG any unnecessary hits to their website, but Dr Faulkner was pretty excited about this in 2016… “I ask those who may be quick to criticize the proposal presented here carefully to consider the consequences to astronomy. An exciting possibility is that this proposal may provide a potential explanation for the CMB.”
You’ve got to hand it to AIG. All it would take is just a bit more research and a testable hypothesis, and there’s a Nobel prize with Faulkner’s name on it. But no, they’re so modest… that plus the research might show that the age of the universe is older than 6,000 years. Sometimes it’s better “not to know”.