Apparently, you are the only one in the room you can depend on to say things correctly.
That is even sadder.
George
PS: Eddie, you really out to consider that you don’t understand the BioLogos hypothesis.
I have been reading this thread for the past several days, and it suddenly dawned on me that this was actually my original post. I went back up to see what I had said. It was mostly questions about God interveneing the same way in evolution as in prayer. But I also stated near the end the following
This is pretty much what Eddie has been saying, more or less. I agree with him that Collins, Falk, Haarsma, Venema, Schloss, Applegate rarely or ever mention any direct mechanism of divine intervention. But look at those names again, and you can add others like Louis, Hardin and even myself (as a TE, not a Biologoser). All are scientists, none are theologians, with the exception of Jim Stump, who does his best but is quite outnumbered. (I dont remember if Brad is a theologian). Biologos is to me first and foremost a scientific enterprise related to building bridges between science and Christian faith. When Eddie attacks the theology of Collins or other Biologos folks it isnt quite fair, and it sort of has the flavor of saying dont mention anything theological if you havent the expertise and background that I have. I do realise it can go the other way too. Some commenters here are wont to dismiss anything that non scienitists say about science, and can be farily nasty about it.
I think it might be a good idea to come to an agreement that very few people can be both expert scientists and expert theologians (Denis Lamoureaux being one major exception on this side of the pond, although there are many in the UK, including our own Jon Garvey). So, therefore it might be nice to exercise some Christian charity towards our colleagues here and use more patience and understanding in our comments regarding any indvidual’s grasp of the material that we ourselves know quite well.
I find this site to be an incredible learning resource (which was its purpose), and that was the motivation for the post. My theological knowledge is at the lower end of the spectrum even for Biologos scientists, so I have the most to learn. I will say that Eddie and Jon and most others have always treated me gently, and without undue contempt. I think it would be good for all to extend that sort of tolerance to all here, as difficult as it might be when frustration at the ignorance of others gains an upper hand. A little humor and a lighter tone, as George so admirably uses, is also not a bad idea.
Sorry to sound like an Admin (wihich in fact I am on another site) or moderator, but it is my post, so I can try if I want to.
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One more comment. It appears we have set a new Biologos record (for this year anyway) for number of comments (this one is 283) and unless there is something wrong with my research methodology, the previous record was 216. So, Congratulations to all (I think… Im not sure if high comment numbers signifies anything positive, but it is data. ).
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I think it signifies that @Eddie was involved. Whether that is positive or not is in the eye of the beholder. 
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Eddie is indeed prolific. But even without his 65 comments here, we would still be at a record. For whatever that might be worth.
@Sy_Garte And you haven’t even calculated the word count yet! I think you should talk to Brad about being awarded some of his imaginary points, as the legendary founder of this thread.
Good idea. I can use all the points I can get, imaginary or not.
the idea of God being Santa’s big brother is what creates atheists as they see that for magic wish- fulfillment you might as well pray to a jug of milk as in the god is imaginary video. Remember God and Jesus to be Logicians, not magicians. You can of course pray for the sun to rise in the morning hours and claim that prayer works. You shall go and see Derren Brown’s Miracle tour who uses the power of firm belief to stop exploitation by faith healers to line their pockets. Faith healing is no argument against God but it is no miracle either but a function of your mind to alter perceptions, e.g. it is perfectly logic.
If someone believes in Jesus because of his miracles and not because of his live hemight as well believe in Santa. If you take the wedding at Canaan and insist that Jesus turned the OH groups in the glasses around you are a materialist declaring the value of wine above the value of the water used for ritual cleansing, It could not get much worse than that with regards to misunderstanding Jesus. If you drink that water whilst overhearing the praise of the master of ceremonies for your honesty not to cut the wine and to make things appear to look like you are rich enough to bragg about the wine you could provide for the party it would be very sobering. It is the precise example of an anti-miracle, it is brilliant logic. If as a disciple you follow the magician who fakes reality you are not much of a disciple, if however you find someone to follow that solves problems by teaching you how to face reality and to curbyour materialistic desires you have found your master. Jesus has turned the OH groups in peoples minds at the time to realize that the pure water they drank was more valuable than anything that they could ever get as it was the water of life. If you want any bigger gifts I ask you what they could be
Eddie
I suspect it’s better to pursue this offline, for the sake of the thread’s continuity (I was, after all, commenting on a by-line of the thread). That is, if we’re agreed that the biblical torah was not the complete and sole content of Judah’s legal system by Ezekiel’s time, in which case “bad statutes” is not referring to “lying revelation that has somehow mysteriously been edited out since Ezekiel.”
If that be so, then it’s even reasonable to take the sense, from Ezekiel, that God himself has given them over to their own bad laws and Moloch worship as a judgement. That’s a parallel case to Paul’s in Romans 1.
Ezekiel is not calling the Pentateuch deliberate lies, nor saying it condones human sacrifice. QED.
But the core of my position regarding the purpose of torah itself is that it was not a legalistic religion that Jesus came to replace with faith, but a religion of covenant love and faith that by his generation had become legalistic (in some sense), that he came to reform (and reinterpret through himself as God’s final revelation, of course).
The faithful covenant-keeper will love torah and be guided by it, in some cases by literal obedience (the instances you quote being reinforcers of Israel’s separateness at that time), but overall by meditation on its deeper meaning (Psalm 119, for example, not to mention the whole rabbinic tradition). To see it as simply the Israelite legal system is a mistake.
Now I’ll bow out, but by all means PM me.
Jon
@marvin Okay, I guess we actually do disagree. I am in no way prepared to explain away the miracles of the Bible and the testimonies of Christians throughout history as “in their minds.” The Jesus of the Bible and history was not just a good teacher. He was an eschatological figure.whose miracles got a lot of attention. Yes, for some people it was wish fulfillment as you put it, and
Jesus put those people in their place. But for some people it was prophesy fulfillment and there isn’t anything wrong with believing in Jesus “because of his miracles,” because they were intended to be signs that confirmed his identity as the Messiah and his divinity as the Son of God and inspired belief. The biggest miracle of all is the resurrection, and without that you don’t have Christianity.
If to you Jesus was resurrected as an individual you have no chance to claim that he lives in you as this would be logical incoherent unless you claim you eat his physical body in the sacrament, but then I thought canibalism and human sacrifice was already discredited at the time of Jesus. Do you think he needed to do things that were contrary to logic and reality in order to glorify the logic and reality presented by God? Do you propose he would have portrayed the lack of alcohol on a party to be a problem e.g. the shame of the bridegroom not to posses enough material wealth to provide enough wine for his guests as a reason to magic some wine ?
Point [1] Collins is not commenting on the possible equation of foreknowledge = foreordination. There’s a barrel of theological argumentation right there. And he is avoiding it.
Point [2] Collins specifically points out that from the Human viewpoint, that might be true. But since God is more than a watcher … he is the Creator… this is how we know that God’s hand is on the evolution of Humanity, if not all life.
Point [3] In that paragraph [reproduced below as a convenience], Collins explains how it does “put God in control of the evolutionary process”! You do not explain how it doesn’t.
It would seem you think YOUR interpretation identifies a terrible stumbling block to YEC’s… and yet I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a YEC oppose this part of Collins logic. YEC’s believe God’s creation is good at ANY part of the timeline of the Universe. Perhaps you could find a sample of a YEC objection to this specific part of Collin’s theo-logic … and your readers can discuss it.
-
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
By Francis CollinsPage 205
"But how could God take such changes? If evolution is
random, how could He reallly be in charge, and how could
He be certain of an outcome that included intelligent beings at all?“The solution is actually readily at hand, once one ceases to
apply human limitations to God. If God is outside of nature, then He is
outside of space and time. In that context, God could in the moment
of creation of the universe also know every detail of the future.
That could include the formation of the stars, planets, andd
galaxies, all of the chemistry, physics, geology, and biology that
led to the formation of life on earth, and the evolution of humans,
right to the moment of your reading this book - - and beyond.”“In that context, evolution could appear to us to be driven by chance,
but from God’s perspective the outcome would be entirely
specified Thus God could be completely and intimately involved in the
creation of all species, while from our perspective, limited as it is
by the tyranny of linear time, this would appear a random and
undirected process.”
George
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I don’t think God’s reality is at all bound by what we consider logical, and yes, I think the very essence of redemption, grace, and the Kingdom of God are all things that fundamentally defy logic and change reality.
Jesus appealed to logic in his conversations with people. For example, consider the famous “Can Satan cast out Satan?” discussion.
Sure. So did Paul. So did James. I don’t think I understand your point. My point was that if you make all Christianity’s claims subject to some kind of logic/natural law litmus test, you are going to run into trouble. BioLogos wants to make the valid findings of material naturalists palatable to Christians. It’s not really the goal to make the supernatural truth claims of Christianity palatable to material naturalists.
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The Gospel is all about teaching the importance of faith (perhaps the most frequent phrases in the NT are on faith) - the basis for this is that God is both the source of all truth, and the truth itself.
Logic is often taught as either a part of pure mathematics, and/or a branch of philosophy. I do not think BioLogos has the resources or expertise to deal with these branches of Academia - but they should be cognisant of the importance of Philosophy of Science which helps in discussing and evaluating the soundness (or otherwise) of specific theories of all branches and disciplines of the Natural Sciences. It strikes me as perverse that some should insist, instead, the Gospel should be subject to such scrutiny, while avoiding such legitimate scrutiny of whatever version of evolution takes people’s fancy.
So now we know what @Eddie does once someone actually provides specifics … he refuses to discuss the specifics… 
Here’s his message to me: “… It won’t do you any good to keep baiting me on the site, because I’m not going to reply to you…”
He calls it baiting. I call it responding to his comments.
I leave it to the rest of you whether you want to bother responding to his comments … or rather, his attempts to bait you…
George