I was actually trying to choose a precise description, not a name-calling description. I didn’t know what other phrase to use regarding someone who would come into a midst of scientists and tell them what they do for a living is a non-science.
That’s pretty toxic in my view. But I will go back to my original posting and modify it … somehow.
Much appreciated!
I don’t think it’s probably worthwhile for me to continue to engage with this thread, but as I reflect on the discussion, this line strikes me as particularly key:
Issues of slander completely aside for the moment, and just looking at the meat of the dialogue between Greg and the rest of us, it strikes me that this sort of confidence is the crux of the matter. When we are pretty certain that other people have done all the homework for us, we don’t really feel the need to do the homework for ourselves. This confidence is why, after multiple extraordinarily gracious, informative, and no doubt time-consuming responses penned by Chris, Socratic, and others, we haven’t really moved away from repeating over and over that there’s no evidence for macroevolution or that God must have created kinds because, well, that’s what the people I trust believe and it seems obvious to me from how I’ve been taught to read Scripture and therefore it must be true, QED.
Against this backdrop, I really appreciated hearing from Socratic that it was issues of relationship and character that brought him out of the YEC fold: relationship with persistent scientist friends, and character issues evident in rude responses and dishonest quote-mining from YEC luminaries. This reminds me again that real-world relationship-building and character formation in the direction of gracious dialogue are the keys to moving BioLogos’s mission forward in the Church. If nothing else, this has been a helpful reminder of what works, and what doesn’t.
Grace and peace to all,
AMWolfe
Good observations. It also supports nobodyyouknow’s thought of exploring the theologic aspects with those for whom that is most important. But I agree, the relationships are of great importance. A forum of this nature is helpful, as thoughts are voiced that may not be made face to face, and helps with honest dialogue.
It’s not dangerous to teach evolutionary theory to children! Its dangerous to teach lies to children ( dinosaurs and humans lived together, etc) and make them think asking questions is rebellious/ wrong.
Being honest with kids early by telling them Evolution in no way negates God is the best thing to do. And it saves the money that would be used to pay for therapy for the kids as adults, battling trust issues. All because Mommy and Daddly lied to them and discouraged questions and critical thinking.
It is rather ironic that the groups that advocate not teaching evolutionary concepts, are also those who tend to not participate in the Santa Claus myth because they feel that lying to small children about Santa undermines trust. I tend to think the Santa thing is no big deal, so can go either way and sort of lean toward making it clear it is all imaginary from the get go, and it is sort of an introduction to abstract thinking.
Then AMWolfe quoted from Grog:
I have not read the 9 lines of reasoning. I am sure that many brilliant creationist have and have refuted much or shown that there is a difference between evolution within a kind vs a kind developing into another.
I too am absolutely astounded at the admission from grog/Greg that: I have not read the 9 lines of reasoning.
I try to just let that sink in. Greg doesn’t even think it worth his time to read (much less to put effort into fully comprehending) why the entire science academy and the Christians on this thread find the evidence for the Theory of Evolution overwhelming.
I’m impressed with Greg’s honesty in admitting that he’s never bothered to grapple with that evidence. That sure beats those who tell me that they’ve weighed all of the evidence but their comments betray a total unfamiliarity with the science.
Yes, this has been a very valuable thread. I’m very glad grog/Greg posted his opinions.
I am, however, disappointed that Greg didn’t engage the topic of how he came to have a special inside track to the mind of God on every difficult concept in the scriptures. I want to know how he achieved that status. And I still have my list of difficult scriptures which I have a very hard time translating and interpreting.
I know right? But saying the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs aren’t millions of years old. “That’s a-ok because we’re defending the Bible!” Says the creationist. Just one problem. The Bible clearly states God is against lying. Guess they ignored that part.
That’s just sad.
Reading your comment, it occurs to me that Santa Claus teaches kids an incredibly important life lesson: not everything everyone tells you is true, and it’s important to be able to recognize this without concluding that the people passing on untruths to you are bad people. Not an easy lesson, to be sure, but whoever told you life was supposed to be easy?
He no doubt came about it by reading the “plain meaning” of John 16:13 – However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth… Not really sure why God felt the need to appoint teachers in the church (1 Cor 12:28), since even a child can grasp the plain meaning with the guidance of the Holy Spirit …
So, Greg, who are the unbelievers that Paul says not to yoke ourselves with in 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1? What’s your plain reading of the Scripture here?
As long as we’re on the ‘plain reading’ topic, I’m still curious what the plain reading is here: did the earth bring forth life at God’s command? Or did God directly ‘poof’ the animals into existence?
How could both be true?
I’ve had people tell me “all truth” means ALL truth----“and that is why I know that God has given me the truth about the Theory of Evolution being wrong and being evil!”
Even so, when I ask them if “ALL truth” means that God filled their brain with physics knowledge so that they could teach a graduate level physics course at a university, they tell me, “Of course not! That’s different.”
When I ask them to explain why they are given sufficient truth to debunk evolution but not to learn and understand advanced physics, they usually get angry and leave that forum. So I don’t really understand their reasoning.
I’ve always been disgusted by the traditional mantra “All means all and that’s all that all means!” I had a seminary professor friend who was much loved by his students—and many years later they would still quote him approvingly by reciting that mantra.
Meanwhile, I was really hoping Greg would answer our questions. His views are probably very common ones and so it would have been helpful to understand how he was able to avoid thinking about the logic issues we were poking holes through.
What’s the point of saying he uses the plain meaning, when he picks and chooses When he uses the plain meaning?
Except that he started by claiming that there is:
You don’t see a mighty big contradiction there, SF? Doesn’t one have to grapple with the evidence to credibly make such a claim?
Well… he did mention that he ignored the eleven lines of evidence because he simply took for granted that somebody who shared his beliefs had already examined them and dismissed them. So it was “surrogate grappling.”
I once preached at an IFCA church which practiced “first-degree separation.” The pastor told me that that made them a liberal IFCA church. You see, an appropriately conservative fundamentalist IFCA church is made up solely of True Christians™ because they always practice second-degree separation.
Likewise, a TRUE Science-Denialist doesn’t grapple with the evidence. That would be first degree denialism. True Science-Denialists depend upon other denialists to grapple (or not grapple) with the evidence for them. That’s Second-Degree Science-Denialism.
I’ve found that they are afraid of evidence.
I love all people as God so loves THE WORLD. God loves all people and even in God’s sovereignty, the Bible says that He remains patiently waiting on folks to consider accepting the greatest privilege: His Son who died for us and who was willing to offer us his righteousness in place of our foolishness.
Anyway, I love people of all races, religions, creeds but this does not mean that I will grow so close that I want to adopt ill advised lifestyles and belief systems that they might adhere to.
When it comes to this issue of evolution from a common decent, while for some (and perhaps not you who are listening to this) it may seem wise to absorb principles surrounding common decent evolution to make the terms of Christianity more palatable towards the non-christian world in the name of loving them, instead I believe that this comes dangerously close to defaming God, the very one who we are supposed to be trying to get folks interested in. And according to 1 Cor 13, love delights in the truth.
Sometimes I ask myself what would Jesus think of me if he showed up on this planet and looked into my face and instantly recognized what worldview system I was promoting for all these years which happened to be more grounded upon determinations in mankinds’ eyes and not upon His prophets and apostles teachings. I revere Him enough to never want to be in that position.
As one martial arts movie put it best: “hey, that’s a lot of nuts”…
@Socratic.Fanatic, I would like to order up some of that TradeMark True Christians™ paraphernalia …
can I get the leggings with extra bunny fur?
George
Try this thought experiment, Greg: try imagining that the Christian brothers and sisters that you disagree with are actually just doing their very best to discern the truth. Just like you, they’re not trying to conform to the world. Maybe they happen to understand that Biblical definition of the world has to do with pride and arrogance, not with whether common descent is true or not. Maybe you can learn something from them.
It might seem weird and uncomfortable, because maybe you have never imagined the body of Christ that way before.
Let the Spirit of Christ mold your words into instruments of edification.
Excluding “perhaps not you who are listening to this” from your defamatory words is not what God is calling you to, Greg. He is calling you to stop using defamatory words about the entire Church He loves. Avoiding defamation of the few of us who happen to be conversing with you in this forum is only the very first step, and it’s a very small one at that. God is calling you to more.
I believe that is why He brought you here. You thought that He was bringing you here to rebuke ungodliness. But now it turns out that He brought you here to expose some ungodliness in your heart that He wants to cleanse you of, because He loves you too much to leave you untransformed.
Blessings,
Chris
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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