A little color …
Here’s a quote from the article… I’m saying Amen to that !!!
“While loud voices continue to push extreme positions on origins, either anti-science or anti-God, this study shows that many everyday Americans are open to a conversation that brings science and God together.”
Eddie spoke his piece regarding Pres. Haarsma’s analysis of this poll over at the Hump. Check it out as you may wish.
He makes some good points, but ultimately, you have to interpret the poll for what is is, not what you wish it was. One strength is the consistancy of the questions over time, rather that asking different questions.
I would share his concern that the long term trend towards atheism is not good, but would argue that drawing a line in the sand with YEC style interpretation is proving to be a losing proposition.
@jpm,
I see that Eddie is up to his old tricks again.
If you look at my post 21, I show what the poll numbers look like graphically.
If you were to just read Eddie’s description of the numbers, you would come away depressed!
He writes:
“If we look only at the past three years, one could argue that the drop came mostly from the movement from the creationist camp to the God-guided evolution camp. But if we look at the overall trends since 1982 (and a handy table comparing past results with current ones is provided in the pdf of the full survey results, downloadable from the Gallup page cited above), it seems that something else is happening.”
He continues:
“The “atheistic” position (number 2) has grown from 9% in 1982 to 19% in 2017; i.e., it has more than doubled. During that time, the “God-guided” position has remained in roughly the same place. So in the longer perspective, atheism has gained 10%; i.e., it has picked up exactly the percentage that creationism and “no opinion/other” have dropped since 1982.”
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The problem with Eddie’s “something else is happening” is that he is trying to draw conclusions about the value of BioLogos as indicated by a 1981 to 2017 comparison. How deceptive Eddie can be!, even in his noble retirement…
If you want to assess the value of BioLogos, you can only go back to 2007 when it was founded - - though I’m sure important analysis could be made from what happened between 1981 (which was even prior to Karl Giberson’s “conversion” to Theistic Evolution!) and 2007.
So, using 2007 as the benchmark, we see “God Guiding Evolution” meandering around 36%, and then dropping down to 32% and 31% before rebounding to 38% for the 2017 poll. Clearly something dynamic has been going on in recent years in the realm of Creationism and rival theories.
And the most important conclusions, if you ask me, is that since 2007, Creationism (despite 2 times spiking to 46%), has been in a long slide into the 30%'s! While Atheism has been in a long climb up from 13% to now 19%.
In a war of attrition between Atheism and Creationism, it seems the Creationists really are losing ground! In nearly 40 years, this year will be the first time Creationism wasn’t in the 40%'s!
But instead of offering cheers to BioLogos, Eddie does his customary work at suggesting BioLogos is the “loser” here:
"In light of these cold facts, the “spin” put on the survey results by BioLogos President Deb Haarsma is strained at best. In one of her rare columns on BioLogos, she argues that the survey is good news for the TE/EC folks. " Eddie sure doesn’t think so; and I think he’s quite wrong about that. Certainly it shows that supporter funds are sustaining BioLogos as the “center” of a battle being waged around it by Creationists vs. Atheists … with the Creationists losing.
Instead, Eddie goes on this phantasmagorical interpretation of the data!:
[If we Changed the Poll Question]
"If the “God-guided evolution” option were divided into two variant options, the meaning of the survey results would be much clearer. Then people could choose between,
[New Option A]
“God influences natural processes in direct personal ways to guide evolution to produce human beings”
and
[New Option B]
“God, who loves the freedom of his creatures, lets nature do its own thing, exerting no special influence to alter the outcomes of chance or natural laws, but by a divine mystery we cannot understand, without actually guiding evolution, guarantees that human beings will appear.”
[The Hypothetical Results]
"If the survey question were split up thus, I predict that the first version would get three times as many votes as the second; "
Because this is BioLogos Secret Aim
"and that would not give any comfort to BioLogos (where most of the leaders, I am convinced, would vote for the second version)."
Sounds like a plate of baloney with a side of malarkey. Nothing in the words of Dr. Collins suggests to me that BioLogos is not serious about God-guided evolution.
Then Eddie does a fish-tail move and suddenly he is talking about I.D. … with its focus on irreducible complexity. I’d love to see how God would re-word the survey for that particular issue!
“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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