Opinions wanted. When people at church assume you are anti-evolution

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“ID is neither ‘duplicitous’ nor an ‘ideology’.” - Eddie

Ideologies are held by people, both personally and socially; they are not some mere mental construct or academic ‘theory’ written in the sky. IDism is an ideology and IDists at the DI are often duplicitous. Anyone who had studied the Intelligent Design ‘movement’ sociologically or simply in terms of the DI’s public communications, even from somewhat of a distance, would clearly know and recognise this if they are honest about the facts. It’s not just a matter of opinion (which a random IDist could claim to overturn at their whim) when evidence is there that can quite obviously be “followed where it leads”. You are welcome to start another thread if you disagree with my sociological analysis, Eddie, b/c anything further on that topic here would only distract from the current one.

“I like your analysis of the growing atheists and nones.” - Eddie

There was no analysis involved; anyone just has to look at the social surveys; e.g. Pew religious landscape study 2014 Millennials increasingly are driving growth of ‘nones’ | Pew Research Center. Personally, even though I am not a US citizen, the results are not ‘likeable’ to me, but rather show significant social dysfunction.

“ID folks are unlikely to go for militant atheism but some of them are already ‘nones’ (e.g., Dave Scot, Berlinski); and some TE/EC folks have already gone to none or atheism (Van Till, Ayala), and in my judgment some others (e.g., Sparks, Giberson, and Enns, probably in that order) may be sliding that way, too.” - Eddie

It’s quite something to judge these peoples’ religiosity as you do, Eddie. Berlinski has apparently been an (secular Jewish) atheist since before the IDM began (@1993). Howard Van Till and Francisco Ayala imo would likely neither tick ‘none’ or ‘atheism’ on a survey. And to claim the other three are ‘sliding that way’, i.e. to atheism, is a rather depressing notion for an unaffiliated academic theologian to hold or to wish upon his ‘opponents’ who are fellow Abrahamic theists. BioLogos should not be taken as a confessional.

That you are predicting USA religious disaster seems reflected in your embrace of IDism. It would surely be an ‘intelligently designed’ disaster if it ever happens, right? :wink:

And it is doubly ironic that IDists might instead applaud BioLogos for attempting to educate YECists in the USA to overcome their ideological YECism. The aim is that evangelical Protestants will stop “assuming a person is anti-evolution” just because they are an ‘evangelical’. IDists might even offer to help ‘intelligently design’ this mission here at BioLogos. Unfortunately, any attempt at that kind of forward-looking lowercase ‘intelligent design’ strategy would gain no help and bring no credit to IDism, which is insisted as being ‘strictly scientific’.

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Any religious discussion or discrimination or non-friendliness is explicitly not allowed in Government with NIH being “the government” The fact that Francis Collins was or wasn’t a Christian must have nothing to do with his duties as director of NIH. Coyne is wrong, Collins beliefs cannot enter in to the selection process. I go a step further on this, I think that if a person mentions that he/she is or is not a Christian, an atheist, a Buddist monk, they automatically exclude themselves for the position.
Don’t even apply for a government position if you can’t keep your beliefs private and do your job in complete neutrality of any actions resulting from beliefs.

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I agree with that Patrick. Let me add that I believe (and I also believe that most other observers agree) that Dr. Collins has been incredibly successful at fulfilling his role as NIH director, including the avoidance of any perceived conflict between his religious beliefs and his governmental role. The predictions of Coyne and Harris at the time of his appointment (that he would follow so called “anti science Christian” policies) have been thoroughly refuted, and I think Coyne (not sure about Harris) may have admitted this. I dont know of any complaints from any of the major atheists about the NIH in recent years, related to this issue.

I should also add for clarity, that I did not observe any striking or clear cases of bias against people of faith at NIH (unlike in academia), and my personal experience did not include anything close to the kind of things that Eddie talks about in academia (and I have also seen). But, in the sciences almost anywhere, being Christian (more than a token Christian) is greeted with at best surprise, and at worst, contempt, even when no actual consequences related to careers are involved. This is more in line with Christy’s original question, which was related to the “uncomfortable” factor when dealing with friends, and colleagues.

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There are plenty of scientists about who don’t think highly of Francis Collins’ tenure as head of NIH (ask Michael Eisen’s opinion, for example), but none of the current criticism stems from his religious beliefs. I did recently see Mick Watson go off onto a bit of a Twitter rant when he (finally!) discovered that Francis is a Christian, asking what he could do to help get him fired. But that level of overt hostility and discrimination is unusual in my experience. Much more common is the assumption that our tribe is scientific and that outsiders are religious – reflected in a tone of voice, an occasional joke or offhand comment.

Since I am a staff scientist, I don’t have to deal directly with departmental politics: as long as my boss and my immediate colleagues think well of me, anti-religious attitudes won’t affect me much. But it is easy to see that they’re there, even if many of those who hold them aren’t aware that they do. (Racists usually don’t think they’re racist, after all.)

In church, if someone assumes that I’m anti-evolution, then I’ll correct them (conditions and personalities making it appropriate to do so, of course). That doesn’t happen too often these days, since I’ve presented evidence for human evolution classes both for adults and for high school students. (This is in a large, nondenominational evangelical American church.) Most people who know me know what I’m about.

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This has happened to me several times, and I usually just try to move the conversation along without countering it openly. As others have noted, in a context of “assuming you’re anti-evolution,” they’re usually making a snide remark, not opening an honest conversation. In such a context, correcting misperceptions (either misperceptions of me or misperceptions of evolution or, usually, both) would usually be awkward and inappropriate at best.

For me, I am tempted to say that “coming out” with pro-EC views is easier with close friends. The truth is, I can come out with close friends — I have done so with friends I’ve known from various social settings, who have various education levels — but only if they haven’t made such snide comments. People who make such comments, I put on a mental list of “beware coming out to these people because it might get you ostracized, blacklisted or worse” and I make a point never to “come out” to them. Two people with whom I’m reasonably close fall into this category: One who I served on the worship team with, and our families have hung out several times out of church settings, and another who was an accountability partner and knows more about me than most others in my life.

When people ask me my honest opinion on the matter (which rarely happens… I only remember one time and it was because they saw I’d liked BioLogos on Facebook), usually they’re honest seekers and I can share my journey with them. Sometimes I’m a bit more reluctant to divulge everything, so instead I take the tack, “There are a diversity of views here, but whatever you believe about this, the most important thing is that we allow people with differing views to have seats at the table and not label them as heretical because otherwise we lose a lot of good, smart, God-honoring people completely unnecessarily.”

This is a helpful discussion. Thanks.

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