gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
107
And in this, I am not surprised.
In your concluding paragraph:
"In short, even if you are right, BioLogos shows very bad sales tactics. They are not doing what they need to do to break down the sales resistance of their target market. "
Again, I disagree.
The Evangelical Young Earth Creationists want their Six Days … and there is no way to make it any more agreeable to them on the topic.
I feel the only miscalculation being made in BioLogos is encouraging divisive debate over “Intelligent Design” vs. “Theistic Evolution”. If God used evolution to create humanity (by purely naturalistic means or not) - - that is a form of Intelligent Design. Once there is agreement that forming humanity took millions of years, arguing over the details just isn’t helpful.
George
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
109
Eddie, in the first paragraph I have quoted… you could not be more wrong. I grew up with Evangelicals. I have debated with Evangelicals for decades. I know evangelicals.
And I agree that BioLogos needs to be perceived as orthodox in everything other than evolution.
But there are many possible scenarios for what God might have done or could have done. And various schools of evangelicals take it very personally when someone comes down against their favorite scenario.
We all know the jokes about Pre- and Post- Millennials.
Eddie, basically, we have all heard your concerns. Believe me. EVERYONE has heard your concerns. The fact that you have been able to complain about this for a couple of years … to NO EFFECT, would suggest that you are missing something.
George
1 Like
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
111
I confess I have never had the pleasure of meeting someone who believed the earth was millions of years old… but still believed God created life in 6 days. While I have seen a few internet pages of people who did, it is only until I met you that I found anyone who thought they were a significant enough presence that I couldn’t use the economical phrase “Old Earth” as short-hand for pro-Evolution thinkers.
As for the rest, I’ll join you in a hearty Praise the Lord!
Please read what I wrote. God guides genes through changes in the environment. We know that because we see much scientific evidence for this fact. We see no evidence that God directly guides genetic changes. This evidence does not say that God does not guide evolution, this evidence is to how God guides evolution and that is through the ecology.
Now, George, if you really think that God created Adam de nova out of the dust of the earth and Eve from his rib, then I really do not know how you can call yourself an evolutionist. Certainly this is not scientific evidence of how God created humans beings.
@gbrooks9I applaud the novelty of this approach … but it seems quite arbitrary.
God did not create the universe and us to showoff God’s power, but to show God’s wisdom and love. God’s way is not arbitrary when you look at the facts of evolution and not some arbitrary notion of how God acts. The facts, Bro., the facts of how life interplayed with the changing ecology of earth.
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
113
Aha! You have me there… but even figuratively speaking, it’s quite clear that God is being presented as someone who can handle the tiniest minutia of genetic arrangement.
You really don’t have any reason to think that God can’t fire off multiple cosmic rays to do what is needed to a DNA molecule…
George
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
117
Roger seems to seek the extreme end of the spectrum on God’s NATURALISTIC approach to evolution … God never touches chromosomes,but ONLY works with ecological/climate factors … so he avoids all claims to divine magic…
George,
Congratulations! You finally got the basic concept right. Now where is that support you promised me?
If I remember correctly didn’t you say you were a pantheist, or more likely a panentheist? I am not, but in some ways that is an attractive position that I have thought seriously about. God is the Author or Source of Nature, but God is not Nature as pantheists profess.
God created Nature through the Logos (John 1). That means that Jesus, the Logos is the Telos or Principle or Guide of Nature. When God guides Nature, God does not guide by force, because Jesus does not guide by compulsion, force, or manipulation. Jesus guides by example, Jesus guides by persuasion and logic, Jesus guides by leading through love. That is why Darwinism is mistaken and ecological Natural Selection is right, besides that is what scientific research has determined to be how Natural Selection works.
God is not a magician. That is not a model that the Bible uses. God is the opposite of a magician, divine magic is not an option in this discussion. When we understand how evolution really works which is through genetic Variation and ecological Natural Selection, then we can truly say that God guide evolution through the ecology because that is how evolution is guided.
Variation created the possibilities for change. Selection determines and selects the best option for change. God chooses the best using the Nature of ecology. What is the problem with that?
2 Likes
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
120
… My proposal was FOR YOU TO SHOW ME WHERE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS WERE IGNORED by a presenter …
One way I suggested you do this is by producing the missing sentence (or brief paragraph) of the MISSING material… and then I would be able to see for myself.
But now you congratulate me for getting the basic concept right … which I guess I must have done on my own, since you rejected all my entreaties to help me.
And now things have become so complicated … you insist that God just WONT work with chromosomes directly.
To me that is, to use a phrase published by one Evolutionary Scientist, and made with all due respect, “halfway to crazy town”.
But I do feel compelled to EXPLAIN and CLARIFY your views to the others around on this forum … so I am happy to provide this service with a glad and enthusiastic heart.
Please let be clarify once again. It is not that God “WON’T” work with chromosomes. The fact is that God “DOES NOT” work with chromosomes directly in that God DOES NOT intentionally manipulate chromosomes in such a way as to solve a genetic/evolutionary problem.
An important tenet of Darwinism is that genetic Variation is Random (meaning unguided.) With this I agree, but ID does not. ID tries to place divine guidance at Variation, which is the prime reason why most scientists reject it.
My approach, which is where I disagree with ID, is to put guidance as part of Selection, which scientifically is where it belongs. Most scientists disagree because they reject guidance (telos) out of hand and thus say that evolution does not have a purpose, when clearly it does. Darwin believed in guidance to perfection, but by Nature, not God, as if Nature were an Agent.
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
122
Roger! You crack me up!
In this discussion, I hardly see the difference between God “wont” do something vs. God “doesn’t” do something.
Are you saying that this situation is parallel to the idea that God cannot create a round triangle? I hope not; that seems like a completely different situation.
I can imagine an Atheist evolutionist being quite pleased by the idea that God DOES NOT interfere with genes… but then you “blow his mind” by saying that he is intent on manipulating-the-heck out of our ecology to produce the kind of Humanity God wants.
As I mentioned before, this is a very clever approach to explaining why God is waiting millions of years for Homo sapiens to arrive … instead of just making them in 6 days … or any other time frame quicker than 5 billion years.
But… at the end of the day, I think the justification / rationalization / apologia that you craft should also make some sense. And this one just doesn’t.