Well it depends on what is meant by innocent. Those who are fully knowledgeable of their actions and defends their beliefs in the most vigorous way can hardly be considered to be innocent and unwitting.
I am quite familiar with the tactic of defining what BioLogos presents as Darwinian Evolution … and then… low and behold… all the evils of Atheistic Darwinianism come rolling forward.
But I see no information or evidence that BioLogos has anything to do with Darwinian Evolution as you describe it.
So… once again… either get with the program, or avoid using the term Darwinian, okay?
You don’t have to accept the BioLogos position… but you cannot willy-nilly give it a name you know doesn’t apply and then criticize the BioLogos position from thereon out …
EDIT > P.S. My view of God’s involvement in Evolution is 100% complete. It is not a minor role. There is nothing random about Evolution, in my view, from God’s perspective. It is all part of His plan, and He uses it as He uses other sets of natural law.
AND He performs the necessary miracle (as a break in the chain of natural causation) as His plan requires. I can’t see anything about my views being Darwinian at all… other than he (Darwin) got the whole area of study rolling.
I’d really like to understand where you get this statement from? What exactly is the source of this information that this is how God operates. I have not come across it in the bible so where does it come from? Please do enlighten me.
Then I suppose you haven’t read the Book of Job?
God describes how he is involved in rain, snow, hail…
Or do you think God must perform a miracle every time an Iowa corn field gets rain?
Oh, and just to make sure you didn’t miss my edit of my posting above, this quote from one of your posts is egregiously in error!
So how else can one then describe an adherence to the Darwinian way of thinking except to use the words Darwinian and Darwinism? I struggle to comprehend why you’d want to deny that the thought pattern has its roots there and is currently STILL of the same root? How do you break away from it? Is there a new definition of common descent that I do not know of?
NO, but he did perform what we would consider miracles in 6 days. Fact of the matter is that my viewpoint is supported by actual words found in the bible. Your viewpoint of billions of years and an evolutionary process doesn’t have any leg to stand on from that perspective.
To be clear, the book of Job does describe a lot about the water cycle but it certainly does not describe the abiogentic origins of life and certainly does not describe any evolutionary process that includes common descent.
So, @Prode, if I understand your stand so far - -
You think your position is logically superior because the actual words for a 6 day creation are found in Genesis.
So, you would be supportive if I said that Jesus is a Vine, because those words are in the New Testament, right?
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Yep. And this is where we have to question your reading comprehension skills or assume, more likely, you have put no effort at all into familiarizing yourself with what “BioLogos believes.” Here is the “What We Believe” statement, again. The Work of BioLogos - BioLogos
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One can discuss actual mechanisms instead of using forms of “Darwin” as a way of avoiding them.
Do you realize that there are NON-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms? How could those “adhering to the Darwinian way of thinking” have even discovered them?
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[quote=“Prode, post:41, topic:23502, full:true”]
NO I’m not shifting anything here. I’m pointing out why there’s opposition to ID at all - [/quote]
You are indeed. The opposition is because ID is pseudoscience. No one has the faith to test an ID hypothesis empirically. You could be the first! You could quit depending on hearsay and go right to producing new evidence!
It’s murky and we have hypotheses, not theories.
[quote] That is pure religion if ever there was any. So why are you not railing against IT? Why is abiogenesis acceptable and ID not?
[/quote]You do realize that the Bible mentions abiogenesis, right?
In answer to your question, because real scientists studying abiogenesis test their hypotheses, something no ID advocate has the faith to do. The ID movement falsely describes themselves as “theorists,” knowing full well that “theory” means a scientific hypothesis that has made many successful predictions, while they refuse to articulate and test a single scientific hypothesis. They pretend that science is about internet debates that only look backward to existing data.
Science is about testing hypotheses (right or wrong) to generate new knowledge about our world. ID doesn’t do that.
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I just came across this quote and thought it might be relevant here:
A reminder: reality doesn’t accommodate itself to your thinking, whether you’re a peon, president, pope, or partisan. The sun won’t change its relative position because you read the Bible a certain way. The cosmos won’t become uncaused just because you don’t like the alternative. Morality doesn’t care what your conscience, formed or unformed, thinks. You can question reality all you want but in the end reality wins in any contest.
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Thanks for the thoughtful response, and let me quickly add that I have never gotten any sense from you personally that you harbor any loathing for ID theory. And since you qualified your reply by confessing you did not have time to give it the detail it warrants, I will resist an in depth rebuttal to the g-o-g charge. Obviously I disagree that ID gets any capital from exploiting gaps in knowledge, and I do think a conversation between you and I on this subject could bear fruit. But as ID is primarily an OOL theory, it is not necessarily anti-evolution. I realize that ID proponents (to include myself) see many problems with the TOE from a scientific standpoint, and that many debates focus on such problems, but at the end of the day, an ID opponent will have to produce an OOL narrative that is better supported than that of intelligent agency. Outside of the realm of “its true becuase it must be true” speculation, no naturalistic OOL theory is as well supported as ID.
And this brings me to the crux of my personal passion: the origin of life is directly related to worldviews. It is not possible to separate one from the other. A naturalistic OOL narrative is a narrative of the worldview of naturalism. And naturalism is the necessary worldview of atheism. This is why anti-ID activism among Christians troubles me. I see it as harmful to faith. I can confidently testify that this was the case with me. I personally know others with the same testimony and I know of many, many others who I do not know personally, who have the same testimony. Some, such as the late Wil Provine, unfortunately offer their testimony from atheism. Even now, there is an active post right here by a young lady who it seems fears such a destiny for herself.
If nothing else, perhaps this helps explain the passion I bring to this issue, and the reasons I feel compelled to take issue with brothers and sisters.
May Christ be glorified in all things!
Anyone else see the fallacious reasoning there?
So Joe, why not be upfront and state that you reject science itself?
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Hi Jay. I will try to do justice to your question…[quote=“Jay313, post:3, topic:23502”]
Why are ID theorists so insistent on demonstrating the existence of design and, by inference, a designer, rather than the existence of God?
[/quote]
I will start by asking you a question: why do ECs insist on keeping their faith separate from their science? ID theorists are attempting to formulate a robust and rigorous scientific theory about origins[quote=“Jay313, post:3, topic:23502”]
Why are ID theorists so insistent on being recognized as “legitimate science” rather than “mere philosophy”?
[/quote]
see my answer above. [quote=“Jay313, post:3, topic:23502”]
Why is the Discovery Institute, the self-described “hub of the Intelligent Design movement,” pursuing a political agenda to change science curricula in states across the country?
[/quote]
As a public policy think tank, the DI encompasses much more than the ID movement. The very nature of public policy think tanks is to advance certain social and political positions. One does not by any means need to sign on to any of the public policy issues of the DI to be an ID advocate.[quote=“Jay313, post:3, topic:23502”]
The answer to all of these questions flows from the last one. The only reason that ID insists on being labelled “science” instead of “philosophy” and scrupulously avoids mentioning God in favor of “design” and “intelligence” is so that it can be taught in the science classroom as an alternative to “atheistic evolution.”
[/quote]
Even though this is not a question, it certainly must be addressed. The DI has been scrupulously consistent in maintaining the position that it does not (at least at this time) support the teaching of ID in public schools. Frankly, I support the teaching of ID, or at least the freedom to do so. From a purely political standpoint, my position on public schools is a very libertarian one: I’m against a government run education system funded by coercion. But that has nothing to do with whether ID is true.[quote=“Jay313, post:3, topic:23502”]
In my view, the hostility toward ID would disappear tomorrow if its theorists would drop their politically motivated goal of calling it “science” in order to teach a watered-down version of creation in public school classrooms.
[/quote]
You may wish to claim that ID is not science Jay, but the real question - the interesting question is this: is ID true? Does the evidence support ID or an alternative theory? On these questions, your post is absolutely silent, and indeed, it seems that you have no objection to the notion of ID. You only wish to quibble about whether it is science. But if origin of life science can properly be called science, and ID is properly understood as a (well supported) theory on the origin of life, then ID is indeed science. There is nothing political about calling a scientific theory of origins “science,” and working to present it as such. So I will end with a question for you: Do you believe that Origin of Life science can properly be called science?
p.s. I agree with you that folks at the DI go out of their way - at least when they speak of ID theory - to keep the question of the existence of God separate from their theoretical work. Every time they solicit a donation from me, I make my disdain for this clear. I invite you to join me in doing the same. ID theory does not suffer in the least when we acknowledge our Creator and celebrate the evidence that points to Him.
Phil: It is a fact that the question of the origin of life is directly intertwined with worldviews. It is disingenuous to claim that pointing to the evidence for ID “represents” a worldview. Does it support a worldview? Absolutely. Does a naturalistic narrative for the origin of life represent a worldview also? Absolutely! The question is, which worldview is supported by the evidence.
By the way, what worldview would you say ECs “represent”?
Probably because they understand the definition of science. If God is truly transcendent and Science is defined as the study of natural processes in the matter-energy world, Science and Theology are “separate” by definition.
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Absolutely. There is so much confusion nowadays in failing to see the difference between philosophical naturalism (as in many types of atheism) versus methodological naturalism (aka Science and the Scientific Method.)
The major Young Earth Creationist ministries constantly promote this confusion.
Wherever one finds this confusion, we usually also see someone wanting to redefine the meaning of Science itself to where it can be subject to someone’s theological agenda.
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they were not talking about me[quote=“gbrooks9, post:7, topic:23502”]
How is it that you, as a once Atheist, did not conclude that it was an alien race that was responsible for the designs… rather than God?
[/quote]
As I have testified, the revelation that life requires a Creator did not instantly get me to the foot of the cross. What it did for me, was kindle a burning desire to get to know my Creator. This inspired me for the first time in my life to take the possibility of the Resurrection seriously. Ultimately, it was the evidence for the Resurrection that convinced me. But an alien race as my Creator? That only pushes the question back, doesn’t it? If life requires a Creator, then any hypothetical alien race bears the same requirement as far as we know.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:7, topic:23502”]
I, too, would be inclined to attribute such a design (if I agreed we found a candidate design) to God. But how do we explain this when people have written to assure me that this would never happen in the ID community?
[/quote]
I have no idea who in the ID community would write or say such a thing. As far as I know, those ID advocates who insist on keeping the question of God separate would certainly not say that God is not the designer!
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