Damage Done by Creationism

[ThinkFreeDom]

I am interested in how Christians who believe in theistic evolution feel about the Creationist/Intelligent Design element of the faith.

Excessively literalistic interpretations of Genesis inevitably pit faith against science, in regard to scientific questions. This is a battle that faith can't win and the result is lost credibility, especially among the more educated sections of the population who would be an asset to Christianity.

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors? Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate? To say nothing of faith and politics.

In addition these groups often present Christianity and science as mutually exclusive. Do you really want young Christians to have to make that choice?

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity. The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

 

[Publius]

I am interested in how Christians who believe in theistic evolution

"Christians" who deny the Biblical creation account and choose, instead to believe something that contradicts scripture and undermines the Gospel? Interesting concept.

Excessively literalistic interpretations of Genesis inevitably pit faith against science

How so?

This is a battle that faith can't win and the result is lost credibility, especially among the more educated sections of the population who would be an asset to Christianity.

Why would people, who by your own definition, have no faith, be an asset to Christianity? What would they bring to Christianity that the Holy Spirit does not already bring?

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

That may be the only time the word "thinking" has been used in the same sentence with those names.

Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors?

First of all, they're not powerful. Their arguments are defeated pretty easily (such as the time James White destroyed Richard Dawkins and forced Dawkins to admit that he didn't even know the name of the book his philosophy was founded upon).

Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate?

Why? If we did, then we wouldn't have some of the greatest scientists in history.

To say nothing of faith and politics.

Again, why? The abolitionist movement and civil rights movement both began in the churchhouse. Are you really against these things?

In addition these groups often present Christianity and science as mutually exclusive.

Why do we care how atheists present us?

Do you really want young Christians to have to make that choice?

Why should they have to? You're the one who believes they're mutually exclusive for some reason, not us.

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity.

Who cares? Since when are we to let atheists run our religion?

The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

The press is going to say whatever fits their agenda.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

We do. We have prominent men like James White, Phil Johnson, Greg Kokul (sp?), etc.

 

[Tomas de Torquemada]

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors? Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate? To say nothing of faith and politics.

oh noes, a has-been biologist and two never-was.

Evolution means a lot of different things in different contexts. If you mean intermediate stages of development in creation, that is an old idea. I believe St. Augustine actually punted around ideas similiar. If you are talking about random naturalistic forces being the source of the diversity of life, well, that is a gnostic heresy that has rather large implications for the moral order of our lives personally and our societies.


Although, even atheists seem to want to look away from the implications of random naturalistic evolution. Consider their beliefs in supernatural equality between the genders and the races. Apparently evolution stops where politics begin.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

Because reasonable, mainstream voices don't sell.

Which is going to get higher ratings on a news broadcast:

1) The Fred Phelps Clan acting like the attention-starved lunatics they are, parading around with their signs about how God hates this and that one.

2) A small town --insert denomination here-- woman regularly donating food and clothing to a charity without making a big deal about it?

So the cameras tend to turn on in front of the sensational. Sensationalist books sell, sell, sell.

This of course isn't just the case with Christianity, or even religion in general, but this is simply how things tend to work here in the West.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[elopez]

I am interested in how Christians who believe in theistic evolution feel about the Creationist/Intelligent Design element of the faith.

I don't care much at all for Creationism or ID. To me they are both poor positions to take up.

Excessively literalistic interpretations of Genesis inevitably pit faith against science, in regard to scientific questions. This is a battle that faith can't win and the result is lost credibility, especially among the more educated sections of the population who would be an asset to Christianity.

Yes, literalism is in stark contrast to the most basics of science. Credibility is lost the way we see it, but to them our credibility is lost (which it isn't of course, that's just what they think). So I see no point in engaging YECs or IDers anymore.

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors? Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate? To say nothing of faith and politics.

It has angered more than scientists, it has angered societies too. I don't see how would we be better off without any three of those people as they really have no significant impact on Christianity as a whole. Richard Dawkins shows YEC wrong. So what? I think it is good, and in fact have read his brilliant work The Greatest Show On Earth. Faith and science don't have to be separate, nor or they separated by some logical constraint. Politics may be a different issue.

In addition these groups often present Christianity and science as mutually exclusive. Do you really want young Christians to have to make that choice?

I personally would not. I would rather have younger pupils make informed decisions based on reasoning and evidence.

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity. The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

I wouldn't say it is damaging to all of Christianity as not all Christians are into ID or YEC.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

I think we recognize it. But when it comes down to it no one can really silence a group indefinitely. No matter how much articles will be published, no matter how many books will be written, nothing we can do will perish the thought of literalism. No amount of evidence will do. It will do for the rest, which is the point.

 

[Nails74]

Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors?

Fortunately, my faith is not dependent upon "powerful detractors"

Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate?

Unfortunately, I cannot separate the basis of my science (God's revelation in the Bible) from my faith (God revealed to us in the Bible)

If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

What is this "reasonable voice of Christianity"? Once again, I find the basis for my reasoning in God...what is yours?

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

Fortunately, my faith is not dependent upon "powerful detractors"

No, but why make enemies by trying to force your beliefs into science classes? It seems suicidally stupid. Does God not ask you to be "as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves".

Unfortunately, I cannot separate the basis of my science (God's revelation in the Bible) from my faith (God revealed to us in the Bible)

That is unfortunate.

What is this "reasonable voice of Christianity"?

Well, the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion and the Eastern Orthodox Church for starters. Reasonable, grown-up interpretations of Genesis, that acknowledge that the Bible is not a science text book and never should be used as such.

Once again, I find the basis for my reasoning in God...what is yours?

Reason.

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

oh noes, a has-been biologist and two never-was.

Right. Oxford is known for hiring has-beens.

Evolution means a lot of different things in different contexts. If you mean intermediate stages of development in creation, that is an old idea. I believe St. Augustine actually punted around ideas similiar.

I am talking about the Standard Model that forms the basis for teaching of evolution in universities and schools all over the world. That model is based on Darwinian Evolution by Natural Selection. I am not talking about obsolete ideas of evolution.

If you are talking about random naturalistic forces being the source of the diversity of life, well, that is a gnostic heresy that has rather large implications for the moral order of our lives personally and our societies.

Now I know why you chose your name. Why would you choose to associate yourself with one of the most disgusting movements in Christian history?

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

Because reasonable, mainstream voices don't sell.

Which is going to get higher ratings on a news broadcast:

1) The Fred Phelps Clan acting like the attention-starved lunatics they are, parading around with their signs about how God hates this and that one.

2) A small town --insert denomination here-- woman regularly donating food and clothing to a charity without making a big deal about it?

So the cameras tend to turn on in front of the sensational. Sensationalist books sell, sell, sell.

This of course isn't just the case with Christianity, or even religion in general, but this is simply how things tend to work here in the West.

-CryptoLutheran

Yes, that is unfortunate, but don't you think you should try and conteract the extremists? Maybe you do and it is difficult.

 

[Nails74]

No, but why make enemies by trying to force your beliefs into science classes? It seems suicidally stupid. Does God not ask you to be "as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves".

I think you view this issue as "you follow a religion and I don't", but it is much bigger than that. We aren't just talking about "my beliefs", but my foundation of truth. Though we look at the same scientific evidence, we reach two completely different conclusions...because we start from two different places. Our world-views are completely opposite.

You've used the Matthew 10 passage out of context...

“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you. [Matthew 10:16-20]

What is this "reasonable voice of Christianity"? Once again, I find the basis for my reasoning in God...what is yours?

In reason.

The basis of your reasoning is reason? Is that your ultimate authority?

 

[Faulty]

I am interested in how Christians who believe in theistic evolution feel about the Creationist/Intelligent Design element of the faith.

Excessively literalistic interpretations of Genesis inevitably pit faith against science, in regard to scientific questions. This is a battle that faith can't win and the result is lost credibility, especially among the more educated sections of the population who would be an asset to Christianity.

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors? Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate? To say nothing of faith and politics.

In addition these groups often present Christianity and science as mutually exclusive. Do you really want young Christians to have to make that choice?

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity. The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

Personally, I object to my children being taught the fairy tale that is evolution in school.

You really expect someone to sit down with a small child and teach them as such? "Son, in the beginning there was nothing. Then nothing happened to nothing and then nothing exploded into everything. Then there was goo, and that goo oozed onto a rock, that came out of the nothing, and contracted and extraordinary complex DNA programming which was just laying around minding it's own business. After this, the goo became something less gooey because it's DNA replicated itself, but actually 'oopsed' and replicated itself perfectly, but with millions of changes, into something with a fin, and the less gooey thing liked its fin, and gritted where it's teeth would be a billion years later, and chose it's offspring to have more fin-like DNA." etc, etc, etc

And that's more reasonable than "All that you see had an origin and a designer, and that designer is the all-powerful God, who created you in His image and likeness"? No, I don't have enough blind faith to be an evolutionist in any way.

Just because a bunch of people run around handing out degrees in their fairy tale, and peer reviewing each others papers as ground-breaking fairy tale news, and writing books about how they think goo became kangaroos, even though they've never actually seen it happen (because they guess, and revise their guesses as they go), doesn't mean that I have to willfully subscribe to their nonsense. Talk about the blind leading the blind, sheesh.

And then somehow, you chaps made your way into the classroom and called your fairy tale "science". Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

Abiogenesis and speciation are both poorly supported concepts in evolution. I agree with the basic principle of natural selection insofar as necessity will select for certain traits, but the idea that new species will arise from genetic mutation is questionable to me.

I think that you can have significant variation within a degree of possible traits for a species, but mutation won't produce a new species. Mutations are, for the most part, harmful to an organism and even the ones that are beneficial do not make for a new species (e.g. sickle cell anemia.)

 

[ebia]

I am interested in how Christians who believe in theistic evolution feel about the Creationist/Intelligent Design element of the faith.

Excessively literalistic interpretations of Genesis inevitably pit faith against science, in regard to scientific questions. This is a battle that faith can't win and the result is lost credibility, especially among the more educated sections of the population who would be an asset to Christianity.

Moreover the attempt to force Creationism into science classes has aroused the anger of some of the world's most eloquent scientists. I am thinking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Surely your faith would be better off without such powerful detractors? Would it not be a better strategy to keep faith and science separate? To say nothing of faith and politics.

In addition these groups often present Christianity and science as mutually exclusive. Do you really want young Christians to have to make that choice?

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity. The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

What can one do?

Yes, the incredible stupidity is frustrating.

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

I think you view this issue as "you follow a religion and I don't", but it is much bigger than that. We aren't just talking about "my beliefs", but my foundation of truth. Though we look at the same scientific evidence, we reach two completely different conclusions...because we start from two different places. Our world-views are completely opposite.

I think you don't understand my views. I am simply asking why mainstream Christians don't do more to protect Christianity from the radical elements within the faith. I don't understand your personal view either, but most Creationist/Literalist come at this from the point of view that the Bible should be taken literally and is inerrant and they do everything they can to defend that position.

That is the polar opposite of scientific thinking. Which seeks to discover scientific (not spiritual) truths through observation and experiment. Faith and science are different, that is my point, why try and present your faith as science? What do you gain from that?

I am not arguing about whether you are right or not, or whether the Standard Model is right or not, I simply want to know why Creationist deliberately seek conflict with science, which is neutral on questions of spiritual belief. Why poke the bear?

You've used the Matthew 10 passage out of context...

“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you. [Matthew 10:16-20]

Not out of context at all, the verse still implores the use of intelligence. What surprises me is how extremist are foolish enough to attack science, and lose again and again, damaging their own reputation. Why not simply argue that faith is personal and is not an issue for science. That would be wiser and nothing would be lost.

The basis of your reasoning is reason? Is that your ultimate authority?

I don't need an 'ultimate authority'.

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

Abiogenesis and speciation are both poorly supported concepts in evolution. I agree with the basic principle of natural selection insofar as necessity will select for certain traits, but the idea that new species will arise from genetic mutation is questionable to me

Well you are welcome to try and disprove what is accepted by the world's greatest universities. No-one is stopping you. Write that book.

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

Personally, I object to my children being taught the fairy tale that is evolution in school.

That is fine, you have that right, but why try and force others to accept your position? What gives Creationists the right to force their belief into the school curriculum?

You really expect someone to sit down with a small child and teach them as such? "Son, in the beginning there was nothing. Then nothing happened to nothing and then nothing exploded into everything. Then there was goo, and that goo oozed onto a rock, that came out of the nothing, and contracted and extraordinary complex DNA programming which was just laying around minding it's own business. After this, the goo became something less gooey because it's DNA replicated itself, but actually 'oopsed' and replicated itself perfectly, but with millions of changes, into something with a fin, and the less gooey thing liked its fin, and gritted where it's teeth would be a billion years later, and chose it's offspring to have more fin-like DNA." etc, etc, etc

No, but I would expect them to teach Evolution by Natural Selection.

And that's more reasonable than "All that you see had an origin and a designer, and that designer is the all-powerful God, who created you in His image and likeness"? No, I don't have enough blind faith to be an evolutionist in any way.

Just because a bunch of people run around handing out degrees in their fairy tale, and peer reviewing each others papers as ground-breaking fairy tale news, and writing books about how they think goo became kangaroos, even though they've never actually seen it happen (because they guess, and revise their guesses as they go), doesn't mean that I have to willfully subscribe to their nonsense. Talk about the blind leading the blind, sheesh.

And then somehow, you chaps made your way into the classroom and called your fairy tale "science". Thanks, but no thanks.

Well you are welcome to challenge the facts. If it is a fairy tale it should be easy to disprove.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

Well you are welcome to try and disprove what is accepted by the world's greatest universities. No-one is stopping you. Write that book.

I don't care who believes it: appeals to authority don't count as facts in my book. I haven't seen anything that's convincing on this topic, so I don't ascribe to that belief.

 

[ElijahW]

The ID movement and the vocal anti-evolutionary stance of some sections of Evangelical Christianity seems to me to be a terrible miscalculation, that is damaging to all of Christianity. The press focuses on this radical fringe, making it loom much larger than it really is.

Do mainstream Christians see this? If they do why don't they do more to make the more reasonable voice of Christianity heard?

It can be damaging to maybe the non-believer who uses these particular Christians' beliefs to justify there own disbelief. I don't see how ID is damaging to Christianity or the society. It seems just like an easy target to focus on to try to criticize Christianity as a whole. And that criticism, from both within and from without the Church, is how the church evolves. These criticisms aren't damaging but productive to help eliminate irrational thinking and try to get the Church as error free as possible so that we can do the necessary work. I have my fingers crossed that theonomy is the next popular meme to use to criticize Christianity so we can try to eliminate that.

The reasonable voice is heard easily enough, it is just ignored by those who find it convenient to do so because it goes against their previously held position.

 

[ThinkFreeDom]

I don't care who believes it: appeals to authority don't count as facts in my book. I haven't seen anything that's convincing on this topic, so I don't ascribe to that belief.

That is fine, but you have to let people make their own decisions and not try and force your beliefs onto others, or stand by and allow others to do that without objecting.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

That is fine, but you have to let people make their own decisions and not try and force your beliefs onto others, or stand by and allow others to do that without objecting.

As far as I can tell, I've never tried to force my beliefs on others.

As to the issue of public school curricula, I think that school should cover creationism in some way. I don't think creationism -- or anything else for that matter -- should be held out to be the absolute truth, but it should be at least discussed.

The idea of a mandatory public school system is always a touchy subject when popular viewpoints are excluded. If children are forced to attend, then there should be adequate representation of the views held by the community.