I don't think you are deluded, just mislead and on the wrong horse. I don't really know why you pursue this so zealously, nor do I care.
"Deluded" or "misled", you are really just playing with words and finding the most socially-acceptable way to tell me that I'm dead wrong and I don't know it.
I have a career ahead of me as a scientist; I am passionate to make it known that science and Christianity both intersect and do not want anyone to be turned away just because they got the impression from creationists that to be a Christian you must throw away everything of the empirical method and the advances it has brought us. In contrast, you write a lot for someone who doesn't care ...
In a word, 'Darwinism'.
It's you attack on Creationism that I think is ill founded. You say that you believe in this and that but I don't see you all the interested. I don't think the theistic evolution even qualifys as a heresy because it has no marks of theology of any kind. I don't know what you believe about God but I have often seen God defined in very different terms then I would recognized as traditional Christian theism. My problems are either Scriptural or Scientific, I don't blend the two.
That's right, I've often seen God defined in very different terms than I would have recognized as traditional Christian theism too! For example ClearSky has been spending half a thread telling me that God changes - wait, she's a
creationist, no?
Clearly creationism is no guarantee of good theology, nor is theistic evolution any guarantee of bad theology. Why should my attack on creationism be ill-founded if I can be a Calvinist, Bible-believing Christian without it? If I can be all that without creationism then what good is it? Go ahead, ask me what you will about God. I am not convinced that you will find anything different from what you believe about God. As I have said before and will say again, I believe that I am inherently sinful as a human, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and that His atoning sacrifice avails for the propitiation of my transgressions before God's righteous judgment because He has imputed His righteousness to me. What more can you ask from a Christian?
That's great that you survived the Darwinian attack on religious conviction which leads me to wonder why you attack fellow Christians with such a passion.
The only reason I survived the Darwinian attack on my religious conviction is because I was not convinced by Christians like you who would tell me that Darwin and Christ are incompatible. If I had taken the bait creationists set out I would not be a Christian today. Why do I fight creationism? So that more people will take the path I took.
That's right and I stand by that statement. I don't think you are as friendly to Christian theism as you pretend to be. There are just no many conflicts that arise when you just say, I believe it, so what? I have known people who believe the serpent in the garden was a literal snake. I generally listen politely to their thoughts and share what insights I can about it being a proper name. I certainly don't dog their steps and join the crowd in attacking them on nit picky points like you have done me in the past.
And yet, what are you doing right now? Not dogging my steps? Not attacking me on nit-picky points? I have already made clear my entire view of salvation and my approach towards reading the Bible; it doesn't sound half a bit different from what you do, really, and yet you insist that I am not as friendly to Christian theism as I pretend to be. If I am pretending to be a friend to Christian theism what can I actually be but an atheist wolf in sheepskin? Really, for someone who calls me a relentless attacker you ought to take a look at what
you're saying about
me ...
By the way, still think an uncorrected transcript error is not a mutation?
Sure, and if you can correct me, go ahead!
What you attack or reject in the privacy of your own thoughts is your buisness. What you do on these boards is simply to attack people and never without a group of supporters. I'm really not impressed with your statement of what you believe because I know how semantics work. If you really are as fundamentalist (Calvanists are die hard fundamentalists by the way) then you should understand that a literal understanding of Genesis is the most common interpretation.
Firstly - never without a group of supporters? Really. Just look back over this thread and tell me that I replied to your statement with "a group of supporters". MinervaMac and mallon only came later. If we're talking about genetics, sure, I don't want to be there without sfs or gluadys, since my area simply isn't biology and definitely not the intricacies of evolutionary population genetics. And hey, if people want to join in, I see no problem with it.
And who died and allowed you to define what a Calvinist is? Why can't a Calvinist accept evolution? Don't forget that many of Darwin's defenders were themselves Reformed theologians, including Bavinck and today John C. Collins.
Darwin certainly thought it was possible. The man was an agnostic his whole life and considered his view as not having any affect on a persons religion whatsoever. Still it is the seemingly benign aspects of Darwinism that makes it so dangerous and apparently you don't see the danger.
Then tell me what is wrong with my Christian worldview. Tell me what evolution has done to my beliefs other than, well, allowing me to accept evolution. Slippery slope arguments don't work on people who aren't falling.
First of all the burden of proof is on evolutionists, not me. I ask fundamental questions about the genetic mechanism for the most highly conserved genes affecting vital functions like the brain and there is no substantive response. The logical course would be to look at known genetic mechanisms for adaptive evolution but you guys can't even do that. Darwinians just keep chanting the mantra of 'mutations with beneficial affect' and it's absurd when looking at something as highly conserved as the human brain.
One other thing that has raised my incredulity to critical levels, you do the same thing to the Scriptures. When the text doesn't line up with your worldview you simply ignore it or distort the clear meaning. These generality neither confront me nor impress me, you forget, this isn't my first rodeo.
"High conservation" is simply the historical serendipity of not having had mutations; you've never shown us any "mechanisms" for genetic conservation either, so your case doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, creationist baraminologists who try to use genetic criteria to separate out the various "created kinds" find that they can never biologically differentiate between apes and humans, and have to invoke
a priori theological reasoning to make the cut. If you won't listen to us, perhaps you'll listen to them?
That is not special creation, there you go again.
Why not? God establishes a relationship with His creatures; that's the most special thing I could ever imagine.