Evoltuon and Natural selection proven wrong

[Incariol]

This is a debate thread in a closed forum = no.

 

[crawfish]

Like all creationists and especially IDers, Mark is a closet atheist.

I agree with Mallon. Mark is not an atheist, and it is wrong and unfair to label him so. He is a brother in Christ and has great faith, even if some of that faith is misguided.

 

[shernren]

Did Mark really do this?

Not explicitly, but it's a valid reductio ad absurdum of his unthinking appropriation of Newton's ideals. Newton himself believed that the Solar System was inherently unstable according to his equations of gravity, and therefore that God must periodically send miraculous comets into the Solar system to keep it from falling apart or collapsing. Not just that, he believed that this demonstrated the existence and glory of God. This was rightly lampooned by Leibnitz: did God know enough to make a Solar System but not enough to make it wind itself?

Newton not only pioneered the scientific method - he became a staunch Arian, compounding physical analogies to disprove the Trinity, and towards that end he became one of the very first textual critics of Scripture, arguing (accurately, as it were) that two proof-texts for the Trinity in 1 John 5:7 and 1 Timothy 3:16, in the dominant English version of the Bible, the King James Version (IIRC), were in fact later scribal insertions. That is a marked example of what happens when you go too far in deistic tendencies in nature.

This is un-scriptural. But it's not deist. It's atheist. Mark is accepting the basic statement of faith of atheism: natural = without God.

Like all creationists and especially IDers, Mark is a closet atheist.

As Mallon and crawfish have said, he is essentially deist in his philosophy of science, though he understands and accepts orthodox theism in his reading of redemptive history. It is completely inaccurate to imagine that he is an atheist!

 

[theistic evol]

I agree with Mallon. Mark is not an atheist, and it is wrong and unfair to label him so. He is a brother in Christ and has great faith, even if some of that faith is misguided.

OK. Then let us say that, at least, Mark is advocating as true the basic statement of faith of atheism. While he is a brother in Christ, he is (unwittingly?) promoting atheism.

 

[theistic evol]

That's not fair. mark clearly believes in God -- there's no denying that. So he's unquestionably NOT an atheist. He does believe that natural = without God, though, which is a belief shared by both deists and atheists.

The belief that natural = withotu God is the essential statement of faith of atheism. So we have a contradiction on the part of Mark and all creationists/IDers: they say they have a belief in God but they have a belief in the basic statement of faith of atheism.

So which is it?

If we give them the benefit of the doubt, they would be misguided Christians. That appears to be what you, Shernen, and Crawfish are doing. I can respect that. It's the charitable, Christian thing to do. However, as such, they are still doing great harm for, and represent a great danger to, Christianity because they accept the basic statement of atheism as true.

I have reluctantly stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt and are calling them what I think they really are. I have done this because it has been pointed out to them again and again the harm that is being done to Christianity and the atheistic nature of creationism/ID. Yet they persist.

We will have to agree to disagree about this.

 

[theistic evol]

Not explicitly, but it's a valid reductio ad absurdum of his unthinking appropriation of Newton's ideals.

It would be best if Mark said this explicitly.

Newton not only pioneered the scientific method - he became a staunch Arian, compounding physical analogies to disprove the Trinity, and towards that end he became one of the very first textual critics of Scripture, arguing (accurately, as it were) that two proof-texts for the Trinity in 1 John 5:7 and 1 Timothy 3:16, in the dominant English version of the Bible, the King James Version (IIRC), were in fact later scribal insertions. That is a marked example of what happens when you go too far in deistic tendencies in nature.

I would argue that others pioneered the scientific method. Grosseteste, for example, introduced deductive reasoning and modus tollens.

However, yes, Newton eventually stopped being a Trinitarian and those "proof" verses were later additions by scribes. 1 John 5:7 started out as a marginal note and then ended up in the text with the next copy.

One of the reasons Christians accepted evolution so readily (despite the drama of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate) is that evolution combatted deism:

"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.

 

[Mallon]

The belief that natural = withotu God is the essential statement of faith of atheism. So we have a contradiction on the part of Mark and all creationists/IDers: they say they have a belief in God but they have a belief in the basic statement of faith of atheism.

So which is it?

If we give them the benefit of the doubt, they would be misguided Christians. That appears to be what you, Shernen, and Crawfish are doing. I can respect that. It's the charitable, Christian thing to do. However, as such, they are still doing great harm for, and represent a great danger to, Christianity because they accept the basic statement of atheism as true.

I generally agree with what you're saying, here. The belief that the natural world operates without God's sustaining it is an atheistic belief, and it is a belief that mark promotes (he's said numerous times that natural explanations like evolution are "atheistic"). But none of that negates the fact that he also believes in a God who occasionally works the odd miracle, too. That makes him a deist, by definition, not an atheist.

I have reluctantly stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt and are calling them what I think they really are. I have done this because it has been pointed out to them again and again the harm that is being done to Christianity and the atheistic nature of creationism/ID. Yet they persist.

We will have to agree to disagree about this.

Just a warning -- labeling a self-professed Christian on these forums an atheist is a punishable offence. The neocreationists do that enough. Don't be condescending like them.

 

[shernren]

The belief that natural = withotu God is the essential statement of faith of atheism. So we have a contradiction on the part of Mark and all creationists/IDers: they say they have a belief in God but they have a belief in the basic statement of faith of atheism.

But you are committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent:

All atheists must believe that natural phenomena occur without God.
Mark believes that natural phenomena occur without God.
=========
Mark is (in some sense) atheist.

Why, by that logic:

All atheists must believe that 2 + 2 = 4.
I believe that 2 + 2 = 4.
=========
I am (in some sense) an atheist.

-----------

I agree that considering natural phenomena to occur without God is a significant step in the direction of atheism. However, there are many ways to do so without actually being an atheist. Newton, for example, considered the Solar System to be sustained by the laws of gravity, and thought that God's role was merely to occasionally perturb it with comets and meteors to keep it from falling apart. Note here that Newton believed both that God didn't do natural things and that God existed. In his case, God had to routinely do supernatural things. Despite his anti-Trinitarian beliefs, he was undoubtedly theistic, and any taxonomy of thought that considers him atheist must be mistaken.

There is a wide gamut of choices:

Atheism - God does not exist.
Agnosticism - God may or may not exist, but His existence is irrelevant - He has no action.
Deism - God had divine action, but only at the creation of the universe.
Semi-deism / practical deism - God has divine action, but only intermittently.
Classical/Abrahamic theism - God has divine action, both providential and miraculous, and His actions are partially comprehensible through revealed religion.
Polytheism/animism - The gods have divine action, both providential and miraculous, but their plurality makes their action mostly inscrutable.
Pantheism - God's divine action is synonymous with natural action, and so it is completely inscrutable (at least through any form of organized religion).

Note that for all the choices up to Abrahamic theism, natural action is considered not quite divine - but those categories would encompass not just Richard Dawkins and Stephen Gould, but many an average Christian today who only sees God's action when they pray for a parking lot and get one, or just happen to have an umbrella when they rain. They are practically deistic or semi-deistic, but that does not change the fact that they do have faith in God (small though their picture of God may be - but God will accept childlike faith, and even childish faith) and that it does play a part in practical life.

The other truth to note is that we cannot swing to the other extreme and attribute everything indiscriminately to God. That would be fatalism, of the essentially polytheistic or pantheistic sort as I have labeled it - since God does everything, it makes no sense to speak of Him wanting anything, or being grieved by anything. But Christians must maintain at least two distinctions.

Firstly, some events or natural laws are somehow more revelatory than others, by virtue of being described or elucidated in Scripture. So, for example, we are told that Moses spoke to God on Mount Sinai; we can also be sure that Moses ate breakfast every morning. To be sure, God causes both equally; and yet the former reveals something about God that the latter doesn't. Our ontology of providence must be able to sustain that kind of distinction.

Secondly (and this is related) some events are evil, and cannot be said to be happening with God's perfect permission. Therefore God must be said to be somehow less supportive when the rich get richer by abusing the poor, as compared to when the rich get richer through honest gain. If God equally causes both and equally desires both, what use is it to pray to Him that He will punish the wicked and vindicate the righteous? Down that path lies gnosticism and pantheism, insisting that God really is nature, that there is nothing apart from nature to venerate or pray to, and therefore that we are essentially left alone in a divine but hostile nature. (Note that this comes almost full circle back to atheism - atheism exalts nature by denying God, pantheism exalts nature by merging it with God.)

Therefore, it is fallacious to simply say that someone with a defective ontology of providence is automatically somehow a stealth atheist. Not only is it terribly unhospitable, as Mallon has said, it is also simply not true.

 

[mark kennedy]

Did Mark really do this? How silly of him. Darwin knew better! Oh, how the irony meter just pegged!

Let me get caught up here, this sounds like you've been getting way off base.

Mark, from the Fontispiece of the Origin of Species:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

I have often splashed Artemis and several lines from Erasmus Darwin, not to endorse his views but to expose them. Do you have an issue with me? The Fontispiece is from Erasmus Darwin's book, it graces the inside cover.

I do this to emphasis the point that Erasmus Darwin was a mythographer and I suspect most of the leading proponents of Darwinian natural selection are as well.

This is un-scriptural. But it's not deist. It's atheist. Mark is accepting the basic statement of faith of atheism: natural = without God.

I accept nothing of the sort, I'm a young earth creationist, God as creator is inextricably linked to both my theology and my view of natural history. What an absurd and unwarranted slur.

Like all creationists and especially IDers, Mark is a closet atheist.

I don't happen to subscribe to ID ideology because it doesn't go far enough. God is the primary first cause of life on this planet, the designer of natural laws and Creator of all life, fully formed 6 to 10 thousand years ago.

How you get atheist from this firm conviction is a mystery to me and I might add, I don't take kindly to this kind of shameless, inflammatory rhetoric. The only reason I have not reported it is because I'm anxious to hear what you have to say for yourself.

Have a nice day
Mark

P.S. Thanks guys for trying to work this issue out.

 

[Mallon]

P.S. Thanks guys for trying to work this issue out.

We know what it's like having your faith in God called into question.

 

[shernren]

I have often splashed Artemis and several lines from Erasmus Darwin, not to endorse his views but to expose them. Do you have an issue with me? The Fontispiece is from Erasmus Darwin's book, it graces the inside cover.

I do this to emphasis the point that Erasmus Darwin was a mythographer and I suspect most of the leading proponents of Darwinian natural selection are as well.

Ehh, last I checked, The Origin of Species was written by Charles Robert Darwin. (Or did he vanish along with the 800cc Dmanisi skulls?)

 

[mark kennedy]

Ehh, last I checked, The Origin of Species was written by Charles Robert Darwin. (Or did he vanish along with the 800cc Dmanisi skulls?)

Your right, when he said Fontispiece I thought he was talking about the Artemise etching from his grandfathers book. Any hoot, the Dmanisi skulls are human.

 

[mark kennedy]

We know what it's like having your faith in God called into question.

While I appreciate it Mallon that was not what bothers me about that kind of a post. I would rather talk to you guys about fossils, theology and genetics then have to bother the moderators with a cheep attention getting device.

I just think that kind of thing needlessly disrupts the boards. It really doesn't bother me if someone questions my faith, I believe you should be doing that yourself anyway. I just don't like what happens when that kind of foolishness snowballs.

Not only that, I've been called a lot of things on here....but atheist .... I just don't get it.

Anyway, thanks for the assist.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[theistic evol]

But you are committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent:

All atheists must believe that natural phenomena occur without God.
Mark believes that natural phenomena occur without God.
=========
Mark is (in some sense) atheist.

Why, by that logic:

All atheists must believe that 2 + 2 = 4.
I believe that 2 + 2 = 4.
=========
I am (in some sense) an atheist.

The difference between the two deductive schemes is that the second is not a necessary attribute of atheism. Therefore the second deductive argument is flawed. However, atheism must believe that natural = without God. Without that belief, atheism is not possible.

What's more, that belief natural = without God is contrary to theism.

Let's go back to this:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

Now, if you believe that what is natural requires deity to render it so, that is theism, is it not? If you believe an "intelligent agent" is not needed, that is atheism. IF you don't know, that would be agnosticism.

However, it's not possible to be atheist if you believe that an intelligent agent is required for natural to happen. If you do that, then it is inevitable that you are a theist.

However, there are many ways to do so without actually being an atheist. Newton, for example, considered the Solar System to be sustained by the laws of gravity, and thought that God's role was merely to occasionally perturb it with comets and meteors to keep it from falling apart.

Here it depends on where Newton thought the "laws of gravity" came from and what it took to sustain the laws. I would say that Newton thought that God worked both by establishing general laws, but that, at least in this case, the natural was not sufficient on its own and required "tweaking". --" In his case, God had to routinely do supernatural things." -- This idea isn't scriptural because it is still god-of-the-gaps, but it's not saying God is absent from "natural", either.

Atheism - God does not exist.
Agnosticism - God may or may not exist, but His existence is irrelevant - He has no action.

That's not agnosticism. Agnosticism is not knowing whether God exists or not. I'm not sure what you have defined, but it is not agnosticism the way Huxley defined it (who coined the term) or any of the standard definitions you will find today.

Deism - God had divine action, but only at the creation of the universe.

In which case God set up the theories that govern the behavior of the universe. And that gets us back to whether the theories can operate on their own.

Semi-deism / practical deism - God has divine action, but only intermittently.
Classical/Abrahamic theism - God has divine action, both providential and miraculous, and His actions are partially comprehensible through revealed religion.

Somehow, you keep omitting a major belief of Judeo-Christianity: the universe depends upon the will of God. God sustains the universe. All those "natural" things happen because God wills them each and every time.

"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

Polytheism/animism - The gods have divine action, both providential and miraculous, but their plurality makes their action mostly inscrutable.
Pantheism - God's divine action is synonymous with natural action, and so it is completely inscrutable (at least through any form of organized religion).

but many an average Christian today who only sees God's action when they pray for a parking lot and get one, or just happen to have an umbrella when they rain. They are practically deistic or semi-deistic, but that does not change the fact that they do have faith in God (small though their picture of God may be - but God will accept childlike faith, and even childish faith) and that it does play a part in practical life.

This is god-of-the-gaps theology. And yes, I will agree that many Christians have that view of God. But we are not talking about the people who hold an idea, but the idea itself. Ideas are independent of the understanding of the people who hold them.

What you are doing is equating deism to god-of-the-gaps. That equation is not valid. Deism may, or may not, involve God sustaining the universe. Mostly what deism involves is rejection of revelation:
"Deism is knowledge of God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a "revealed" religion. " deism.com/deism_defined.htm

By this view, Mark cannot be a deist because he very much believes in revelation.

Firstly, some events or natural laws are somehow more revelatory than others, by virtue of being described or elucidated in Scripture. So, for example, we are told that Moses spoke to God on Mount Sinai; we can also be sure that Moses ate breakfast every morning. To be sure, God causes both equally; and yet the former reveals something about God that the latter doesn't.

The difference is how God causes both. Are you familiar with the term "secondary cause"? It's a theological term. God causes Moses to eat breakfast thru secondary causes. God speaking to Moses on Mt. Sinai is a primary cause.

"This third view that science and theology are two complementary partial descriptions of the world is very popular today, and for good reason. It does accurately capture part of the way science and theology relate. To understand this, it is important to grasp the distinction between primary and secondary causal actions by God. Roughly, what God did in parting the Red Sea was a primary causal act; what God did in guiding and sustaining that sea before and after its parting involved secondary causal acts by God. Secondary causes are God's usual way of operating by which He sustains natural processes in existence and employs them as intermediate agents to accomplish some purpose. Primary causes are God's unusual way of operating and involve direct, discontinuous, miraculous actions by God." leaderu.com/real/ri9404/threat.html

The problem with creationism/ID is that it denies the role of God in secondary causes. Creationism/ID is atheism in disguise because it accepts that natural processes happen on their own; the only way God acts is by miracle.

That's the idea. What do we do with individual creationists/IDers? On the one hand they proclaim belief in God OTOH, they are faithful to atheism. What does that make them?

BTW, deism is no more Christian than atheism. If it is "inhospitable" to say a self-proclaimed Christian an atheist, isn't it equally inhospitable to proclaim that individual a deist?

Secondly (and this is related) some events are evil, and cannot be said to be happening with God's perfect permission. Therefore God must be said to be somehow less supportive when the rich get richer by abusing the poor, as compared to when the rich get richer through honest gain. If God equally causes both and equally desires both, what use is it to pray to Him that He will punish the wicked and vindicate the righteous?

This is human action and free will. God set the universe up so that the future is open and our lives will have meaning. Our choices have real consequences to other people. God still sustains the biochemical reactions that sustain the lives of rich people and the reactions that are the nerve impulses of their thinking that results in their choices. But a person chooses how she/he will behave.

 

[theistic evol]

Your Any hoot, the Dmanisi skulls are human.

Only if you follow recent anthropological practice and call any species in the genus Homo "human". If you equate "human" to H. sapiens, then the Dmanisi skulls are definitely not H. sapiens. In fact, they are transitional individuals between H. habilis and H. ergastor.

 

[theistic evol]

I generally agree with what you're saying, here. The belief that the natural world operates without God's sustaining it is an atheistic belief, and it is a belief that mark promotes (he's said numerous times that natural explanations like evolution are "atheistic"). But none of that negates the fact that he also believes in a God who occasionally works the odd miracle, too. That makes him a deist, by definition, not an atheist.

Actually, that belief in God intervening in human history excludes Mark from being a deist by definition. See the post above where I have a definition of deism from a deism website.

On one hand, Mark is promoting theism. However, OTOH, at the core of the theology Mark is talking about is atheism.

So, leaving the person Mark outside of this, we have the problem of trying to defend the existence of God while simulataneously denying one of the core Judeo-Christian beliefs and accepting as true the core belief of atheism.

Mark, you said you wanted to discuss theology. This dichotomy is a major theological flaw with creationism/ID. That flaw represents a major danger to Christianity, because it sets up Christianity to be unfairly falsified. It plays right into the hands of militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers.

It's not possible to talk about the fossils or the molecular biology and ignore this major theological fault.

Just a warning -- labeling a self-professed Christian on these forums an atheist is a punishable offence. The neocreationists do that enough. Don't be condescending like them.

Actually, it's a punishable offense to say that a self-professed Christian isn't a Christian. Calling them a deist is also denying they are Christian.

Which leaves us both walking the fine line of what to do when a self-professed Christian is also promoting ideas that aren't Christian. At what point does the promotion of non-Christian ideas result in a self-professed Christian no longer being able to use the term?

I run into this problem frequently with YECers who deny what science finds and insists we can only rely on a literal interpretation of scripture. That seems, to me, to violate the first line of the Nicene Creed: "We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." by denying that God the Father made the fossils, sediments, etc. that science finds.

 

[mark kennedy]

Nice try guys, catch you on the rebound.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[theistic evol]

Nice try guys, catch you on the rebound.

So you don't want to talk about the theological problems of creationism/ID. OK. I can certainly see why you would want to avoid that.

 

[shernren]

Only if you follow recent anthropological practice and call any species in the genus Homo "human". If you equate "human" to H. sapiens, then the Dmanisi skulls are definitely not H. sapiens. In fact, they are transitional individuals between H. habilis and H. ergastor.

The context is that Mark is fond of claiming that there is a gap between the 600cc habilis and roughly 1000cc erectus skulls, necessitating a massive inexplicable jump. He loves to ignore the 800cc Dmanisi skulls that very conveniently fill that gap.

The difference between the two deductive schemes is that the second is not a necessary attribute of atheism. Therefore the second deductive argument is flawed. However, atheism must believe that natural = without God. Without that belief, atheism is not possible.

The belief that 2 + 2 = 4 is not a logically necessary attribute of atheism, but it is statistically necessary. Do you know any atheists who don't believe that 2 + 2 = 4? I don't. Therefore, the statement "All atheists must believe that 2 + 2 = 4" is a fair statistical inference from the data at hand. And in that regard, both of my deductive schemes are on equal footing.

But you are still affirming the consequent implicitly, by asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking isn't "Is natural = without God a necessary attribute of atheism"? It could be, while also being a necessary attribute of some other belief position.

The question you need to be asking is "Is atheism a necessary consequences of natural = without God?" And the answer is no.

What's more, that belief natural = without God is contrary to theism.

Indeed. But atheism and theism are not mutually exclusive opposites. If they were, then your logic would be sound - but there is the possibility of deism or semi-deism to contend with.

Now, if you believe that what is natural requires deity to render it so, that is theism, is it not? If you believe an "intelligent agent" is not needed, that is atheism. IF you don't know, that would be agnosticism.

You are using the term "atheism" more broadly than most of us would. Where does the natural originate from? If you answer that it takes God, then you are a deist; if you answer that it doesn't, then you are an atheist.

Here it depends on where Newton thought the "laws of gravity" came from and what it took to sustain the laws. I would say that Newton thought that God worked both by establishing general laws, but that, at least in this case, the natural was not sufficient on its own and required "tweaking". --" In his case, God had to routinely do supernatural things." -- This idea isn't scriptural because it is still god-of-the-gaps, but it's not saying God is absent from "natural", either.

Do you have any quotes about his beliefs in that regard?

That's not agnosticism. Agnosticism is not knowing whether God exists or not. I'm not sure what you have defined, but it is not agnosticism the way Huxley defined it (who coined the term) or any of the standard definitions you will find today.

Well, "God may or may not exist" is equivalent to not knowing whether God exists or not. And the only way we could be uncertain about God's existence is if He did not have divine action were He to exist. An atheist however believes that God, if He exists, must have divine action, so that to them the lack of divine action (as they perceive it) is sufficient to disprove the existence of God. So my definition is equivalent to the classical definition; I wrote it the way I did to demonstrate how it is related to the question of what one believes about divine action.

Somehow, you keep omitting a major belief of Judeo-Christianity: the universe depends upon the will of God. God sustains the universe. All those "natural" things happen because God wills them each and every time.

I said:

Classical/Abrahamic theism - God has divine action, both providential and miraculous, and His actions are partially comprehensible through revealed religion.
​

Providential divine action is the action of God in sustaining the universe's normal behavior; miraculous divine action is the action of God when He chooses to suspend that normal behavior; together they exhaust divine action in the universe. I did cover what you have said; I was simply very succinct about it.

This is god-of-the-gaps theology. And yes, I will agree that many Christians have that view of God. But we are not talking about the people who hold an idea, but the idea itself. Ideas are independent of the understanding of the people who hold them.

What you are doing is equating deism to god-of-the-gaps. That equation is not valid. Deism may, or may not, involve God sustaining the universe. Mostly what deism involves is rejection of revelation:
"Deism is knowledge of God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a "revealed" religion. " deism.com/deism_defined.htm

By this view, Mark cannot be a deist because he very much believes in revelation.

How can you be a deist and still truly believe that God sustains the universe?

In any case, what you are describing is the Enlightenment humanist deism. That is one flavor of deism, but not by any means the only. And that's why I used the terms "semi-deism / practical deism" for those who do trust that the characteristics of God are revealed in the Bible, but nonetheless believe that His divine action is only characterized as miraculous intervention while ignoring providential sustenance. Have you read about the analysis of much of America's Christianity as being "moralistic therapeutic deism"? Moralistic therapeutic deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is what I have in mind when I label their beliefs as deistic.

I agree with what you said about secondary causes and about free will, so I won't repost those parts of your post. Finally:

BTW, deism is no more Christian than atheism. If it is "inhospitable" to say a self-proclaimed Christian an atheist, isn't it equally inhospitable to proclaim that individual a deist?

Sure! But at least it's true.

 

[mark kennedy]

So you don't want to talk about the theological problems of creationism/ID. OK. I can certainly see why you would want to avoid that.

I'm just avoiding talking to you in here, this is not a suitable place for a debate. See you in the common forum. I was puzzled at being labeled an atheist, couldn't resist the curiosity of how someone could come to such a bizarre conclusion. Deist is equally confusing but if you want to pursue this I'm always hanging around, come and see me in the common forums.

Have a nice day
Mark