Francis Collins - is he a Christian?

ViaCrucis · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
Just most of them do, right.

You'll need at least some sort of sampling from the global Evangelical community about their opinion on Francis Collins in order to even come remotely close to making any sort of determination on this.

Also, you are aware that Francis Collins is an Evangelical right?

You're going to need more than just your prejudicial opinion in order to argue whatever case you're trying to make.

-CryptoLutheran

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

ViaCrucis said:
You'll need at least some sort of sampling from the global Evangelical community about their opinion on Francis Collins in order to even come remotely close to making any sort of determination on this.

Also, you are aware that Francis Collins is an Evangelical right?

You're going to need more than just your prejudicial opinion in order to argue whatever case you're trying to make.

-CryptoLutheran

He's a poor evangelical, since he denies the infallibility of the Bible. No true evangelical denies a literal Genesis, like he does.

ebia · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
I didn't say it was only American evangelicals.

You don't seem to have any basis for the figure at all

ViaCrucis · Jan 9, 2014

Sayre said:
Right.

The OP is trying (and failing) to cause division in the flock

It's blueforest/alvis/renew70/Emil Rez/various other sock accounts MO to play the game of "Only Fundamentalist Hyper-Calvinists are True Christians and that's why Christianity isn't worth believing".

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
He's a poor evangelical, since he denies the infallibility of the Bible. No true evangelical denies a literal Genesis, like he does.

Case in point.

-CryptoLutheran

ebia · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
He's a poor evangelical, since he denies the infallibility of the Bible. No true evangelical denies a literal Genesis, like he does.

No true Scotsman fallacy.

Sayre · Jan 9, 2014

Lame trolling attempt was too transparent.

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

ViaCrucis said:
It's blueforest/alvis/renew70/Emil Rez/various other sock accounts MO to play the game of "Only Fundamentalist Hyper-Calvinists are True Christians and that's why Christianity isn't worth believing".

-CryptoLutheran

No Jon, I suspect it's the "we'll just ignore the Bible and make up our own version of what we think should be Christianity and call it a day." Why even call yourselves "christians" if you're just going to be ignorant and invent your own religion and god? That is the height of ignorance and foolishness.

Tzaousios · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
No Jon, I suspect it's the "we'll just ignore the Bible and make up our own version of what we think should be Christianity and call it a day." Why even call yourselves "christians" if you're just going to be ignorant and invent your own religion and god? That is the height of ignorance and foolishness.

I see you are now entering your typical "woe is me" phase to go along with the fundy denigration game.

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

Tzaousios said:
I see you are now entering your typical "woe is me" phase to go along with the fundy denigration game.

Just stating facts. The game you people play of "Let's create our own god and religion!" is entirely dishonest and quite hypocritical. If you're going to follow the religion, then do it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, don't do it at all.

Tzaousios · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
Just stating facts. The game you people play of "Let's create our own god and religion!" is entirely dishonest and quite hypocritical. If you're going to follow the religion, then do it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, don't do it at all.

Nah, ViaCrucis is exactly right. We are on to your game. I have been since last week sometime.

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

Tzaousios said:
Nah, ViaCrucis is exactly right. We are on to your game. I have been since last week sometime.

So which god do you serve, seeing as how creating your own is better than following the one outlined in the Bible?

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

I am still wondering where any mention of Calvin came from? I have yet to even bring him up. Calvin had nothing to say about evolution since the theory was unknown at the time, for the most part.

ebia · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
Just stating facts. The game you people play of "Let's create our own god and religion!" is entirely dishonest and quite hypocritical. If you're going to follow the religion, then do it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, don't do it at all.

But you don't get to define what that religion is.

Tzaousios · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
So which god do you serve, seeing as how creating your own is better than following the one outlined in the Bible?

I don't see how this "question" is relevant since you have not demonstrated that I have "created my own god." That being said, I know full well it was a rhetorical question to begin with.

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

ebia said:
But you don't get to define what that religion is.

Exactly, I don't. This was my point entirely; Jon and T-man don't get to define their god or religion either. If you're going to go with the Bible, let's do it. Balls to the wall, 100% maximum velocity.

The evangelical community is clear: God created humans in their present form, less than 10000 years ago. Almost half of all Americans agree to that statement. So by this establishment, Collins is a heretic and not a true, "Bible-believing" Christian. He doesn't get to pick and choose what to follow and what isn't. The evangelical community has plainly established one must believe in a literal creation event less than 10000 years ago to be a member. We don't get to decide that.

All 3 of you who are attacking me, falsely I add, are doing so out of ignorance and should be attacking the community that preaches this. I'm just relaying the message.

ebia · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
Exactly, I don't. This was my point entirely; Jon and T-man don't get to define their god or religion either. If you're going to go with the Bible, let's do it. Balls to the wall, 100% maximum velocity.

You don't get to define how the bible should be read either.

The evangelical community is clear: God created humans in their present form, less than 10000 years ago.

Some subset of "the [modern north american] evangelical community" don't get to define it either.

Almost half of all Americans agree to that statement.

do they, and so what?

So by this establishment, Collins is a heretic and not a true, "Bible-believing" Christian.

Most Christians recognise that a diversity of view is still possible. "Heretic" does not mean "disagrees with me", or even "wrong".

He doesn't get to pick and choose what to follow and what isn't. The evangelical community has plainly established one must believe in a literal creation event less than 10000 years ago to be a member.

There is no evangelical community in an organised sense to make that statement. Even within individuals and such organisations that do exist and have an expressed view,.. there is a leap from "Genesis should be read as factual..." to "you can't be an evangelical if you don't read it as factual". And then we have to remember that N America is not representative of the whole world nor evangelical of Christianity

Emil Rez52 · Jan 9, 2014

ebia said:
You don't get to define how the bible should be read either.

I don't. I just go by what I'm told by others.

Some subset of "the [modern north american] evangelical community" don't get to define it either.

do they, and so what?

They at least quote the Bible consistently, unlike Collins et al.

Most Christians recognise that a diversity of view is still possible. "Heretic" does not mean "disagrees with me", or even "wrong".

That is how it is used.

There is no evangelical community in an organised sense to make that statement. Even within individuals and such organisations that do exist and have an expressed view,.. there is a leap from "Genesis should be read as factual..." to "you can't be an evangelical if you don't read it as factual".

And then we have to remember that N America is not representative of the whole world.

Aside from Collins, what evangies read Genesis as anything but literal history? Bill Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias are both literalists.

You really think the evangies in Africa and South America are not reading the Bible literally? lol

ebia · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
I don't. I just go by what I'm told by others.

Except you're being very selective about who you allow to tell you that.

They at least quote the Bible consistently, unlike Collins et al.

That's doubtful, but in any case something can be used consistently wrongly, or wrongly consistent. If you go into a library and treat all the books as any one genre you are being consistent, but inappropriately so.

Aside from Collins, what evangies read Genesis as anything but literal history?

Most outside N America. Most evangelical Anglicans etc inside including, say, John Goldingay.

Bill Lane Craig ... are both literalists.

Is he?

You really think the evangies in Africa and South America are not reading the Bible literally? lol

Not in the way N Americans think of it, except where we are talking about recent N American sourced church plants.

hedrick · Jan 9, 2014

Emil Rez52 said:
The evangelical community is clear: God created humans in their present form, less than 10000 years ago.

By definition. Evangelicalism was a reaction against mainline Protestantism. The primary reason it was created was to support an inerrant reading of Scripture, which mainline Protestantism didn't hold.

That isn't the historic position of the Church, ancient or modern, nor is it the majority position today (by definition, since the Catholic Church doesn't hold inerrancy, and they are a large fraction of Christianity).

Of course most Christians have believed in the literal accuracy of Genesis, but that was because until recently they had no reason not to. It wasn't, as it is today, a rejection of evidence in favor of a literalist reading of Scripture. By and large Christians have (with occasional grumbling) accepted the findings of science. That's because science was itself a development within a Christian culture (with a bit of help from Muslim culture in a period when it was relatively enlightened). The traditional view is that the Bible and observation of nature are two parallel ways of understanding God. It's called the "two books" approach (referring to "the book of nature").

Francis Collins - is he a Christian?

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