An example of “the shrillness of the atheist rhetoric” would be useful too.
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I’m tempted to start dumping some of these comments in the Teh Garumenk Clinic (which is mispelled to prevent it from showing up in searches when I need it). Please comment thoughtfully.
George, I’m having a hard time understanding this statement. You must know that one scientist criticizing another is different from an atheist critisizing a Christian. But if I take you statement literally, then you do not understand.
I think you have bumped into a version of The Demarkation Problem, and what seems clear to you is not clear to others. You might consider how to better express this in a way that is more clear to everyone: Christians, atheists, scientists, and non-scientists.
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@Roy ,
Right now @tim 's posts get the prize for shrill rhetoric. 2nd Place goes to @sfmatheson’s departing posting where he reveals his expectation that I should have apologized for putting my sarcasm into print (namely, "P.S. should stand for “P.redatory S.cientists”).
How shrill would the person who says "P.S. should stand for “P.redatory S.cientists” be considered, in your opinion?
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I demand a recount
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- The final count is 3.
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Happy now? 
It’s so disheartening to work so hard at destroying the faith of Christian scientists, with my shrill rhetoric and my constant assertions that [scroll scroll scroll] evolution works without the existence of God, and then finish second. George must be especially heartbroken since he seems to have missed the medal stand altogether, despite giving a tour de force of shrill rhetoric. I would feel sorry for him, but I’m a cruel soulless godless destroyer of hope.
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Not only that, but we have to try to compete with Theistic Evolutionists whose similar contention that “no special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way”, will likewise be destroying the faith of Christian scientists – some of whom will be the very TEs doing the destroying – how can we possibly compete with that?
It’s very disheartening. 
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@Tim ,
Your continued rush to reinterpret my points seem to indicate a lack of down to earth appreciation of human nature.
Imagine the average American child, raised in a New England Congregationalist family. He or she attends church regularly, and occasionally goes out of the way to attend special Easter and/or Chrismas services. In school, the child starts to learn amazing facts about, and the intricate developments seen, in evolutionary analysis.
It wont be until the teen years when the child suddenly realizes that a rational mind requires some kind of reconciliation between the “Son of God” and Darwin’s “champions of evolutionary science”. Ultimately, the easiest solution to fit 2 pounds of ideas in a 1 pound sack is allow for a divine plan, God’s plan, which robustly embraces providential and naturalistic causes & effects. This allows for a strong adherence to evolutionary doctrine, even while accepting a limited number of one-off (Christian) miracles that the sciences are unable to reject with complete certainty.
The compromise does not interfere with a career in the evolutionary genetic sciences. Eventually the individual in question encounters PeacefulScience.org, and reads GAE. He/she is fascinated by, and drawn towards, these writings that so perfectly describe a faith-and-science compromise held by him or her for a few decades.
The person “spectates” on PeacefulScience boards - - thinking that maybe a financial contribution, or an enthusiastic book review, are in order … considering how well GAE engages his/her personal views.
But over time, as more and more online discussions are followed, he/she doesnt find any explicit support for a posture of Evolutionary Christianity. In fact, every time a Creationist argues that God has a divine design at work, atheistic evolutionists argue that there is no need for God.
But wait… why isnt there a dozen voices agreeing about a divine design, wrapped up in a chain (non-deistic in character) of evolutionary causation? The bias is unrelenting, even though Joshua teaches that faith in God does not refute evolutionary processes.
The support that PS should be extracting from the general non-creationist audience never really gels. The Congregationalists and other conventional denominations come to feel ambivalent towards PS.org .
A popular critical mass is never really attained - - all because the policy towards atheists is one of “enabling”, rather than reminding the various audiences that it is much easier to convince creationists that “God employs evolution” than to convince creationists that “there is no God”!!!
I wasn’t “reinterpret[ing]” you @gbrooks9, I was directly quoting the Wikipedia article on Theistic Evolution, which stated:
- No special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way;
This is in turn a close paraphrase of Francis Collins – his exact words were:
- Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required. [The Language of God p200]
In other words these are the exact words of the “Christian scientist” who is most probably the most famous living exponent of TE.
His words are remarkably similar to the phrasing in @sfmatheson’s post above. That was my point.
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that I have a strong background in statistics, so consider your claim that your mythical “average American child” was/is/will-be “raised in a New England Congregationalist family” to be absolutely, carpet-chewing bonkers
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that I didn’t bother reading any more of your unsubstantiated, self-serving fairy story
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that I am thinking of you when I think of the following Churchill quote:
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject
- that I’m also thinking of the following quote, often mistakenly attributed to Einstein:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
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that I think you are both a fanatic and insane for thinking that a further repetition of your fairy story will convince me when all your prior verbiage has failed.
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That I am shrugging at all this nonsense and walking away.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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So by “shrill atheist rhetoric”, you must mean ‘shrill rhetoric by atheists’, and not ‘shrill rhetoric in support of atheism’, since @Tim isn’t producing any of the latter. Ergo, your complaint that Christians would be alienated is unfounded.
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This forum isn’t exclusively American.
Try also to imagine British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand children. Perhaps even Indian, Mexican, Dutch, Scandinavian and other children, many of whom grow up in Christian families and learn English.
If you can’t do that, then at least recognise that the average American child doesn’t live in New England, and doesn’t attend church regularly.
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Don’t forget Nigeria – which has the 3rd largest population (after US & UK) of English first-language speakers, and is 34% Christian (only slightly lower than NZ at 37%).
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