If you hadn’t noticed, the only thing YECs hate more than atheists , are CASEs
@gbrooks9 I have saved myself some grief by not approving a few comments. However, I will direct you to the portion of my sentence that you want to ignore (in bold). If I encounter someone doing good science, I may thank them for being a good scientist. If I thank them for doing good science for some other attribute, that risks being insulting.
Here I can help.
There are also quite a few atheists at Biologos.
Honestly, there isn’t much to talk about. It could make a nice sermon though.
ETA: Biologos is a much bigger forum, so naturally there are more CASEs there. There is also a great deal more theological discussion there. PS hasn’t hit a critical mass of CASE members for that sort of discussion to take off here. There is also criticism at Biologos much like the criticisms sees here. The difference is the Biologos mods tend to shut those thread down pretty quickly.
George, I’m a C.A.E.S. and I’ve experienced no hostility from the atheists on this forum. I feel like they’ve all been very cordial. Maybe you’ve been treated more unfairly than me, but I suspect some of the hostility you feel is imagined.
See what I mean about you expressing yourself poorly? Nobody appears to know much of what you’re trying to say, and you’re responsible for that. Who is this “one atheist” who understands you?
It really isn’t clear what you mean there, or in most of that post of marginal coherence. What do you mean by “give priority”? The purpose of GAE is to present a scenario that allows those who think they need a historical, created A&E not to have to reject science. One need not accept a historical A&E in order to present or argue for the non-conflict between GAE and science or between GAE and the bible*. Even an atheist (lowest form of vertebrate life, apparently) can do it. Whether we do or don’t need God in evolution is irrelevant. So whence comes your persecution complex?
*In fact, as far as I know Joshua has never said that he thinks the scenario is true.
Much epidemiological research, for instance. In order to demonstrate the association between smoking and cancer, it was not necessary to assign members of the public to groups that either smoked or did not smoke.
By “exert(ing) hegemony”, do you not mean “being part of the discussion”?
Of course, your proposal is fundamentally different from GAE as it would be detectable thru the scientific method. Not, specifically, that God was guiding the mutations. But it would be evident that mutations were not occurring randomly, but with specific goals in mind.
Many of us are capable of hypothetical discussions in which propositions we do not believe to be true are considered to be true for the sake of argument.
It is not irrelevant to my point i hypothesize that CASEs dont feel the need to argue with Atheists - - I suppose because, in part, they already share the belief in the validity of Evolutoonary science.
I think my persecution complex come from trying to turn the volume dial down here on this list. The objections get louder, and more insistent that i am imagining things.
My apologies, I am late to this party. You are entitled to your opinion but that this is NOT my experience.
Our creationists and ID-ers stand out in the crowd, and there are some atheists and Christians who wear their heart on their sleeve. But otherwise I could not tell you whether any given poster is an atheist or Christian and nor do I care when the subject is the science of evolution.
Yet another incoherent response. But you seem to be insulting somebody, if I understand anything there, and it probably isn’t yourself. Is that “turning down the volume”, then?
Alas. Well, I can at least console myself that I got to be part of @Dan_Eastwood’s parade. I’ll leave it to the reader’s discretion to decide which emoji they think I am.
Pretty sure they’ll take away my author’s card if I say ‘no’ but also genuinely I’d be happy to and thanks for asking!
Briefly, the book is an attempt to illustrate how science provides something constructive to Christian theology–namely, words and concepts that can be used to enrich our metaphorical vocabulary for discussing God–rather than just seeming to take things away (e.g. God did not create that way or this miracle can be explained via physical processes). It may or may not also be an attempt to get more people to read Squirrel Girl and Ms Marvel comics.
And while I’m at it, I’ll remind folks of my constructive neutral evolution simulation, inspired by the X-Men Danger Room but rebranded as the Quandary Den to avoid unwanted attention from Disney lawyers. There are threads for that here and here; the latter representing more recent work. Perhaps someone would like to pursue developing it further as a tool for research or education?
I would consider myself a CASE and understand a bit of where @gbrooks9 is coming from. I was super excited for this forum to be a conversation space about GAE and sort of a new path towards discussion for Christians who want to both hold the Bible as inspired scripture and feel that science tells us truth about the world. There have been elements of it, especially in the beginning, but the endless ID and creationism/atheism back-n-forth “debates” just get old.
To @gbrooks9 point, I did not expect to find many atheists here. They can be a bit aggressive and overwhelming at times, but to push back on him a little, they are also a lot kinder and thoughtful than many Christians in my circles imagine. I’m not worried about them being here, I just think sometimes the “unresolvable impasses” can tend to swallow up all the energy. That was the case for me.
I have unfortunately been pulled into university administration and haven’t had much time to be active here but every time I’ve poked my head back in it seems like the same debates with the same people are right there.
I’m interested in unpacking the implications of GAE: how does the approach of using both religious and scientific hypotheses while maintaining a clear distinction between them actually work? What does being a human of the text mean? What about going beyond just Adam & Eve, are there other similar places in the Bible where a similar treatment would be helpful? How would God actually work through evolutionary processes, etc. Those are what I find interesting and I take that to be what @gbrooks9 is getting at.
@gbrooks9, if this is what you’re interested in too, then why don’t you start a discussion about an aspect of GAE that you find intriguing? No one’s stopping you, that’s what this forum is for. I for one am also very interested in the details of GAE, how it can fit with other biblical events such as the Noahic Flood, etc.
This bit is what I find most interesting. There have been attempts at such a discussion, but they have all tailed off into mist. You might try starting a thread on this or any of the other topics you mention. It will probably be derailed quickly as usually happens (though generally it’s a creationist that initiates the derailment).
Ive not asked for fewer Atheists here. Ive asked that discussions about godless Evolution (not requiring any God) be moved out of the spotlight … and maybe into it’s own discussion area? How about a Godless Debate Room?
For me (as a Christian who is agnostic on the question of whether a real Adam and Eve existed), I see GAE as a way to bridge the divide between TE/CASEs like myself and YECs. It shows them that a literal reading of Genesis is still consistent with science.
Note that there’s a difference between godless evolution, in which god does not intervene and “not requiring any God”, in which God need not intervene, and for that matter between both of those and denial of God’s existence. Further, if we’re talking about science rather than faith, there’s really no way to insert God into it.
