@gbrooks9, if you’re worried about this, why don’t you weigh in on the discussion that I started for the express purpose of expanding the GAE approach to the rest of the primeval history (Gen. 1-11)? It seems like that’s the exact type of discussion you’re claiming is being derailed by atheists.
If you can imagine the most rare and exotic example of Christian it seems there is always at least one man or woman, living or dead, who happily embrace said Christianity (“rare and exotic”).
Who could have imagined Jehovah’s Witnesses somewhat chilling belief that after 144,000 transmigrate to the bosom of the Father, all the rest of humanity is obliterated.
Or anticipate the Mormon theology describing virtually all humanity going to 1 of 3 (or more?) different levels of Heaven… and that the more descendants a man has (from multiple wives), the more spiritual authority a man earns - - until the man earns his own planet!
Why do I linger on the magnificent diversity which Christianity can produce?
Because for every Christian like you (“a Christian who views A&E as mythological” and has no interest in "promot[ing] [GAE]), it is quite likely that there is also a Christian like you - - who devotes much of his or her energy to promote GAE!
BioLogos has, or had?, a large number of Christians who felt Adam/Eve were just poetic allegory. And yet, they spent many hours attempting to convince YECs that Adam/Eve didnt have to be historical … to bring more Christians away from superstition to science.
@Mercer , here is the rub!: an historical Adam&Eve differs from all the other possible apologia (including six days of creation, tower of Babylon, the global flood, 12 actual sons, etc) because the amazing St Augustine hung the doctrine of Original Sin, like an albatross, around the necks of A&E!
After 17 centuries, Western culture has placed a uniquely crucial function to Original Sin. If there was no historical A&E, then there could not be Original Sin! The irony is that during the past 17 years, millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians have lived lives devoted to Christ - - without any belief in Original Sin, even going so far as to intentionally oppose Augustine’s doctrine!
So here is why Christians like you might might be inspired to promote GAE: GAE makes it possible to cling to an historical Adam/Eve WITHOUT dismantling Evolutionary science in the process!
Caught you! You wrote “… if we’re talking about science rather than faith…”
This is exactly the kind of back-handed dismissal of faith that suppresses the role of faith behind GAE.
And why, after all this time, discussions here continue to drift (inevitably) towards “Godless Evolution”.
This tendency does not fill the “Peaceful” gap. If you WANT peace, then a quiet tolerance of the faith that requires a very special interpretation of A&W will be required!
That would mean pretty well all discussion of evolution, including GAE. Theistic evolution and GAE both generally hold that no gods are needed to account for any evolutionary processes or facts.
Separate but equal, I guess? Well, thanks for finally being clear on something.
Whereas I have sufficient respect for Christians to assume that most of them to not suffer such a fragile attention span.
It seems to me that greatly underestimates the degree to which most creationists find many aspects of evolution to be distasteful, common descent in particular. Any view that accepts common descent is going to be a non-starter with them.
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That is my plan!
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I disagree. There are some creationists for whom YEC is almost a religion of its own. But many if not most YECs in my experience are just people who think Christianity is incompatible with evolution and an old earth, and GAE is meant to reach those people. Unfortunately, in online debate spaces like this, the first group of creationists is overrepresented.
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If you were to devote less effort to finding “Gotcha!” moments and more to understanding what other people say, this would go a lot better.
I think you have missed my conversation points completely.
How are atheists distracting discussions of evolutionary science away from Christians given the fact that evolutionary science is neutral on whether evolution is god-guided or not. It is quite clear that god isn’t necessary for evolution to proceed as it has done on Earth for the past 4 billion years.
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