I will let you know when I have any direction otherwise. He has said that he wants his work to have as broad an appeal as possible. But I haven’t seen anything in writing from him saying that he is trying to change the views of some group other than Creationist Evangelicals - - which is a grouping that would include Young Earth and Old Earth Evangelicals.
@swamidass, let me know if any of my references to your goals need amending. I’m a good soldier.
“I haven’t seen anything in writing from him saying that he is trying to change the views of some group other than Creationist Evangelicals”
Yes, exactly (other than that proper English requires capital letters for neither ‘c’ nor ‘e’ in that sentence - would you like to explain this type of linguistic deviance from standard English or just carry on assuming it is understood?).
I don’t know which languages Joshua speaks, as he seems to come out sometimes with language meant for ‘other’ disciplines than either natural science or theology. He does token social observations sometimes that don’t know what they don’t know in making the statement or claim so boldly, bluntly & confidently as it was done. I’m not sure he is all that familiar reflexively with how much his language differs immensely from the low brow activistic proselytizing, know-it-all yet at the same time too often anti-science evangelicalism, and yet at the same time shares some expected similarities & sameness with it. If one grows up in the USA attending evangelical protestant Christian churches & believing in the teachings of the leaders of many of those churches, it is nowadays almost expected that a person will have some ‘challenges’ interacting with the ‘outside world’ and it’s various languages. This view has been suggested to me often with great concern & intensity coming from the speaker while discussing super-fragmented Christianity in the USA with Europeans and other religious humanists globally.
As for me, I’m fine with how Joshua is going about it so far, perhaps other than his inability to take a proper stand against even atheism (apparently it’s ‘thumbs up’ for evolutionary atheism at Peaceful Science!), which has imo negatively lurched the tone of the Forum from what is was pre-atheist arrival. I would rather talk about Peaceful Science with theists, not with an incorrigible atheist interjecting & diverting attention all the time and hope he will clarify the aims & (expected) expectations of the audience. It’s the ‘evangelicalism’ in a person that wants to tip the balance in favour of the atheist in case they in fact could still be saved, perhaps here at Joshua’s blog (!), even if in doing so it serves to destroy the communicative harmony needed to discuss science that is peaceful in more fruitful way than before (i.e. at BioLogos & other Forums). Joshua is the chair; the result of the Forum will be the chorus he conducts. ‘Militant’ atheists so far welcom too.
Either way, Joshua already is starting to recognise how pivotal different changes in language by discipline & field can be for what counts as ‘common’ interpretations of terms, which is partially it seems why he keeps harping on how difficult it is to define ‘human’ or ‘naturalism’ or ‘origin,’ etc.
The claim above could be helpfully weighed with a number. Roughly how much time, out of a total time pie of 100%, has Joshua given his professional &/or personal religious congregational efforts to ‘science & religion’ dialogue with Christians who are not ‘creationist evangelicals,’ or I would add, not ‘evangelical protestants’? Another way to ask, what percentage of Joshua’s time of engagement toward the mission of this Blog & Forum is dedicated to Roman Catholics’ & Orthodox Christians’ views of science & theology?
Well, your volume alone is a soldier, in this case just not sure if a faithful one to the religion bigger than Joshua that is Christianity. To this site soldiering, why not if you’ve got the time on your hands?
Let me quote the forum disclaimer here…
There is no way anyone could misunderstand that I am not an atheist. There is no reason to “take a stand” against it. It is obvious I disagree. However, that does not change that @Patrick and I have meaningful common ground. The fact that I am kind to him is not endorsement of all his ideas.
The faith I have is not threatened by atheism. Most colleagues, for goodness sakes, are atheists. I feel they add great value to the conversation. I see no reason to exclude them. Maybe can all find more common ground together.
As for my “audience”, I’ve already explained that too:
Of course we cannot forget about @Argon, the agnostic here.
The questions of Origins are grand questions. Everyone asks them. Where did we come from? Where are we going? What does it mean to be human?
The questions themselves are our common ground, even if your specific answers might be different. Everyone polite is welcome. We hope to define and defend common ground, and seek peace in the creation wars.
3 posts were split to a new topic: Are Atheists Evil? (No)
Of course, Joshua. And nobody is misunderstanding that, which is why it is not the point I was making.
You are not anti-atheism or at least have not made that part of your focus here at Peaceful Science. That is the point.
The fact that it is ‘atheists’ who promote ‘atheism’ is secondary.
Considering that Joshua is a scientist and that it is usually “creationist evangelicals” (especially the YECs and some OECs) who tend to be known for having disagreements with peer-reviewed science, I don’t find anything surprising in this.
Perhaps I’m less aware of other major religious groups who have similar conflicts with science, so I’m eager to be educated. (When I was young, Christian Scientists of the tradition of Mary Baker Eddy were a significant and vocal body in the USA. But I’ve seen their influence and numbers greatly wane in my lifetime. In fact, it is getting to where one can even use the phrase Christian scientist without being corrected by an editor. For most of my life I instinctively avoided that word-pair unless I was talking about that specific religion.)
Of course, there are other kinds of people who have major disagreements with peer-reviewed science, such as anti-vaxers and AGW climate change deniers. But those tribes aren’t necessarily known for basing their disagreements on religious positions. (Yes, I’m aware that some fundamentalist Christians in the USA cite particular scriptures in their denials of climatology science.) Moreover, I’ve always had the impression that this forum is more oriented towards origins-related topics. I may be in error in that presumption, perhaps because I first became acquainted with Dr. Swamidas in the Biologos discussion forum.)
I only now saw this officious posting. If i realized there was someone here from the grammar police, I would have brought my can of mace.
I use upper and lower case letters for tone and emphasis… since we can’t HEAR how these words are being spoken. My format is informal and conversational.
I hope that helps.
Here is a Pew Research Report on Christianity in Europe. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/05/24143010/Being-Christian-in-Western-Europe-FOR-WEB1.pdf
Majority of Europe is what is being labeled “non-Practicing Chrisitians.”