Is Evolution a Great White Whale?

@pnelson,

Why are you arguing as if PeacefulScience.org opposes design by God? All Christians here already accept your position… maybe to slightly different degrees or flavors.

I fully accept God’s participation in making timely injections of design as once Earth’s life is created … not because it cant be done from the Big Bang… but because once we have humans with free will, the entire course of Earth’s future needs God’s resets to accommodate the Non-Natural outcomes of Free Will !

I’m not. I just think the pool player analogy doesn’t work.

2 Likes

@pnelson

So then forget the pool shot scenario.

Joshua says Adam and Eve were specially created and God used Evolution for everything else.

What exactly keeps you from embracing this proposal?

Well…@pnelson is a YEC in the ID movement, and a friend. To his credit, he probably embraces the Genealogical Adam (and me) as much as he embraces Behe’s position, if not more. Given that I am across the aisle from him, that is going more than half way.

Notice, for example, that he has not claimed the GA is racist yet, so that is something :smile:.

2 Likes

@swamidass

So how does someone that knows you and the model intimately get himself caught up in arguing about Evolution with atheists - - even those who agree with much of your program.

Is there a reason it is so hard to step away from the Godless version of Evolution?

1 Like

People in the ID movement feel respected when we engage their arguments with fairness (who wouldn’t?). Several friendships have formed, and trust has grown, precisely because we are taking them seriously and engaging. @pnelson has been nothing but thankful for this.

There are many ways we are building bridges. The GA is just one way. Hearing out ID leaders is another. If and when they have a point, we should acknowledge it too.

I’m happy to say I believe I’ve formed a few friendships with them as well

2 Likes

It is hard because that has been ID’s nemesis for over 25 years. Maybe, they are all suffering from Dawkins PTSD :smile:. Seriously though, they work for/with the DI and DI is committed to arguing against godless evolution.

They are still wrapping their heads around Christians that affirm evolution like me. Their book from 2017 (Three Reviews of the Crossway Theistic Evolution Book) made explicit that they are not on board with BioLogos. @Agauger’s response to my review was thoughtful and interesting. It seems that they are willing to see Peaceful Science as a different, and new, category. I appreciate this, and their willingness to dialogue here. It will take some time to work out.

1 Like

@swamidass

I fear we have spoken past each other.

What i sense is that some would rather argue against a form of evolution that we reject tjan to publicly agree that God could use Evolution.

Ashwin is the most obvious case, not a solitary one.

1 Like

Have you ever heard of Moby Dick?

How about a McGuffin?

@swamidass

Is it your goal to “enable” a continuous Moby Dick disorder in visitor-after-visitor ?

… so that the average audience member PERCEIVES continued disagreement with your program… rather than see that an irrelevant rant is in fact more a foible of the rant’s author ?

Of course not. @moderators are working through how to manage this. It is complex, because people need to heard. We don’t want to silence people unless absolutely required. Moreover, with leaders like @pnelson and @agauger and others, they are always going to be welcome to dialogue with us. With them, we have a chance to learn something new, and to make progress.

We are still figuring it out, and I think this is important to get right for us to grow to the next stage. Give us some time, and send @moderators suggestions too.

1 Like

@swamidass,

I like this sentence i have quoted (above). It points to the logic for how to let a “crazy uncle” have his turn to speak about “fire in the theater” without harming anyone.

I trust it is understood by the @moderators that the alternative to SILENCING “a crazy uncle poster” is to let him rant against Godless Evolution in a section dedicated to such criticisms.

And yet it seemed to one or two that being put in a separate room and ALLOWED to expound on criticisms (that are completely irrelevant to your scenarios) was not a way to allow them to be heard … but was somehow, in fact, unfair!

The converse of this conclusion is that the only way to be fair to a “crazy uncle” poster is to allow him to interrupt or hijack a discussion with irrelevant comments. It took me ten minutes to realize i had just been “Crazy-Uncled” on the very topic of “crazy uncles”!!!

I’m hoping that we dont have moderators with their own “crazy uncle” problems.

@gbrooks9 you might want to start quoting this to people…

1 Like

Flagging this means the community should be flagged. What was morally wrong this time???
It was a thread about speech/censorship?!
Its going beyond normal funny.
oh well whatever

Seems you were off topic.

1 Like

What? You weren’t convinced by the demonstration in my video? :smile: