Nor do I. The belief that Earth’s geology and biogeography being the result of a recent worldwide flood is far worse.
Mormons are a kind of Universalist, believing in 3 heavens.
It is the Jehovah’s Witness belief that there is one heaven for 12,000 people for each of 12 tribes (total = 144,000).
Re the followup question about “whether/how particular subgroups of believers can be helped by GAE”:
I don’t disagree, and in fact I would say that is obvious. The question is whether the “small subset” is so small as to be insignificant, and the answer turns completely on how someone judges the significance of those people’s decisions and struggles. The GAE removes one barrier between “high view of scripture” and “ancient human animal ancestry.” I do assume that there are people who benefit from having this barrier removed but I don’t know how many of these people exist. The benefits include one less “problem” posed by human natural history, and also (potentially more important) the sense of belonging/encouragement one feels when finding other believers who are serious about the bible and serious about science (and, I guess we must add, serious about truth-telling). That latter benefit is not unique to GAE and is surely a benefit that PS and especially BioLogos can offer to believers who have integrity but who feel isolated. Same goes, I suspect, for J&JW, separate from evolution.
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Hmmm, it seems you are asking about deconstruction/deconversion but my comment was about people (many of whom I know and some of whom I walked alongside as they did this) who escaped creationism with their faith intact or even strengthened. Personally I was never a proper creationist but I was encouraged and strengthened (in my faith) by finding people who shared my commitments.
Not any more, at least according to the JWs who visited me a couple of years ago, when I asked them about it while noting that not only were there far more than 144,000 JWs now, but that they’d also be jostling with untold millions of future JWs for a place among those 144k.
At least three. I think only a select few get their own planet, and does each planet count as a separate Heaven?
But I digress …
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Science denial is the symptom. Authoritarianism masquarading as a “literal” reading of Genesis is the root (or at least closer to it).
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Agree that “science denial” is a symptom of something else, and therefore that attempts to “address” science denial through information or education can almost never succeed. I think this is well understood by those who study and write about misinformation. As for the root, I agree that authoritarianism is probably a major contributor but since I see “science denial” as a subset/symptom of “reality denial” and “decency denial,” I suspect that the forces that turn people into credulous hatemongers are more powerful and complex than a desire for authoritarianism. Still… that’s probably a lot closer to the truth than any focus on “science denial” could possibly get.
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Let’s say we had a gathering, a convention, of all the groups that are interested in interpreting the first chapters of Genesis. Let’s also assume that each group had a booth or table.
I think it is reasonable to assume that the BioLogos booth would attract those most inclined towards Genesis being mostly a combination of myth, legend, allegory and symbolism. Atheists would be part of the BioLogos audience for obvious reasons.
However, there are Christians who really want Adam & Eve to be just historical enough to invoke “original sin”. This group will find PS.org particularly appealing - for the obvious reason that the GAE scenario finds a way to enbrace full-throated evolution … and yet allow for God’s role in creation (without becoming Deistic).
Ironically, PS.org is not particularly relevant to Atheists - - atheists dont depend on Original Sin, so dont need an historical Adam/Eve.
There is just one problem! A colony of Atheists has occupied the booth for PS.org - - in order to convince Creationists that God is a superfluous notion.
But anyone who thinks it is easier to convert a Creationist into Atheists, than converting Creationists into Christian Evolutionists, is bordering on fantasy.
Is this becoming more clear yet?
@gbrooks9 I think you are mischaracterizing almost everyone here. There are people who may think belief in God is superfluous, but they are generally good about criticizing the argument being made and not the belief that motivates it.
There was one atheist in recent memory (name escapes me) who made these sorts of arguments, and even the atheists called him out for being wrong.
Then trip me the light fantastic. Join an Atheist or Christian Evolutionist group and watch the ex-YECs roll in, easy peazy. Ken Ham and his proxies does all the heavy lifting on the conversion. The hard core that remain cannot be converted, but if it weren’t for politics they could safely be ignored.
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Agreed. But in a Chicken vs Egg analysis, we need to ask what is the most efficient approach to re-wiring the Religion ==> Politics ==> Religion cycle?
If one lobbies hard against authoritarian politics, it doesnt get to the root of the problem.
But if one teaches how to blend religion with science, some of the pent-up energy for tyrannical rebellion goes out of the room (Creationists tend to see EVERY thing as either a nullification of their God, or an endorsement.
Not really – I had in mind Creationism → Theistic Evolution. By “their world”, I meant the creationist echo-chamber, “the wider world”, the scientific mainstream. When I said “a grand apologetic” I meant something like reading Joshua’s or Francis Collins’ books.
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FYI
I stated in my OP:
In considering atheists, it is important to note that many (most?) of us:
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have as little interest in interpreting the Book of Genesis, as interpreting the Vedas or Greek myth; and
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have little interest in deconverting anybody to atheism.
It is also important to note the differences in emphasis between Joshua’s book on GAE, his website peacefulscience.org, and the discussion forum discourse.peacefulscience.org. The second is not solely devoted to promotion of the views contained in the first, and the consensus of the third is, not infrequently, at odds with the views contained in the second.
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Nobody here is doing that.
Nobody here thinks that.
You persist is raising alarms over strawman positions. Is that just something you enjoy?
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I think the two may be quite closely related. The Right-wing authoritarian personality is hypothesised to include:
- a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
- a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.
- a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities.
That would seem to go a good way towards explaining both the credulousness and the hatemongering.
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I think one reason for this is that I, along with many (most?) atheists on this forum, am a Agnostic Atheist, as opposed to Hard Atheist. This means that, although we see neither evidence for the existence of God, nor good arguments for his existence, we likewise do not see evidence or cast-iron arguments for his non-existence.
Speaking for myself, I find that I have quite enough trouble trying to convince people of things that there is strong evidence and strong arguments for, to be willing to waste my time, lacking such ammunition, persuading people to a view that their preconceptions work against.
This atheist most certainly would not be part of the Biologos audience. I’d be much more likely to be looking for a booth staffed by experts in historical linguistics and culture. So the reasons you think are ‘obvious’ exist only in your imagination.
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I find myself in the difficult situation of needing to moderatate a discussion I am part of, so I have called in other mods to review this thread.
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