So Christy and Beaglelady are who you and @Eddie refer to as Biologos Leadership? oy vey
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No mention of BeagleLady. Christy is not leadership, but she echoes today on the forums what I’ve heard from leaders.
You don’t “believe” in evolution. You accept the findings of evolutionary science as provisional true until new results confirm or modify the provisional truths.
Dr Swamidass is a practicing evolutionary scientist who is also a practicing Christian.
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Eddie mentioned Beaglelady in one of his long dissertations on nothing of consequence. I would like everyone here to take note that Biologos is an empty shell of an organization. No real leadership, no real mission statement, no real agenda nor purpose.
That’s too much. The fact that these two exist do not mean there are not others there with greater weight than an anonymous poster and a forum moderator.
I put it in quotes because of that, it’s just how people commonly phrase it in my community.
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The people who work there or post on the forum are great people. Nothing wrong with the people. I am talking about the institution, the 501c corporation funded by Templeton.
Sure, and Christianity and all religions are very divisive. Once you say you are Christian, the next question is “what kind of Christian”? Then you say what kind of Christian you are and the next question is what branch of that kind of Christian are you? You do this until you get down to you either are “one of us” or “not one of us”
I will say though, in defense of my fellow Christians, that I believe a lot of work has been going in to making Christianity less divisive. I work with college-age young adults in an institution run by baby-boomers. Things aren’t always easy but I do see a people on opposite sides of a lot of divisions (generational, political, theological, racial) getting to know each other and trying to have meaningful conversations. Peaceful Science is that kind of place, and while there is certainly a lot of polarity in the media and on the national scale, locally I find things are often much better.
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Hahaha… right! There’s nothing but bliss and agreement on the science side!! Just go to any thread here and you’ll see!! 
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Glad to hear about your work to make Christianity more inclusive, more tolerant, and just especially among college age young adults. I guess that means that you are LGBTQ tolerant? Accepting of SSM? And tolerant of pre-martial sex? Ok with woman’s reproductive rights?
Oh man, are you trying to get me fired? 
Important Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
What I personally believe is largely irrelevant and I don’t teach in areas that address those specific subjects.
However, if I were to describe my campus, in general, I would say we are wrestling with what it means to hold fairly traditional evangelical theological beliefs on gender, sexuality, the family, etc. while also striving to be a welcoming community expressing Christ-like love. Being an open enrollment college we get students from all kinds of backgrounds (only about 1/3 of the students actually come from the denomination the school is a part of).
Tolerance can mean a lot of things. Do we have LGBTQ students? Absolutely. Faculty strive to create an environment safe for all students. But theologically, most would say any sexual activity outside of a (traditional) marriage, including homosexual behavior, is not within God’s will for His people. We certainly do not believe our LGBTQ students should be subject to abuse or violence in any way and we recognize that this is a very difficult issue for people.
I don’t really want to get into abortion/reproductive rights as there is already a thread on that. Briefly, my school, similar to how it tries handle LGBTQ issues, tries to balance the long tradition of theological beliefs of the church with a loving/welcoming/forgiving attitude. The university has expressed support for those facing an unplanned pregnancy, while also affirming the sanctity of life (including both mother and unborn child).
That might make us not as “tolerant” as I’d suspect you’d want. I think I prefer a tolerance like we have here on Peaceful Science where we don’t have to all agree, we just need to have civil dialog and respect our common humanity.
Considering, for example, in the 70s students on my campus couldn’t go to movie theaters or dance, women couldn’t wear pants, and anything but the most conservative politics was virtually verboten, I would say we’ve made some progress.
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These are just my views as an atheist that belongs to a christian family and grew up in the church. Please tell me if I have any this wrong. Corrections are strongly encourage. With that said . . .
A few months ago my uncle was in town and there was a discussion about these topics. It turns out that there was a large rift in his own congregation over the concept of welcoming and incorporating LGBTQ believers into their congregation. I could tell by the way he talked about it that it was a very emotional and contentious debate within the congregation.
How to teach biology and how to address social change may seem like unrelated topics at first, but I really don’t think they are. In many cases (this qualifier applies to everything hereafter), congregations are looking for a wrote theological stance. Believers are uncomfortable with open ended theological stances, such as the concept of being open minded about questions of origins so that subsequent scientific discoveries don’t cast doubt on the authority of scripture. I think the same basic human reaction is seen in questions about the place of the LGBTQ community in the larger church community. Congregations are drawn to “this is right, this is wrong”. Grey areas aren’t as attractive.
From a purely human point of view, I think it will be fascinating to see how christian congregations change in the West as change in society seems to accelerate.
Important Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer since I am now retired and don’t care what my previous employers think of me.
Sound like a typical college campus with a lot of sex going on between consenting adults. 
A recent survey was done at Christian colleges across the country. “in the past month, have you engaged in any type of sexual activity?” 97% answered “yes” and 3% were deemed to be lying. 
That sounds like tolerance to me. All except that “not within God’s will for His people”. How do you know what God’s will is for the LGBTQ people on your campus?
How’s woman’s healthcare on campus? Perhaps there are doctors/clinics/drugstores in the area where woman can get birth control, and the morning after pill and the 10 week or earlier chemical abortion pill all over the counter, free or at nominal cost, if the woman so chooses? What is the college doing to protect woman from date rape? or assault on campus?
I think that you personally are being very tolerance of others, especially woman and LGBTQ students and everyone else.
Your campus of the 70’s sounds like Sharia Law - no movies or dancing, barkas for woman.
Yes, I would say you did make progress as the arc of secular humanism is slowing reaching everywhere. I hope it continues progressing.
Michael, there is debate about the science but in debating about the science we never get into the personal beliefs of the scientists. I doesn’t matter if the scientist were Chritian, Catholic, Buddist, Jewish, or Nones, the scientist has to back up with more and more evidence if he/she is making bigger and bigger claims.
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Most of the debate is between practicing scientists on one side and a grab bag of others on the other side. Certainly, there are exceptions on the anti-evolution or ID side, with a few legitimate scientists mixed in. Certainly there are non scientists arguing for evolution too.
Keeping those exceptions in mind, however, the overwhelming majority arguing against evolution are computer programmers, engineers, Philosophers, and anonymous posters. For all the furvor, many just don’t have a grasp of the basics of biology, let alone understanding of the advanced facts of biology.
Among those that affirm evolution (@John_Harshman, @evograd, @pevaquark, @NLENTS, @art, @Joel_Duff, @T_aquaticus, @Dan_Eastwood, @glipsnort, etc.) we see graduate students to distinguished scientists of several relevant fields. Most of us have never met in person, but very quickly get on the same page. We acknowledge and retract errors regularly, change our minds, and even argue against bad arguents for evolution. (Which of the ID and anti-evolutionist advocates argue against bad arguments against evolution? ) We come from a wide range of religious views and no one seems to mind that I am a confessing follower of Jesus, the One who rose from the dead.
So, this disagreement “on the science side” is largely outside of science. Yes there is acrimony, but it is not within science per se. There is just a gap in knowledge between most scientists and the public and we are here to help bridge that gap. Origins is far to important to tell people: “just trust us” so we to show the willing what we have seen.
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I have to say how surprising it is that the real bone of contention between you and BioLogos would be over your willingness to take a small part of the Bible literally!!! (the Special Creation of just 2 humans) … in exchange for supporters to accept a huge area of science (evolutionary creation of everything else).
Doesnt this essentially prove BioLogos is not particularly interested in science … and more fixated on a narrow (though figurative) Biblical interpretation?
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Hmm - the adaptationist wars? The controversy over molecular clocks? String theory… perhaps science is just more adept at controlling dissent.
But the interesting question to answer is whether scientists are equally undivided on their theology? And if not, does that not simply show that scientific questions are either easier to answer, or less crucial.
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There are plenty of controversies. But there isn’t much divisiveness. There’s more of an attitude of “let’s agree to disagree.”
What we need now, is a sociologist to tell me that my assessment is completely wrong.
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Why do we not have a sociologist of science here??? You just can’t get the staff.
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