BioLogos exists to reconcile Christians to evolution, which today seems to mainly mean Darwinism (“modern science” ).
From their prez Deborah Haarsma:
When people accept the AiG narrative that these scientific conclusions are essential to Christianity, then their faith is often shaken when they encounter the incredible explanatory power of modern science. In fact, we hear from individuals on a daily basis who have experienced a deep crisis of faith when their young-earth creationist beliefs were exposed as scientifically (and biblically) weak. While we are grateful that BioLogos has helped recover and strengthen the faith of these Christians, we mourn the fact that countless others have drifted away from the faith. Young-earth creationist teaching is causing unnecessary harm to the reputation of the Church and creates a stumbling block for people who are considering the Gospel. More.
I don’t know about the Ark. I’m a Catholic; I don’t have to take a position.
This I know: I’ve met many people who lost their faith listening to BioLogos’ Jesus-loves-Darwin-and-so-should-you stuff.
… BioLogos is just so Sunday.
I am not interested in playing Big Victim Stakes with Haarsma, but there are social costs as well as intellectual ones to the cause BioLogos promotes.
In the States, it’s got so bad that even though Darwin invented scientific racism, a major US political party, deafeningly committed to fighting racism, is still pushing for a Darwin Day. And it is virtually impossible to deal with all the lies and hypocrisy surrounding that or the fallout. One cannot even get a serious discussion going.
Anyway, the smart faith-losers woke up and signed on with ID. Story for another day.
Bluntly, the world has moved on from BioLogos’ issues. BioLogos is Templeton’s bad investment.
Still, Ham owes Haarsma a deluxe ticket for the free publicity she has provided.
Fair’s fair.
Now back to science news. – O’Leary for News
See also: Bill Nye Encounters Ken Ham’s Ark Nye is certainly adapting well to his new career as a pill.
and
Royal Society meeting: The worms aren’t coming back to the can
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News
Let it be known there are people that dispute that Darwin invented scientific racism.
Maybe it has something to do with all those books being published espousing scientific arguments for racism prior to Darwinism?
News:
This I know: I’ve met many people who lost their faith listening to BioLogos’ Jesus-loves-Darwin-and-so-should-you stuff.
They lost their faith in God because of the idea God did not create man ex nihilo? Interesting
In the States, it’s got so bad that even though Darwin invented scientific racism,
It seems just as arguable that Linnaeus in his classification created scientific racism, though since racism predates that event the basis of racism seems independent of any scientific justification ,After all ,even the Bible has been used to justify slavery,
The modern history of scientific racism has Darwin’s prints all over it. Whether he invented it or not, he made it what it was and is. Cf the Nicholas Wade non-affair.
Google human biodiversity, dedicated to all things Darwinian and race.
My problem isn’t the facts (I’m in the news business after all) as that there is so little honest discussion of them. So much silence and evasion.
Honest discussion sanitizes a lot of things and enables us to get past them.
But I dream on. If I hear *one more* commentator explain that Darwin and Lincoln, born on the same day, were both “liberators”, … oh wait, I might hear ten of them and most don’t work for Airhead TV.
So they do bear some responsibility for dealing with facts.
Added: Here’s one of tons of UD posts on the subject.
It did not take long for the defenders to come and defend the indefensible as if on queue
“Canadian researchers who commit scientific fraud are protected by privacy laws”
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/07/12/canadian-researchers-who-commit-scientific-fraud-are-protected-by-privacy-laws.html
My faith in science is shaken when I encounter its lack of explanatory power when it comes to…
– Why something exists instead of nothing
– Where information came from
– Why so many constants seem fine-tuned for life
– How life began
– How matter can be conscious
– How matter can be moral
– How matter can perform abstract logic
– How RM+NS ultimately results in a trustworthy scientific process
They lost their faith in God because of the idea God did not create man ex nihilo?
What religious group claims God created man ex nihilo? Even Genesis says that man was created “from the dust of the earth”, not ex nihilo.
J-Mac at 6, it’s a problem, but keep in mind that fraud is a crime. It could result in imprisonment, let alone loss of licences, reputation, etc. Some judicial systems give a great deal of protection to the accused in such cases.
Evidence for a criminal case can be subpoena’d by the Crown – provided that enough evidence exists that a conviction for fraud might result. So the question some of us would ask is, does enough such evidence exist?
As a Canadian taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for frauds, but I also do not want to pay for a hair trigger system that could result in partisan persecutions. It’s a balance.
OT: Axe’s book “Undeniable” has shipped today and I should be getting my copy of it Thursday! 🙂
Conversations with Douglas Axe: How Did You Become Interested in Science? – video clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zivbYI94JIw&feature=share&list=PLR8eQzfCOiS3-MQT4SEaLNloU5v2poZKf
In Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, biologist Doug Axe restores the place of intuition alongside intellect in considering the question of life’s origins. For more visit http://www.undeniabledesign.com
Bible readers are familiar with the story of the incident on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, as recorded in Luke’s gospel, chapter 24 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24&version=NIRV). It provides great insight into humanity and is the subject of some incredible art (if you like the Neoclassical art era), including this painting https://fanaimasala.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/way_to_emmaus.jpg.
Most people don’t know there were actually two groups of pilgrims on the road to Emmaus that evening. Jesus’ encounter with second group, I am told, went like this:
—————————————————–
That afternoon, an indeterminate number of observers, between two and three, who had seen Jesus’ crucifixion were progressing along the walking path. Jesus came up to them, but they were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They said to him, “The things that have happened in Jerusalem.”
“What things?” Jesus asked them.
They responded, “Where in the world have you been? Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet, powerful in word and deed and respected by all the people, and we had hopes he was going to deliver the Jewish people. But they nailed him to a tree and buried him in a tomb. But this morning some of our women disturbed us, saying that the tomb was empty, but there was no sign of him.”
Jesus said to them, “O you foolish people, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” And he began to explain what all the Scriptures said concerning himself.
But they objected, “You can’t seriously take those scriptures literally! All that about a flood, and a tower of Babel, and a six-day creation, and the parting of the sea, and a rock that gushed water on command, and a suffering Servant who would bear the sins of the world, and about rising from the dead. It’s all meant to be metaphorical. Taking it literally just interferes with Jesus’ true message, and causes people to lose their faith. Frankly, it’s rather embarrassing.”
Jesus, with a pained look on his face, slowly shook his head and left them, saying softly to himself, “O foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”
News:
The modern history of scientific racism has Darwin’s prints all over it. Whether he invented it or not, he made it what it was and is. Cf the Nicholas Wade non-affair.
Then maybe you should have said that rather than he invented it. That is what made the question whether or not he invented it relevant.
My problem isn’t the facts (I’m in the news business after all) as that there is so little honest discussion of them. So much silence and evasion.
Which facts are those? ID or evolution human diversity exists,
Honest discussion sanitizes a lot of things and enables us to get past them.
Maybe though that seems simplistic,all problems are not the result of misunderstanding
But I dream on. If I hear *one more* commentator explain that Darwin and Lincoln, born on the same day, were both “liberators”
Lincoln certainly was and for some Darwin is, perhaps you should take your own advice and have an honest discussion and see if it enables you to get past.
, … oh wait, I might hear ten of them and most don’t work for Airhead TV.
Funny
So they do bear some responsibility for dealing with facts.
We all do News
What a pitiful reason for existing!
And just plain old wrong as well!
Mike1962:
What religious group claims God created man ex nihilo? Even Genesis says that man was created “from the dust of the earth”, not ex nihilo.
Good point, man was created with dust which came from the earth that came from nothing. You want to answer my question? How does the belief that God used natural processes rather dust to create man cause many people News has met to lose faith in God? Both require God.
What a pitiful reason for existing!
And just plain old wrong as well!
Haarsma says:
First of all, she is attacking a straw man here. AiG would NOT say that these scientific conclusions are essential to Christianity. They believe they are true, but if you don’t accept them, it does not mean you are not a true Christian.
Yes, if young people are brainwashed at college into believing the “explanations” of modern science that are based on naturalism, their faith will be challenged. You cannot successfully merge naturalism interpretations of the history of life with the biblical version. One or the other has to go. Haarsma wants the biblical version to go.
But like News pointed out, there are plenty examples of people losing their faith because they accepted this version of naturalism – they can see that, if the modern version of science is true, then the Bible and God are not necessary.
As I said, the opposite is also true.
Darwin may not have invented racism but he certainly made it possible to be ‘an intellectually fulfilled racist’. Just ask the NAZI scientists.
as to
Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce would be first to vehemently argue with you that whomever used the bible to condone the practice of slavery was severely twisting scripture out of context. In fact, whomever is a racist because of the Bible is blatantly ignoring the fact that the bible clearly teaches all men have been created equal by God.
Whereas, whomever is a racist because of Darwinian evolution is being perfectly consistent to Darwin’s teaching of ‘favored races’. That was the subtitle of his book for crying out loud!
Leftists talk of jailing people for disagreeing with them about catastrophic climate change, yet to flagrantly ignore the brutality inflicted on the human race by Darwinian thinking in the 20th century really ought to be punishable crime.
The unmitigated horror visited upon man, by state sponsored atheism, would be hard to exaggerate,,, Here’s what happens when Atheists/evolutionists/non-Christians take control of Government:
‘Scientific rascism’, was long predated by Biblical Rascism. The number of quotes from Luther alone is astounding in their volume, and vitriol; he’s not a pleasant man. He had no contact with Africans but one can safely assume if he did, he would gleefully dredge up Noah’s three sons to boost that troublesome myth.
If Darwin said politically incorrect things, and used language that would be unacceptable today, that is because he was the product of his closed minded and rascist, and oh yes, very Christian age.
Herman Otter, editor of ‘Christian News’, is an advocate of Holocaust revisionism.
Jarah Crawford, Vermont Assembly of God minister, says creationism should be more creationist because it allows for the evolution of races.
And of the big “H” himself loathed Darwin as evolution put a spanner in his great myth of German superiority.
This old Darwin invented ‘modern’, or now ‘scientific’ rascism collapses at the feet of digging up the facts, and doing genuine research; Hmmm, why does this sound familiar?
I expect BA to turn up now with several screeds, misquoting, half-quoting, and qutoe mining of vague little known characters from sources that are at best secondary, and at worst from the websites he usually visits, which aid his incredible confirmation bias. I visit CRI, AIG, EvNews, and here t keep uptodate with the latest in the world of creationism. I also vist ScienceDailey, WEIT, PThumb, several university sites and NASA. Once a year I also reread the Dover Decision, in its complete and preserved entirety, at Talkorigins. I think it’s fair to say I read your side in depth, why don’t you do our side the same courtesy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
OT: Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed released today.
UD management asleep at the wheel. 😉
News @ 9
“As a Canadian taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for frauds, but I also do not want to pay for a hair trigger system that could result in partisan persecutions. It’s a balance.”
Are you suggesting that there are different kinds or levels of fraud? Last time I checked my dictionary the word “fraud” was still closely correlated with intent.
Right on, BA! On target!
When we consider who has the power to suppress unwelcome results, we see right away that the view most likely to cause suppression is the majority view of the scientific community.
– Axe, Douglas. Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.
People who give in the rejections of yEC are simply not the sharpest people. So YEC could be culling the herd.
The modern YEC movement is well done and successful relative to ability to reach audiences.
Biologos, which banned me for saying the anglo American civilization was superior because of the Puritan/evangelical motivation affect on raising the common peoples moral and intellect quotient. They called me racist.
I don’t think they are very Christian but we are told not to judge (i guess i just did, i don’t know).
If they want to prove genesis is false then they must demonstrate when IS the bible telling a accurate account and when not. Every second page?
How does this work.
Evangelicals trust God made the bible and don’t trust the few humans who say they know the bible is false from science.
Simple conclusion.
These “scientists” don’t accomplish anything in evidence. jUst speculation with a paycheque from us.
Evolutionism will not last 15 years i predict. As is.
j-mac at 20: In practice, when prosecuting fraud, lawful authorities must consider the likelihood of success in a given case rather than dictionary definitions.
Yep. As the Slate recently put it, “Most people who study evolution see no evidence of or need for God in the history of life on Earth. For them, something like BioLogos is a stopgap, the training wheels you put on your bike before realizing you can ride without them.”
for BA @16, who said this: “Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce would be first to vehemently argue with you that whomever used the bible to condone the practice of slavery was severely twisting scripture out of context. In fact, whomever is a racist because of the Bible is blatantly ignoring the fact that the bible clearly teaches all men have been created equal by God.”
My sentiments (and yours) are with King and Wilberforce, but it’s plainly true that the Bible was often used to support race-based slavery in the USA. Strict Calvinists were among those who did so most vigorously; see this series by historian and Church of Christ pastor Monte Hampton: http://biologos.org/blogs/ted-.....e-question
also for BA @16, where he said, “Whereas, whomever is a racist because of Darwinian evolution is being perfectly consistent to Darwin’s teaching of ‘favored races’. That was the subtitle of his book for crying out loud!”
Be careful, very careful. What you say is highly misleading. When writing in a general biological context, the default meaning of “race(s)” for 19th century authors was “types of animals and plants,” not specifically humans (though humans are a type of animal and were thereby included by the general reference to “race(s).”
A few years ago I tabulated all references to “race(s)” in the Origin of Species, and the overwhelming number are to various types of plants and/or animals, even to “race-horses” or the “race for life.” Such things as cabbages, pigeons, and species or varieties are by far the most common meanings, in context. Just a handful of references involve humans.
Just as it was in Jesus day, as it was and is today. In Jesus day, people often misused religion as a means to get and hold onto power. In fact, the religious leaders of Jesus day, who oversaw the massive Temple, did not even recognize their own Messiah, Jesus, who was standing right before them, (save for perhaps Nicodemus), even though their very own scriptures, which they studied diligently, prophesied His coming. So as it is today. Too many pastors today are willing to compromise scripture and say what is popular instead of what is true. Such as the people of Biologos who are willing compromise what is true in order to look good in other people’s, particularly Darwinists’, eyes.
That Darwin was racist is no hidden secret. That his pseudo-scientific theory was used to ‘scientifically’ justify the slaughter of millions of ‘inferior’ races is also no big secret.
The only people who would even try to deny such a undeniable fact of history are people who have a vested personal, even a religious, interest in it not being true.
And people wonder why can’t get past the race thing everyday in our schools we teach one group they are better, the other group that they are just above Gorilla’s and then we wonder about the hate we see….. Darwin is the cause of more misery in the last 150 years that all the misery combined before him….. Yet people hang onto his words because hey it makes for intellectually fulfilled atheism….
Ted,
Exactly, race was simply the term then for separate populations within a species. Populations that can adapt to their environment and survive continue to diversify, while those that can’t adapt die out.
Strange thing is that Creationists usually claim that even the typical young-earth Creationist doesn’t dispute that part of Darwin’s theory; that of course populations often adapt to changing environments, and that this will result in variations within a species. But then in the next breath they’ll claim that this claim is racist!
And although Darwin applied the term races to humans, he actually questioned in Descent of Man whether different groups of humans form true biological races. At one point he even seems to mock those that try to discern how many human races exist, pointing out that those that have tried have claimed anywhere from 2 to 63 races.
Andre,
Wow, did you go to school in the 1840s??
That certain human races were just about certain apes was a common belief among pre-Darwinists and Darwin’s opponents. Darwin actually spent a lot of time in Descent of Man arguing against, as it was a particularly common belief among polygenists. At the beginning of the very same paragraph as the quote in #28 he claims that there is a “great break” between man and apes. He claims that the gap exists because of extinctions. And just as the gap will widen even further in the future due to future extinctions, that the gap was smaller in the past. And so, far from claiming that a gap didn’t exist, he was attempting to explain why it exists, and why it is so big.
Interestingly, as far as the science of genetics itself is concerned, Africans are actually genetically superior to Caucasians. In other words, The Africans should be worried about Caucasians contaminating their gene pool, not the other way around as the Nazis thought.
And although Africans are more genetically healthy than Caucasians, the entire human race, Africans included, are actually devolving instead of evolving into some type of super humans as the Nazis thought:
Supplemental notes:
No such people as european Americans. No such people as African Americans. There are americans and then African citizens of America. The truth. words matter.
The bible strongly hints that all there is IS segregated populations that come under influence from the environment. So there are Semitic Blacks and hamitic blacks in africa. Its just about where you live. Not a DNA trail from common ancestors.
In fact evolutionists have troub;e explaing the looks/race concepts of man. This because they must first have a population evole to certain looks/traits and then separate and get new languages. It doesn’t work.
A creationist easily sees people changing irrelevant to language.
For example all europeans, almost. spoke thier new l;languages at babel and before moving to europe in these segregated groups. THEN they turned white.
Has anyone seen this trailer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7e6gLht6OQ&app=desktop
It relates directly to the topic of dishonest claims about race and racism.
I wish that BioLogos had confronted Darwinian (yes, real) racism as it really is. That would have been far more useful than their “Saving Darwin” schtick.
BA77, I know those quotes you give us (constantly and repetatively), because I regularly read these two books you have at best thumbed through. Before you bluster up and claim to have read and studied them fully, I must say, please remember Commandment 9 of the Decalogue, in the Reformed tradition.
Here’s a Darwin quote for you;
“Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason,without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”
Because you are so plainly a Darwin expert, I’ll let you go back to your well thumbed copies, and tell me where it came from; hint, it’s from part one:’The evolution of man’. Should be easy for you to find as it’s the only part of ‘The Descent’ creationists read, or rather glance at, and cherry pick from.
rvb8, and exactly how do you think that particular quote helps you in the least in your atheistic beliefs?
Sympathy, reason, and ‘noblest part of our nature’ are all attributes that find their root in the Theistic worldview.
When you find material particles displaying sympathy, reasoning to truthful conclusions, or displaying sacrificial love for other material particles, you let me know will ya?!
Sedgwick, Adam to Darwin – 24 Nov 1859
Excerpt: There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.,,
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2548