New BioLogos book on evangelicals “changing their minds” about evolution

As an observer of many years on UD I have appreciated the willingness of ID scientists, philosophers and Christian theologians to challenge the methodological naturalistic assumptions of evolutionary biology. I understand why TE is a popular position among many scientists and many religious church goers. Despite the fairly obvious atheistic implications of evolutionary biology they still want to believe in some kind of god and some kind of meaning to their life and hope after death, however, they also desire the approval of the “scientific” and “educated” crowd of their peers. I understand why it is popular, however, that doesn’t make it any less foolish scientifically and theologically. I would suggest that TE stands for terrible evolution and extremely terrible Christian theology. As others have noted, from a methodological naturalistic perspective TE fails completely by trying to insert an intelligent being and plan of some kind into an otherwise completely materialistic fluky process. No truly committed evolutionary biologist is going to accept TE from a scientific perspective, rather it is tolerated as a practical tactic for deluding people and politicians into thinking that biological evolution is not inherently atheistic. There is no question that the tactic has been powerful in paving the way for the state to use its resources to disseminate the religion of evolutionary biology and its anti-christian implications through the school system. As a chess move TE has been an extremely useful pawn. As far as Christian theology goes TE is also an extremely effective pawn in moving gullible people away from a conservative Biblical evangelical faith in CHRIST to a very sandy constantly changing liberal view which has produced most of the liberal dominated denominations today. People in Christian circles who believe in TE by logical necessity have to believe their Jesus is the creator of every disease, mutational disorder, violence, suffering, pain and death, not as a consequence of humanities sin, but as result of His perfect will. It transforms JESUS from a compassionate being who loves and cares for His creation, particularly for people created in His image, into a mad scientist or a sadistic Joker who glories in hundreds of millions of years of his mutating creatures experiencing agonizing pain and death. Their Jesus is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fictional character: a compassionate physician during office hours and a torturous murderer the rest of the day and night. How anyone can see the TE world then or now as being “very good” is a stretch of the imagination beyond comprehension. Of course most TEs are very good at ignoring or camouflaging this logical conclusion of their beliefs, as that would be quicksand beneath their feet in their attempt of spreading their version of their evolutionary producing god. Anyone with a remembrance of even a scintilla of basic Christianity would choke on their version of god. Such is the blindness that has fallen on those who are being deceived by methodological naturalism in its atheistic view of origins. The evangelical churches that are now being invaded by TE will follow the same trajectory as their mainline counterparts, only at a greatly increased speed. The spread of falsehood and evil is increasing exponentially with advancing technologies. Praise the LORD that the Gospel message of CHRIST is also being spread throughout our world today. Amen, come LORD JESUS! aap

“Thou shalt not bear false witness.” It appears that in BioLogos Christianity, God actually is bearing false witness against the beloved Darwin. Naughty God, come down from Sinai this minute. mw

------------ "stories from a community of people who love Jesus and honor the authority of the Bible, but who also agree with what science says...." ------------ We cannot serve two masters, Truth and theory. If God did not create in six days, his word is dishonourable. It is unfit to last. Darwin's word is made the fittest word by fellow card (cross) carrying Judaeo-Christians, while intellectually crucifying the stone written word of Jesus, Triune One God at Sinai, God in Part and God in whole (so it may be believed): "and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isa 9:6). Wonderful Counselor! Have not such Christian brothers and sisters elected a cross-denying man (Darwin) to be counselor over them!? Made is Darwin, mighty lord of common descent origins; having authority higher than God's majesty. Nobody has every bottled natural selection, nobody ever created a life force/form by chance and copying errors, and nobody has ever changed one life form into a unique design using his formula. No one has ever reversed engineered a human to a simian, and no one as ever ascended a monkey into a human. No one as ever seen clear cut transitional fossils by the ton. Darwin lamented at such. A major prediction of his theory was bankruptcy from the start. That was followed by the demolishing of another major pillar of his, indeed he said it was the major pillar: embrological recapitulation theory. However, greatly added at the time by the false 'scientific' carvings of Ernst Haeckel which are still cited in textbooks! However, Darwin had faith. Faith in a cobbled together speculative natural selection, no doubt based on artificial selection minus intelligence, plus copying mistakes, and plus blind chance. Darwin had created a God for his own liking. There was nothing his natural selection could not achieve! Besides, it gave people a seemingly valid excuse, for not believing divine law. And that is where we are really at. The Judaeo-Christian scriptures are not books or science, but of the revelation of a super science, and of that truth. Darwin rejected the miraculous because he knew very well, it was in direct opposition to his system of belief, coated with a dusting of science. Such science so-called, is admittedly powerful. But that only goes to show, this world is held together on ideas, right or wrong, and boy, is common descent wrong in the face of the Almighty's Word; common sense, and the fact the fossil evidence solidly, on face value, points directly to stasis of kinds. mw

What intrigues me is this: They've decided to accept "evolution" precisely when what it means is coming under intense debate. In the context, that probably involves trying to win one for Darwin - now that the real money is for seeing off the ol' Brit toff. Gold watch and all that. But BioLogos was always the wrong organization at the wrong time. Nothing new here. News

@4 Evilsnack

I’ll change my mind about evolution when God changes His mind about it.

And, seeing that God is always faithful to His Word, I think we can safely say that time will never come. tjguy

Evangelicals are not changing thier beliefs that scripture is from Gods witness and so genesis is true. Its wishful thinking. If god says evolution is not true then mere men, tailless primates for some, must prove they know better. The competence on origins is no better then the competence on healing ourselves in serious ways. Evangelicals believe in the bible. So you have to prove evolution based on evidence. They can't and have not done it. Evangelicals are more impressed with bible authority then DEGREES authority. Then we see no evidence worth to shake a stick at. Robert Byers

Many scientists convert from evolution to creationism, convinced by the evidence - Jerry Bergman - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owDOD7WZvEw A Creationist Interviews Lawrence Krauss - podcast Excerpt: - 3,000 scientists and professors, nearly, (most of whom hold a Ph.D. in some field of science) who reject secular Darwinism to varying degrees as named online by Dr. Jerry Bergman - 30,000 U.S. public high school biology teachers do not endorse Darwinism in class - 100,000 college professors in the U.S. alone who, according to Harvard researchers, agree that "intelligent design IS a serious scientific alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution." - 570,000 medical doctors in the U.S., specialists in applied science, say God brought about or directly created humans. Whereas Darwinsim is dominated by storytelling, the field of medicine is an actual applied science (see definition and applied science section below) within biology that is practiced by highly educated professionals. Thus it is significant that 60% of all U.S. medical doctors reject the strictly secular Darwinist explanation for our existence, with three of five docs agreeing that either God initiated and guided the process that led to human life or that God specially created human beings as we are. http://radio2458.rssing.com/chan-8944617/all_p2.html List of 3000 PhD level Darwin skeptics http://www.rae.org/pdf/darwinskeptics.pdf as to this claim: "100,000 college professors in the U.S. alone who, according to Harvard researchers, agree that "intelligent design IS a serious scientific alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution." I found a survey with a total number of Professors in U.S. of 630,000, so the numbers actually did crunch to a little bit over 100,000 for Darwin sceptic professors

Of note: I personally disagree with Young Earth Creationism and hold to an old earth view bornagain77

I'll change my mind about evolution when God changes His mind about it. EvilSnack

BA: "But alas, in Darwinian evolution you have no mind to change. Nor do you even have the free will to change your mind if you had one to change." Exactly. CannuckianYankee

as to:

'evangelicals “changing their minds” about evolution'

But alas, in Darwinian evolution you have no mind to change. Nor do you even have the free will to change your mind if you had one to change.

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

In other words, in a shining example of 'poetic justice, in the materialist's/naturalist's denial of the reality of God, and their denial that God had anything directly to do with personally bringing them into being, the materialist/naturalist ends up denying that they themselves really exist as real persons, but instead that they are merely neuronal illusions:

"that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor

supplemental notes:

Scientific evidence that we do indeed have an eternal soul (Elaboration on Talbott's question “What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?”)– video 2016 https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1116313858381546/?type=2&theater

'Brain Plasticity', the ability to alter the structure of the brain from a person's focused intention, has now been established by Jeffrey Schwartz, as well as among other researchers.

The Case for the Soul - InspiringPhilosophy - (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz's work) - Oct. 2014 - video The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism cannot explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70 The Case for the Soul: Quantum Biology - (7:25 minute mark - Brain Plasticity and Mindfulness control of DNA expression) https://youtu.be/6_xEraQWvgM?t=446

Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic thought, mind has been now also been shown to be able to reach all the way down and have pronounced, ‘epigenetic’ effects on the gene expression of our bodies:

Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes, - December 10, 2013 Excerpt: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.,,, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/

bornagain77