Re: Evolutionary creationism

On 13:51  11 Mar 2025, RonO said:

On 3/11/2025 4:00 AM, David wrote:

On 10/03/2025 22:20, RonO wrote:

>
>
https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-evolutionary-creation
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https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-is-biologos-
different-from-evolutionism-intelligent-design-and-creationism
>
QUOTE:
Evolutionary Creation (EC) is a Christian position on origins. It
takes the Bible seriously as the inspired and authoritative word of
God, and it takes science seriously as a way of understanding the
world God has made. EC includes two basic ideas. First, that God
created all things, including human beings in his own image. Second,
that evolution is the best scientific explanation we currently have
for the diversity and similarities of all life on Earth.
END QUOTE:
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QUOTE:
The Identity of BioLogos
Core Values
Christ-centered Faith — We embrace the historical Christian faith,
upholding the authority and inspiration of the Bible.
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Rigorous Science — We affirm the established findings of modern
science, celebrating the wonders of God’s creation.
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Gracious Dialogue — We strive for humble and thoughtful dialogue
with those who hold other views, speaking the truth in love.
END QUOTE:
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It looks like Biologos consists of Christians with some knowledge of
science that want to fit what nature actually is into a Biblical
context.  They seem to be a diverse group with some of them being
evangelical Christians.  Essentially they want to do what the
Reason to Believe old earth anti-evolution creationists have not
been able to do.
>
It seems like they understand the limits of science, and they are
not trying to rewrite a cosmic mythology to replace the one that the
Hebrew inherited from their neighbors.  These neighbors may have
been civilized for thousands of years before the Israelites, but
their flat earth cosmology is pretty far off the mark.  Any attempt
to rewrite the Biblical creation mythology would be subject to
future rewriting as a better understanding of nature continues to
unfold.  They just seem interested in conforming what we currently
understand about nature with a few chosen Biblical claims about our
existence in this universe.
>
They are not trying to get their religious beliefs taught in the
public schools.  Unlike the Reason to Believe old earth
creationists that have undertaken the impossible task of trying to
take the Bible as literally as possible.  The Biologos creationists
seem to have given up on doing that.  Instead they seem to be
picking out parts of the creation mythology that they might be able
to conform to what we know about nature.  They are theistic
evolutionists and some of them are supernatural tweekers like Behe
that have not given up on their god's supernatural involvement in
the evolution of life on earth.
>
The Biologos creationists differ from the ID perps by how they
approach science.  The ID perps focus on gap denial, while the
Biologos creationists focus on claiming that their god can be
responsible for what we already understand about nature.  They are
still not abiding by Saint Augustine's admonishment about not using
the Bible to make claims about what we can determine for ourselves
about nature, so my guess is that their efforts can still fail to
represent nature accurately depending on how consistent with the
Bible that they want to be.
>
Ron Okimoto

 
 
What is YOUR thinking on this, Ron?
 

 
I've admitted to being baptized into the Methodist church as an adult.
At that time you had to go into a meeting with the pastor and be
interviewed before being baptized.  I told the pastor that I did not
take the Biblical view of nature literally, and he told me that, that
was acceptable.  It is one of the things that Nyikos lied about to
harass me for over a decade and a half.  Anyone can look it up, and
the Methodists take no stand on those aspects of the Bible.  There is
a YEC faction in the Methodist church, but they coexist with theistic
evolutionists and old earth creationists.  How the Bible got it wrong
about nature is not an issue in the Methodist church.  You can look
into it and the Methodist church has been against teaching creationism
and ID in the public schools since the start of the scientific
creationist efforts.  As such I have never been inclined to use any of
my science endeavors to support my religious beliefs.  Nature is just
what it is, and science is just the study of nature.  I have always
understood that my religious beliefs are not rational, and has never
depended the same rational evaluation of nature that science depends
on. 

But there is also overlap between what religion and science respectively
hold. A common ground, if you will. This agreement is also to be
celebrated.

My take is that most religious scientists have the same view of
the difference between science and religion.  They are not trying to
justify their religious beliefs through their science.  They are just
trying to contribute their part to a better understanding of nature.
I see no reason to lie about what the situation currently is, and have
always been against the anti-science efforts of creationists.
 
Ron Okimoto