RE: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

I'm sure he knew there were other kinds of Christians, but as I wrote,
he may have figured that the Baptists were the best form of
Christianity. Therefore, if they don't accept evolution, why look more?
There's no bother in finding out what other "Christians" believe if you
don't appreciate their theology (such as Catholic, Mormon, JW, Lutheran,
Quaker, etc.). In other words, he may have thought the best religion
that Jesus had to offer was the Baptist denomination... so if not that,
then nothing.

...Bernie

________________________________

From: David Opderbeck [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:22 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: _American Sci Affil
Subject: Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

Bernie said: Wilson probably figured the Baptists were good
representatives of the best form of Christianity, and the preachers
(general consensus) were adamant about evolution being evil and against
God... so why look further?

Do you really think that an exceptionally intelligent person such as
Wilson was incapable of learning that there are kinds of Christians
other than fundamentialist Baptists? I'm not so smart as Wilson, but I
looked further, because I had met Jesus.

On Nov 27, 2007 5:10 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:

". But what if Wilson's response had been to continually ask God to
help him better understand the truth. "

Wilson probably figured the Baptists were good representatives of the
best form of Christianity, and the preachers (general consensus) were
adamant about evolution being evil and against God... so why look
further?

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 10:25 AM

To: John Walley
Cc: _American Sci Affil

Subject: Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

I suppose the point here is that the Church was at fault for not giving
Wilson other options. Perhaps there is a fair point there given the
particulars of Wilson's upbringing. But what if Wilson's response had
been to continually ask God to help him better understand the truth.
Would Wilson then have found organizations like the ASA that existed at
the time? Would he have found friends and mentors to help him work
through the questions everyone faces when they grow out of a childish
fundamentalism into a more mature faith? Would he have felt freer to
question some aspects of "evolution" as a metanarrative while at the
same time broadening his understanding of theology and scripture? In
short, do we really have to buy hook, line and sinker the story:
"Church: bad; Wilson: innocent?"

On Nov 26, 2007 11:01 PM, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Here is a relevant and chilling quote from E.O. Wilson from
"Consilience".

http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9805/consilience/index.html

On a far more modest scale, I found it a wonderful feeling not just to
taste the unification metaphysics but also to be released from the
confinement of fundamentalist religion. I had been raised a Southern
Baptist, laid backward under the water on the sturdy arm of a pastor,
been born again. I knew the healing power of redemption. Faith, hope,
and charity were in my bones, and with millions of others I knew that my
savior Jesus Christ would grant me eternal life. More pious than the
average teenager, I read the Bible cover to cover, twice. But now at
college, steroid-driven into moods of adolescent rebellion, I chose to
doubt. I found it hard to accept that our deepest beliefs were set in
stone by agricultural societies of the eastern Mediterranean more than
two thousand years ago. I suffered cognitive dissonance between the
cheerfully reported genocidal wars of these people and Christian
civilization in 1940s Alabama. It seemed to me that the Book of
Revelation might be black magic hallucinated by an ancient primitive.
And I thought, surely a loving personal God, if He is paying attention,
will not abandon those who reject the literal interpretation of the
biblical cosmology. It is only fair to award points for intellectual
courage. Better damned with Plato and Bacon, Shelley said, than go to
heaven with Paley and Malthus. But most of all, Baptist theology made no
provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most
important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy
to the thoughts of God? Might the pastors of my childhood, good and
loving men though they were, be mistaken? It was all too much, and
freedom was ever so sweet. I drifted away from the church, not
definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist no more.

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Received on Tue Nov 27 17:29:00 2007