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

Bernie wrote:* 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.*

Why on earth would he think that? Why on earth would he even think that
fundamentalist Baptists were the only form or "best" form even of Baptists?
If that were his conclusion -- *"I have to reject Christianity altogether
because the 'best' form of Christianity is an untenable Baptist
fundamentalism"* -- then I have no sympathy whatsoever. Any idiot can read
a little church history and get past that.

I think what you want to say is that his early experience damaged him
emotionally to the point where he was not capable of objectively evaluating
Christianity beyond his experience with a particularly narrow
fundamentalism. That, I think, would be fair dinkum. I've you've grown up
fundamentalist, and you have a certain kind of mind and personality, you'll
know that it can create emotional baggage that's hard to unpack without
getting off the bus.

On Nov 27, 2007 5:28 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:

> 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 17:45:31 2007