[asa] Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks < Let the Bloodletting Begin!

Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks - Let the Bloodletting Begin!Defending a theory which happens to be accepted by some materialist atheists may indeed involve defending materialist atheists but that is a secondary result: One defends the theory & therefore defends people (whether friends or not) when they're attacked for teaching it. Butr Dembski also wants us to jump to the conclusion that anyone who does this is also defending materialism and atheism. Of course this is false.

You may also take my standard serious qualifications about your closing statement about nature as revelation as read.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dennis Venema
  To: David Opderbeck ; David Heddle
  Cc: ASA
  Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4:15 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks < Let the Bloodletting Begin!

  More gems from the comment thread at UcD:

  "I would have preferred peaceful co-existence with the TE's. My first choice was to agree to disagree-to seek common ground-to dialogue in a spirit of friendliness and mutual respect.

  But it was they who decided to go on the attack, defending their materialist atheist friends. It was they gave theological respectability to the atheist lie that ID scientists smuggle religion into their science. It was they who appeared in a court of law for the sole purpose of institutionalizing that lie, even as they swore on a Bible to tell the truth."

  So, TEs "went on the attack" by defending someone? Doesn't that imply a prior attack by another party? The author seems to think TEs should just stay out of their nice anti-science culture war against the "atheist materialists."

  "In any case, it is the TEs who have abandoned the Christian world view. According to the Bible, God reveals himself in scripture AND in nature. This is not some mere exegetical reflection, it is an undeniable declaration of fact. To deny it is to take an anti-Christian position. If a design is not detectable, then it can hardly be a revelation."

  If design / God's revelation is limited to a small number of gaps in natural causation, then ID has severely restricted God's revelation in nature, and is very reluctant to point out exactly what is revelation and what is not. So, the flagellum still counts in the ID world (I think). Is that it? Dembski / Behe have consistently refused to answer the question of what is designed and what isn't, yet detection of design is apparently necessary for nature to count as revelation.

  No thanks. TEs view ALL of nature, including the process of evolution as God's revelation, which is the intent of what Paul is getting at in Romans. IDers are forced to say that only a small subset of nature can be viewed as revelatory, and that any advance in evolutionary understanding reduces that subset.

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Received on Tue Jun 17 17:15:25 2008