Christians battle each other over evolution

[moobu2]

The Discovery Institute – the Seattle-based headquarters of the intelligent design movement – has just launched a new website, Faith and Evolution, which asks, can one be a Christian and accept evolution? The answer, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, is a resounding: No.

The new website appears to be a response to the recent launch of the BioLogos Foundation, the brainchild of geneticist Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project and rumoured Obama appointee-to-be for head of the National Institutes of Health. Along with "a team of scientists who believe in God" and some cash from the Templeton Foundation, Collins, an evangelical Christian who is also a staunch proponent of evolution, is on a crusade to convince believers that faith and science need not be at odds. He is promoting "theistic evolution" – the belief that God (the prayer-listening, proactive, personal God of Christianity) chose to create life by way of evolution.

It sounds like a nice idea, but to my mind any time you try to reconcile science and religion by rejecting Stephen Jay Gould's notion of "non-overlapping magisteria" and instead try shoehorning them into a single worldview, something suffers. My concern is that science will take the hit – and Collins's speculative arguments about divine intervention via quantum uncertainty seem dangerously poised for the punch. The Discovery Institute's concern, on the other hand, is that Christianity will take the hit. "For Christians," they write on their website, "mainstream theistic evolution raises challenges to traditional doctrines about God's providence, the Fall and the detectability of God's design in nature." For them, reconciling evolution and religious faith is simply a hopeless endeavour.

I think it's interesting that the Discovery Institute – which has long argued that intelligent design qualifies as science – seems to have given up the game and acknowledged that their concerns are religious after all. It's equally interesting that the catalyst doesn't seem to be someone like Richard Dawkins pushing atheism, but Francis Collins pushing Christianity. Perhaps the Discovery folks realise that Dawkins's followers are never going to be swayed by intelligent design; Collins, however, might very well cut into their target audience of scientifically-curious evangelicals.

The Discovery Institute has now made it crystal clear that they have no interest in reconciling science and religion – instead, they want their brand of religion to replace science. Which makes it all the more concerning when their new website includes resources and curricula for high-school biology classes, and promotes the pseudoscientific documentary film "Expelled" as part of their campaign to introduce non-scientific alternatives to evolution under the banner of "academic freedom".

It's the "natural world is to amazing to have just happened without an intelligent designer" battling the "God of the gaps" (round one)

[old mark]

1. This area of the christian religion, like the Republican party, just keeps

on getting dumber every day. I guess it is too much to hope for that christianity as a whole will die out, although I would love to see it, but possibly these idiots will exhaust themselves fighting each other over nonsense within nonsense.


mark

[FreakinDJ]

2. The "Dumbing-Down" of Theology ????

I went to Catholic High School some 35 years ago and they were perfectly capable of seamlessly teaching Theology and Evolution in the same institution. In fact my theology teacher (a priest) made a very sound argument in support of both Evolution and Faith.

The best quote I have ever heard describing the current trend toward Theological Dis-Information is "They are Dumpster Diving the Bible picking and choosing which parts they wish to accept"

Here they have clearly made up the rest

[old mark]

4. They have no concept of the reality of the christian religion,

or of any other reality - they are believers in cheap magic and theatrics.

I am an ex-catholic ex christian who attended parochial school k-12 and I still have the scars to prove it.

mark

[Bill McBlueState]

3. Wow, I agree with the Discovery Institute about something.

Color me surprised.

"...mainstream theistic evolution raises challenges to traditional doctrines about God's providence, the Fall and the detectability of God's design in nature."

This is true -- if a god set the universe in motion and lets it evolve, it doesn't leave that god much room to resurrect the dead or turn water into wine. I suppose you could say, "usually science works, though sometimes there are miracles," but that sounds more like an argument of convenience than one that is demonstrably true or false.

[struggle4progress]

5. Those issues predate Darwin and evolution.