Religious Views On Evolution

Devils' Advocate said:
... I can say even less about Crean as this is the first I have heard of him. After doing some google hunting I did find a curious situation. There are plenty and plenty of rebuttals of Dawkin, many mentioning Crean. I could not find one single rebuttal of Father Crean however. And I did try quite a few combinations of questions. I'm not sure what this means, if anything; just found it interesting.
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Excellent observation :)

I confess I haven't read Dawkins either: except for his athiest T-shirts on Facebook. Lol
 
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Devils' Advocate said:
books. Still Dawkins is a huckster first.
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That is the thing...he is the rabid atheist...one many atheists wish didn't get the notoriety he does.
Devils' Advocate said:
There are plenty and plenty of rebuttals of Dawkin, many mentioning Crean. I could not find one single rebuttal of Father Crean however.
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he ain't big enough to warrant a rebuttal yet.

In most cases you first have to be up on the pedestal to be worthy of someone desiring to knock you off.
Lux said:
This is just great! Now I know what to get all my atheist friends for Christmas! :D
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How to win friends and influence people might be good reading as well.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
I realize you are joking (at least I think you meant that as a joke). It does raise a problematic issue within the framework of this discussion. It has been my experience watching many, many others, (not to mention my own internal struggles to attempt to remain neutral, which I fail at far more than I like to admit) that we lean towards the pov that makes sense to us.
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No, I wasn't joking. I don't think any of my atheist friends would be offended. Some of them will probably give me another one of Sam Harris's books anyway ... (for the record, I don't dislike Harris. He's a very articulate intelligent nice guy. His opinion on Trump is almost identical to mine. He's just wrong about religion, but hey, who's perfect, right? :p)

Devils' Advocate said:
Nothing Dawkins says is going to persuade a theist that he knows what he is talking about. And nothing Crean says is going to convince atheists that he knows what he is talking about.
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Well I'm living proof of changing one's worldview to what he formerly completely opposed. So, who knows?

Devils' Advocate said:
Certainly there is the rare occasion when one of the two groups 'Sees the Light' and joins the other camp, which works in both directions. They are a minority. The majority are preconditioned by society, by upbringing, by education and most of all by self determination that one side is in the right and the other is misguided. This majority is simply not going to be persuaded. It is an enormous stumbling block, for which I have no solution.
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We don't always have to have a solution. All we need is civil discourse, and love (like the Beatles' song). :D
 
wil said:
How to win friends and influence people might be good reading as well.
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Well, three of my believer friends gave me "Mere Christianity" when I was an atheist, of which I'm now very thankful for. I passed two of them to my atheist friends and they said they enjoyed it, and we had a good discussion about it. Even though they're not gonna change their mind about God at this point and that is perfectly fine with me ;)
 
wil said:
The creation museum in the US opened with a big bang.... Over 400 thousand folks paying 25 bucks a head to see displays of dinosaurs walking with humans, of teachings of instant canyonification (how the grand.canyon was created from 30 days of rain receding) and more.

No telling what percentage came for education, validation or simply to scratch their head in wonder. But since then they've added a butterfly dome, a botanical garden, 17 million dollar ark, and raised the prices and are now under 300 thousand per year... Still profitable as they still receive donations..

http://www.challies.com/articles/why-i-am-a-six-day-creationist
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These people don't seem to understand that scripture is the shell of the nut. It contains the truth, but is not itself THE TRUTH. The shell is dead, dry wood -- however, without it, the nut of truth it contains would be quickly lost.

That's why its necessary that monks etc, preserve and pass on scripture, and protect it from being changed to suit the times. As they do. That's their work. They're professionals. The Catholic Church calls them 'The Religious'. In that sense scripture is sacred, true and God given.

But people who worship the scripture itself are off-track, imo.
 
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The evolutionary scale...

Humanist evolutionist... No hand of G!d involved

Spiritual evolutionist... A power beyond nature set things in motion, and may or may not be subtely tweaking since.

Intelligent design... It is all unfolding to G!D's plan and in his control.

Creationist... Genesis...read it...evolution is a theory by the devil, universe is less than 10k old, carbon dating is a lie, man and dinosaurs walked together on earth.

Now I just composed these... Thoughts and improvements to each or adding in betweens that are your position....or your churches would be interesting...

Me... I still claim to not know... Outwardly reject the last am somewhere in or between the first two...feeling a universal Gaia of sorts, a consciousness that desired to exist in material form...a.consciousness that existed when there was nothing else...a vibration, om, which tore the fabric of nothing, let their be ..a big bang... A consciousness so vast it wanted to exist...as everything we see and don't see...

Is that G!D, I surely don't know. But everything I've read and heard leads me to believe that one day the unexplainable will be explained. And all our various conjecture on the topic would actually be better spent improving ourcellves, improving our relationships with our fellow travellers on this planet be they two, four, or multilegged, winged, slithering or microscopic, and caring for this vessel we walk within and the one we walk on.
 
wil said:
...feeling a universal Gaia of sorts, a consciousness that desired to exist in material form...a.consciousness that existed when there was nothing else...a vibration, om, which tore the fabric of nothing, let their be ..a big bang... A consciousness so vast it wanted to exist...as everything we see and don't see...
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Beautiful! This in a nutshell is my belief which I express as Pantheism.

wil said:
And all our various conjecture on the topic would actually be better spent improving ourcellves, improving our relationships with our fellow travellers on this planet be they two, four, or multilegged, winged, slithering or microscopic, and caring for this vessel we walk within and the one we walk on.
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Right on. The more we are learning inside instead of teaching outside the more I believe we are on the right path.
 
wil said:
The evolutionary scale...

Humanist evolutionist... No hand of G!d involved

Spiritual evolutionist... A power beyond nature set things in motion, and may or may not be subtely tweaking since.

Intelligent design... It is all unfolding to G!D's plan and in his control.

Creationist... Genesis...read it...evolution is a theory by the devil, universe is less than 10k old, carbon dating is a lie, man and dinosaurs walked together on earth.

Now I just composed these... Thoughts and improvements to each or adding in betweens that are your position....or your churches would be interesting...

Me... I still claim to not know... Outwardly reject the last am somewhere in or between the first two...feeling a universal Gaia of sorts, a consciousness that desired to exist in material form...a.consciousness that existed when there was nothing else...a vibration, om, which tore the fabric of nothing, let their be ..a big bang... A consciousness so vast it wanted to exist...as everything we see and don't see...

Is that G!D, I surely don't know. But everything I've read and heard leads me to believe that one day the unexplainable will be explained. And all our various conjecture on the topic would actually be better spent improving ourcellves, improving our relationships with our fellow travellers on this planet be they two, four, or multilegged, winged, slithering or microscopic, and caring for this vessel we walk within and the one we walk on.
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Yes.

Then I'd be closest to 'spiritual evolution'. Free will means we can choose our road, but what we'll meet, we never can exactly know. I think all roads lead eventually to 'one-ness'. That time is what walls the room of nature. But once through the door that connects with the greater house of 'spirit' that contains and surrounds and permeates this dimension of nature -- time ceases to mean anything. Perhaps?
 
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