Friday, May 29, 2009

Welcome.

I was a young-earth-creationist (YEC) until I was 27 years old.  I’m an armchair theologian (at best) and a science and technology enthusiast.  Naturally these two interests combined into a passion for the study of origins, both from a theological and scientific perspective.


I made the transition from the YEC viewpoint to what is known as ‘BioLogos’. (A phrase coined by geneticist Francis Collins in his 2007 book “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief d”)  For those not familiar with the term, BioLogos is most similar in meaning to ‘theistic evolution’, with a few slight theological differences.  For the best explanation however, see www.biologos.org as well as http://blog.beliefnet.com/scienceandthesacred.


According to the recently formed BioLogos Foundation, “BioLogos represents the harmony of science and faith. It addresses the central themes of science and religion and emphasizes the compatibility of Christian faith with scientific discoveries about the origins of the universe and life.”


BioLogos, simply stated, is the belief that Darwin’s idea of universal common descent is true, that the primary driver of this process is natural selection acting on random variation, (along with sexual selection, genetic drift, and other natural processes) and that the originator of this natural process (and all others) is God through the creation of all matter and natural laws. (everything that is seen and unseen)


I made the switch from hyper-YEC to BioLogos in the span of about a week.  The most common question I’ve received is “what piece of evidence was so compelling that it changed your mind so quickly?”  The answer is: there wasn’t one.  It wasn’t until I realized the theological error of anti-evolutionism that I could evaluate the evidence without confirmation bias.  The catalyst for this shift in view was the question: “what if evolution is true?”  I realized that if something is true, then it can’t conflict with Christianity, so there are no negative consequences of evolution being true.  I may need to modify my interpretation of a few passages, but armed with the knowledge that evolution didn’t ‘break’ my theology I was able to re-evaluate the evidence with an open mind.  And I was surprised at what I found.


I’m writing this blog to serve several purposes.  My primary goal is to let people, believers and non-believers alike, know that there are a growing number of Christians that not only don’t reject evolution, they embrace it.  Future posts will deal with the scientific and theological questions that I had as I was making my transition.


I also want people to know that not all theists share the same view as the people behind www.faithandevolution.org (the inversion of this site’s name)  I believe that they have the best intentions, but from the opening video vilifying Darwin, to the articles endorsing the theology of atheist Richard Dawkins (‘if common descent=true, then religion=false’)  The site is a treasure trove of bad science and worse theology. 


I am a voracious reader, and I hope that this blog will be a quick resource for people who want to stay up to date on developments on this subject.  Sort of a ‘mini-Digg’ for people as interested in science and theology as I am.