Evolution debate pits Albert Mohler against Baptist physics professor

[BridgeTheGap]

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, has been involved in a sharp Internet debate with a Baptist physics professor over whether accepting Christian doctrine requires a rejection of evolution.

The debate centers on a speech Mohler gave at a conference earlier this year in Orlando, Fla. In it, he declared anew his long-held contentions that evolution cannot be reconciled with Christianity and that the age of the earth is likely in the thousands rather than billions of years.

The professor, Karl Giberson of Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts, wrote that this view can’t be squared with science. Giberson — author of “Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution” — said Mohler is forcing young people to choose between faith and science.

“We believe that the scientific evidence so strongly supports evolution that we must take it seriously and, if this brings us to new understandings of the Bible, then we will wrestle with those, fully aware of the challenges,” Giberson wrote on the BioLogos Forum. That’s a website whose stated purpose is to foster dialogue between science and religion.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010309030085

[madrchsod]

1. i don`t remember reading what christ said about...

the age of the planet and evolution


i always thought he was more concerned about how people treated each other than the age of the planet and evolution.

[Axle_techie]

5. Yep, you are right

[bluestateguy]

2. Ah yes, Albert Mohler, the one who hates all of us "deliberate childlessness" folks

From 2005: http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/06/07/deliberate-childlessness-moral-rebellion-with-a-new-face-2/

On the other hand, if we get Mitt Romney as a nominee in 2012, I want to wish Albert Mohler all the best at his efforts to encourage white evangelicals to stay home on election day.

"Mormonism is not Christianity," says Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a powerful voice among conservative Christians.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11762390

[mike r]

3. Knuckle dragger Mohler needs to evolve

and read some science books.

[PDJane]

4. I didn't think that my UofT prof had it right, back then......

But the discussion of theology vs fact in the 21st century proves that he was. He warned about the resurgence of the religious right way back when....

[Axle_techie]

6. Dude, Evolution is pretty evident

look at the height and weight of humans over the last few thousands of years. The size of canines has obviously changed as well. We have learned to breed favorable traits and improve our pets/companion animals, which is evolution...

To deny evolution because of religious belief lacks intelligence and sight.

[RainDog]

8. the problem is when people's religious beliefs are wedded to ignorance

when ignorance is overcome, those religious belief perish because their foundations cannot be supported.

Southern Baptists have a particular problem with reality because their belief system is wedded to the idea that every word in the bible is literally true. Of course, they do not have a problem ignoring this belief when it tells women not to cut their hair or tells people not to eat shellfish.

So they should have no problem with this when the bible talks about a literal 7 day creation - but their leaders insist it is a problem because the current spate of leaders have made careers based upon attacks upon reality.

To admit they're wrong doesn't mean they have to admit the bible is wrong - it means they have to admit they are personally wrong.

their egos, in other words, keep them wedded to lies.

Of course, it's also possible to demonstrate that the gospels were not written by those whose names are on them - in fact, no gospel was written until at least 100 years after the events they describe. but, again, no Southern Baptist in a position of power will ever admit this to their congregations b/c these pastors do not want to lose their livelihoods.

It's more important for these pastors to lie to their congregations than it is for these pastors to tell the truth.

because of financial gain.

but when you get right down to it - the Southern Baptists have no reason to exist as a congregation once you get past their initial reason for existence (support for slavery), then their current reason for existence (to lie about the truths of history, science, medicine) and their current support for oppression of other groups (gays, women.)

Life is an existential crisis for Southern Baptists - because life demonstrates their lies on a daily basis.

[frogmarch]

7. ID

is an example of how some Christians have tried to come to terms with evolution.

I'd rather the god squad oppose the concept of evolution entirely than to mold it into a "God created evolution and directs its course" cop-out.

[struggle4progress]

9. The Southern Baptists are authoritarians: the domination originated

in a Baptist split over slavery, with the so-called Southern Baptists on the side of the slave-owners, and as far as I can tell they've been wedded to authoritarian notions ever since

In some sense, of course, Christianity really IS about believing some stuff that we all naturally regard as nonsense: the religion teaches that we ought to love our enemies, that we ought to relinquish all our goods for the sake of the poor, and other such ideas that we are all inclined not to take seriously. To the natural human response Wait! Wait! Wait! I don't really think loving my enemies and giving all my stuff to the poor is such a good idea! Christianity always retorted, Well, you ought to have more faith! But by some psychological process of ideological substitution, the Christian demand to believe in absurd ideas like loving your enemies or giving your goods to the poor becomes a parody of itself and a demand that one ought to believe in different and rather more convenient absurd ideas, like the idea Jonah travelled about in the belly of a big fish or all animals descended from those on Noah's boat. Now, of course, if one really took very seriously such strange and unnatural ideas as loving your enemies or giving your goods to the poor, then perhaps one might not be very interested in or bothered by silly ideas like Jonah travelling about in a fish or all those animals bobbing up and down on Noah's boat. The substitution might enable one to feel very righteous about believing those strange stories about Noah and Jonah, without all the awkward nuisance required to notice that one still hates one's enemies and that one still has a bunch of crap while other people still have nothing