Over at the Christadelphian "Bible Truth Discussion Forum", BTDF for short, the battle is raging once again over the theory of evolution. There seems to be, to my surprise, some Christadelpians who are educated enough to accept evolutionary biology and the facts of evolution, such as common descent.
The problem arises from how to reconcile evolution with the Bible and Genesis in particular. Therefore, most Christadelphians will probably choose to believe the literal reading of Genesis and ignore the scientific facts.
The real answer is rather obvious: That the science is correct and the Bible is wrong. However, history proves that Christians will fight against any truth that contradicts the literal reading of the Bible and we need not go any further than Galileo and Bruno to prove it.
Science is based on facts in evidence and the Bible is based on beliefs with no evidence. Scientific theory is falsifiable by testing, religion is not falsifiable.
I remember people saying that we couldn't fly to the moon because of the canopy of water above the earth - yes, that's right, the blue you see up there above your head is water, a canopy of water over the earth, from which God flooded the world in the days of Noah. Hey, but we got a pretty rainbow out of that deal, didn't we?
Hi.Over at Sutherland Christadelphians we’re making a serious effort to reconcile the Bible and its apparent conflict with scientific truth. I hope I’m not offending you on account of your “ex” status in any way! Best wishes!
ReplyDeleteHey Bruce, Given this post is more than 15 years old, I don't think the author is still around. However, my take on the subject is that I think it's good believers coming closer to reality - but personally it's very unlikely to change my "ex" status. I would definitely criticise the rejection of evolution in the part of the denomination I grew up in. Finding a way to reconcile the Bible and evolution - as many Christians have - would remove that objection, but I still don't think it gives me any reason *to* believe the Bible.
ReplyDeleteJon, indeed it is a very old post. It predates my involvement with this site by a good three years. It did set me thinking though, and I went to have a look at Sutherland Christadelphians as a result. Quite apart from the fact that their website is "confused", to put it politely, the first item of the search linked them to Ken Gilmore, Which prompted me to go and have a look what he has had to say lately- not a lot it seems, although in his current one-post-a year-policy last outpouring of wisdom, he did congratulate me on being his "number two fan", for correctly stating ( here, I suppose, because he banned me from his blog, and banned all comments a good decade ago, and I do not have any social media presence of any kind at all), that he "hadn't come up with anything fresh for a decade", after I had wondered for a while, just who is (or was) his number one fan, I read on, to find that I have been highly honored by Ken, with a "rebuttal"- this is a high honour indeed for an Ex-Christadelphian, to be rebutted by Ken Gilmore. My aim in life is to make it onto the same list as our former editor has :)
ReplyDeletehttps://christadelphianevolution.blogspot.com/2025/05/evolution-and-human-design.html
Of course, Ken could just turn comments back on, if he desired to receive direct feedback to his thoughts.
He won't though, because he probably realises, just like I do, that pedantic arguments about evolution have little to do with the collapse of his religion, and that the truth lies much closer to home.
Did I actually ban you from ECACP? I know I closed comments to make administering it easier when one rather tedious Christadelphian YEC kept on clogging up the in-box but I don’t recall banning you. My apologies if I did. The “number two fan” is an oblique reference to the former editor of this site who at one time not kept on referring to me but also reposted some of my articles.
DeleteWhile absolutely fascinated with evolutionary biology as a discipline, the evolution-creation debate frankly bores me because the Christadelphian creationist attacks on evolution not only haven’t changed but are at the Kent Hovind level of sophistication. My interests and concerns over the last 5-10 years have lately shifted to mainstream biblical scholarship. Suffice it to say that the community is ill-prepared to face the popularisation of mainstream scholarship that can be found online from scholars like Dan McClellan, Kipp Davis, C.J. Cornthwaite, Josh Bowen, or the excellent Paulogia who while not a scholar himself features some fairly heavyweight figures and quite ably exposes the inadequacies of evangelical “scholarship”. However, starting a “Historical Criticism: A Christadelphian Perspective” blog is likely to be too much effort for me, so I guess I’ll just stick to the once a year comment unless Christadelphian anti-evolution arguments stop rehashing 1970s vintage material.
I guess I take Ken's point that the Christadelphian arguments he has responded to haven't changed much. I don't feel the need to rewrite my criticisms of Christadelphia from 2017.
ReplyDelete