Reader “Sigmund” (Martin Corcoran), who is this site’s Official BioLogos Watchdog™, just noticed that the accommodationist organization has awarded a series of large grants addressing the relationship between evolution and Christianity. I asked him to write a brief post about the awards, which contain the usual signs of Templetonian nepotism and some unintentional LOLs.
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BioLogos announces winners of its Evolution and Christian Faith grants.
by Sigmund
This past week BioLogos announced the chosen projects from amongst the applicants for its ‘Evolution and Christian Faith’ grant program. This involves 3 million dollars of Templeton Foundation funds to be distributed to groups or individuals working to “address theological and philosophical concerns which certain branches of Christianity have about evolutionary creation.”
According to BioLogos the applicants had to to fulfill certain criteria:
“All projects will explore consonance between evolution and Christian faith. Proposals were not considered if they rejected (or at least did not helpfully inform) historic, creedal Christianity (e.g. historical Resurrection, high view of Scripture, etc.) or if they rejected the conclusions of mainstream science (e.g. old earth, common descent, etc.). Please note that this does not mean all grantees are necessarily ardent supporters of evolutionary creation.”
In other words, applicants need to be believing Christians who accept an old-earth timescale and some—although not necessarily all—elements of evolutionary theory.
The grants, ranging from $23,000 to $300,000, were awarded to 37 individuals or groups.
The projects funded fit into two main categories. First, the vexatious question of how to reconcile scientific data on human origins with the biblical account of Adam and Eve. No fewer than eight of the projects directly tackle this issue.
Most of these seem to be desperate attempts to contrive a plausible interpretation of Genesis that somehow encompasses the current scientific consensus on human evolution. Only one: “Adam, Paul and Evolution: what Evangelicals need to know”, run by a team from Trinity Western University, appears to include a strong scientific input from Dennis Venema, a geneticist who is frequent contributor to BioLogos on subjects dealing with human evolution. The rest are content to play the evangelical horses and men, bravely trying to put the Humpty Dumpty of Adam and Eve together again after it was cruelly pushed from the wall (by science.)
The other major theme, with 18 of the grants in this category, is the promotion of theistic evolution in various Christian communities, including those in the Spanish- and French-speaking world, amongst Evangelicals in Holland and Korea, and amongst high school students.
Of the rest of the grantees, only one provides a hope of producing meaningful data, namely that run by Dr Jonathan Hill of Calvin College, whose proposal involves a longitudinal survey of 3000 members of the US population, designed to “profile how faith commitments and social context influence beliefs about human origins.”
As can be expected with BioLogos, there is abundant evidence of the standard Templeton Foundation gravy-training: quite a few of the ‘winners’ are BioLogos contributors, including the newly appointed BioLogos scholar Jeffrey Schloss as well as Loren Haarsma, the husband of newly appointed BioLogos president Deborah Haarsma.
There is also some unintentional hilarity. This section, from the abstract of Dr Adam Johnson of Bethel University, explains why evangelicals might have problems accepting evolution.
Constructing a coherent account of human origins requires vast memory resources and comprehension– more than most people freely have available in our busy world. We hypothesize that the cognitive burden embedded within human origins discussions produce a variety of emotional responses that influence origins discussions. Overly complicated discussions produce negative emotions such as exhaustion, frustration and cognitive dissonance. We tend to avoid ideas and explanations that produce such negative emotions. As a result, it’s often less cognitively and emotionally burdensome to neglect theological commitments – as in atheistic evolutionary accounts – or philosophical and scientific commitments – as in biblically literalist accounts. The cognitive perspective suggests that theistic evolutionary accounts frequently pose a variety of cognitive and emotional burdens that atheistic evolutionary and biblical literalist accounts do not pose.
In other words, knowing scientific facts tends to make it difficult to accept biblical stories as literal truth.
You know, I think I can relate to this.
I had a similar issue around the age of seven when I learned the truth about the aeronautical abilities of reindeer.
Finally, it is worth viewing the image that BioLogos uses on its website to promote the program:
Two praying Charles Darwins? That’s one more than Lady Hope claimed!
“Evolutionary creation” my bewhiskered backside.
That immediately jumped out at me too. Something tells me they don’t quite understand how evolution works!
Cognitive dissonance results from doublethink — from simultaneously holding two contradictory positions.
The method of resolving cognitive dissonance embraced by mental health professionals is to critically analyze both positions and to let go of whichever parts of either are not consistent with objective reality. Generally, this means abandoning one position entirely, though the conflicting position is often in need of modification as well.
That Dr. Johnson recommends that one should instead embrace, and not resolve, the cognitive dissonance does not indicate favorably of his own mental hygiene.
Cheers,
b&
Proposals were not considered if they rejected [historical Resurrection]… or if they rejected the conclusions of mainstream science
Luuucy… you have some ‘splaining to do.
Actually, we can just call the doublethink a paradox and move along – can I haz my $100K grant now?
Why not some grants to reconcile christianity with hydraulics (how did jesus walk on water) and with biology (how did mary conceive jesus as a virgin)?
This is a good point. Many progressive theists seem to think that if they come up with some way of harmonizing (to their mind) religion and evolution, then religion and science have been shown to be BFF, totes.
Bzzt! Evolution is just one of myriad facts about the world that are scientifically problematic for religious claims.
Many theists seem to want to sort-of-kind-of get behind evolution, thinking this demonstrates their eminent rationality, but when it comes to the things you’ve listed, they retreat to “magic!!!”
But with alleged miracles such as walking on water & the virgin birth, the whole point was that they defied nature. Christians would most likely embrace a lack of evidence for a naturalistic explanation for walking on water because that helps to make Jesus a miracle worker, ergo son of God.
Evolution is different in that it has left behind evidence which diverges considerably from the Biblical narrative. The only ‘evidence’ left behind from the miracles is that somebody decided to write down the event.
Those ladies and gentleman have a had job given the money that are to make from it!
I have read most of the grantees’ synopses and my impression is of an overwhelming air of desperation. Circles can’t be squared. The day must inevitably be coming when these people will disappear up their own bumholes. Or maybe the grant money will run out first.
It has nothing to do with this item, but I cannot find a means to bring it to you attention:
Have you seen a remark by die Chief Exorcist of the Vatican om the retiring Pope’s support?
I came across it in a report on News24 in South Africa and apparently the remarks were made in an interview with Italian TV.
link: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Chief-exorcist-thanks-Pope-Benedict-20130216
THIS is the real face of the RCC and of religion as a whole.
TH
Pretoria
“religion as a whole.”
Even that well known repository of comfort to those with virtually no religious beliefs, the Church of England, practises exorcism, albeit rarely. Reading from Wiki, it seems an exorcism can be performed when a diocesan bishop and his team of specialists (including a PSYCHIATRIST and PHYSICIAN) (my emphasis) have approved it.
The mind boggles.
The proof is in the pudding. Just as some people find horrible synthetic foodstuffs tasty and satisfying, so some people afflicted with mental disturbances will find exorcism gives them relief.
This in no way says exorcism is anything other than voodoo nonsense.
Do you mean that such professionals are likely to be lending their support to what they know to be a placebo procedure?
Aren’t placebos a recognized, effective therapy in some cases?
To answer your question, yes, I guess that is what I mean.
No. They are used as controls, and can be confounders of, clinical trials. They are the opposite of “effective therapy”.
I agree. I doubt however that these psychiatrists and physicians are conducting control tests behind the backs of the diocesan bishops. I should like to know who these charlatans are: perhaps also would the British Medical Association!
Hey, wait a minute, Voodoo works. Here’s video documentation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjD19UJ_PY
How did you find that? It’s easily the most off-the-wall thing I’ve seen this week!
Hilarious, isn’t it? It came via my future son-in-law, from his father in Louisiana. I sent it to jac and he’d already seen it.
“The pope has … given us powerful prayers that serve to exorcise,” said Amorth.
They’ve undergone rigorous double-blind placebo-controlled testing to measure their power, I take it?
Dear Sirs:
Evolution and historic Christianity cannot coexist in a healthy, non-compartmentalized mind, as they are mutually contradictory positions, both with respect to their actual content, as well as to the epistemological methods by which they arrive at that content.
Having resolved your question for you, I trust that my share of the grant money will soon be remitted to me.
With best wishes for a future based on rationality and evidence I remain yours truly,
Mark Joseph
Send it, Mark, and let us know the reaction!
from Salon Blog column
Non-believers taking college campuses by storm
In the past few years, the number of affiliated student secular organizations has increased more than threefold.
Interesting that they want to reconcile Christianity and evolution. Why not reconcile shamanism and evolution? Or ancient Hittite polytheism and evolution?
For that matter, why not reconcile <some religion> and, say, particle physics?
Stonyground says:
Any talk of grant money running out must amount to wishful thinking, I think that the Templeton Foundation has an almost bottomless supply of cash. I think that it is a tragedy that this guy didn’t dedicate his fortune to something, useful. There must be an almost infinite number of ways in which this money could have been better spent.
This excercise in trying to pretend that modern science does not disagree with a collection of primitive and childish folk tales is doomed to failure. If they keep it up for a hundred years, they will be trying to square 22nd century science with their delusions. How do they suppose that will work out?
I came up with a slightly different reading of Dr. Adam Johnson’s abstract. Yes, it certainly starts out sounding like its main point is “thinking is hard work, and that’s why some people don’t like science.” But the second half of the paragraph goes like this:
“As a result, it’s often less cognitively and emotionally burdensome to neglect theological commitments – as in atheistic evolutionary accounts – or philosophical and scientific commitments – as in biblically literalist accounts. The cognitive perspective suggests that theistic evolutionary accounts frequently pose a variety of cognitive and emotional burdens that atheistic evolutionary and biblical literalist accounts do not pose.”
I read this more as: “both the atheists and the literalists aren’t trying hard enough. Both are taking the easy way out by avoiding the more difficult issues raised by the theistic evolution perspective.” In other words, both the atheistic and the literalist views are overly simplistic, and the alleged midway point of theistic evolution gets short shrift because it requires more thought and dealing with unpleasant emotions.
I think that in a limited way this statement actually makes sense, in that both atheism and literalism are internally consistent. (Of course, the problem with literalism is that it is not consistent with the known universe, while atheism is.) Theistic evolution, mixing oil and water, is indeed harder to get one’s head around.
If that was the entire point, well, fine. But I suspect that the sneaky underlying motive here is meant to be that theistic evolution is therefore true, because a) it’s in-between two extremes and is therefore “just right” in a Goldilocks sort of way, and b) it requires deeper thought than either shallow atheism or shallow literalism and is thus correct. Note also that the literalist religious bit gets thrown under the bus to help establish the objectivity of the writer.
100% agree with your reading. Thank you for saving me the cognitive burden of composing my own response.
They are saying that the hardest thing to do is come up with a coherent version of theistic evolution, and the atheists and fundamentalists are equally lazy.
In my case it’s 88%. But rather than saving me a ‘cognitive burden’, it probably added to it. The reconciliation of any religion (taken literally) with evolutionary theory is impossible.
Does that imply that either are totally correct as understood? Absolutely not. Salient points to consider:
• All religions, sects included, are based upon a composite of historical scriptural writings, along with engrained writings by scholars and clerics who have modified the doctrines by their subjective input to church doctrine.
• Evolutionary Theory is based upon a composite of data, some historical and some empirically replicable, along with various subjective interpretations of the data, and not all in agreement. When, if and by what data the embedded retrodictions and predictions have been confirmed is again, subjective, and subject to change.
That (oversimplification, I know) said, it is unlikely that either will ever be substantiated in toto.
Now to Uommibatto’s points raised.
Maybe, but there are those in both camps who aren’t trying at all, since they take the hard position of being totally correct. Now some shortcomings of both, IMV:
• All religions are either totally false, false in certain precepts and historical data but with some possible commonalities, or one of them is substantially true. In the case of Christianity, literalism is a key issue.
• Evolutionary Theory is not yet verifiable in its entirety, but largely confirmed. Various natural causalities have been postulated, some confirmable by parallel studies or experiments to replicate (to a degree) historic events. Interventionary events (ID) are tentative, but not empirically confirmable. Jerry’s WEIT of course goes into much more detail.
Lastly, regarding Uommibatto’s view of BioLogo’s motives,
Correct, but the alternative of attempting any reconciliation is to leave things as they are, a kind of culturally and scientifically demeaning war. I feel there IS a middle ground, entailing critical reassessments of both.
I would replace hard atheism with agnosticism, since any theistic postulates would remain hypothetical, and supernaturality in the ‘magic’ sense would be removed from consideration as it now is. What allows ID in is subsequent confirmatory data, with no ‘magic’ required. In its absence, natural causation will stand unabridged, and with no harm done to science by ID’s hypothetical consideration.
Regarding ‘literalism’, it is fading fast, but eliminating some of it does not necessarily negate all of it. Its seminal precepts do not necessarily depend upon all events chronicled as being factual, as is the unfounded belief of the religious hard-liners. Disallow some chronicled events, you negate all? Absolute nonsense.
I do not hold to ‘original sin’ by inheritance, but do hold to an inherent, self-serving nature. If this in-fact results in an accountability, so be it. You are free to make your own choice in that regard. And yes, it just might be the baby in the bathwater.
Lee, I think you’ve misread Uommibatto’s attempt to correct the misreading of Sigmund.
You present Uommibatto’s interpretation of what he thinks the grantee applicants were saying, as if it were Uommibatto’s position.
Clearly I suffer from a severe case of “SIWOTI” to try correcting this error, but your response really goes off track as a result.
First, my reply was a winking, ironic, tongue in cheek joke, acknowledging Uommibatto’s thesis: The grant applicants appear to be claiming that atheists and fundamentalists are lazy by not taking up an attempt to deal with “theistic” evolution.
I was proving them right by not taking up the difficulty of writing a long response. (A joke ceases to be a joke, once explained.)
But that’s a minor issue. Larger ones abound.
You write,
“The reconciliation of any religion (taken literally) with evolutionary theory is impossible. … it is unlikely that either will ever be substantiated in toto.”
Here’s the error: Making “substantiation in toto” the standard by which either is judged is a total canard. The grantees are ostensibly going to RECONCILE categorically opposing FACTS… not prove religion or evolution in toto.
Further Lee writes,
“All religions, sects included, are based upon a composite of historical scriptural writings, along with engrained writings by scholars and clerics who have modified the doctrines by their subjective input to church doctrine.”
No, they are also based on assertions about how the world works, how life was created, how species came into existence, etc. … Religions propose hypotheses about how things came to be, unsupported by fact, and often contradicted by scientific advances since the scriptures were written. You cannot “reconcile” this reality… and you DO NOT have to substantiate in toto… merely demonstrate, over and over again, incompatibility and error in specific claims made.
Evolution and science can point to MYRIAD instances of religious “hypotheses” that are wrong.
Religion cannot, in the same way, point to evolution with anything other than “They haven’t proven X, Y, or Z yet, so therefore God.” The two sides are not playing by the same set of rules.
“Lee, I think you’ve misread Uommibatto’s attempt to correct the misreading of Sigmund.
You present Uommibatto’s interpretation of what he thinks the grantee applicants were saying, as if it were Uommibatto’s position.”
Not really. I was just throwing in points of my own, by extending “not hard enough” to an abject reluctance of either side to work with much resiliency at reconciling differences, and predicting an ultimate failure in that regard.
“First, my reply was a winking, ironic, tongue in cheek joke, acknowledging Uommibatto’s thesis:”
Sure t’was. I wasn’t reflecting on your position, just that my agreement with Uommibatto was slightly less.
“Making “substantiation in toto” the standard by which either is judged is a total canard. The grantees are ostensibly going to RECONCILE categorically opposing FACTS… not prove religion or evolution in toto.”
As I often do, I digressed to my own stance on the issue(s). Rather than defining that as the grantee’s goal, it was simply a ‘bottom line’ conclusion on what may ensue, based on my summation of the “salient points to consider.”
“Further Lee writes,
“All religions, sects included, are based upon a composite of historical scriptural writings, along with engrained writings by scholars and clerics who have modified the doctrines by their subjective input to church doctrine.”
No, they are also based on assertions about how the world works, how life was created, how species came into existence, etc. … “
I was referring to their source, not their substance. But regarding the gist of what religion entails, along with its veracity, let’s leave that to the grantees to quibble over. Just don’t hold your breath on the matter …
The image is part of the center third of “Education” (1890), a stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, located in Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University. It depicts Science (personified by Devotion, Labor, Truth, Research and Intuition) and Religion (personified by Purity, Faith, Hope, Reverence and Inspiration) in harmony, presided over by the central personification of “Light•Love•Life”.
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Thanks, I was wondering.
Trying to reconcile religion with reality of any kind cannot be done.
“Proposals were not considered if they rejected (or at least did not helpfully inform) historic, creedal Christianity (e.g. historical Resurrection, high view of Scripture, etc.)”
The above pretty much eliminates Christian UUs and Quakers (neither of which are creedal). They do say ‘historical Resurrection’ and not ‘physical Resurrection’ which allows an out for those Christians who consider the Resurrection not to be a physical fact. “High view of Scripture” is relative and means whether the person considers Scripture ‘divine’ or ‘divinely inspired’ (atheists and most other non-Christians hold the ultimate in a ‘low view’ in that Scriptures is a purely human creation). Quite a few Christians are accused by other Christians as having a ‘low view’ (to begin with any self-proclaimed literalist would consider any non-literalist as holding a low view). So does not believing in the virgin birth make one low in the Biologos view?
So much for the idea that evidence is all that matters when you are picking and choosing researchers based on their beliefs instead of their competence as scientists.
I can’t think of a bigger waste of time than “reconciling Adam and Eve with evolution.” Think about it, people!!!
“I had a similar issue around the age of seven when I learned the truth about the aeronautical abilities of reindeer.” [JC]
Jerry, you are a funny guy!
No, Sigmund wrote that!
Ah, mea culpa (that’s Latin for “my bad”). The cabernet is kicking in, and I failed to notice the byline. But you’re still a funny guy!
Funny latin! Reminds me of film school discussions of “cinema verite”… that’s french for “shaky camera.”
“The cognitive perspective suggests that theistic evolutionary accounts frequently pose a variety of cognitive and emotional burdens that atheistic evolutionary and biblical literalist accounts do not pose.”
Actually what I take away from the above is that the person is saying that reconciling Adam&Eve w/ human evolution is really hard, so people tend to go with one view or the other. Which is really saying nothing at all. And they get MONEY for that?
Isn’t that section you quote almost explicitly saying that using Occam’s Razor is a bad approach?
It seems to argue, “We should fund and support research into the MOST convoluted theories, because, given the mental difficulty of maintaining coherence and stability in them, they are the most likely to be proved right!”
Bollocks!
My only hope is they use the money wisely.
Yeah, the money will come to good use no doubt.
I’d like to offer a short list of future “cognitive investigations” for the prize winners and it starts with “Research into the evolution of the talking snake”. Sure you all could come up with much better suggestions! 😉
Surely Reconciliation between Religion and science must be by Religion FIRST APOLOGISING for holding science back for thousands of years, not to to mention, torture, imprisonment and death to the ‘heretical’ scientists?
Oh, no, greyhound… don’t you remember that all of the earliest scientists were Christian, so it was the church that most fostered science?
(excuse me… I have to go clean the vomit out of my mouth.)
You’re spot on right!
All the Templetonians can do is elaborate on the theme God FAKED the universe to look old, faked the sediments to look as though there have been a succession of ever more complex creatures, faked the many geological clocks. They have had to give up on the flat square earth by claiming it was just a figure of speech. They can pile on some more miracles, e.g that God collected and froze DNA samples for the arc, then reconstituted them to provide the necessary biodiversity. There also has to be a force field to protect the arc form the torrents and heat.
Ummm..you do realize that Templeton-funded BioLogos believes in none of this ‘faking’ and attempts to accept and deal with the latest scientific evidence? Your Whitcomb and Morris ‘Genesis Flood’ hardback must really been worn out…