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That’s fascinating! At first glance, it appears that agnosticism is more rooted in science and evidence than atheism. What is atheism’s general view of BioLog

That’s fascinating! At first glance, it appears that agnosticism is more rooted in science and evidence than atheism. What is atheism’s general view of BioLogos and evolutionary creation as supported by the former head of the Human Gene Project and NIH, Francis Collins? https://biologos.org/about-us/what-we-believe/ https://biologos.org/about-us/what-we-believe/

lisper 6y ago
Well, atheism's general view is that it's bullshit. My personal view is more nuanced than that, but it's much too long a story for an HN comment. The TL;DR is that the divergence between science and religion happens very, very early in one's thought process. Humans seek to explain their experiences, but there are two very different kinds of explanation you can choose to seek. You can pursue mechanism, i.e. what are the laws that describe the phenomena we observe, or you can pursue teleology, i.e. what is the purpose of the phenomena that we observe? If you choose the former, you end up with science, and if you pursue the latter, you end up with religion. Neither approach subsumes the other. Science fails to identify purpose, and teleology fails to identify a mechanism. But humans want both, so we struggle to put together some kind of synthesis. BioLoogos is a valiant attempt at a synthesis, but it's not really supportable by anything other than our desire to construct a unified theory of our existence, i.e. to tell a story that makes us feel warm and fuzzy. IMHO it's problematic from the perspective of both theology and science. But, like I said, it's a long story.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  Telos isn't strictly linked to religion. Emergent properties can be seen as a form of telos. Even atheists talk about evolution teleologically - "evolution fits species to their environment". Personally I liken the typical materialist denial of telos to only trusting quantitative data, which is something they also do. You don't even get half the picture because the two halves form a greater whole. To be honest, it was a catastrophe when the dualism of the Abrahamic religions was split down the middle and the spiritual half was abandoned. Its no surprise that modernism is so unfulfilling when the default philosophies that are compatible with pure materialism are hedonism and nihilism.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > Telos isn't strictly linked to religion. Right, I didn't mean to imply that it was. It's just an explanation (a hypothesis at this point) for how otherwise reasonable people end up with radically different worldviews.
pseudalopex 6y ago
Most atheists are agnostic.

lisper 6y ago

Well, atheism's general view is that it's bullshit. My personal view is more nuanced than that, but it's much too long a story for an HN comment. The TL;DR is that the divergence between science and religion happens very, very early in one's thought process. Humans seek to explain their experiences, but there are two very different kinds of explanation you can choose to seek. You can pursue mechanism, i.e. what are the laws that describe the phenomena we observe, or you can pursue teleology, i.e. what is the purpose of the phenomena that we observe? If you choose the former, you end up with science, and if you pursue the latter, you end up with religion. Neither approach subsumes the other. Science fails to identify purpose, and teleology fails to identify a mechanism. But humans want both, so we struggle to put together some kind of synthesis. BioLoogos is a valiant attempt at a synthesis, but it's not really supportable by anything other than our desire to construct a unified theory of our existence, i.e. to tell a story that makes us feel warm and fuzzy. IMHO it's problematic from the perspective of both theology and science. But, like I said, it's a long story.

beaconstudios 6y ago
Telos isn't strictly linked to religion. Emergent properties can be seen as a form of telos. Even atheists talk about evolution teleologically - "evolution fits species to their environment". Personally I liken the typical materialist denial of telos to only trusting quantitative data, which is something they also do. You don't even get half the picture because the two halves form a greater whole. To be honest, it was a catastrophe when the dualism of the Abrahamic religions was split down the middle and the spiritual half was abandoned. Its no surprise that modernism is so unfulfilling when the default philosophies that are compatible with pure materialism are hedonism and nihilism.
- lisper 6y ago
  > Telos isn't strictly linked to religion. Right, I didn't mean to imply that it was. It's just an explanation (a hypothesis at this point) for how otherwise reasonable people end up with radically different worldviews.

pseudalopex 6y ago

Most atheists are agnostic.