In a recently judged contest, one of the contestants (Bantay) included Bradley Monton‘s Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design (Broadview Press, 2009) as among the 10 most significant for ID.
The design community (and society generally) needs to hear more from intellectually aware atheists – read and discuss their work – and pay less attention to “new atheists” foisting their tantrums on crowds raised on mindless slogans and poorly thought out causes.
Curiously we also have much more in common with classical atheists like Monton – and Raymond Tallis and Thomas Nagel for that matter – than we do with the Christian Darwinists at BioLogos. Bantay, or anyone reading, do you feel as offended as I do when I am told that I ought to embrace Darwinism for the sake making the Gospel more acceptable to intelligent people? Even a limited exposure to orthodox Christian teaching yields the news that I ought not to embrace, defend, or propagate anything that I reasonably believe to be false and foolish for the sake of making the Gospel more acceptable to intelligent people.
For one thing, these more intelligent people should not accept anything I say about the Gospel at all if I tack it to a false, utterly alien theory in science, whose best recommendation is that it currently offers higher social acceptance and greater career safety than factual theories do.
That is hardly how to begin living the Gospel. And what would it say for me that I was so willing to mislead people in the Gospel’s supposed defense?
The folk at Biologos are not morally at fault. They believe so much in the rotting hulk of Darwinism that they are willing to sail it themselves! But that excuse does not cover those who know better.
See also This Christian conference is a scandal and a waste of time
Follow UD News at Twitter!
Denyse O’Leary is co-author of The Spiritual Brain.