Wow, it's amazing to see you presenting cogent arguments I can actually agree with for a change!
What's even odder is Spalding Rigdon is easier to get than what I am arguing here. ;)
Nevertheless, this whole evolution thing has made me uneasy over the last couple years or so.
It certainly raises issues that thoughtful theists need to ponder.
To my way of thinking macro-evolution from a single celled ancestor is incompatible with the Christian concept of "God" which is what Buffalo seems to be arguing.
I would need this concept fleshed out, I am utilizing the concept of God that has had tradition since the church fathers, through Augustine through Aquinas and is represented today from many traditions including Newman, Barth, Tillich, Pannenberg, even the last Pope and I think the current one.
Macro-evolution is a clear remaining idea from Creationism lore (I would recommend Ronald L. Numbers book the Creationists) If one doesn't accept "macroevolution" I see no reason to have intellectual agreement with any of it. The evidence for macro-evolution of species and for humans is remarkable.
It seems to me that you are scoring some points but doing so while capitalizing on the idea that God is a mystery from the start.
Not capitalizing, making sure context is kept. A completely fulfilling concept of God without some mystery is without meaning to me, we are discussing a transcendent being for heavens sakes. Let us also understand any opposing paradigm is not without mystery in this area. The universe from scientific perspectives has been articulated recently as a hologram, part of a multiverse and/or multi/dimensional strata, even a simulation possibility by Nick Bostrom among others. All with compelling evidence, math and conclusions. Quite frankly, the age old philosophical debate about realism and idealism is still being fought the book Biocentrism by Lanza and Berman a good example of this. I don't think a Christian is compelled to accept or reject any of the many viable possibilities. Mystery is not something anyone is without presently. I certainly don't hesitate to state that it is part of my view or that it weakens it.
--as in whatever opinion critics had previously formulated about the biblical God that is incompatible with evolution, is, obviously, wrong.
I suppose it all matters on perspective. To me science adds and helps us in conceptualizing God. It can narrow proper and rational conceptualizations. If one begins with what they believe is a rigid conceptualization and it seems to conflict with science I understand the angst - I just didn't over conceptualize like they did. I can understand a conservative right wing evangelical having conceptual difficulties, or a Mormon as I was, but that group(s) is in the minority presently and historically among Christians in general. The literalistic just have a loud voice in america presently.
But, I am still confused, I would find it odd for the most rigid of right wing evangelicals to say that evolution conflicts with their idea that God floated down from the clouds and tinkered with bacteria cells, or dropped Adam off a potter's wheel. I think even the most unsophisticated are more sophisticated than that. Second, it seems literal interpretations of Adam and Eve are what are more conflicting than conceptions of God. This seems to me what John Haught has called a reading problem. His analogy of Moby Dick I think is apt. I read Moby Dick as a teenager and didn't take much from it but a story about a whale that a crazy man is hunting down. As an adult the depth on some levels probably still escapes me but I recognize depth that I didn't as a teenager. Story is like that, it can evolve with our understanding and our maturity and we don't battle those conceptions against each other in other contexts, we mature. Story presents to different levels. The creation accounts are just so obviously story and story as symbol to me I have never concerned myself over the literalness from a Christian perspective - I was stuck with that literalness as a Mormon. (FYI, this is another reason S/R is wrong - a Dartmouth graduate would have never made the literalistic mistakes J.S. did, we'll save that for later).
As a life-long theist, that is becoming an increasingly difficult pill for me to swallow. In the end, unless I find some profound solution, I may be forced to radically alter my conception of "God." You seem to have already done that to a certain extent.
I still need your conception of God to be articulated, as of right now all I can say is it seems to be a literal conception of scripture not God per se that your struggling with, that isn't a radical shift at all. Augustine, other church fathers, even the author of the Epistle John have you by nearly two thousand years.
I am certainly with you on the notion that Dawkins is a "fundamentalist." Dawkins, and people like him, defend atheism with equal (or greater) zeal than many theists defend religion. To the point where a central tenant of the religion of atheism is the need to disprove the Christian God--as evidenced here by Buffalo's logic. Atheism, in that sense, becomes more than a casual disbelief (based on asserted lack of evidence) but instead a dogma to be defended at any and all costs and on multiple fronts.
Here I think I agree, I think the current atheism is a much less sophisticated expression than its historical parents were, maybe just pandering to a different audience - maybe just not as sophisticated at all.
This is where, as a lifelong theist, I have a hard time. I find it nearly incredible to think that God for inexplicable reasons purposefully chose to create me (and every other human) through a progression of evolution from trillions upon trillions of living creatures which necessarily includes multiple trillions of what appears to be painful deaths (as animals consume other animals), an equal number of mistakes (deformities) through many millenia just to get us to a point where he could apparently start implanting souls into a "human" frame. And the implication would be that at some point, some "human" let's say Adam, had a soul implanted whereas his parents were merely animals.
I am laying open one of the issues I am currently struggling with as I attempt to deal with the problem of evolution vs. my traditional view of the Biblical God. Quite honestly and candidly, I do not know how to resolve the issue.
Which exact issue? Generally I recommend, Read. think. Then Read and think. Then Read and think. Never over read one side, you'll end up like Buffalo (tongue in cheek Buff) or Dinosaurs and cavemen in museums. I might recommend John Polkinghorne, Denis Alexander, and John Haught to start with, but don't read them like it has to be biblical truth from heaven. Take the other conceptual constructs out for a spin.
Ya know, your a lot more pleasant over here.
my regards, mikwut