Why I call myself a Conservative, Republican, Christian Creationist Evolutionist

Let me begin by saying that I suspect you and I would see eye to eye on 95% of most everything, except for religion. But as far as that goes, I was raised Whiskeypalian and, other than the belief in God stuff, I have very little disagreement with that church and rather admire it for its stance on women clergy and gays.To call yourself a Creationist, Conservative or Republican is an invitation to others to conclude something about you that is inaccurate. 99.9% + of the people who hear the term "Creationist" will conclude you reject evolution, because that's what the vast majority of people understand that word to mean. Adding "Evolutionist" will do little to clear up the confusion. Many people as familiar with the debate as most users of this forum may understand, but few people are familiar enough with this debate to glean your meaning.Conservative and Republican are likely to create the same type of confusion and conclusion jumping. Those terms are somewhat more easily modifiable with adjectives to show how your beliefs differ from most to whom those labels are most often applied. Calling yourself a Goldwater Conservative or Republican will go a long way toward making your meaning clearer and give a more accurate description to others.To the extent that you call yourself those things in a mischievous attempt to deliberately get a rise out of those types of people who are likely to react, I appreciate that kind of mischief, it can be great fun. However, to the extent that you are attempting to clearly describe yourself to others, well, IMHO it could use some work.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

I don't think it's so much an effort to get people to use language with more precision as it is to try to change the meaning of the term "Creationist." People are using it now with a fair amount of precision, taking into account that there are YECs, IDers, etc, each with their own differing view of being a "Creationist."I fully support your efforts to get people to recognize that one can be a "Creationist" as you define the term. I would suggest that simply calling yourself a "Christian Evolutionist" would accomplish that purpose more clearly and quickly.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

And that does not surprise me, as there will always be people who do wish to foment discord for no other purpose than such fomentation, and people who are so blinkered that it's impossible for them to see shades of gray, much less the vivid panoply of colors that exist in the real world. Of course, for those people, simply using the terms you describe will make no difference. Indeed, for many of them, even your full explication of your beliefs will be a waste of bandwidth.If the instant thread is nothing more than your attempt to provide a place you can conveniently link when such questions arise to avoid having to repeat yourself, I have no problem with that.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

I disagree. As used today, the term "Creationist" has a fairly precise meaning: one who rejects evolution as an explanation for the development of life and believes instead that such an explanation must include at least some intervention from God.You can certainly disagree that the term should mean that, and if you want to argue about whether we should define words in terms of how people actually use them or some other method, that might make an interesting thread. But you cannot seriously dispute that most people today understand the term "Creationist" to have the meaning I provided above.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

I do not have sufficient background information, and lack the desire to acquire it, to determine if the word "creationist" had some prior meaning that has been since replaced by co-option, so take no stance on this statement. I'm quite confused by the first part of this statement. In my mind, it is beyond question that YECs, IDers and the like are in fact attempting to insert their religious beliefs into schools under the guise of something that they think is (or appears to be) scientific. Moreover, there is no question that their agenda is based on their spirituality.Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. If you mean to say that there is nothing inconsistent with evolution and Christianity as practiced by the vast majority of Christians, with this I am in complete agreement. In that sense, the anti-evolution movement is not spiritually based, in that it gets no support from mainstream Christianity. However, that does not mean that anti-evolutionists are not acting to promote their spirituality.I fully agree that anti-evolutionists do not represent "most people today." I never said or implied anything of the sort. My use of the phrase "most people today" was in reference to what most people think the term "creationist" means, not whether or not they ascribe to what anti-evolutionists say. As I said above, we can certainly argue about what the word should mean. But that is a vastly different discussion from what the word does mean to most people.I'm not sure we really disagree here. You didn't provide anything to suggest that "creationist" doesn't mean to most people what I described above. Instead, it seems that your point of contention is that the term ought not be used in that fashion. And if you're advocating that the definition be changed to deprive creos with the ammunition of apparent support from Christianity, I'd go along with that. However, the term is widely used by people on both sides of the debate, as well as those aware of but completely outside the debate. It appears to have become entrenched in its current meaning to the point that I suspect any such attempt would be an exercise in futility.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

While I generally appreciate efforts to restrict arguments to the topic rather than let them degenerate into squabbles over semantics, I think at least part of the point of this thread is semantics. Jar is taking great pains to define his use of these terms as he applies them to himself. IMHO, Admin stepping in and dictating what the terms must mean is 180 degrees counter to what Jar is trying to do.Respectfully submitted.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps way too far afield for this thread, but do you think the Creator cares whether we believe any of the bible is factually accurate? Would the Creator be satisfied if we conclude that every word of the bible is a fairy tale that teaches us important lessons of life and live those lessons?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Seems to me you might be entitled to claim the mantel of Intelligent Design as well. After all, who's more intelligent, a guy who can craft a human being from 100 pounds of clay, or someone who can design a system that will, all by itself, evolve a human being from amorphous gasses over the course of a few billion years?Edited by subbie, : No reason given.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm not going to propose to speak for jar, he can do a fine job himself. But there's a rather simply answer to the non-issue you raise, my blinkered friend.Science says the process is unguided. However, there's nothing inconsistent in a person of faith believing that God did direct the process so that the random mutations and other quirks along the evolutionary path in fact resulted in the end product he was trying to reach, man.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, considering that I don't believe in God to begin with, that jar is more than capable of speaking for himself, that you apparently refuse to understand what I've already said about the matter, and that you have your own reasons for thinking that your God is "special," I see little point in continuing in this vain vein.Carry on. I'm sure you will anyway.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat