Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, September 17, 2023

R.E. Slater Shorts - The Evolution of You vs the Pseudo-Science of YEC





The complex evolution of homo sapiens
1,000,000 to 30,000 years ago
September 17, 2021

Thanks to boneclones for the brilliant skulls! Use discount code 'stefan' for $20 off your order. https://bit.ly/3BPfmh3.
And a huge thanks as always to my patrons! https://www.patreon.com/stefanmilo
Artwork by Ettore Mazza: https://www.instagram.com/ettore.mazza/
Music by Tom Fox: www.tfbeats.com
Voiceover by Alexander Doddy: https://www.alexanderdoddy.com/
Sources: Anyone can view, not just patrons:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/56261951
Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists. www.stefanmilo.com

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The Evolution of You vs the Pseudo-Science of YEC

by R.E. Slater

Dedicated to my FB friend, Grant Alford


The NOVA vid I recently watched by Dr. Steve Austin denies the science of evolution and promotes the pseudo-science of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) based upon "Flood Mythology" by extending the Story of Noah in the book of Genesis found in the bible.

Firstly, as a former evangelical YEC'er my first book I read on this subject was "The Genesis Flood" by Henry M. Morris which "presents a thorough system unifying and correlating scientific data in the earth’s early history. Morris, and co-author John C. Whitcomb, propose a biblically based system of creationism and catastrophism. A modern classic, this title has become required reading for creationists. Here's are several "reviews" by creationists authors and preachers:
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The Genesis Flood by Morris and Whitcomb is one of the most important books of the past century. Prior to its publication in 1961, evangelicals were for the most part unprepared to answer evolutionists’ and modern geologists’ claims about the antiquity of the earth. Many blithely assumed that the days of creation in Genesis 1 represented long ages; others held to the 'gap theory'―the idea that vast eons elapsed between the initial creation of the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1) and the formation of life as we know it (starting in Genesis 1:2). The Genesis Flood showed why such theories don’t do justice to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. The book revived evangelicals’ interest in flood geology, demonstrating that most of the geological phenomena usually cited as 'proof' of the earth’s antiquity are better explained as evidence of a catastrophic universal flood, as described in Genesis 6–8. In recent years young-earth creationism has come under heavy attack in evangelical circles again, and The Genesis Flood is as timely, thought-provoking, and helpful as ever. . . . A tour de force and a must-read resource for pastors, teachers, scientists, and anyone who is troubled by the conflict between the biblical account of creation and the ever-changing claims of modern evolutionary theory.” -- John MacArthur, President, The Master’s University and Seminary
"When The Genesis Flood was published it was the combined voice of two courageous men crying, as it were, in the wilderness. They dared to take a stand against the pervading compromise on the issue of creation and the flood by robustly tackling head-on the uniformitarian geological assumptions that underpin the secular worldview on origins that had mesmerized so many Christians into compromising the opening chapters of God’s Word. Single-handedly these men with this book kindled a fire that today is still raging. Little did they know the global impact this book would have. Like so many others I know, I read this book as a young Christian in my teenage years when I was already a budding geologist, and it totally resolved my ongoing struggle to reconcile the geology I was learning in the secular textbooks with the true account of earth’s history in God’s Word. Not only did this book convince me that God’s Word provides the only reliable basis for understanding geology, but it was foundational in igniting my passion for and calling into full-time creation ministry to uphold the truth of God’s Word and defend it from compromise, beginning at the very first verse. This book remains a classic work that is a must-read for those who would be informed and equip themselves both to stand on the authority of God’s Word in every area of life and knowledge and to defend their Christian faith." -- Andrew Snelling, BSc (Applied Geology) PhD (Geochemical Geology)
"I have been privileged to have witnessed the rising biblical creation movement for the past forty years and have seen it used mightily by God to blossom into a major international force. The movement not only has shaken the evolutionary, “millions of years” establishment, but more importantly has equipped the church to share our Christian faith with renewed boldness. The publishing of The Genesis Flood fifty years ago is the recognized birthdate of a movement blessed by God, and this classic work is also now recognized as a monumental milestone in the fight against compromise in the church and for biblical inerrancy in general during our skeptical modern era. Finding a copy of The Genesis Flood in an Australian bookstore and devouring its contents was a key event that led me to join the modern biblical creation movement in the 1970s. Drs. Whitcomb and Morris became real ‘heroes of the faith’ for me. I saw them as giants in Christian apologetics." -- Ken Ham, BSc (Environmental Biology), President, Answers in Genesis and The Creation Museum
About the Author
John C. Whitcomb studied at Princeton University and has a Ph.D. from Grace Theological Seminary. Henry M. Morris was president of the Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California. He studied at Rice University, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and served on the faculties of several major universities.

After watching about 30 minutes of the YEC-based Christian film spouting a lot of global flood jargon and nonsense I turned it off and wrote out a few comments about this quasi-science.

First, it isn't science but is using science to tell a different story than science would tell.

Next, I find it disingenuous and misleading to the naive and uninitiated. I've had grown adults laugh at the audacity of evolution well believing that the earth cannot be any older than 6000 - 10,000 years ago (respectively, Bishop Ussher and a later subjectional correction to Ussher's date developed in the 1600's).

Third, learn to think of evolution as a process initiated by God. It's process is not immediately and utilizes what is available in the Earth to continually form and reform living organisms. It isn't an immediate process and isn't a perfect process. It is simply a divine process lumping along experimenting and trying out new biological derivatives. Sometimes successfully. Sometimes not.

Fourthly, I now think of the bible as no more inspired than we are today. The Spirit of God is continually filling all our present moments with God's soul even as the earth was filled by God's soul in ancient superstitious cultures. We just need to listen and discern what that is or isn't.

Which is why I say all the time that God is not hard to understand. We love because God loves. Whereas the bible narratives of 750 -350 BC (2800-2400 years ago) were being collected by people trying to figure out who or what God was. Thus we get mythologies of a violent God according to some beliefs; a penitent God; a God of wrath and judgment; an avenging God; a jealous God; a shepherding God; a kind and compassionate; a forgiving God; a world-ending God; etc. The bible is no less nor no more inspired than a well written book today, or a well constructed (progressive) theology, or an insightful sermon by a loving, passionate individual.

To be therefore comparing ancient flood lore as global news events is misleading. Those who wrote of the Noahic Flood did not know anything about the continents or seas or of glaciation events. Meaning, we need to use the bible as we would any other ancient narrative... as a way to judge where people were in their cultural understanding of history, religion, and themselves.

This is not unlike the theological teachings which Christian churches, fellowships, seminaries, and ministries are presently extending today when asking, "Who is God and what is God doing?" Some are conservatively traditional and others are progressively scientific. The divide shouldn't be science but our own outlooks, prejudices, and beliefs about God. It would seem obvious that the bible's collection of cultural beliefs should be examined and judged by what we know today rather than to be taken ipso facto as a stubborn persistency of closed belief.

Fifthly, we can say that the bibliolatry surrounding the bible, or the many magical-thinking ideologies about the bible, are quite unhelpful. The best we can say about the bible's inspiration back then is that God is as fully, thoroughly loving as God was, and is, today. This is supportable by God's incarnation as Jesus and the atoning Messiah/Christ spoken of in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Ultimately, God's Soul is as redemptively motivated as God is loving. I, myself, am consequently forming a "Theology of Love" rather than a "Theology of Wrath and Judgment".

As an aside, it is my judgment that the people and cultural narratives of the bible were struggling with whom God is and misread their circumstances through their own religious fears and errant beliefs. I find a parallel in the recent Covid pandemic a few years ago wherein churches preached their beliefs of a judgmental God visiting humanity with wrath and vengeance for our sin. This would be an incorrect application of theodicy (the theology of sin and evil).

Moreover, from the bible we read of Jesus atoning for our sins and being raised from the dead. Consequently we learn that redemption is all around us bc God is always redeeming earth and man moment-by-moment. That much is helpful from the bible. It gives us a way to think about God without becoming loonies about the kinds of gods the bible depicts through it's pages

The violence in the OT or the presumed violence by God in the future from the NT book of Revelation is not the real God of love. When looking at the violence and sin around us we would be in error in thinking that these are judgments and acts of God upon us. Violence and sin comes from us and not from the God of love. Thus so with the bible naratives attributing God with violence. Ppl were wrong then about God even as they are wrong now in their attributions and presumptions about God.

Which is yet another reason I cannot support deterministic Calvinism in an open future even as freewill Arminianism also needs to be uplifted so that we learn to write from both perspectives a theology of love and no longer of wrath, hell, and judgment. These latter come from us, not from God. And by the way, for any contemporary progressive theology to work it needs to be based upon an open and relational process theology.

Bottom line, we don't need quasi-Ph.D's making up Christianized pseudo-evolutionary events to prove bible things. The bible is not a science book. It is a book about God's love and redemption. Abandon yesteryear's well intentioned but misleading beliefs and dogmas. It's time "to eat meat and grow up," said Paul.

R.E. Slater
September 11, 2023
Published Sep 17, 2023

Sources - Is Genesis History (YEC theories)
Disclaimer: I do not endorse, support, nor encourage Young Earth Creationism (YEC)
- R.E. Slater

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For over four decades, we have worked to ensure that what is taught in science classrooms and beyond is accurate and consistent with the best current understanding of the scientific community.

Here is one source of many which seeks to correctly teach contemporary science

January 22, 2016
Young Earth Creationism

When most people hear the word "creationism," they probably think of the variety called Young Earth Creationism (YEC). Young Earth Creationists adopt a method of Biblical interpretation which requires that the earth be no more than 10,000 years old, and that the six days of creation described in Genesis each lasted for 24 hours. Young Earth Creationists believe that the origin of the earth, the universe, and various forms of life, etc., are all instances of special creation. The doctrine of special creation involves direct divine intervention, suspending the laws of nature to achieve a given result. This doctrine contrasts with a view common among theistic evolutionists that God can work through natural laws.

Young Earth Creationists are among the more organized creationist movements. Two of the largest groups, Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research produce magazines, websites, books, and videos for general audiences as well as publish journals which report on so-called "creation science". In May of 2007, Answers in Genesis opened a multi-million dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky, aimed at attracting a wide public audience. The Institute for Creation Research, was founded by Henry Morris in 1970, and operates the Museum of Creation and Earth History in Santee, California.

YEC writings tend to focus on attempting to explain why much of modern science cannot be correct. For example, Young Earth Creationists spend considerable effort trying to explain why the earth cannot be 4.5 billion years old. They also make arguments for the feasibility of Noah's ark and for the occurrence of a single worldwide flood within the last 5,000 years. A major YEC endeavor is to explain how the 15 million or more species alive today could have evolved from a much smaller number of "kinds" which they believe were created in Genesis. This project is sometimes referred to as baraminology, named after the Hebrew word min, which is traditionally translated as "after its kind," in passages like "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind." A central tenet of Young Earth Creationism is that evolution is possible only within these created kinds, a form of evolution they call microevolution, while it is not possible between kinds, which they distinguish as macroevolution. This is not the way those terms are used by the scientific community.

Attempts to force YEC teachings into public schools were rejected by the Supreme Court in 1968's Epperson v. Arkansas decision, and again in 1987's Edwards v. Aguillard.

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How to hold true to your faith and embrace modern science
Ever since the Scopes Monkey Trial in the early twentieth century, American evangelicals have considered scientists public enemy #1. But this antipathy to modern science turned deadly during the COVID-19 crisis, when white evangelicals snubbed precautions and vaccines. Herself an evangelical Christian and a science educator, Janet Kellogg Ray explains how we got here and how to fix it.
As the follow-up to Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark?, this lively volume covers evolution as well as the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines, climate change, and the frontiers of genetic research. Ray explains the facts accessibly and with verve. Along the way, she vividly narrates the scientific achievements—and political and religious drama—that got us to where we are today.
Ultimately, Ray calls for evangelicals to speak to science, rather than deny it. We need Christian ethics now more than ever to determine how best to act in light of current scientific data and for love of neighbor. If you’re afraid of science hurting your faith, this book will show you how to be true to both

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A scientific look at creationism from a former creationist
A significant number of Americans, especially evangelical Christians, believe Earth and humankind were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years or so—the rationale being that this is (presumably) the story told in the book of Genesis. Within that group, any threatening scientific evidence that suggests otherwise is rejected or, when possible, retrofitted into a creationist worldview.
But can this uncomfortable blend of biblical literalism and pseudoscience hold up under scrutiny? Is it tenable to believe that the Grand Canyon was formed not millions of years ago by gradual erosion but merely thousands of years ago by the Great Flood? Were there really baby dinosaurs with Noah on his ark?
Janet Kellogg Ray, a science educator who grew up a creationist, doesn’t want other Christians to have to do the exhausting mental gymnastics she did earlier in her life. Working through the findings of a range of fields including geology, paleontology, and biology, she shows how a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis simply doesn’t mesh with what we know to be reality. But as someone who remains a committed Christian, Ray also shows how an acceptance of the theory of evolution is not necessarily an acceptance of atheism, and how God can still be responsible for having created the world, even if it wasn’t in a single, momentary, miraculous event


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Seven Million Years of Human Evolution
November 3, 2018

Scientists use fossils to reconstruct the evolutionary history of hominins—the group that includes modern humans, our immediate ancestors, and other extinct relatives. Today, our closest living relatives are chimpanzees, but extinct hominins are even closer. Where and when did they live? What can we learn about their lives? Why did they go extinct? Scientists look to fossils for clues.
0:00 - Introduction
1:04 - First known hominin
1:29 - Bipedalism
2:32 - In-line toes, Australopithecus
3:27 - Tool use
4:06 - Migration out of Africa
4:44 - Cooking and fire
5:07 - Homo sapiens
5:38 - Family tree of human ancestors

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Speaking of Monkey's and Evolution perhaps this is why we like to
"Swing" dance and do group things together. PS - I think the guy
in the second row in the middle looks a lot like the actor Andy Garcia.
His name is Stephen and can be found in the 2019=2020 vids. I'll
provide a "shortie" below. Enjoy and have fun!


RTSF 2019 – Killer Boogie
March 4, 2019


Rock That Swing Festival 2019:
Killer Boogie at Deutsches Theater (2 March 2019).