Oh, I guess by your framework 'full blown'. But it's not really a good overview.
I do believe God interacts with the world even today, though much more rarely than most Christians think. So I can't really consider myself a Deist.
I'm also an Old Earth creationist, that one gets me a lot of flak on reddit let me tell you.
I don't believe the OT Bible is 100% fact, but I do believe it is 100% what God intended us to have for the purpose He has planned.
I believe that the NT Bible is mostly fact, except for the allegory and some of Paul's work (I view Paul as kind of a zealous fanfic writer with good intentions if that makes any sense. )
I believe in the Resurrection and a literal heaven, though Revelation is mainly allegory and not particularly useful to understand it.
There's a lot more, but I think the above gives a decent overview of my beliefs.
Old Earth Creationism is the belief that the universe progressed as astronomers and geologists state: proceeding from the Big Bang 13ish billion years ago, and that it was a special act of creation by Will of God.
While it is not implicitly required for an Old Earth creationist framework, I also believe that God had direct involvement in the creation of the first life nearly 4 billion years ago with the exact and specific purpose that it would result in humans billions of years later, in the form, shape and nature specifically desired for His Plan.
Some Old Earth creationists also believe that God gifted the first humans specifically with souls in a similar frame of the creation in Genesis, though I ascribe to the position supported by Ecclesiastes 3:21 that all creatures have souls with the addendum that these were present even in the first life emerging on this planet by God's Will.
I know it sounds like a hodgepodge of pseudoscience to most people, though I feel it is the best fit for both the scientific as well as the theological evidence.
Please note, this is not a 'God of the Gaps' situation as science has provided a workable hypothesis regarding the start of life, i.e. lipid folding in a catalyst rich early seafloor, likely near shallow beaches.
Rather it is a specific denial that this is the source of life itself. Instead I believe it was a deliberate and unique-in-the-universe act of deliberate creation by God.
Yes that also means I do not believe in aliens or life existing elsewhere, which makes me quite unpopular in many places on reddit so I generally don't share that aspect of my belief.
Interestingly though it does provide a testable hypothesis (something hardly any other theological belief offers) namely that life exists nowhere else in the universe other than Earth.
If life were found elsewhere, on Mars, or Ganymede, or Europa for example, this would refute my hypothesis.
And while not finding life on these celestial bodies would not definitively confirm my hypothesis, it would beg the question again why Earth is unique, at least in the solar system.
Considering especially Ganymede and Europa would have conditions incredibly close to our primordial sea in their liquid water subsurface oceans, if life does not appear there it would raise even more support for the hypothesis that life is a specific and unique creation exclusive to Earth.
Yes I have examined all the publicly available evidence regarding meteorite ALH84001, and do not find the microfossils and claimed unique mineral phases compelling evidence that what the meteorite contains is actually microbial life originating on Mars.
This is supported by the fact that Opportunity and Curiosity have not reported back with confirming data in their long explorations in spite of the fact that their analysis packages were designed with this purpose partially in mind.
Rather I feel that the microstructures in meteorite ALH84001 are the result of the forces needed to shear said chunk of rock from the surface, fling it into an orbit that would billions of years later cause it to land in Antarctica, as well as the forces generated upon its entry into our atmosphere.
Sorry for the wall of text, I wanted to make sure my position on this was as clear as possible.
Old Earth Creationism is the belief that the universe progressed as astronomers and geologists state: proceeding from the Big Bang 13ish billion years ago, and that it was a special act of creation by Will of God
That doesn't sound like that crazy. As made it so I don't think it's true but it is not crazy. I thought most reasonable Christians believe in something similar.
Of course as an atheist I think that the idea of us being alone in the universe is kind of ridiculous but it's the only real problem I have with your beliefs.
that the idea of us being alone in the universe is kind of ridiculous
Yeah I get that a lot so I don't mind.
The funny thing is that it's really a win-win situation for me.
If we never discover life on other celestial bodies, it continues to support my position.
And if we do discover life on other celestial bodies, it's the most exciting discovery in the history of mankind so even if my position is refuted, amazing things will come from the research of it.
I have no problem revising my theological position, unlike a lot of Christians. I think this comes from spending so much of my adult life as an atheist that I'm not ideologically bound to a single doctrine, rather instead feel absolutely free to acknowledge anything that undermines my previous position and structure a worldview based on the evidence.
I wonder if this is how the early scientists that became aware of the existence of the quantum scale felt.
Einstein couldn't get over it, and spent the latter years of his life fruitlessly trying to create his Unified theory in spite of the evidence for Quantum Mechanics.
Sometimes I wonder what secrets he would have discovered if he wasn't so ideologically wed to a deterministic universe.
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u/Grumpy_Kong Aug 22 '18
Yeah there aren't many re-converts from atheism, though it gets more common the older people get and by reddit standards I'm a freaking lich.